Friday, November 21, 2014

The Christian Life: Salvation part 3 of 4



Salvation in the biblical sense describes a dramatic rescue.  This rescue is not just from some sort of eternal punishment or banishment. Rather, it is about an immediate rescue from the lies and compromise that confront all people in this life: being delivered from a “kingdom” or a sphere of influence that is corrupt and being placed in the kind of relationship with God where genuine love, peace, and joy provide the proper filter for genuine living.  This new life begins when, after God’s prompting through one or a variety of means, we choose to follow the person and ways of Jesus Christ, intimately sensing God’s presence through the work of the Holy Spirit and through participation in a new kind of community: the Church (globally and locally).  This is salvation.  It is about a holistic change from one way of being and living to another (the “other” way being the way the Creator and Lover of all, God, intends).

So, we enter into such a relationship with God, and then new realities emerge in our lives.  These include a recognition that, however well intended we may be, the pull of competing ways of living are prevalent and exert great pressure upon us, seeking to pull us away from God’s ultimate, loving purposes.  As this reality sets in, thankfully we have not exhausted our options, nor has God!  God presents us with opportunities to grow.  We are given the opportunity to stop trying to manage our weaknesses and sins, and instead to surrender our ways and loyalties completely to God.  In theology, this is part of the description of “entire sanctification.”  That is to say, that we both recognize our inability to live in a Christlike way while still competing with leftover temptations; and, we recognize God’s willingness to help us change our loyalties and even our tendencies when they conflict with His ultimate loving purposes. 

The means that God uses in this journey toward full surrender and greater Christlikeness (which can be described as an increase in love-motivated action without selfishness interfering with God’s purposes) include things like personal conviction (God reminds us of specific and general areas of our need for Him through Scripture, prayer and devotion), the community of faith (other believers who help shape us through personal mentoring and discipleship), and participation in other “means of grace” that God provides to change our disposition.  These means of grace can be described as both informal and formal instruments of God’s love and grace in which we participate in order to shape us more into what God through Jesus Christ intends for us to be.

Informal means include interactions with Scripture, with other believers, with key relationships in our lives, with hearing the proclamation of Scripture, through participation in prayer and worship together, and even through contemplation of God’s work in nature. 

Formal means – those means that have been established through the Church for these purposes – include things like baptism and communion.  Baptism is an intentional participation in a covenant – a special kind of promise made between a person or persons and God – that figuratively and literally (and mysteriously) brings us into full fellowship with others who are on the journey with Christ.  It is a promise made to us by God through the Holy Spirit that God can make good on all of God’s promises in our lives.  Furthermore, it is a promise that the Community of Faith makes to us in regard to accomplishing God’s mission in us and in the whole world.  Ultimately, baptism is a promise we make that involves surrender of old ways of living and thinking and allowing the new Way of Christ to prevail.

Communion (sometimes called the Lord's Supper or "Eucharist"), which is an instrument of God’s grace (Sacrament) that is to be repeated often, is a means of consistent instruction, reminder, and strengthening, shared through the Church, that focuses our attention and intentions upon the person and work of Christ.  It is the “food” of the Church – the bread and cup, body and blood of Christ – that nourishes our mission by keeping Christ and His ways as the focus of our fellowship, living, and mission in the world.

All of these elements and opportunities are provided through Jesus Christ, and their ultimate purpose (as John Wesley reminds us) is not just helping us achieve some sort of “sinless perfection.”  Alas, as long as we have freewill, we have opportunity to sin (to disobey God and God’s ways).  But, the purity of intention and focus these instruments of grace provide us with do change our bent toward sin: they help take away the sense that sin is “normal” for the believer.  And in doing so, they provide us with the means to deeper fellowship with God, greater love for others, and greater participation in God’s Kingdom and God’s ways, removing the strength of the “pull” of old (“carnal, worldly”) ways of living.


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