So, after my last post about John Wesley, Aldersgate, and conversion, I decided that I should make a start on questions about being saved.
What does it mean to ‘be saved’?
Is it saved from, saved for, saved to, or somehow just saved by?
Are we saved once at a set moment in time?
Or is it a continual process?
If it is continual, then when on that continuum, are we actually saved?
Can we know we are saved?
Can we stop being saved?
Can we choose to be saved, or not saved?
Does God choose who is saved and who isn’t?
How do we get saved, is it believe, but believe what exactly, and how do we make ourselves believe if we doubt, can we force faith?
And that little lot doesn’t include the how and why Jesus dying makes it possible.
Once upon a time, it was all very simple. Or so we were taught. Good evangelicals, we knew that everyone sinned, that this separated us from God and incurred punishment. The punishment was death, eternal death in hell where we would suffer. God, however, loved us and wanted to forgive us and so he sent his son, Jesus to die in our place. Because Jesus died and paid the price for our sin, bore our punishment, God was able to forgive us and still remain just. Because Jesus rose from the dead he beat sin and the devil forever and made a way to God for us – IF we believe in him and confess him as Lord, which we must do by repenting of all those sins, which meant turning our back on them and not just being sorry or trying to do better. Then, we must pray and tell God this, and say that we want him to forgive us and that we believe in Jesus and that we commit our lives to him and give him our whole life from there on in. Then as good evangelicals, we have to tell people and depending on our church tradition maybe get baptised. Then we spend the rest of our lives trying to live up to that commitment, while knowing that we can’t, trying to do all the things we are taught we must do as part of this new life – reading the 
Bible, praying, going to church, working to be better people (but always seeing it as co-operating with God as he changes us and continues the work he began in us). Salvation is a free, unearned gift, but we must be so thankful for it that we gladly, freely, willingly, dedicate all our life in every part to the one who gave us the gift. If we don’t want to then were we ever really saved? Did we really repent? Did we really believe?
In this traditional way of thinking, salvation is about an eternal destination, heaven and hell, recognising the inherent sinfulness of our lives, our helpless position, our eternal destiny of hell and becoming Christian, being born again, in order to escape from that. In essence, this is the hellfire and damnation preaching of old that most modern evangelicals try to avoid but is still the basis of their theology. In more modern terms it is about recognising a broken relationship with God, which means we can never be with him because he is holy, and we aren’t and becoming Christian, born again in order to repair that relationship, but the reasons for doing so are still heaven and hell. Once we are dead, we don’t get to repent or to choose to follow Jesus because then we will know if we were right or wrong, if we made the right gamble. You choose your side before the final die is cast. Life is short, but eternity is forever. This is the ‘good news’ of the gospel.
That emphasis on life after death, on eternal destination, doesn’t seem to fit with the gospel Jesus taught though. If I am to follow Jesus then I need to look at what he said, and what he did.
Question: If Jesus was ‘born to die’ if the whole point of his life was to die to save us, why did he have a public ministry, why did he not die at 3, 13, 23? Why did he teach, why did he do miracles? If it was just because he had to live a sinless life before his death, then any death at any point would suffice. Maybe what he said and did are just as important?
Jesus taught about judgement, about the separation of the sheep and the goats.
Jesus taught about being born again, we use the phrase based on what he said.
Jesus taught about believing in him, and about heaven and hell.
But this was not the main focus of his teaching. The first words we hear Jesus saying in Mark’s gospel, generally agreed to be the first gospel written are these:
The time has come,’ he said. ‘The kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news!’ (Mark 1, NIV)
Time after time we see Jesus teaching about The Kingdom, The Kingdom of Heaven, The Kingdom of God. We also see every time an immediacy to his teaching. He speaks of the Kingdom as something near, and as something to come soon, or here. Jesus speaks of the Kingdom as something we enter into now, here on earth. It is something he taught us to pray for, “Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” The Kingdom of God was at the centre of Jesus’ teaching, and the good news he taught and sent his disciples out to teach was that it was coming, that it was fulfilled in him. Time and time again in the gospels we are told that Jesus preached the good news of the Kingdom and healed all who came to him. Parables often start “The Kingdom of Heaven is like…” and the thief on the cross asked Jesus to remember him “When you come into your kingdom”.
What does Kingdom have to do with being saved?
I think we get the emphasis wrong, we speak about salvation from sin and hell and that becomes the centre of our theology. Our theology becomes skewed towards conversion to the extent that it can be compared to a pyramid scheme, be saved in order to save more people…if you told just twelve people the good news this year, only one a month then think how many more people could be sat here next year. However, maybe a Kingdom theology is one that speaks about being saved for the Kingdom. Being saved is not so much changing the station name on our final destination tickets but entering into a new Kingdom now. Being saved is jumping into living in God’s Kingdom with both feet. Jesus said that he came so we could have life, in all its abundance. (Cue the dancing cupcakes). Being part of a pyramid scheme is never abundant living. Attending meetings, evangelistic events, services, doing Bible reading, prayer, fasting, being on church rotas, (all good things in themselves) to prove to God that you meant it when you committed your life to him, is not living abundantly, nor is it receiving a free gift. As evangelicals we have taught that grace, forgiveness, eternal life, is a free and unearned gift – but we often live as though it is only a deposit and we need to keep up the weekly payments or the bailiffs will take it away.
God’s Kingdom is expansive, we can’t keep people out, Jesus had stern words for those who try, and just calling him ‘Lord’ doesn’t get us in. God’s Kingdom is like Jesus, concerned with the poor, the weak, the forgotten, the sinner, the sick, prisoner, those in need. Jesus proclaimed the Kingdom with words and lived it with his actions – he preached the Kingdom of God and healed the sick. Bringing God’s Kingdom is not about preaching pie in the sky when you die. We should find living in God’s kingdom a place where we find respite, balm for our wounds, rest from our labour, an easy yoke. We should find the hope and peace and grace and love we need. We should find all those things that will make our life abundant. We will find them – not in the church, but in God and his Kingdom. When we do find them, I think we will find them in excess, we will find far more than we need, far more than we can stockpile. We will find so much that we can’t help but give it away. We won’t need campaigns and meetings and special events to spread the Kingdom, we will be loving people, exuding peace, spreading joy, and giving hope whatever we do.
I’m still asking questions. I’ve been an evangelical for 50 years, I’ve read the gospels, I’ve read Paul. We are saved by Jesus, through grace and not by our works. I am convinced of that, just as I am convinced that God’s grace is far, far greater than we can grasp and that we will be surprised one day at the extent of his saving grace. I think the emphasis on salvation from leads us to forget about the life we are living. Life that can be fantastic, or life that can be crap. Most often life that can be both, often at the same time. People who leave faith altogether often do so when they find out that a promise of life after death doesn’t help when the bailiffs knock on the door, your child is critically ill, your house burns down, or the chocolate runs out. Salvation for gives us a new way of seeing and living our lives now, in the midst of all the stuff to do and rubbish, we can still have that abundant life.
Yes, I know I’ve reduced everything down here. Good theology is much more of a balance between the tensions, and yes, I know I sound sarcastic about a lot of evangelical theology. That’s because, despite this length, I’m not writing a dissertation. I’m trying to be brief and I’m trying to delve through tangles to the core or nub. Yes, I’m rethinking a lot of my evangelical theology, but I haven’t let go of all of it completely – yet. I’m thinking through and seeing what makes the Spirit in me shout ‘Yes!’, what aligns with the Bible, tradition, logic, and what I actually believe.