What is Salvation?

Readings: Psalm 27, Luke 19:1-10, Divine Providence 338:9 (see below)
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Photo by Tom Swinnen

Today we begin with the question: What is salvation? It is certainly a word that one hears a lot in regard to religion. In a religious context, salvation seems to be something good that we can receive from being in relationship with God, or a higher power. 

In general terms, being saved, experiencing salvation of some kind, means moving from a set of undesirable circumstances to a different set of more desireable circumstances. A friend might come to save us when we have a flat tire on the side of the road. We go from being stranded to being at home, or we go from having a broken vehicle to having one that is drivable. A parent might grab their child when they are about to cross the road without looking. A co-worker might save us from an impossible deadline by helping us out with our work. There are so many macro and micro ways we are saved by each other in this world, and gratitude abounds for that.

In Christian theological terms though, the traditional definition is narrower. The salvation that Christians receive has to do with the afterlife, not this world. Our positive relationship with God saves us from an eternity in hell, traditionally a place of torment, and allows us an eternity in heaven instead, traditionally a place of bliss, peace and happiness.

But the traditional Christan view (which I will now try to paraphrase) has some caveats:

Since God is wholly and completely just, and since humanity is so wholly bad (I mean, just look around), God demands accountability and reparation from us, because a truly just God could do no other. And of course, we are so bad all the time, in ways large and small, that we could never pay the cost. In that case, all human beings would be in hell all the time. So Jesus, out of love for us, stepped in to pay the bill for us, and God was so moved by this offering that it was accepted on behalf of us all forever - but only for those believe and accept what Jesus did. Thus, we are “saved” from the fate that was due to us by recognizing the value of, or having faith in, Jesus’ mighty sacrifice for us. 

And reformed Christianity doubled down on the importance of right belief, because of the idea that what we “do” or how we act, can never contribute to our salvation because our motives can never be pure. We will always be trying to get into heaven with what we do, and that is inherently duplicious and tainted no matter what. Only acts in which we have nothing to gain can be purely good, so we must be saved by faith, by belief first, then once freed from selfish motive, our actions can be purely good, if we wish them to be. We are saved by surrendering the idea that we could ever save ourselves. 

And much of this has made sense to many people, especially when there things to atone for that we feel like could never be made right no matter what we do. But there are also some problems. 

What do we do with the biblical decription of God’s steadfastness and love? Isn’t love inherently responsive and forgiving? Where is the balance to God’s justice? Is God so inherently transactional?

Does this process of salvation reflect how human beings actually work, emotionally and existentially? Are we actually defined by one moment, one confession of belief, or is our selfhood, our character, created more progressively?

Because, at it’s best, faith alone salvation does allow us to step off the hamster wheel of ego or fear-based striving, which can be its own kind of tyranny. We can surrender to the truth of the way Jesus has loved us all and know that it is enough. There is a very sweet and needed freedom there.

And yet, at its worst, faith alone salvation gives free reign to humanity’s worst tendencies. When we imagine that all of our sins past and present have been forgiven due to one mighty sacrifice, well that creates a different kind of freedom - one that justifies any kind of bad behavior going forward. Just say the right words and it is done - the rest of life is gravy. 

Further, when we imagine that there is one right way, one right set of words to say and beliefs to profess, oh and by the way, we have them and we control them, this also gives the Christian church an enormous amount of power, which I think we can safely say it hasn’t used well. 

Would God design a system with such an enormous accountability-free loophole? Would God design a system that disenfranchises every single person who has never even heard of Jesus?

Swedenborg thought that it could not be so. So he spoke of salvation as a progressive partnership between faith and action, a process that changes us from the inside. A process that keeps us accountable to the selfhood that we are creating. A process that does us the respect of giving our actions true meaning.

Yes, we absolutely need to surrender our selfhood to God, surrender our notions of righteousness and judgment to God. We give our faith to something higher than ourselves, a framework of ongoing relinquishment that keeps us on the right and true path. 

But the problem is that we are not made in a moment. Our selfhood, our character, our life, is not made in a moment, even if it is a transcendent important meaningful moment. Our life is made up of all the moments that we string together, our character made of all the decisions we make one after another.

We have to put our money where our mouth is for our faith to have any meaning at all, for it to “save” us. Like with our friend saving us from the flat tire on the side of the road, we’ll need to actually call them, we’ll need to help them haul the spare from the trunk, we’ll need to hand them the tools and watch the safety of the jack…because if we don’t, if we don’t see ourselves in partnership with the whole salvation situation, we won’t bother to avoid the potholes in the future, we won’t bother to replace the tires when they are worn out, we won’t bother with the ongoing maintenance and awareness that driving safely requires.

It’s good to have a friend that we believe in and can count on. But we don’t want to be someone who relinquishes consequence and accountability because we happen to have a good and generous friend. We don’t want to be someone who just uses them to get home.

Because, salvation is not just about getting somewhere, getting off the side of the road and back home, getting to heaven rather than hell. Heaven is not a reward, or a ticket we can buy, heaven is the home of our inmost heart. Such a home must match who we inherently are, or at least, who we are willing to work to become. One moment of faith, however well intentioned, and especially if not well intentioned, cannot make such a match for us. 

But a life of ongoing creation, one of partnership with God that progressively builds a heavenly selfhood, can. And this is why I especially like the way that Rev. Dr. Randy Woodley subsitutes “healing” for the word “salvation.” (1) He writes: I certainly believe it is a better theological choice. Healing is a process that requires our cooperaton.” And he rephrases our text for today:

“[Healing] has come to this home today, for this man has shown himself to be a true son of Abraham.” 

We note how holistic Zaccheas’s experience was. He had an openness to something more, a *faith* in something larger than his current circumstances, his current way of doing things. He knew that Jesus was important but that knowing alone wasn’t enough. He needed to make changes to his life, make reparation for what he had done wrong. And this brought him into right relationship with his higher power and the people around him. Healing came to his home; where there was brokenness in his way of being, he repaired it. And this “saved” him but only because he was changed from the inside out. He was saved from perpetrating harm, and the ways that perpetrating harm would dictate who he was becoming. 
And actually, seeing salvation this way, as healing, reframes the whole process as almost mechanistic, and less moralistic, and I mean this in a good way. We can’t function at our best, or be our happiest, or serve others around us really effectively, unless we are healed and whole (or at least, on the way to becoming so). This is what God ultimately wants for us. God’s salvation is not about trying to be “enough” or “right” it is about being healed. Being healed of our self-centeredness, being healed of our flaws, being healed of our limited perspectives, as well as being healed of our hurts, our traumas, our wounds. Because this is what a God who actually cares about our well-being, our happiness, would do: design a process that has a chance of bringing us to wholeness and peace, and then walk that process with us.

This is why salvation is not a moment, it is a journey. And the destination is not a place, the destination is the wholeness of ourselves. Some moments, moments of faith, especially ones that send us down an important road, are special, but they cannot be so special that they make the journey that follows meaningless. Our faith is the lamp, and then we must consciously take each step as it is illuminated. And thanks be to God, we don’t do it alone. 

Amen

(1) Decolonizing Evangelicalism by Randy S. Woodley and Bo C. Sanders, p18


Readings:


Psalm 27
1 The LORD is my light and my salvation— whom shall I fear? The LORD is the stronghold of my life— of whom shall I be afraid?
2 When the wicked advance against me to devour me, it is my enemies and my foes who will stumble and fall.
3 Though an army besiege me, my heart will not fear; though war break out against me, even then I will be confident.
4 One thing I ask from the LORD, this only do I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to gaze on the beauty of the LORD and to seek him in his temple.
5 For in the day of trouble he will keep me safe in his dwelling; he will hide me in the shelter of his sacred tent and set me high upon a rock.
6 Then my head will be exalted above the enemies who surround me; at his sacred tent I will sacrifice with shouts of joy; I will sing and make music to the LORD.
7 Hear my voice when I call, LORD; be merciful to me and answer me.
8 My heart says of you, “Seek his face!” Your face, LORD, I will seek.
9 Do not hide your face from me, do not turn your servant away in anger; you have been my helper. Do not reject me or forsake me, God my Savior.
10 Though my father and mother forsake me, the LORD will receive me.
11 Teach me your way, LORD; lead me in a straight path because of my oppressors.
12 Do not turn me over to the desire of my foes, for false witnesses rise up against me, spouting malicious accusations.
13 I remain confident of this: I will see the goodness of the LORD in the land of the living.
14 Wait for the LORD; be strong and take heart and wait for the LORD.
Luke 19:1-10

1 Jesus entered Jericho and was passing through.
2 A man was there by the name of Zacchaeus; he was a chief tax collector and was wealthy.
3 He wanted to see who Jesus was, but because he was short he could not see over the crowd.
4 So he ran ahead and climbed a sycamore-fig tree to see him, since Jesus was coming that way.
5 When Jesus reached the spot, he looked up and said to him, “Zacchaeus, come down immediately. I must stay at your house today.”
6 So he came down at once and welcomed him gladly.
7 All the people saw this and began to mutter, “He has gone to be the guest of a sinner.”
8 But Zacchaeus stood up and said to the Lord, “Look, Lord! Here and now I give half of my possessions to the poor, and if I have cheated anybody out of anything, I will pay back four times the amount.”
9 Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house, because this man, too, is a son of Abraham.
10 For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.”

Divine Providence 338:9

We can see from this that if we look deeply enough, we find that the theologies of all our churches teach how to live; and since they teach how to live, they teach that our salvation depends on how we live. Our life is not breathed into us in an instant but is formed gradually, and is reformed as we abstain from evils as sins--specifically, as we see what is a sin, recognize it, admit it, and then do not intend it, and therefore refrain from it, and also as we know the means that relate to knowing God. By these two means our life is formed and reformed, and they cannot just be poured into us in an instant. Our inherited evil, which is essentially hellish, has to be banished first, and goodness, which is essentially heavenly, planted in its stead.