Are you saved? It is a question posed to me on occasion and it stops me in my tracks. I have found myself rendered speechless at a question that seems simple to many Christians. I have seen this question along with the bold exclamation, “Jesus saves!” on bumper stickers, on posters at sporting events, on t-shirts, on church signs and heard from Christians around the world. Are you saved, is a question offered more frequently in evangelical circles, but it is indeed a question for all of us. I have found myself wanting to respond with things like, “Well, perhaps you should ask God,” or “I sure hope so,” or “I know I am one of God’s beloved,” and sometimes, I can just say “yes,” because it is easier. But the truth is, the question of our salvation is quite profound and requires more than just a one word answer. Salvation is a topic that at least from my experiences in diverse theological settings has a way of getting people riled up. Liberals seem to make the mistake of elevating our own efforts on the matter to a level of idolatry thus leaving salvation and the work of creating the kingdom up to us, while conservatives often claim that all we must do is ask Jesus into our heart and salvation is ours. One is too hard and in fact impossible and the other is too easy and denies the cost of discipleship. If salvation was left to us, we would all be in trouble and if salvation was extended by Jesus’ act on the cross and nothing more is required of us, then it is hard to make a case for faithful living now. Either way, I am left wondering what it means really, to boldly proclaim that we are a people of salvation.
We heard from 2 Timothy, “The power of God, who saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace...” Paul is talking about salvation. And to be sure, most of us mean very different things when we speak about what it means for us to be saved. Some of us might steer clear of the topic altogether or dismiss it out of frustration. Salvation in a Christian theological context is “God’s activities in bringing human beings into right relationship with God and with one another through Jesus Christ.” Of course, such a definition begs the follow-up question of specifically how we might live in right relationship with God and with one another. And that is perhaps the real question. It is about what it means to be a faithful Christian right here and now. The doctrine of salvation carries with it some interesting preconceptions that I would argue are somewhat counter to what we find in our Holy Bible. The first is that salvation is often mistakenly equated with life after death and second, salvation is often thought of as wholly spiritual and therefore the physical realm of salvation is virtually missing altogether. Yet, throughout the Bible and through much of Christian tradition, salvation is both an experience of deliverance with a spiritual center and the physical and communal elements of human life. The origin of the word salvation is the Latin root salvus, which means healed. Christian salvation is spiritual, physical and communal.
Salvation of the spiritual realm is in some ways so abstract that it is in fact more accessible. Salvation of this sort is about the preservation of our soul, the spirit of who we are in God’s eyes. We read a lot about physical salvation in our Holy Bible. Salvation in the Hebrew texts or Old Testament often demands a literal rescue from physical danger, an illness, a stormy sea; it means being saved and healed in the present tense. Of course the most significant experience of salvation and deliverance is God’s faithfulness in leading the Israelites out of slavery from Egypt. And in our New Testament we read of pleas by the disciples to be saved from storms and Jesus’ ministry of healing, offering salvation from pain and isolation to the blind, to lepers, and to bleeding women. And we read throughout Paul’s letters of salvation in this life and in the Letter to the Romans we read of redemption of the whole physical body. We also read of a kind of communal salvation, where the healing of one leads to the healing of another. Jesus’ ministry often led to healing in a communal sense, where the healing of one invites healing for the whole family. We know that healing of a child, heals an entire family. Salvation it seems is spiritual, physical and communal. But the question that has been the source of much conversation and heated exchange among Christian theologians throughout time is how we actually achieve or receive salvation. “The power of God, who saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace…” That is what we read today.
We are saved not wholly by what we do, but by the grace of God. You won’t be surprised to learn that justification or God's act of declaring us righteous and saved occurs in different ways according to Protestant and Catholic doctrine. Put simply, Catholics and Orthodox Christians distinguish between initial justification -which occurs in baptism- and final justification -accomplished after a lifetime of participating in the sacraments and by the gift of the Holy Spirit “which is the new life principle of grace expressed through love.” Protestants contend that salvation comes to us by God’s grace through faith in Jesus Christ separate from any works of merit.
John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, argued that God’s work in us consisted of prevenient grace, which is a kind of grace that undoes the effects of sin sufficiently and we are then granted the choice to believe, to choose Christ. Our faith he said, joins us with Christ individual's act of faith, which allows us to share in Christ’s atonement and therefore we are saved.
The Book of Discipline of the Methodist Church, which I am just coming to know, proclaims that, “We are accounted righteous before God only for the merit of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, by faith, and not for our own works or deservings.” We are saved not wholly by what we do, but by the grace of God. We don’t need to be a particular age or race. We don’t have to have money or a place to live. We don’t have to be funny or witty or talented. We don’t have to be a certain gender. We don’t have to recite creeds or to be able to fully grasp what it means to follow Jesus. We are saved by the grace of God. But there is one thing we must do- you see I wonder if salvation is something like God’s red carpet, although it doesn’t just lead us into a fancy auditorium. God’s red carpet is rolled out for each of us, no matter where we have been or who we are now, but we do have to choose to walk it. And that brings us back to the core question of salvation. If salvation is living in right relationship with God on a spiritual level, a physical level and a communal level how are we to do that? By daring to follow Jesus. Friends, in Jesus we have what we need to live in right relationship with God and one another. Jesus showed us how to do this. Loving God with all our heart, our soul, our mind. Loving our neighbors, loving ourselves, loving our enemies. Speaking for those who cannot and daring to follow God even when it hurts.
It seems to me that God rolls out the red carpet of salvation, salvation soaked in grace, offering us a path to right relationship with God, but we must say yes everyday. We don’t have to do anything to receive it, but we have to say yes to it, we have to choose to receive it. We have to be willing to walk it when it leads us through valleys and rocky paths and mountaintops. But it is the path to life abundant and as a Christian church we walk it together.
I think the next time someone asks me, “Are you saved?” I might say, “Yes, but that is not the end of the story. By the grace of God I am saved, because in Jesus I have what I need to follow God faithfully. I am saved, but I still have to say yes to God every chance I get.” Amen.
Donald. McKim. Westminster Dictionary of Theological Terms. (London: Westminster John Knox Press, 1996) 247.
Bradley C. Hanson. Introduction to Christian Theology. (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1997) 239.
The United Methodist Church: The Articles of Religion of the Methodist Church - Article IX—Of the Justification of Man.