One of the things I’m wrestling with these days is our standard Christian vocabulary. No, I’m not griping about the usual Christianese that has an elusive sincerity to it. Rather, I’m a lot more rebellious than that. In recent years there’s been a move to get away from “Christian” and become disciple, or Christ-follower, or member of the J-posse. I’m fine with Christian myself, even with its historical baggage. No, my interest is even deeper. I’m curious about how our theological words are applied in ministry.
Take “salvation” for instance. “Jesus saves” right? But, from what? Sin, sure, but in a practical way the salvation language is really limiting. When I was thinking about this I thought of other images of salvation. I am saved from drowning. I am saved from a burning building. I am saved from a maniacal super genius scientist who wants to replace my brain with a cybernetic device of his own evil design. In each of these moments I am saved “from” something. I am not saved “to” something. The moment of salvation is a moment of crisis in which I need help, but then when help comes I am allowed to revert to my normal pattern of life. That is the goal of salvation, isn’t it? To help me recover normality.
The message of the cross is certainly one of salvation, don’t get me wrong. In our encounter with suffering, the God who suffered reaches into our lives, identifies with us precisely where we are at, and takes on the pain. He is suffering along with us, and he lifts the burden from us. Our pasts are washed away by the blood. Mistakes we made and were made upon us are nailed up there with him. There is no evil which has been done which can sneak by the cross. It assumes it all.
So, we are saved. We are saved from slavery to sins, ours and others. We are saved from darkness. We are saved from a hopeless, pitiable, isolated existence. That is the message of the cross.
But we are not Friday people. We are Sunday people. We are not merely freed from the past, we are redeemed from the past so as to embrace the future, an assured future of God’s ultimate victory. We are people of a new birth.
Being born again does not imply escape. It implies an opening for a new beginning, not in some nebulous future existence but new beginning now. Right now.
That’s sort of why I am wrestling with new terms. Maybe instead of salvation we should be people who emphasize the liberation of Christ. Because that is really what it is, isn’t it? Romans 7 talks about being slaves under the Law. Romans 8 talks about the freedom the Spirit gives us to move beyond the Law and become free men and free women. The resurrection was the ultimate Emancipation proclamation.
Jesus saves. But Jesus does so much more than that. He saves us “to” something, to a new life, to a new pattern of thinking, to new ways of interacting, to new ways of hope and light and power. This liberation propels us into a new, living future, one which is not burdened by our past, even as it is informed by it, for our future is build upon a redeemed past in which our suffering becomes moments of Christ’s salvation. We are no longer entangled, but able to live, laugh, love in extraordinary freedom of the Spirit’s power. We can embrace a new reality.
The question, I suppose, really isn’t “Are you saved?” but rather “Are you liberated?” The latter takes into account the pervasive power of the Spirit that makes our accepting of Christ a true beginning and continuing story. This story of liberation is one which we want to include others in so they too can be liberated towards a new, free existence.
January 15th, 2007 at 8:01 pm
I’ve been thinking about this lately as well. I’m wondering about it because I’m not sure that the terminology of salvation in the way we currently speak of it is even in the New Testament. I love your ideology of liberation. I think it’s so much bigger and more inclusive.
January 16th, 2007 at 7:24 am
[...] I’ve been reading a couple of other blogs with interest. First, Kievas mused on the labels herself the other day. She doesn’t have the hangups about them that I do. But she’s a little wary of them nonetheless. I like her notion that perhaps they are too finite and one’s faith is better described more in terms of a journey than in stop-motion. Then, Patrick was wrestling with the terminology surrounding salvation. He’s not much enamoured with the word “saved” and would like a broader term such as “liberate.” I happen to agree with him and concur with his reasoning (he’s got more training than I). But I also think that perhaps we in the 21st century might just be using the word “saved” in a different context than it was originally used by Jesus and his disciples in the first century. I don’t know enough Aramaic (euphemism for … none) to guess. But when I did a word search in the New Testament on ’saved’ and read through the passages, I think it’s just possible that we made the answers too easy. [...]
January 18th, 2007 at 2:02 pm
It is bigger. The trick is not to push aside the salvation language but to really see how Jesus was not limited to that.
One thing that I’ve been thinking about recently is atonement and the work of the cross. Atonement, we say, was included within the sacrifice. But, there is more to the Gospel than the sacrifice. To be full Christians we have to factor in that most important other day — Easter. Resurrection is beyond sacrifice and pointing to something more. We have to have language that reflects both the cross and the resurrection in our lives.
Hmmm… I think I have another post building.
January 19th, 2007 at 1:39 pm
Slavery makes a person worse. It not only ensnares, it denigrates and taints. It ruins, divides, harms.
Anything that makes us worse or prevents our growth, or prevents us from being who we were intended to be by our Creator. . . to that we are enslaved.
That our Redeemer can enter our various patterns of enslavement and liberate daily – is an amazing work of His grace. That our Redeemer can liberate us from every kind of enslavement, including things as pernicious and cruel as the Roman cross, Nazi concentration camps (I’m thinking of Corrie Ten Boom) persecution or polio – this power to liberate bestows eternal hope and inner restoration.
Apparently, nothing can separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus, except our own unbelief and refusal to embrace the Almighty King.
Liberation is a glorious word! Liberation to the arms of God, that is the wonder of redemption!
Thank you for your thoughts and spurring us on to think about our new life hidden with Christ in God!!!!