Christopher Orr raised a very good question on an earlier post. What IS salvation? How is it being understood?I would offer the following as a kick-off to conversation on this:
Salvation encompasses being saved FROM the ruin wrought by the fall and our participation in that and all it brings (slavery to sin, death, damnation - the unspeakle corruption that distorts) and salvation encompasses being saved FOR a participation in God's eternal life which begins in us now and reaches its perfection in the joy of the beatific vision at the glorious resurrection of the dead.
Salvation, then, is the Blessed Trinity's love in action, doing everything it takes to bring his fallen creatures back to the purpose for which they were created from the get-go: to share in His own unending life, to live in communion with Him.
This is both gift and assignment. Gift in that in Jesus Christ the Father by the Holy Spirit reaches us as a sheer act of grace the life that we have forfeited and turned from by our sin - He gives us forgiveness so that His coming to us may be the advent of life itself. Assignment in that while the gift is given whole, He calls us to grow in our living from it (which means also to die to our self-sufficiency and passions).
Is salvation completed? Yes. And no. Yes, in the sense that through His incarnation and the paschal mystery our Lord Jesus Christ has brought forgiveness to the world, has destroyed the power of death, and has opened wide the kingdom of heaven to all believers. Thus, St. Paul is not the least bit hesitant to declare: "But when the goodness and lovingkindness of God our Savior appeared, he SAVED us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy through the washing of regeneration and renewal in the Holy Spirit." Thus, St. John can write: "I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God THAT YOU MAY KNOW THAT YOU HAVE ETERNAL LIFE." No, in the sense that His work in us, forging us into creatures that will indeed enjoy the Life that He freely gives, is ongoing and incomplete in this world. Again, as the Apostle put it: "Since we have these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from every defilement of body and spirit, bringing holiness to completion in the fear of God." (2 Cor. 7:1) Or again as St. John put it: "Everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure." (1 John 3:3) Or back to St. Paul, "But to us who are BEING SAVED [the Cross] is the power of God." (1 Cor. 1:18) And again "and by which (the Gospel) you are being saved, if you hold what the word I preached you." (1 Cor. 15:2) And again "For we are the aroma of Christ to God among those who ARE BEING SAVED." (2 Cor. 2:15)
This also explains why the incipient righteousness that is to be daily growing in us can never be the basis for our justification - it remains a work in progress. But our justification is predicated upon the perfect righteousness of Jesus Christ which is altogether gift - given us through the Sacrament of regeneration. Clothed in that perfection, we are called upon to grow in what we have been given, "to walk in a manner worthy of the calling" to which we have been called until "we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ." (Eph 4:1, 13)
Thoughts?
8 comments:
A wonderful question, he said slapping himself on the back... Thanks for taking it up. I look forward to the discussion, too. I'll attempt a comment when I have more time to consider it - and after my outdoor soccer game tonight next to the East River at 17 degrees (F) with wind bringing it to 6, currently...
I know one person who'll need saving, or a sort.
CHRISTOPHER!
You will freeze your rastifarian na-na's off!
Hope you live to tell about it...
Pastor Weedon,
I really enjoy your thoughts here.
Thanks again for reading my paper last night. Thoughts:
I assume it is proper to say that the Christian (insofar as he is a new man), always runs to the Triune God and the life he brings his whole creation in love.
It seems to me then, that given that we are in a fallen and disordered world, it is proper to say that when the Christian does this he necessarily runs to God for forgiveness (forgiveness occurs because of the love of God, which of course follows God’s “alien work”, also born of the love of God but to prepare us for forgiveness) - therefore, we are "continually justified" (or is this a function of the old man in us who is a sinner and actually needs forgiveness? - but he by definition doesn't run towards God!)
If so, does this action belong to the sanctification or our justification God gives?
Or, since insofar as we are New Men in Christ we are perfect already, is it improper to speak of running to God for forgiveness, and rather correct to speak of running to Him that we may now joyfully run with Him in doing good works (yoked with Him in the cruciform life given for the life of the world), bringing the life we have with Him in heaven (in which we ourselves, raised up with Him, no longer need forgiveness), to our neighbor as we descend into them…
Now try this: we do not say to the sinner that "good works [sanctification] are necessary for [your] salvation", but, is it not true that "good works are necessary for mankind's salvation"? Certainly, Christ's good works, culminating on the cross with his loving his enemies and forgiving them, were necessary for us - they were the only way we could be saved.
I think Barth said something to the effect that if salvation is complete in every sense possible, then why are we still here?
Are not the Christians good fruits / works that they do in Christ - love for the least, love and prayer for enemies, forgiveness for all from the heart, the confession of the Gospel of Christ - necessary for our neighbor's salvation?
Someone shouts “Word and Sacrament”! Well, yes - to be sure. But faith comes by hearing - who are the means of the means of grace? We can't separate the messengers from the message.
All this is done in Christ to be sure - in one sense salvation is completed at the cross alone - but in another sense, this formulation assumes the delivery of that message through God's appointed means and messengers, correct?
The game was canceled, but I went back to work, so I haven't had time to do an in depth study. The one thing that has hit me as I researched a little is that salvation (soteriology) is not strictly defined by anyone. Pelikan discusses this in his section on the scholastic period as prelude to the great flowering of theology on The Redemption. What we mean by salvation is the great assumption, which is also probably why no one is really responding to the post. How do we describe the indescribable? We all 'know it [salvation] when we see it' as did the judge asked to define pornography, to use an improper analogy. But, do we?
This is why your anger was both understandable, but also something arising from a lack of clarity and understanding on all of our sides about what we believe - and whether it is a match with the theology 'assumed' in the SCritpure and the Fathers, not just whether we can 'see' our theology in the Bible or the Fathers. Projection and gestalt (filling in the gaps on our own) is a terrible, normal and universal thing with we humans.
So, I can say what I think I understand salvation to be, but is this true? I can say that any document says what I think it says, but even a short period of time in a college lit class will disavow one of the reality of either 'common sense' or objective reality - and not just with the obvious axe-grinders in the class. The question is whether our 'interpretation' of the text has a living community, history, art, etc. to verify the accuracy of that reading of the assumption, the reading.
For instance, IF 'justification by grace alone through faith alone' (and not simply salvation by faith and/or grace) is THE doctrine upon which the Church stands or falls, then why is the Church silent on this central doctrine? It is the Orthodox and RC contention that doctrines on the Theotokos were purposefully 'hidden' except to those on the inside of the still quite secretive Church. Therefore, it is only well after Constantine that one sees these teachings being shared publicly. The Protestant complaint is that these doctrines are 'late' and therefore spurious and not a part of the Apostolic deposit. If this is true of mariology, why is it untrue of sola gratia and sola fide which did not achieve these forms (now mandatory in Protestantism) until the 1500s?
Sorry to get off into questions of How we determine reliability, but these questions seem to be the bases of our assumptions related to things such as salvation, etc.
To be clear, the question isn't whether the hierarchy of the Church (today or in the 4th Century) teaches x, y, z and therefore must be believed. The Church as a whole (clergy and laity, bishops and monks and laymen) are witnesses to a 'more pure' understanding of how Tradition (which includes Scripture - which meant the OT until the 4th C and that included the NT subsequently, per Behr) was understood. For instance, many centuries from now one could believe that salvation was understood in rather odd ways from reading surviving texts that talk about being saved from a fire, saved from a storm, that we saved money, etc. Context is the witness as to how these terms were actually understood, and whether the same word was used in ways apart from soteriology - which hopefully will be the overriding preoccupation of those in the future looking back at us explaining their confusion.
At the risk of tautology, I'll say that salvation is being saved from everything that could possibly harm us: from the consequences of our own sin (condemnation, death, hell) and the depredations of other sinners (the devil and our fellow men), and ultimately from all mortal weakness and the very possibility of sinning. We won't experience all of this until the resurrection, but in Christ it's all ours even now.
A lot of catching up to do here:
Nathan,
A book I've recommended before and will again: what answer does Eduard Preuss give in his book on Justification. Hint: last chapter, dude. Pure gold.
Christopher,
How can someone so traditional be so post-modern? ;) I don't buy it. The Word calls forth the Church, sustains the Church, and so creates that community. God speaks and His speaking causes what He says. The Church IS because that Word has been spoken - a Word that was enfleshed!
Eric,
Agreed!
Pastor Weedon,
I read Preuss' stuff one year ago - my old pastor had photocopies of the old Concordia Journal (?) articles.
What is the title of the section of that book you are referring to?
By the way, I brought this up with Pastor McCain and he talked about how Preuss' converstion to RCC was simply due to his being convinced of the Marion teachings.
I have to admit - that strikes me as an incomplete explanation because it seems to me that with his reception of the Marion teachings also must have come weakened convictions re: justification (understood as Lutherans have understood it).
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