What is salvation according to the Bible (biblical soteriology)?[1] The answer to this question is quite complicated. In broad terms, the complexities and challenges of the Bible itself as the Christian canon reflects the challenges of forming a proper biblical soteriology. The hundreds of hours Christian ministers spend learning biblical hermeneutics (how to interpret the Bible) in Bible college and seminary alone attest to the complexities of the Scriptures as a sacred text that is sophisticated, technical, and highly nuanced. The reality is that its soteriology is no different. Granted that the Bible is chiefly concerned with the question of salvation, it seems that a fully biblical and robust soteriology would be as complex, integrated, and multi-dimensional as the book itself.
The church has lost sight of this at times, unfortunately. To focus more on modern times, and especially mainstream Christianity, a fully biblical soteriology has been exchanged for a simplified and reduced version of the Christian message of salvation. The judicial metaphor in tandem with something that resembles the doctrine of glorification (dying and going to heaven) has become the centerpiece of what is largely protestant evangelical soteriology. Undoubtedly, the judicial metaphor and glorification are certainly biblical doctrines, however, they are by no means the whole story.
So how did these particular dimensions of salvation become the end-all in mainstream Christianity? The reasons are many, but let me identify just two. First, protestant evangelicalism inherits its soteriology from the Protestant Reformation that positions substitutionary atonement at the center of its conceptualization of salvation. This comes from Martin Luther’s personal salvation experience that is rooted in the specific historical and cultural context of 17th century Roman Catholicism, a context quite foreign from that of the apostle Paul along with other biblical writers. Luther’s assurance of salvation became manifest in light of his own individual sin-guilt crisis that was resolved when he finally understood his salvation in terms of sola fida, sola gratia. Once again, while the sin-guilt crisis of the individual, forgiveness, and justification are biblical conceptualizations of salvation, salvation is certainly not limited to the judicial metaphor; more on this momentarily. So Martin Luther’s salvation experience, by playing a cataclysmic role in the Protestant Reformation, found its way into the DNA of what is now protestant soteriology.
The second reason for mainstream Christianity’s current soteriology is the impact of industrialism, capitalism, and corporate business models on ecclesiology. Contemporary Western culture and worldview has been deeply shaped by the rapid and dramatic changes to the economic landscape of the past two hundred years. Western culture emphasizes the individual over the collective and determines value based on quantitative productivity. For the church, as a corporate body made up of individuals, it is simply impossible to form an ecclesiology in isolation from these cultural norms of contemporary Western worldview. This translates into measuring the success of the church in terms of numbers and statistics; more is better. It also means having a quick and clean product that is marketable. If the product can’t be articulated in an elevator speech then it won’t sell. Do whatever it takes to get people into the pew, even if you have to simplify the product your selling. “If you want to go to heaven you must repent from your sins and accept Jesus as your Lord and Savior.”
If it was that easy, why is the Bible so long and complex? Why is the story so complex and multi-dimensional? Were the biblical writers just that verbose? The reality is that constructing a holistic and integrated biblical soteriology is a great deal more complicated than stringing together a few verses from the New Testament. Salvation, I’m afraid, is not a formula, but a story; and it the story of God and his promises to his covenant people. This sort of ambiguity just does not harmonize well with Western worldview and culture.
More than ever it is time for the church to rediscover its heritage; the time is ripe to go back to the Scriptures to regain an integrated, fully biblical, holistic and robust biblical soteriology. More than this, we must resituate our understanding of salvation in the historical setting out of which the biblical message emerges. In other words, “For too long we have read Scripture with nineteenth-century eyes and sixteenth-century questions. It’s time to get back to reading with first-century eyes and twenty-first century questions.”[2]
An excerpt from my forthcoming book.
[1] The study and understanding of salvation in the Christian tradition is known as “soteriology”.
[2] Wright, Justification, 38.