What does it mean to be “saved” according to the Bible? This is a tricky question for a number of reasons. To start, the Bible is a complex book. It has countless characters, historical contexts, and theological motifs. After all, full-time Christian ministers spend hundreds of hours in seminary just learning how to interpret the Bible correctly because of the nature of its complexity. If the answer to the question above was an easy, short answer, then wouldn’t the Bible be, well, shorter and more to-the-point? If salvation was simple “justification of the believer”, then what’s all this Israel business about?
The second reason that the above question is a tricky one is that scripture offers a number of conceptualizations and metaphors for defining salvation. In other words, the Bible’s definition of salvation is multi-dimensional. To name a few:
The spiritual dimension of salvation
Jesus usurps the principalities, powers and authorities of the spiritual realm that hold humanity captive via death.
The socio-political dimension of salvation
The lost sons and daughters of God have been found and reintegrated into the family of God (the familial metaphor); God has established his reign over creation once again through the Jewish Messiah, the human agent (Kingdom metaphor)); there is also the nuptial metaphor which understands salvation to be the marriage of the church and Christ.
The theological dimension
Penal substitution/substitutionary atonement which essentially amounts to expiation and propitiation: the death of Jesus appeases the wrath of God against humanity for their moral violations thereby allowing for humanity to be reunited with its Creator. This is also known as the judicial metaphor in which God declares sinners “not guilty” (justification) because Jesus has died in their place thereby making adequate payment for debts.
The historical dimension
Jesus’ death and resurrection ushers in a new age of history by defeating death and raising from the dead; in this new era, God’s covenant people can live in spiritual (and occasionally physical) victory.
Throughout history, the church has had difficulty balancing these dimensions. The result of such has been that at times any number of the above dimensions of salvation have gotten neglected or ignored entirely.
The question I want to ask is which of the above dimensions has mainstream Christianity forgotten about? Being that mainstream Christianity is largely the protestant evangelical community, the dominant theme of salvation today has become the theological dimension (penal substitution). This is the heritage of the protestantism thanks to Martin Luther’s sola fide, sola gratia.
I take up a couple of problems with this. First, defining salvation in terms of substitutionary attainment alone is that it focuses on the individual entirely. This is hardly the entire story of the scriptures. Furthermore, it fails to integrate the corporate people of God into the equation. Salvation has never been all about the believer. It is, however, all about God and his redemption. Me and my sin crisis is not the focus of Scripture. The focus of Scripture is God. Scripture is deeply concerned with the community of faith over and above the individual. Once again, this definition fails to account for this appropriately.
The second issue I take up is that this definition of salvation fails to make any mention of Israel. What is the OT there for if we ignore it? Any definition of salvation that doesn’t take Israel into account is lacking. The OT makes up approximately 75% of the Christian scriptures. This means that the Israel component of soteriology should take ups 75% of the definition. The reality is that salvation is about God’s faithfulness, first to Israel and then to the rest of the world (and both are integrated together).
When we fail to account for these sorts of crucial components of the biblical message, we get into a situation where our soteriology (understanding of salvation) becomes problematic and confused.
We have to reorient our thinking by the scriptures. We have to rediscover where we have come from in order to get a proper view of where we are going.
To finish, lots of people ask me, “How would you explain the Gospel in 60 seconds?” My answer is that it’s impossible. If the Bible can’t do it, then I can’t do it. Give me the full gospel!
