SALVATION

A NOW BUT NOT YET RESCUE

The salvation available to us through Christ has both present and future aspects. The death and resurrection of Jesus inaugurated a new age in which the kingdom of God will advance throughout the earth until the day when God judges the world and makes all things new. Conservative evangelicals tend to emphasize the future aspects of salvation over those experienced in the present, and liberal Christians tend to emphasize the present aspects of salvation over those promised in the future. A coherent understanding of salvation embraces both the present and future aspects of salvation and brings them together into one sweeping movement. The present aspects of salvation swirl around the Christian teaching of the atonement, and the future aspects of salvation involve the complete and irreversible renewal of all creation, human beings included. Salvation is, at its heart, all about rescue and renewal, and salvations scope is cosmic in the sense that it involves much more than human beings; it involves the rescue and renewal of the universe itself.

THE PRESENT ASPECTS OF SALVATION

THE CHRISTUS VICTOR APPROACH TO THE ATONEMENT Technical words can dilute the work of Christ on the cross, so that his victorious achievement becomes mired in the sinking clay of theory, hypothesis, and conjecture. Its easy to become lost in the maze of theological nuances, lexicography, and abstract formulae to which theologians so often subject Christs sacrifice. The cross served as an apocalyptic turning -point in human history, the eschatological equivalent to the Big Bang, the long-awaited fulfillment of what God promised He would do: deal with the evil in the world by overpowering and defeating it. The cross of Christ offers a glimpse into the paradox of how God often does things: while it seemed that the powers of evil were leading Jesus to the cross in triumphal procession, in reality it was the other way around. The Apostle Paul put it this way: Jesus disarmed those who once ruled over usthose who had overpowered us. Like captives of war, He put them on display to the world to show His victory over them by means of the cross (Col 2.15). In evangelical circles, the cross is often seen explicitly through the lens of the atonement, and the atonement (one of the most shocking, breathtaking, and stunning realities of what happened on the cross) can quickly become detached from the overarching purpose of the cross itself. The suffering and death of Christ served as the point in time when evil found itself defeated and dismantled, and when all thingsnot just human beings through the atonement found themselves reconciled to God. The cross has a cosmic scope; Paul writes that the cross was Gods means of reconciling to Himself the whole creationall things in heaven and all things on earth. (Col 1.20b). That isnt to say, of course, that the atonement isnt that big a deal after all. The Atonement can be defined as the Christian teaching referring to Gods forgiveness of our sins so that our harmony with Him can be restored. Paul echoes the atonement when he writes, God has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. The doctrine of the

atonement must be kept intact in any biblical theology of the cross, but when we make it the main point, the cornerstone of what happened, were missing out on the sweeping vistas which the cross opens up to us. The atonement truly comes to life when its at home within the framework of whats been called Christus Victor. There are various ways of approaching the atonement, such as at the outdated Ransom Theory, and the Satisfaction Theory, which is the predominant understanding in western Christianity today. Swedish theologian Gustaf Auln popularized the Christus Victor approach as he peeled through both the pages of the New Testament and the writings of the early church fathers to see how the cross was viewed early on. He came to the conclusion that the early church perceived the cross to be the moment and means by which God dealt decisively with evil, destroying its power and thus dismantling it; or to put it in Aulns own words, [The cross] was a Divine conflict and victory; Christ Christus victorfights against and triumphs over the evil powers of the world, the tyrants under which mankind is in bondage and suffering, and in Him God reconciles the world to Himself. The cross is indeed Gods wrath pouring out on Jesus so we who stake ourselves to Christ wont have to bear it; but it is so much more than that. At the cross Jesus faced-off with evil in all its grotesque wretchedness. Evil, personified by sin and death, by the principalities and powers, sought to lead Jesus to the cross but soon discovered that Jesus had been leading evil to its own defeat. Jesus resurrection dismantled evils foothold over creation. At the least, Christs resurrection from the dead reveals that evil has indeed been defeated, since the ultimate consequence of evil (death) couldnt hold down the One who defeated it.

PROPITIATION, EXPIATION, & THE FORGIVENESS OF SINS Propitiation means to make favorable, and in conservative theology, it includes the idea of the cross being Gods way of satisfying His wrath against sinners. Expiation means to make pious, and it implies the removal of (or cleansing from) sin. These two terms have different meanings, but theyre connected, since expiation is the means of propitiation. To put it in the terms of the English language, the object receiving the action of propitiation is the sinner; the object receiving the action in expiation is sin itself. You propitiate a person, but you expiate a problem, an old adage goes. Christs death, in terms of the atonement, serves both as expiation and propitiation. By removing the problem of sin (expiation), God makes Himself favorable towards sinners (propitiation). The backbone of propitiation is the Greek word hilasterion. This word alludes to the Jewish sacrificial system. In the Septuagint (the Greek Old Testament), hilasterion is the word that refers to the mercy seat, the top of the Ark of the Covenant. On the Day of Atonement, the blood of the sin sacrifice was sprinkled on the hilasterion (Leviticus 16.14). The cross of Christ has become the eschatological mercy seat, to which the Arks hilasterion pointed to. The effect of Christs blood satisfied the wrath of God against individual acts of sin, so that when a person receives Christ, the debt of that persons sin has been paid for. The wrath they deserve has been extinguished on Christ. Because Christ has become the be-all, end-all Mercy Seat, God has dealt with the problem of sin (expiation) and has thus made Himself favorable towards sinners (propitiation). The cross opens the door to forgiveness. Forgiveness does not mean that God pretends sinners were never really that bad. Nor does it mean that God ignores all the awful stuff about us, or that He simply excuses all the evil weve done and become. At the heart of forgiveness (and this

is where Christus Victor shines) is the destruction and dismantling of evil. When God forgives a person, the evil within that person (along with all the evil things the person has thought, done, or become) isnt ignored, excused, or turned into something thats really not that bad after all. The evil is defeated. Because we not merely sin but also become sin, the relationship God has intended to have with us from the Garden has been broken. In forgiveness, that relationship is restored, because that evil is destroyed. In the cross, evil has been appropriately dealt with, enabling God, as it were, to forgive us. Forgiveness takes place when the evil thats caused a rift between two sides of a relationship is named for what it is, condemned for what it is, and then defeated for what it is. The consequence of forgiveness is the restoration and renewal of the formerly broken relationship. The reconciliation that takes place between God and Man is a reconciliation forged by Christs victory over evil on the cross, and those who put their faith in Jesus partake in that victory for themselves. At the cross, Jesus led the powers of evil in triumphal procession and defeated them. The victory Christ won can be experienced by us partly in the present and fully in the future, in a restored relationship with God (not a lovey-dovey romantic relationship but the relationship between the image-bearers and their Creator). In propitiation and expiation, we experience the forgiveness of sins and find ourselves experiencing Gods divine favor (or in Christian slang, grace). Our relationship with God is restored, and often this is where evangelical programmes on salvation reach a halt. Weve been forgiven, our relationship with God is restored, what more needs to be said? Much more! Theres more to the story, more to what happens when a person experiences the victory of Christ for themselves.

REDEMPTION, LIBERATION, & THE SPIRIT OF GOD The Jewish people of Jesus day longed for the Messiah to come and deliver them from the pagan powers lording over them. They expected God to do for them what He did for their ancestors in Egypt. They believed that when the Messiah came, he would deliver them from the Romans and then make Israel the worlds ruling nation. The early Christians understood that all the geographical exiles experienced by the Jewish people (the Egyptian exile, the Assyrian exile, and the Babylonian exile; not to mention how many Jews felt that they were exiled in their own land since their nation wasnt autonomous but under the boot of other nations) were but sub-exiles, signposts and hints to a greater exile, and thus to a greater Homecoming. The pagan nations, as cruel and evil as they were, werent the worst enemies which Israel (and all humanity) needed rescue from. When the New Testament talks about redemption and liberation, we find these terms focused on rescue from the powers of evil, rescue from sin and death. The Greek word apolutrosis depicts a redemption for a ransom, and it was used in common speech in the context of freeing slaves for a monetary price. The early church embraced this word to describe how the payment Christ made to Gods wrath enabled liberation from sin and death. Liberation puts its emphasis on how a person is changed from being under the power or dominion of sin (of the flesh) to being freed from that domineering power and, instead, indwelt by the Spirit of God (of the Spirit). The New Testament teaches that all of humankind has become enslaved to sin; when a person puts his faith in Christ, Christs victory over sin is applied to him, so that the power of sin is broken, and a new power (or, rather, Person) takes its place: the Holy Spirit.

The New Covenant is the inauguration of the New Age, which began at Easter and will be completed at the Consummation, when God remakes the entire world, eliminating evil onceand-for-all. Because Christians live between Easter and Consummation, we experience a sort of exile. Evil, sin and death have been defeated although not yet eradicated; Christians are redeemed, awaiting the day when everything will be made new. Paul uses exilic language in Romans 8.12-30, where the Spirit of God is portrayed as the Shekinah, the presence of God with His people as they made that long and winding trek through the wilderness to the Promised Land. Although they had been redeemed from Egyptian bondage, they had not yet come to experience their full inheritance in the land flowing with milk and honey. Drawing the image of the Exodus around Christians, Paul portrays the indwelling Spirit of God as our tabernacle. Three times in his letters Paul refers to the Holy Spirit as the Greek arrabon (2 Cor 1.22, 5.5; Eph 1.14). In modern-day Greek that word means engagement ring, a sign in the present of what is promised to come in the future. In ancient Greek, the word had a much more economic meaning, but engagement ring echoes the heart of what Pauls stabbing at. The Spirit is a down payment or guarantee of the Christians promised future. The Spirit, the presence of God with His people in the midst of their exile, is experienced in redemption and stands as the key player in the life of the redeemed as he or she awaits the completion of what began at Easter. The Spirits presence in the Christian life is an active and working presence; the Spirit enables the Christian to live as a redeemed person ought to live, to live in the reality of the future while walking in the reality of the present. One of the key purposes of the Spirit is sanctification, the transformation of a Christians heart so that he can keep the commandments of God. To walk by the Spirit is to live a holy life, a life pleasing to God and in obedience to His will. The Spirit enables the redeemed to put to death the works of the flesh and the deeds of the body (these are New Testament catchphrases referencing manners of living that are dominated by sin and death). Those who are in the Spirit, and who are consequently and subsequently transformed by the Spirit, are echoes of whats rising on the horizon, signposts of Gods intentions and desires for humanity. The church, led by the Spirit, is to be an ecosystem of Gods renewed humanity, flourishing in a world that continues to bow the knee to false gods. As the Shekinah, the tabernacling presence of God with His people, the Spirit is also our Guide. As the tabernacle guided the ancient pilgrimage from Passover to Promised Land, so the Spirit serves as a guide in our present pilgrimage from Easter to Consummation. The Spirit is the presence of God with us, God dwelling in us and leading us, guiding us, warning and rebuking us, grieving over our rebellions and celebrating whenever we get things right, loving us with an irrevocable love as we come closer and closer to the Consummation. Salvation isnt just about what doesnt happen to us at the Final Judgment. Salvation involves being brought back to life in the present, being made new creations in the present, being rescued from this evil world in the present, and through the Spirit, participating in Gods new world in the present. In Romans 8.24, Paul says, We were saved, indicating that salvation involves something thats already come to pass. This salvation in the present remains fixed in hope because that salvation remains to be fully completed (though its guaranteed). This future salvation is what Paul speaks of in Romans 5.9-10: Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. Paul thus illuminates both the present and future

realities of salvation. In the present, we have reconciliation and justification (being acquitted of the charge of evil and thus being declared by God as being in-the-right); in the future, we will experience being saved from the wrath of God. We who are saved in the presentwe who have put our faith in Christ, we who have participated in his death and resurrection and thus in his victory over evil, we who have experienced forgiveness of sins and reconciliation to God, we who have been freed from the domineering power of sin and who have received the Spirit of God we ought to place our hopes in the final and complete salvation of our souls.

THE FUTURE ASPECTS OF SALVATION

THE COMING JUDGMENT The coming White Throne Judgment isnt in vogue these days. Because the mere mention of judgment carries so many negative connotations, many Christians, perhaps hoping to be hip and welcoming, sweep it under the carpet, meekly talking about it only when its brought out into open air by those with disdain for the subject. Some Christians, trying to win over a culture that delights in tolerance no matter what, have even apologized for such a doctrine, as if it were a medieval hangover soon to be done away with by modern sensibilities. The scriptures portray the Final Judgment as a future moment in history that is to be celebrated. The Final Judgment isnt just about what happens to the wicked. What happens to those who have consistently refused God, who have persisted in arrogant rebellion, is a consequence of what the Final Judgment is all about, namely the eradication of evil and the recreation of the cosmos. Jesus victorious death on the cross judged and condemned evil, sentencing evil to death, and when the Final Judgment comes, that death sentence on evil is carried out. At the moment evil is bound and chained, and when Jesus appears and the Final Judgment takes place, evil will be escorted by Jesus and his saints to the guillotine. The fall of the guillotines blade will result in unprecedented celebration. All creation, human beings included, will dance for joy, weep with gladness, and celebrate in the mountaintops and valleys. The psalms depict creation shouting in joy at the Final Judgment, for on that day, creation will be fully and finally liberated from the death, decay, and corruption that has infected it since mankinds rebellion in the Garden. The Final Judgment does indeed entail destruction of the wicked. But those who are in Christ have nothing to fear, because they have been justified. When God justifies a sinner, He declares judgment on that sinner, declaring him to be in-the-right, acquitting him of the charges leveled against him, rendering him free to go. Justification in the present doesnt simply anticipate the verdict from the Final Judgment; it is the verdict of the Final Judgment! The Final Judgment leaps into the present, and those who are in Christ have already passed through the flames from death unto life. There is therefore now no condemnation in Christ. Any idea that Christians will have their sins put on the big-screen at the Final Judgment for all the world to see is nothing short of poppycock. Such fears are misplaced, for the Christians sins have already been dealt with, and God no longer holds them against us. For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, God declares, and their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more. (Heb 8.12) Dare we doubt Gods promises?

What, then, does the Final Judgment entail for Christians? Are we to hug the sidelines and simply watch as God deals with all the evil in the world? Not at all. The Bible tells us Christians will experience four things at the Final Judgment: vindication, judgment according to works done in the Spirit, glorification, and participation. Note that condemnation doesnt make the list! VINDICATION. One of the trademarks of the classical Jewish hope centered upon the vindication of the true people of God over against their pagan oppressors and the faithless posers, those who were Jewish by birth but unfaithful towards God and disobedient to His covenant. This theme of vindication is picked up in the New Testament. Jesus speaks of vindication quite often, both in reference to his own vindication (a vindication that took place in two stages: first, at Easter; and then second, with the destruction of Jerusalem in A.D. 70) and in reference to the vindication of his followers (a vindication that took place with their escape and survival of Jerusalems downfall, which in and of itself is a signpost to his peoples future vindication before the whole world). The Apostle Paul writes in Colossians 3.1-4, If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory. Those who are in Christ have a new identity, an identity that is cemented with God in heaven but hidden from those who are perishing. When Jesus appears, his people will be made known: the curtain will be drawn back so that everyone can see these people as those who obeyed truth and knew God. Christians who have been mocked and persecuted will be shown to be in the right after alland their oppressors will realize, with dread and horror, that they have been in the wrong and have to face the consequences of their rebellion and unbelief. JUDGMENT ACCORDING TO WORKS DONE IN THE SPIRIT. Although many Christians fear the Final Judgment, believing it to be the moment in time when all the skeletons in our closets are brought to light, this fear is misplaced. Christians will undergo a judgment, but it wont be a judgment of condemnation, nor even a judgment of our sin, since that judgment has already been passed on Christ as our substitute. The judgment Christians will experience is one of judgment according to works done in the Spirit. This judgment produces varying degrees of awards, not varying degrees of punishment. Christians will be rewarded according to their faithfulness to God and their good works done between Easter and Consummation. The exact nature of these rewards are unknown, but what is known is that Christians have nothing to fear when God takes His seat of judgment against the nations. The Christian who fears the Final Judgment is one who has failed to grasp the wonders of justification, the evil-defeating reality of forgiveness, the depths of propitiation, and the wild majesty of Gods grace, mercy, and love which have been poured out upon those who have staked their lives on Christ. GLORIFICATION. Glorification is a biblical word echoing yet another biblical word, that of glory. Glory is a multifaceted word, and when used in reference to human beings, such as here with glorification, it refers primarily to the ruling-ship of human beings over creation. In Genesis 3, when evil entered the world, human beings fell from the glory of God (Rom 3.23). But for those in Christ, theres the hope of the glory of God ( Rom 5.2). We lost the glory of God in our initial rebellion in the Garden, but this glory is reclaimed for us by Christ in his death and resurrection, and this glory will be fully implemented at the consummation. Paul says in Romans 8.30, Those God justified, them he also glorified. Justification comes with the promise

of glorification, the return of human beings to the glory of God, their rightful, God-ordained place in the cosmos, ruling over creation as Gods co -regents. At the Final Judgment, when Christians are glorified, they will be restored fully and finally to their original and truest identities as Gods image-bearers, and Christians will take their places over the renewed creation, to rule over it with creativity, love, and generosity. God will give His people new physical bodies unstained by death and decay, and in these bodies Gods people will do His work in the new world. Future salvation has as one of its main components the glorification of Gods children, their return to their rightful place in the cosmos, their return to the living -out of their true identities. Glorification could be defined, in short, as the existentia lists wet dream. PARTICIPATION. The Jewish people believed that when the Final Judgment came, not only would they be vindicated, but they would also participate in the Final Judgment, standing on Gods side of things, doling out judgment upon the evil that has saturated the world. This theme is picked up in the New Testament, though we often miss it because were not accustomed to it. In 1 Corinthians 6, Paul asks a series of rhetorical questions to which the appropriate answer is to be a resounding Yes! He asks, Or do you not know that the saints will judge the world?... Do you not know that we are to judge angels? (vv. 2-3) The idea of the saints participating in the judgment on the world, especially in relation to judgment upon those who have mocked and persecuted them prior to the judgment, isnt a strange shot -in-the-dark but an idea derived from Daniel 7, where the saints (referring, in this prophecy, to obedient Israelites) participate in the judgment of the monsters that emerge from the sea, the pagan nations that oppress and persecute them. When judgment comes, the redeemed will have a part to play, though the extent and nature of that role isnt explicitly laid-out in the New Testament. Its something well just have to wait and see, though something (and this is the point Pauls making in 1 Corinthians 6) we should anticipate in the present by settling disputes within the church family rather than taking one another to court.

THE ULTIMATE INHERITANCE: THE NEW HEAVENS & NEW EARTH The Final Judgment is so often focused on what happens to human beings (in terms of Heaven or Hell) that the greater scope of the Final Judgment is lost in a haze. The overarching purpose of the Final Judgment is upon (a) the eradication of evil and (b) the restoration of the created order to Gods original desires and intentions. These twin purposes of the Final Judgment envelop the fates of those who have obeyed God and disobeyed God: those who have obeyed Him are to enjoy Gods recreated cosmos, and those who have disobeyed Him, to put it simply, wont. At the consummation, the Final Judgment will take place and the eschatological exile will end, and Gods people will truly stand in the Promised Landexcept here the Promised Land isnt just some stretch of land along the western edge of the Mediterranean but the entire world, the entire solar system, the entire galaxy, the entire cosmos. The promise God made to Abraham in Genesis 15 serves as a signpost to the greater promise: Abrahams family wont just inherit Canaan but will inherit the entire world. Heaven and Earth will merge, as depicted in Revelation 21-22, and Gods project will continue again. His wise rule will be carried out through all creation by His image-bearing creatures. This hiccup of evil will be dealt with, and Gods program will carry forward into eternity. The future hope of the Christian isnt immaterial wandering and harp-playing in an ethereal heaven but being made totally and completely and physically new, dwelling in a newly created

physical world, doing the work of God with physical hands in a physical universe unstained by death and decay. This is the goal of salvation; this is the Christian destiny; this is the Hope of Salvation. Salvation with all its present intricacies has a future aspect; were saved but not yet fully, though were guaranteed that we will be fully saved in the future. Until then, as we live between Easter and Consummation, our endurance and sustenance is to be found in Gods Spirit, in Christian community, and in the hope of the glory of God.

SALVATION AS RESCUE & RENEWAL

Because Western society is individualistic at its core, its easy for us to see salvation as something God does primarily for us. Jesus loves me so much that he died for me so that he wouldnt have to spend eternity without me. Salvation does indeed benefit us in no small way, but when we make our benefit the point of salvation, were slipping into a wholly egocentric pattern of thought that makes God orbit around us rather than us orbiting around Him. Salvation isnt just something thats focused on human beings; salvation is cosmic in scope, and this cosmic sweep of salvation means that human beings, being saved and guaranteed of being fully saved in the future, find their role within this cosmic framework of the kingdom of God. Gods greatest concern isnt the entrance of individuals into heaven but the advancement of His kingdom throughout the entire world. Our salvation, with everything it entails in both the present and future aspects, fits into this larger story of what God is doing in the world. Salvation is, at its core, about rescue, restoration, and renewal. When a person is saved, in the present and in the coming future, that person is (by the grace of God and by the cross of Christ) restored to his or her true identity as Gods image-bearer. The future of Christians is one of being fully-restored image-bearers, priests of God, rulers over creation, gardeners in Gods renewed cosmic garden. This is a restoration to Gods original (and continued!) intentions for humanity. Though we have not yet been glorified, we who are saved in the present are called to take up rake and spade and serve God precisely as His image-bearers now as we advance His kingdom in our own lives, homes, communities, and societies. In Genesis 3, mankind fell from the glory of God; that is, mankind fell from being what God created him to be. In Christ, the redeemed are rejuvenated, given the sort of life they lost. The end goal is a return to the glory of God, and though we wont experience the totality of restoration until the consummation, we are to live as Gods image-bearers in the present as we anticipate our future inheritance.

THE COSMIC SCOPE OF SALVATION

When Westerners speak, think, write, and preach about salvation in Christ, most of the time its in the context of individual human beings getting saved. Its about what the individual must do to enter into a private relationship with God. The communal aspect of salvation is often entirely lost. In our preoccupation with individuals experiencing salvation, we come to perceive the church not as a community of the redeemed but as a gathering-place where saved individuals can come together to talk about their private relationship with God and to encourage one another in their daily walk. Salvation does indeed involve individuals coming to faith and repentance in Jesus and entering the covenant community, but the emphasis in the New Testament isnt on disconnected individuals holding hands in fellowship but a

community of Gods people who have been saved in the present and who will be saved in the future. The wide lens of salvation reaches farther than communities, of course. The salvation of human beings and of human communities fits into the larger framework of Gods purpose in the cross, that of reconciling the entire world to Himself. The salvation of the universe is the rescue and deliverance of the cosmos from the effects of evil, from the scarring of sin and death, from the powers and principalities wreaking havoc on Gods beloved creation. It is the restoration and renewal of the cosmos to its proper and rightful place, which we see in Genesis 1 and 2. Though we may approach Romans as a step-by-step doctrine, as an ordo salutis regarding how people get saved; and though we may read Galatians as a treatise on justification by faith and not by works; when we come to Ephesians and Colossians, we find something altogether different that forces us to rethink the paradigms through which we read Pauls letters. Paul says in Ephesians 1.10 that Gods overarching purpose in Christ is to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth. In the poem found in Colossians 1.1520, Paul writes in verses 19b-20, For in Christ all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross. Paul echoes the creedal phrase in Ephesians 1.10, linking the cross of Christ to the point at which reconciliation takes place. This isnt just reconciliation between God and Man but between God and Creation. Gods great act of salvation isnt confined just to human beings. The cross effects wont be felt only by those who put their faith in Christ. Salvation entails the rescue and deliverance of the entire created order, and those who wish to partake in this rescue have no option but to embrace faith and repentance.