First,
I want to explain why I have chosen these four particular words out of the many
possible concepts contained in the biblical record.
Salvation is a concept and word with a long
history in Hebrew thinking and writing.
The modern day evangelical understanding of salvation is severely
limited when compared with the older, deeper, broader Hebrew understanding of
the Old Testament and of Jesus. My concern
here is not so much about a linguistic analysis of the term but about the
substance of the concept. And when we
explore this, we will see how inseparable it is from the person and work of
Jesus – God the Son.
Redemption is, as I pointed to earlier, a central plank in Paul’s revelation of the ‘mystery’ of Christ and the administration ‘suitable to the times’ that he wrote to the Ephesians about (see Ephesians 1). It is seen as the quintessential expression of the love and ‘kind intention’ of God that can be accessed and experienced by us humans in the Divine drama of God working out His will in the world.
Righteousness is seen by Paul and the New
Testament writer to the Hebrews as foundational, central and pivotal not just
to the Gospel itself, but also to the experience of all new covenant
believers. And there is no salvation
without righteousness – an understanding that goes all the way back into Jewish
antiquity.
Justification is the official verdict arising
from the outworking of God’s will and intent for redemption by means of the attribution of righteousness to us humans bringing about total and complete salvation. It is the main thrust of the first six
chapters of Paul’s letter to the Romans.
This verdict is the firm and solid basis of any human being’s ability to
“approach God with freedom and confidence” (Ephesians 3:12).
Second,
let me remind readers why we are here at this point. I started with three questions: What on earth is God doing? What is God’s idea of ‘church’ (ecclesia)? Where is it all headed? My initial general answer to these questions
is that deep, satisfying and abiding answers can be found to these questions
(and many more besides) when we do two things: position ourselves to study and
delve into God’s eternity past and His eternity future; and set ourselves to be
taught deep insights by the Holy Spirit into what appear to be core and
foundational tenets of the true Gospel of Jesus. This, God willing, we will do.
Salvation (verb: save/saved)
Jesus referred to
salvation as being born again and it means to be rescued; healed; retrieved
from the jaws of death or destruction — spiritually, physically, mentally,
emotionally; totally!
Salvation is the
noun form of the verb ‘to save’ and we have this word in the English language
coming from its Latin root salvare via
the French word ‘sauver’, the Spanish word ‘salvar’ and the Middle English word
‘sauven’.
They refer to the
ancient practice of tasting the food and drink of nobles to ‘save’ them from
poison. In those times, they used these
‘tasters’ and ‘drinkers of health’ to protect the nobles from their
enemies. The salver is the plate on
which the food or drink is presented first to the tasters, then to the
drinker-of-health so he was able to say, “I drink to your health”.
Every time the
tasters did their work, the nobleman was saved.
The word thus means protection from death or destruction; health and
happiness; rescue from precarious predicament.
Note these words from Hebrews 2:9, “But
we see him who for a little while was made lower than the angels, namely Jesus,
crowned with glory and honour because of the suffering of death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone.”
Jesus is the taster; and the drink he is presented with is
death. Matthew writes in 26:36-46 that
Jesus, in Gethsemane, is sorrowful and troubled, to the point of death. Three times he falls to the ground and prays,
“My Father, if it is possible, let this
cup pass from me; yet not as I will, but as You will.” This is not Satan pressing hard on Jesus, it
is the Father, acting in Grace (as Hebrews 2:9 says) on behalf of everyone.
Soon after Gethsemane, Jesus is betrayed, arrested and led
away and so begins the spiral of events that culminate in his being nailed to a
Roman cross, bloody and naked, struggling to breathe, and then that moment
arrives when he ‘tastes death for everyone’.
This is why the resurrection is so central and pivotal to
the story. Paul later says, if there is
no resurrection, then our faith is in vain.
Indeed! And he writes to the
Romans and says that he is “…set apart for the gospel of God, which He promised
beforehand through His prophets in the holy Scriptures, concerning His Son, who
was born of a descendant of David according to the flesh, who was declared the Son of God with power by the
resurrection from the dead, according to the Spirit of holiness, Jesus
Christ our Lord.” The resurrection of
Jesus declares – with power – that he is indeed The Son of God.
Outside of Christ, death is poison – it kills and destroys
with certainty. In Christ, death has
lost its power. It is no longer
poison. It can kill our
time-space-matter limited body, but it has lost its power over the soul and
spirit of a man, and over his eternal ‘body’.
The writer to the Hebrews notes this:
In bringing many sons to
glory, it was fitting that God, for whom and through whom everything exists,
should make the author of their salvation perfect through suffering. Both the
one who makes men holy and those who are made holy are of the same family. So
Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers. He says, “I will declare your name
to my brothers; in the presence of the congregation I will sing your praises.”
[refer Psalm 22:22]
And again, “I will put my trust in him.” [refer Isaiah 8:17]
And again he says, “Here am I, and the children God has given
me.” [refer Isaiah 8:18]
Since the children have
flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might destroy him who holds the power of death—that is,
the devil—and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear
of death. (Hebrews 2:10-15)
Consider Abraham
for a moment. Why is it that Abraham was
finally able to agree to the sacrifice of his son? Because he trusted God for a resurrection. As I said earlier, all of history is in the
purview of God as the ever-present.
Because of this, He could reveal the hope of the resurrection to Abraham
thousands of years before it became a reality on earth in Jesus.
By his death, Jesus
destroys the devil and frees those who have been held in slavery by their fear
of death. Jesus tasted death and it did
not kill or destroy Him! And he only had
to do it once (unlike the ancient taster who had to do it over and over again,
every day without fail.)
Death didn’t kill
Him? Jesus voluntarily ‘tasted death’;
he willingly laid down his earthly life so he could take it up again. Listen to his words as recorded in John
10:17-18, before Gethsemane:
For this reason the
Father loves me, because I lay down my life so that I may take it again. No one
has taken it away from me, but I lay it down on my own initiative. I have
authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again. This
commandment I received from my Father
God Himself gives a glimpse of this many years earlier
through the prophet Isaiah when he said, “He will swallow up the covering which
is over all peoples,
even the veil which is stretched over all nations. He will swallow up death for all time, and the
Lord GOD will wipe tears away from all faces.” (Isaiah 25:7-8)
Paul writes to the Corinthians: “For as in Adam all die,
so in Christ all will be made alive… The
last enemy to be destroyed is death…
Death is swallowed up in victory.”
(1 Corinthians 15)
Then at the end of the chapter, he takes a question from
the Hebrew prophet Hosea: “Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?” And he triumphantly answers it with, “The
sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus
Christ.”
Jesus has saved us as the ancient taster saved his master
and his household. He tasted death; he
drank from the cup of death. Death
doesn’t kill. The law kills; the law
gives power to sin; and sin gives the fatal sting to death if the sin is not
covered by Jesus. In Christ, the sin is
covered; death has lost its sting; the law has lost its power; death no longer
rules; death is swallowed up in victory.
If you look at 1 Corinthians 10 and 11, you will note that
‘the cup’ is no longer a thing of dread or fear, but one of remembrance and
participation: remembering the taster who tasted it for us; participating in
the cup with him in his death; and drinking to life and health with Him because
of His resurrection.
In other words, Jesus is
our salvation. But how does salvation
actually work?
God invented
salvation! Available to us right now is
the prescription for the penalty of
sin, for the problem of the power sin
has over us, and for the problem of the presence
of sin in the world. It is called
salvation. By it we are rescued from the
sting of death.
Describing,
photographing or painting a tree does not tell me what is the substance of a
tree. Describing a pineapple or telling
me how delicious they are does not tell me what is the substance of a
pineapple. Describing a medicine or
telling me how much better I will be if I take it doesn’t tell me what is the active
ingredient in that medicine – how it will work to make me better.
Similarly, we may
be able to describe salvation or even paint a picture of it, but that does not
tell me what is the substance of salvation.
What is the ‘active ingredient’ of salvation? How does salvation work?
The substance of
salvation is Christ-likeness — being made like Christ.
John 1:12
This verse tells
us that by His authority we become sons of God through a commitment of our life
totally to Him. We become like
Jesus. This comes about by a second
birth — by the Spirit — and we become brothers of Jesus. The writer of the book of Hebrews says of Jesus
that he is not ashamed to call us brothers.
2 Corinthians 3:18
This verse tells
us that the Christian life here on earth is described as being made like Jesus
as we contemplate the glory of the Lord in the face of Jesus Christ. By this we are progressively transformed into
the likeness of Christ by the work of the Holy Spirit.
1 John 3:2
This verse tells
us that we will be like Jesus for ever when he appears, because we shall see
him as he is. When he is revealed in
power and glory, we shall see him. When
we see him, we shall be changed to be like him in glory and power.
It has been part
of God’s plan from eternity past, through our time-space-matter limited present
and on into eternity future that He created us for His purposes and for His
glory. Part of how that plan works is
that He adopts us into the family and transforms us into a fit and proper
life-companion for His first-born, once-born son. The image or likeness He is using as the
template for this work is Jesus himself.
This is salvation;
this is our salvation. It is a work of
God ever in His purview – always present to Him, but worked out for us in the
past, the present, and the future. What
He asks of us is that we honour respect and trust Him by submitting to that
remodeling – much like the potter and the clay.
Meet again soon,
Kevin.
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