Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About The Gospel And Salvation All In One Place
If reports are true, quite a lot of teaching on the topic of salvation is focused on whether you are saved. In fact, this is the source of considerable anxiety and trauma: Christian communities first accentuate the centrality of “getting saved” and then leave those who have been “saved” perpetually worrying whether this or that thing might result in losing the salvation.
If you arrive in a progressive Christian community like mine, you might at first then be surprised by the lack of salvation talk among us. Like, isn’t that the whole point of church is getting saved?
But (and I hope you can hear me out on this) you don’t tend to spend a lot of time talking about things you aren’t anxious about, right? I mean I talk a lot less about Biden than I ever did about Trump, and that’s not because Biden isn’t doing things, but that what he is doing doesn’t make me anxious.
So the first teaching I value about salvation is the one we hear somewhat regularly from Jesus: Do not be afraid, little flock, for the Father has been pleased to give you the kin-dom (Luke 12:32).
So, first step in knowing everything you need to know about salvation is to trust that you can release your concern over whether you are saved and instead focus on the what of salvation itself. In this same passage of Luke, it’s reported that Jesus himself redirects his hearers in this way: Seek God’s kin-dom, and everything else will follow.
So this then leads us to the next and (quite subtle but essential) shift. If seeking the kin-dom of God isn’t about whether you are saved, what does it mean?
Well, quite a bit of post-modern thought, which has been highly influential in shaping progressive understandings of Christianity, emphasizes that the “ultimate” is bound up in the “Other.” That is to say, whatever God is, God is found (possibly even without remainder) in this Other. Levinas talks about the face of the neighbor. Derrida sees this Other as gift.
However we slice it, it is to say that we discover the kin-dom of God, we meet God, in this Other or neighbor. In this sense, the kin-dom is coming to us rather than us going to it after we die.
And in point of fact, this isn’t just an insight of post-modern philosophy. It’s also just good biblical theology, because Jesus himself teaches that “the kin-dom of God is among you.” Luke 17:21: “The kingdom of God is in your midst.”
It’s quite simple, really. Jesus gives us a summary. He says that everything can be summed up in “love God, and love your neighbor as yourself,” and goes so far as to say (see Matthew 22:39) this first commandment (love God) and the second commandment (love your neighbor), are like each other.
Loving God and loving your neighbor are the same thing or like each other, even for Jesus.
My own tradition, Lutheranism, is grounded in the theology of Luther, who himself argued that once the Christian is no longer worried about securing their salvation (because they are saved by grace through faith) they are set free to invest themselves completely in loving their neighbor, which is the form of life salvation takes.
“I will, therefore, give myself as a Christ to my neighbor, just as Christ offered himself to me. I will do nothing in this life except what is profitable for my neighbor since through faith, I have an abundance of all good things in Christ.” (Luther, in The Freedom of a Christian)
So, first, you no longer need to worry abut whether you are saved. Then second, the what of salvation is freedom to love your neighbor (and God).
How does all of this relate to the universe and eternity? Because of course that is central to the anxieties around salvation. Lots of teaching around salvation is concerned about the shape of salvation after we depart this mortal coil.
Well, progressive Christianity reunites reflection on salvation in this life and the next. Instead of instrumentalizing what we do and teach in this life toward a life after this life, progressives (quite a lot like Jesus) release their worry about life after this life and place it in the hands of the God they trust in Christ.
And just like any other trusting relationship (well, just like and also more so) living out of that trust is itself salvific. Not in the sense that there is a conditional salvation that occurs inasmuch as you trust, but rather inasmuch as you trust, you are simply already living in the freedom that looks like salvation.
Trusting a trustworthy God with whatever happens after this life is therapeutic, a salve, healing. It allows us to live as a non-anxious people. Again, this is why we get teachings from Jesus like, “Take my yoke upon you, and you shall find rest” (Matthew 11:29). Because the wholeness and salvation extended in the life of Christ isn’t conditional, always held out but potentially deferred. Instead, it is an easy burden that creates rest, shalom, peace.
Like having a good friend you know you can’t lose, so you can just lean on their arm.
All of this is to say, the gospel is not content you have to deliver the right way in order to get people into an ever uncertain deferred salvation.
Instead the gospel is a a good news that establishes an embodied posture toward God and the cosmos, a calm trust, that then shapes the ongoing relationship between us and our neighbors and God. And if you want to see a wonderful example of someone who lived this calm trust, look to Jesus.
That’s what it means when we say Jesus saves.