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"Salvation in Christ” (9-2-18)

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“Salvation in Christ” Scripture Lessons: John 14:1-6 and Romans 11:25-32 The Rev. Dr. William E. W. Robinson Salem Presbyterian Church Twenty-second Sunday in Ordinary Time September 2, 2018 Today’s message is the last in a sermon series that addresses crucial questions of faith analyzed in Adam Hamilton’s best- selling book, Making Sense of the Bible. (The book has been a focus of our summer youth and adult Sunday School class.) This morning’s sermon looks at the cornerstone Christian belief of salvation in Christ. Like suffering (which we explored last week), salvation isn’t just black and white. There is some grey to it. We’ll explore why that is. Before we do, please join me in prayer. I was at a Christian youth rally. I was in high school at the time. It was at the civic center in Fayetteville, NC, my hometown. We were in the main auditorium, and it was packed. I don’t remember what was said or anything we did. But I’ll never forget the broad banner that hung above the stage. It read: “He who is not with me is against me.” They’re Jesus’ words. (Matthew 12:30 was printed under the quote.) The message this event was attempting to impress on us impressionable youth gathered in the room that day was apparent: If you’re “with Jesus,” you’re saved. If you aren’t, you’re not. (It was a proof text they used to put the fear of God in us.) There are other texts like Matthew 12:30 in the Bible: texts that state or imply that some will be saved and others will not, that some are heaven bound and others are you-know-where bound. John 3:16 and John 14:6 are two of the best-known: “For God so !2 loved the world that he gave his only Son so that whoever believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life” and “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” The so-called parable of the sheep and goats in Matthew 25 is another well-known example. On Judgment Day, the sheep will inherit eternal life; the goats eternal punishment. And in Revelation 21 we read that some will reside in a heavenly “new Jerusalem,” while others will be cast into “the lake that burns with fire and sulfur.” In his book, Hamilton calls the view of salvation based on passages like these exclusivism. John Calvin, the Father of Presbyterianism, was an exclusivist. In his magnum opus, Institutes of the Christian Religion, he avers: “all are not created in equal condition; rather, eternal life is foreordained for some, eternal damnation for others.” Because we Presbyterians are Calvin’s theological heirs, exclusivism is enshrined in some of our confessions. The Westminster Confession of Faith (dating to 1647 and one of the most influential historically for us) states: “the righteous shall go into everlasting life, and receive that fullness of joy and refreshing which shall come from the presence of the Lord; but the wicked, who know not God, and obey not the gospel of Jesus Christ, shall be cast into eternal torments, and punished with everlasting destruction.” To this day, many Christians are exclusivists. They believe that God saves some and damns others. Like Calvin, they may believe salvation is a gift that God gives to some and not to others. Or— like many of our Baptist brothers and sisters—they may believe that a person has to “accept Christ” to be saved, has to profess belief in Christ to go to heaven. (We should note that some exclusivists allow exceptions such as people who never knew about Christ in their lives.) !3 Many Christians recoil at exclusivism or outright reject it. They feel like the man who was sitting next to Hamilton at a funeral service. After the pastor leading the service read John 14:6, the man leaned over to Hamilton and said: “Did Jesus just say that everyone who’s not a Christian is going to hell? Why would the preacher read that now, at a time like this?”1 What if that day at the civic center in Fayetteville, that broad banner above the stage had read: “God wants everyone to be saved.” What if that were the message they tried to impress on us impressionable youth gathered there that day? They’re the words of the apostle Paul in one of his letters to his protege Timothy (1 Timothy 2:4). Those words—that proof text—sounds a different note: a note of possibility and hope rather than a note of division and fear. There are other texts like 1 Timothy 2:4 in the Bible: texts that indicate or imply that God might save everyone or that God’s salvation in Christ is bigger than we thought. Right after John 3:16, for example, we read (in 3:17): “God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.” And in the parable of the sheep and goats, the sheep are saved not because they accepted or believed in Christ but because of what they did: “for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.” Doesn’t that open the door of salvation to people who such things? Romans 11 is another example. Paul declares in verse 25: “All Israel will be saved.” What?! All Israel, all Jewish people, will be 1 Adam Hamilton, Making Sense of the Bible: Rediscovering the Power of Scripture Today, HarperCollins, 2016, p. 248. !4 saved?! Yes, that’s what Paul means, and that’s evident in Romans 11 and in the rest of that letter. Then, in 11:32, Paul opens the door of salvation in Christ even wider, proclaiming: “For God has imprisoned all in disobedience so that he might have mercy on all.” Also, in his book, Hamilton proposes another possible interpretation of John 14:6. Rather than reading “no one comes to the Father except through me” to mean that no one’s saved unless they accept or believe in Christ as Lord and Savior, he observes that it’s possible to read that verse (in the context of John’s Gospel) to mean that no one’s saved except by Christ’s saving work, by what he did—living, dying, and rising to save the world. Hamilton calls the views of salvation based on passages like these universalism and inclusivism. Karl Barth, one of the most influential Reformed theologians, was basically a universalist. He believed that in his death Christ took on the damnation of humankind (e.g., he “descended into hell” so that we never have to) and nailed it to the cross and that in his resurrection Christ gave to humankind the gift of eternal life. So, Barth said, we can hope and pray that the God who “wants everyone to be saved” will in fact do so. However, some Christians—even those who like the idea of universalism—have reservations about it. What about truly evil people or those who truly reject God? Will they be saved? These skeptics would likely agree with Hamilton when he writes: “It seems to me that salvation is a gift that can be refused and that God will not force salvation on anyone.”2 2 Ibid., p. 250. !5 That’s why Hamilton (and other Christians) prefer inclusivism: “God can give the gift of salvation in Christ to anyone he chooses.”3 The sheep, for instance, could be people of another religion or no religion who are saved by feeding the hungry, giving drink to the thirsty, welcoming the stranger, clothing the naked, caring for the sick, and visiting prisoners. Hamilton summarizes this view: “Christian inclusivism allows that God might look at the heart and earnest faith of those who are of other faiths, and he might see in them a desire to know the way, the truth, and the life, and an earnest desire to love God and love their neighbors. Seeing this, God could, if he chose, apply the saving work of Christ to these persons.”4 The inclusive view is expressed in the Presbyterian Study Catechism (e.g., the question we’ll use to affirm our faith this morning). Some Christians will rightly ask: “What about evangelism? If everybody is—or most are—going be saved, then there’s no need to evangelize, right?” Wrong. Because we don’t know that God will in fact save everyone in Christ (or how many God will save in the end), we still have to evangelize, we still need to “tell the old, old story of Jesus and his love.” Also, don’t we want people to know God here and now? Don’t we want them to have a relationship with God before they die? I know I want my mom, brother, and sister to have that. I want them to experience the power, comfort, grace, joy, peace, and love of the Lord in their lives now, not just in heaven. That’s why I pray for them (and others like them) and try to nudge them to open their hearts to the Lord.
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