If Jesus “Saves” What Exactly Does He Save Us From?

I recently received a message from Louise who had read my blog article 3 Reasons Jesus is Not my Personal Lord & Savior and then went on to write and ask me the following questions:

What is salvation then in your mind? Is it that Jesus saves us from our ego, our selfish ways, our bitterness and so on? That the kingdom is people who sign up to a better  “heart life” as it were – and seek to love, forgive and be gracious?

Therefore – if so – isn’t  salvation a lot more of a grey area? There are shades of savedness everyday, every hour, every minute.

But also – is it really about heaven at all? Because if Jesus salvation is essentially about saving us from the flesh and releasing us to be in the spirit – then what is heaven all about?

I do find myself leaning more towards universalism. So there are two roads you can walk before you enter paradise – the flesh road or the spirit road – but the end – the destiny is the same for both. That destiny being paradise.

What do you think?

Ok, so here is what I think.  (And I’ll try to take it point by point:)

What is salvation then in your mind?

Unfortunately, in the West the term “Jesus Saves” has become a bit cliche and sadly often invokes images of wild eyed preachers on the street or TV pleading for us to repent or suffer eternal damnation. 

But I prefer to think of salvation as coming home! 

It’s the Prodigal son or daughter who one day wakes up, remembers (or first understands) their esteemed place in the family, and returns to walk in it.

But it begs the question, if Jesus does “save”, what exactly does he “save” us from?  When I pose this question to fellow Christians they often hem and haw and end up saying something like “from our sins”. But that’s really just a coy way of saying “from hell” or “eternal torment separated from God”.

So if Jesus saves us from the hell God will send us to, then many Christians essentially believe Jesus saves us from God.  They would argue that no doubt, but scratch the surface and that theological point fuels their belief.   This toxic theology though over time has led much of Christianity, and particularly Evangelical Christianity, off the course fairway and into the rough.  The primary teaching of Christ regarding Loving your neighbour takes a backseat position in favor of evangelism focused on an eternal destiny in Heaven and being saved from Hell.

It is interesting to note that at no time in the Book of Acts when the Good News is being proclaimed is there ever any appeal made to the afterlife. 

None!

Nada!

Zilch!

Contrast that with many an evangelistic church service or crusade where an eternal destiny in heaven or hell form the basis of the plea “to be saved”

In fact the very first time the Gospel is preached after the resurrection of Christ, the plea made by the Apostle Peter is:

“Be saved from this perverse generation.”

Acts 2:40

That alone should cause us to seriously reflect on how far we’ve wandered away from the real meaning of salvation. Jesus saves us from the ourselves and the hell we create in our world…not from God!

Is it that Jesus saves us from our ego, our selfish ways, our bitterness and so on? That the kingdom is people who sign up to a better  “heart life” as it were – and seek to love, forgive and be gracious?

Yes…but so much more!

Salvation for Christians has tended to imitate our Western culture; meaning it has become a very personal thing.  Jesus somehow became a personal Lord and a personal Savior. Of course Christ has many titles and names ascribed to him but those are two late inning additions come straight from, and mirror, our very  “pull ourselves up by our own bootstraps” individualistic culture.  Everyone is responsible for themselves. As I was told many times growing up, “God has no grandchildren”

The effect of this theology though has been reductionist view of salvation resulting in a much smaller understanding of it than what God intended.

Take for example what form salvation takes when Jesus has dinner with  Zacchaeus which results in the corrupt tax collector changing his ways. Jesus proclaims salvation has come to the entire house:

But Zacchaeus stood up and said to the Lord, “Look, Lord! Here and now I give half of my possessions to the poor, and if I have cheated anybody out of anything, I will pay back four times the amount.”

 Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house, because this man, too, is a son of Abraham. For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.”

Luke 19: 1-10

Admittedly, if you see salvation as ultimately being a determiner of your afterlife destination, then Jesus’ pronouncement makes little sense.  A personal Lord and personal savior can save my sins and allow me my ticket to heaven…but the rest of my household are on their own.

But…

What if salvation is much bigger and better than that?  If salvation is ultimately to bring restoration to the whole world than Jesus’ announcement just got a whole lot more interesting!

Zacchaeus  had an encounter with the Son of God;  and that encounter revealed not only his responsibility in the breaking of peace (shalom) that his actions caused between himself and God, the community, and the rest of creation, but an invitation to repent (return home) to God’s creation in the proper life giving role God had destined him for.

When Zacchaeus begins instead to operate as a government official from a new nature; dealing with people in fairness, justice, empathy, and compassion than salvation moves far beyond the personnel.

* His wife is impacted

* His children are impacted

* His community is impacted

I’m not suggesting those people don’t have their own choices to make.  They, like everyone, have to choose to engage in that restoration work that Christ initiated, or to work against it.  But those in Zacchaeus’ household will be impacted by Zacchaeus’ decision to walk in the Jesus Way.  They will experience the blessing of that decision and will be in a better position to participate in it themselves.

Therefore – if so – isn’t  salvation a lot more of a grey area? There are shades of savedness everyday, every hour, every minute.

I wouldn’t think of it as a grey area. 

I often like to use the metaphor of “health” when talking about salvation.  I may make a decision to join a gym, exercise, and eat healthy and that is an important decision to make, but how healthy does it make me?  Until I actually do it, work out, eat right day after day, my boasting about what gym I’m a member of or what health coach I’m listening too is largely meaningless. 

Philippians 2:12 “continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling,”

And

2 Cor 3:18 “And we all,…are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.”

are important passages. 

Salvation is a process and we’ll have successes and failures along the way but even in our failures we are still continue in God’s glory as our position as His children is never in question.  It’s that security he gives which allows us to fail without everything crashing in around us. Whether we are getting the star on our forehead from the teacher or scraping our knee on the playground “nothing will separate us from the Love we have in Christ Jesus” (Romans 8:39)

But also – is it really about heaven at all? Because if Jesus salvation is essentially about saving us from the flesh and releasing us to be in the spirit – then what is heaven all about?

Yes, and no.  No it is not about dying and going to heaven or hell.  Sadly, much of Christian theology on the notions of eternal heaven or hell in the afterlife are rooted more in Dante’s poetry than in the teachings of Christ.

But yes to your question in that there are always two paths;  the wide path that leads to destruction, hell, and Armageddon or the narrow path which leads to Life, Heaven, and the New Jerusalem

Heaven is not a place you go to, Heaven is a way of ordering the world followers of Christ look to increase here on Earth.  As we are being saved, we increasingly bring heaven to Earth for the fulfilment of Christ’s prayer that it would be on Earth as it is in Heaven.  The symbolism in Revelation 21: 1-4 of the New Jerusalem coming down and establishing itself among humanity is a metaphor of Heaven and Earth uniting

I do find myself leaning more towards universalism. So there are two roads you can walk before you enter paradise – the flesh road or the spirit road – but the end – the destiny is the same for both. That destiny being paradise?

I don’t subscribe to universalism not because I’m unsympathetic to it, but because it perpetuates really bad theology.  It’s the right answer to a wrong question. 

Universalism puts the focus back on the afterlife and Jesus never put the focus on the afterlife.  It’s interesting the Old Testament is virtually silent on the idea of an afterlife to the point that the Sadducees didn’t even believe it existed.  The Israelite’s beliefs stood in contrast to every other Ancient Near East religion with their huge temples and priesthoods designed to usher one into the afterlife.  The Jewish people never put an emphasis on it. It was always about now, “Choose this day…”

Jesus would allude to it of course and his resurrection is a promise of our own eventual resurrection.  N.T. Wright has done a lot of work in this area and would point folk wanting to know more to his book “Surprised by Hope” (or there are many Youtube clips with him explaining the issues.)

I will end by saying it would be wrong to say our decisions here don’t matter.  There will be a “judgement of the living and the dead” according to our Christian creed.  The change for me is I now see God’s judgment as restorative rather than punitive.  But through our choices, some may need a lot more restoration.

Hope this helps!

Peace,

Steve