A Different Perspective

“For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God.” - Ephesians 2:8

There’s a disconnect in the common Evangelical doctrine of salvation between faith and works. Perhaps disconnect is not the right word, but there’s a one-sided view of “works.” While we are saved by grace through faith and not by “good works,” there’s certainly a belief, whether stated or not, that bad works can definitely cost you your salvation. Or perhaps, that if you do bad works, that’s a sign that you really don’t have any faith at all.

So perhaps a better way to describe the doctrine of salvation in the Evangelical church is that you are “saved by faith and what you don’t do.”

A confession of belief becomes quickly called into question if you do certain things which are deemed unacceptable by most Evangelicals. Drinking to the point of drunkenness - even on an irregular basis, sex outside of heterosexual marriage, supporting a candidate who wants to keep abortion legal (even if said candidate does more for women in troubled pregnancies and practically reduces the number of abortions by their compassion rather than legislation), or divorcing a spouse without biblical grounds (or in many circles even with biblical grounds).

You can’t have it both ways. Either you are saved by faith and your actions have nothing to do with it, or our actions are central to our faith, both good and bad. Yeah, that’s where things get sticky, don’t you think?

I take issue with those who put all the weight on actions as well, because they seem to put all the weight on the good works and neglect the bad. If someone is actively involved in service to the poor and oppressed, who cares what sins they may be enslaved to? I know that’s an oversimplification. I really do.

The tension really comes into play when defining salvation. It has been so ingrained in us that salvation is eternal life (meaning when we physically die we go to heaven and live eternally), we only give passing consideration to another element in our salvation: empowerment to live and move in the divine image.

The empowerment we receive by the Holy Spirit does not mean total and complete victory. Sin is not a sign we have not accepted Jesus’ invitation to enter the Kingdom of God. At the same time, the fact that we will sin is no excuse for that sin. We are to put to death our sinful desires, progressively, as we are transformed into the image of Christ from one empowering moment to the next.

Our faith is an active faith. Works have everything to do with salvation, but not necessarily prior to salvation. Certainly, our actions and choices prior to following Jesus factor in our development as persons, but we are not earning or rejecting salvation in those actions. In the same way, our works are not earning or rejecting salvation after following Christ.

But…

There’s always a “but” when trying to work out theology.

Continually rejecting the empowerment to overcome our sins and strive to become like Christ could certainly deaden our faith. Our development can be stunted or even reversed by a continual insistence on living in the filth of sin.

In the same way, continually striving to overcome and be developed into the image of Christ will strengthen us and draw us closer to God.

So, I guess I’m saying you aren’t saved by what you do. You aren’t damned for what you do. But salvation for us in the here and now is all about what we do.

This entry was posted on Thursday, December 27th, 2007 at 11:33 am and is filed under Emerging Church, Faith, Theology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.