Tag: salvation

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What We Believe – Salvation Belongs to the Lord

This is an ongoing series of blog posts based on papers originally written for my church’s elder class. This week’s prompt: “Please describe the nature of our assurance of salvation. Can we lose our salvation?”

“Salvation belongs to the Lord.” 

This statement, or variations of it, is all throughout Scripture. It’s like a diamond that you can hold up and see many facets as you turn it. Salvation belongs to the Lord because to be saved means to belong to God. Salvation belongs to the Lord because it is by His work – the Father’s choosing, the Son’s death and resurrection, and the Spirit’s renewal – that we are saved. And salvation belongs to the Lord because it is entirely His work. There’s a famous quote that’s attributed to various Christians in history, including Philip Melancthon and Jonathan Edwards: “The only thing we contribute to our salvation is the sin that made it necessary.” This is a simplification of the life of a believer, but it does capture in its essence the truest nature of the life of God’s people from beginning to end: God has saved us. God is saving us. And God is going to save us. His hand holds us fast.

I originally wrote this for our class almost exactly one year ago, and in that time, it wound up with a personal context I couldn’t have possibly anticipated, one which still lingers on my heart as a wound. My friend Jarod, who I had known for years, took his own life, an act that brought a deep and abiding grief to me and many others in my community. Wrestling with this grief while also thinking through this question required a great deal of conversation with those close to me, as well as a lot of prayer. 

Now that I’ve come to this paper, one that was written in such a raw moment, reposting it with just a bit of tweaking seems inappropriate. I also want to take time to consider everything I write here in a pastoral light. While the sadness over Jarod still lingers, I have taken a lot of time to consider what it is that needs to be said. What does it mean for God to be the author of salvation in the face of sin, tragedy, terror and loss? What does it look like for someone to reach his breaking point – can he break the hold of grace? Or perhaps, do we shrug and go “well, I guess he was never saved to begin with?” Neither seem sufficient either to minister the Word rightly, nor to answer humanity’s deep need for God’s bottomless grace.

This brings me to the phrase “perseverance of the saints,” the last point of the famous “five points of Calvinism.” When we say that the saints will persevere, we say that those who are Christ’s will ultimately stand before the Lord in triumph, that no blow the enemy might strike or sin that might lead to backsliding will undo what Christ has done. And this is so because God is the one who saves. It is the very name of our savior – Jesus, Yeshua, “God saves.”

So we have this doctrine, and we have significant Scripture pointing to it. Paul says to the Philippian church in chapter 1 of his epistle, “I am sure of this, that he who started a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.” Or Jesus’ own words in John chapter 6, verse 37: “Everyone the Father gives me will come to me, and the one who comes to me I will never cast out.” And again in verse 44, “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up on the last day.” 

But when I got the heart-breaking news about my brother, I was forced face to face in reckoning with many questions. The first and most frustrating one remains “Why?” But along with it comes questions and doubts that linger around the work he had accomplished in his life in serving others in Christ. To see one of our own brothers, one who has served in ministry so faithfully over the years, who has been seen by our and other churches as a faithful servant take his own life is a strong blow dealt to our experience of the faithful love and work of Jesus. The very real pain that is poured out in such a time cannot be ignored, nor can we simply turn away from the enemy’s assault on the faith of brothers and sisters. 

It is one thing to say simply that God saves us. But here we had an example of someone who has demonstrated with so much of his life that he placed his faith in Jesus, but suddenly he displayed a deep and abiding despair, or at least that is what it seemed. In this life we shall never know the true depths of his heart in those final moments. So we have to turn to God’s promises. Jesus said no one will snatch His people out of His hand. But can we jump out?

Christian tradition is certainly divided on this. But if salvation is founded on the work of God, and continued by the work of God, it must certainly be completed by the work of God. Over and over my mind has returned to 2 Timothy 2:13, where Paul seems to be quoting from a hymn or creed of his day: “if we are faithless, he remains faithful, for he cannot deny himself.” Believers will struggle and feel weak, but His strength far exceeds any we could ever need. Believers will have crises of faith, but He never will. Believers can find the way clouded, we can fear to take the next step that’s set before us. We can sin. We can fail in myriad ways. But in those times, it is more important than ever to take the character of God into account. 

Does God cast aside His people? No, He does not. Does He found their place as “His own” on their deeds and strength and faith? No. While the means of salvation is by grace alone, through faith alone, the rock upon which it all rests is Christ – His love, His work, His life. I think in a tragic way it was fitting that I should have to address this topic in such a time of heartache and sorrow. I believe that in that dark moment, my brother struggled with believing that Jesus was enough—and yet, I trust that God’s grace covered him even in that doubt, as it does for all of us when we face our darkest moments. 

In His Hands

When I wrestle with what this means for his faith, for his eternity, I have to come face to face with the Bible’s prescription over and over that salvation is God’s, from beginning to end. On one hand it feels almost terrifying. I can do nothing to save myself, not even one tiny bit? Even the parts that are worked out through my actions are rooted in the Holy Spirit’s work? The room for doubt grows by the minute. But really, this is something that should be a call to rest, to peace. I can do nothing to save myself, not even one tiny bit. Even the parts that are worked out through my actions are rooted in the Holy Spirit’s work. The words of Paul in Romans 8:31-39 are a balm to my soul: 

What, then, are we to say about these things? If God is for us, who is against us? He did not even spare his own Son but gave him up for us all. How will he not also with him grant us everything? Who can bring an accusation against God’s elect? God is the one who justifies. Who is the one who condemns? Christ Jesus is the one who died, but even more, has been raised; he also is at the right hand of God and intercedes for us. Who can separate us from the love of Christ? Can affliction or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written:

Because of you
we are being put to death all day long;
we are counted as sheep to be slaughtered.

No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

And so, I pray that the Lord will prepare my heart to endure to the end, even though I am still a broken and sinful human who longs for wholeness in Christ. My brother Jarod acted in a way that made many wonder – did he really believe that Jesus was enough? I believe that for a moment, a critical, horrifying moment, he believed that He wasn’t – and now, He is with Jesus, and learning that he was wrong. May the Lord’s grace strengthen us to endure trials and temptations until the day comes that we all stand before Him.

How have you faced the dark moments of the night? How can we and other believers support you in such moments? Leave a comment below or email us – prayer requests, comments, reflections are all welcome.

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New Feature – What We Believe

Dave here – Jake and I both are taking part in a class geared around diving deeper into theology and the statement of faith of our church. Part of that is focused around writing short papers on different questions related to that statement while we are studying the subjects in James Montgomery Boice’s Foundations of the Christian Faith. Jake has been encouraging me to take the ones I’ve put together and publish them, so that’s what this is going to be. The goal will be to sort of set out in an accessible and readable form what it is that we believe, to provide context that will go into the subjects we discuss. So without further ado, I’m going to begin with the first subject we addressed – defining the gospel, in a way that doesn’t require a lot of preexisting understanding of the language of church.

The gospel is good news, not just because that’s literally what the word means, but because it is a beacon of hope in a world that doesn’t exactly shine with hope. All you have to do is open your phone and look at your news app, or even scroll Facebook for ten seconds. You don’t have to look very hard to see how full of evil, despair, and loss our world is. How many times have you looked at a news story of someone doing something especially wicked, or just seen people acting out, and just shaken your head at that?

But the gospel isn’t something that starts its work simply “out there.” It begins “in here,” in each of us. Because the fact is, I don’t think you have to work very hard to see what evil comes out of you without having to work very hard. Have you taken things that weren’t yours? Said things that hurt someone deeply, and now you regret that moment and carry it like a weight? Even the thoughts that come across your mind – you don’t have to tell me what they are. Because I know, because…I’ve had them too. Everyone has. “I want, I want, I want…” even though having it will harm you, or someone else, or more. The list is endless.

But this is why the gospel is so incredibly important, and it’s why the Bible is so big. Start at the beginning, you see how humans tried to be their own gods, tried to take the concept of right and wrong into their hands, and instead found only death. And we still do it, over and over today. But the gospel came in right at the beginning – right in the shadow of sin’s curse taking effect, in Genesis 3, God promised the first humans that He would undo all of it, renew everything, through someone who was to come in the future.

That someone is Jesus. He was born in a time and place, and yet He has always been. The Son of God laid aside His divine glory to take on the life of a lowly human, because in taking on that life He was able to live perfectly. Then, He challenged that curse of sin, and its consequence – death. He died, and it was a horrible death, on a Roman cross – a death that was intended to mock and degrade its victim. But Jesus went to it with no shame.

But He didn’t just die and now we mourn Him. He defeated those curses – sin, He has overcome completely, because He stood in the place of all who believe in Him and died the death we all deserve, receiving that punishment as the perfect replacement. If you look at the Old Testament law you see over and over how animals were sacrificed because they took the place of their sinful owners, taking the death their sins deserved. Jesus did that for all who believe in Him, and His work is finished. But there’s another piece that’s critical – He isn’t dead. He rose again, defeating and destroying death. To believe in Jesus is to trust that He has paid for the sins you’re guilty of, and to hope in His work that will undo death. But, it’s also to participate in His great work on earth now, to undo those curses of sin and death through the love and service we give one another, and our neighbors. 

The gospel is good news for you, and for me, and for everyone who hears it and believes it, because it means we can let go of the weight we carry when we believe we can control our lives and our world, because we can’t. But we have a good God who does, and who calls us to Himself, in Jesus. His work is not heavy and exhausting, but gives joy and nourishes life.

Let us know what you think – how would you try to explain the gospel to someone? Leave a comment below!