In the worlds of fashion, dance clubs and vacation destinations, exclusive is an attractive term. It invokes a sense of glamour and poshness. It makes one think of VIP rooms and all-you-can-eat buffets and clothes no one else has. But when it comes to salvation by faith, exclusive isn’t so pleasant.
Exclusive in this sense means that no matter how hard someone tries, they will never secure salvation without submitting to Christ. It says that the world’s most murderous dictator can make it to heaven through a deathbed conversion, but the Dali Lama still needs Jesus Christ. This type of exclusivity means that your best friend who is a Buddhist and your atheist co-worker may be in serious trouble, and no matter how good your father was up until he died, he didn’t go to heaven if he didn’t accept Christ. As sour as it may taste, that is the belief that is overwhelmingly supported by the scriptures and has been historically held by Orthodox Christianity.
The Christian message, therefore, can be a tough message to swallow in a world where inclusivity is king. We live in a culture where Little League baseball associations mandate that every child gets equal playing time and every opinion is considered equally valid. Salvation through Christ alone “is not a popular message in our pluralistic world,” Bock says. “It sounds arrogant, but it is like saying to someone if you jump off a building on your own strength gravity will get you and you will die. You can’t fly on your own, even though you can picture that possibility in your mind.”
Followers of Christ must come to realize that our message can unite in supernatural ways, but it can also be terribly divisive. If this doesn’t sound right, check out Jesus’ words in Luke 12:49–57 when He says He didn’t come to bring peace and warns that Christianity would cause division even within families. “Jesus told us that Christian truth would be divisive,” says David Wells, author of Above All Earthly Powers: Christ in a Postmodern World. “He said it will divide families, and that is what has always happened. When people hold up as the norm that something cannot be true if it divides, it tells us how far they are drifting from a biblical understanding.“
By its very definition, “salvation” assumes that one is being saved from something. Though it can be unpopular in our culture, the message that salvation is found exclusively through faith in Christ is the only one that Scripture supports. But this message is not one of judgment and doom. It is one of humble hope.
“We should be as committed as Christians to making such efforts in our presentation of Jesus’ message—the difficult bits as well as the nice parts—because that is offering genuine help to those in dire need, a need every human shares,” Bock says. “If we were more humble about our dire need for God, we just might cling to Him more tightly.” Now that’s a salvation worth having.
Chad said:
Jonathan,
I just can not bet all my chips on the belief that "salvation is found exclusively through faith in Christ." I see how Scripture can lead one to that point, but I can't get on board with that statement altogether for several reasons.
1)I am skeptical of any soteriology that neatly articulates the forumla for salvation. (Similarly, I will not bet all of my chips on Universalism either.)
2)Although I'm not advocating the belief in works-based salvation, I believe that works are an essential fruit that comes out of believing/repenting (James 2:14-25).
I believe that there was something "saving" about Christ's atonement for humanity's sin, but I just don't feel confident enough to say that salvation only comes as a gift to those that believe a particular story.
I could say a lot more, but I'll leave it here to see if there is any response...
Posted: November 27, 2009
Laura said:
Chad,
Thoughtful points. What you say is logical, but I agree with Jonathan. Scripture couldn't be any clearer or any more direct in that God did not provide any other way of Salvation besides through faith in the atoning work of Jesus Christ. No work of ours could possibly appease God's wrath (Ephesians 2:8-9).
God sent His Son, in love, to save us. If there were any other way that we could appease God's wrath and gain salvation, Christ's death on the cross would have been that much more unnecessary--at best, and the glorious grace bestowed to us through the gospel, which not only saves us--but changes us as well, would be undermined to a great extent.
Considering that salvation is not something we deserve or are entitled to, and that it is a mystery to us that God would even desires to love and save us, in all of our sin (that which He hates most), the real question should be: why should God desire to save any of us at all?
Posted: December 3, 2009