Salvation As Divinization

Michael J. Bonnell © 1999

Let’s leap straight into some Bible verses: “[Jesus said] I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me.” (John 17:20a-21) “It is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me.” (Galatians 2:20a) “[God] has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature, having escaped the corruption in the world”. (2 Peter 1:4)

Salvation As Liberation

In this session we focus on the first of the theories from the previous discussion which characterises our redemption through Christ in terms of liberation. At its core: Christ in his crucifixion identifies with us and shares our suffering; in his Resurrection Christ is victorious over all the powers that oppress us. The connotations this liberation has as a victory won by your leader in battle makes it rather different from moksha– an equivalent of salvation found in Indic religion which is usually translated as ‘liberation’, but means one’s individual release from the cycle of rebirth.

Images of Redemption

Crucifixion (Corpus Hypercubus) by  Salvador Dalí (1954)

Recalling the whole of the Jesus story (not just his death, but his life, teaching, way of dying, resurrection, ascension, and gift of his spirit to birth the church) we asked how does Jesus save us? The main points were:

1. His death was an innocent, in him -a forsaken outcast- God is identified with injustice: new possibilities for divine love are revealed.

2. The Resurrection gives us a promise of hope against fear and overturns violence with peace.

3. Christians have access to this promise through faith in God.

The belief in redemption through Christ has been conveyed in a large variety of ways, as the Cambridge theologian David Ford relates:

“It is as if the range of significance of the crucifixion was to be indicated by drawing on every sphere of reality to represent it. From nature there were the basic symbols of darkness and of seeds dying in the ground. From the religious cult there were sacrifice and the Temple. From history there were the Exodus and the Exile. From the law court there were judgement, punishment, and justification. From military life there were ransom, victory, and triumph. From ordinary life there were market-place metaphors of purchases and exchanges, household images of union in marriage, obedience, parent-child relationships and the redemption of slaves, landlords whose sons are killed by tenants, medical images of healing and saving, and the picture of a friend laying down his life.”

Paul’s Views of Salvation

In previous discussions we looked at the purpose of salvation and whether it was a gift or a task. With this discussion we begin to look at the how of salvation rather than the why, and since the Gospels only really give a description of the Resurrection we take our Biblical point of departure at Paul’s Epistles. Of the following key passages we explored both ‘What does salvation consist in?’ and ‘What are we saved for?’

What Are We Saved From?

The kind of theology we are doing now is called Soteriology, the theory of salvation. There is a distinction between Salvation– the radical improvement of material conditions or people’s ultimate fulfilment, Atonement– the Christian concept of salvation which consists of mankind’s mystical union into the presence, activity and nature of the Divine (also called justification), and Redemption– the Christian concept of the means to atonement whereby God forgives mankind’s sins through the death and resurrection of Christ.

Thought for the Week 23/01/2012

An actor with a very silly name

From Mark Laynesmith, Anglican Chaplain:

I am a late convert to Sherlock. For those of you even less with it that I am, Sherlock is the name for the recently revitalised Sherlock Holmes BBC series.

One of the main engines of the series is the frisson of unrequited love: John Watson is struck with awe and wonder for his friend Sherlock, but Sherlock continues to process case after case, with all the emotional intelligence of a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet, oblivious to John’s affections or indeed the interest of Molly Hooper, a plain Jane forensic scientist.

Sherlock’s intellectual powers place him far above other mortals, but unwittingly also separate him from human company. *Spoiler alert!*