A few years ago I saw a sticker that said, "Jesus saves, but not on my income." Is that meant to be smart, corny or what? Is the person taking a Christian catch-phrase and simply commenting on their inadequate income? Is it a statement, "I'm not a Christian myself and I think Christians are rather amusing"?
The word "save" is used commonly enough. We "save" by being careful not to spend all our money. In a different way, the life savers "save" someone in trouble by rescuing them from dangerous seas. The medical staff in an emergency ward may likewise "save" a casualty brought in from a serious accident.
In our common usage, we don't use the noun "salvation" - that has become an exclusively religious word. The shop doesn't entice you to make "great salvations" - no, you hope to make "savings". In spite of their name, the life savers "rescue" rather than "save" people. Even when a medical team "saves" a life, we stick to the verb, not the noun.
Our talk about salvation is against the grim picture of the human situation. There are those today who would prefer us to talk about "affirmation". Many people, it is true, suffer from low self-esteem - so badly that they can't function properly. That is a serious, but different, problem. "God doesn't make junk," one affirming slogan goes. True enough, but are we - and the world we live in - just the way God made us to be?
Paul describes his readers as having been "dead in your trespasses and sins," following "the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air" (i.e. Satan), "gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature and following its desire and thoughts"... We were "by nature"... - in other words, by the character and manner of our life - we were "objects of wrath."
God didn't make junk. But remember what he said about Noah's generation? In Genesis 6.6-7 we read, "The Lord was grieved that he had made man on the earth, and his heart was filled with pain. So the Lord said, 'I will wipe mankind, whom I have created, from the face of the earth - men and animals, and creatures that move along the ground, and birds of the air - for I am grieved that I have made them'." God is the Creator. He has the perfect right to judge and dispose of what he has created.
Our society is in two minds about the issue of punishment and reform of criminals. There should always be hope for reform, but is the sentence fair to the victim? is it a just punishment? And how are we to handle emotions? On the one hand, we are supposed to be warm and affirming. On the other, we are told to express our anger, to tell people what we are really feeling.
So - living apart from God we are spiritually dead and face the future prospect of God's judgment and the "wages of sin" which are "death" (Rom. 6.23).
"But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions - it is by grace you have been saved" (vv. 4-5). By "grace", Paul doesn't mean a kind of divine "niceness" or "affirmation"! "Grace", as we noted last week, is "God's riches at Christ's expense."
We are "made alive with Christ" (v. 5), "raised up with Christ" (v. 6). Paul is saying that Christ died for our sins - he died our death so that we could share his resurrection. What he has done shows for all time "the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus" (v. 7, cf. 1.7).
"For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith - and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God - not by works, so that no one can boast" (vv. 8-9).
Grace is a gift of God. We don't deserve it. We can't earn it. But we do need to receive it - "through faith", receiving and depending on what Christ has done for us.
We aren't saved by good works, but we are saved for good works. "For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do" (v. 10).
God's "workmanship" - the original is the word from which we get our English word "poem". The creative purpose of God in our salvation in Christ is life the way he always meant it to be.
But life in grace is more than personal salvation and reformation. It is not simply having a relationship with God. It also brings us into a new relationship with God's people.
We hear a great deal about inclusiveness and "inclusive language" today - not only in schools and universities, but in the church as well. And in the sexuality debate, the lobby groups in the church have focussed very much on the issue of inclusiveness, rather than on questions of ethics and genetics. People should be welcomed and affirmed, we are told, and that's all.
In Paul's day there was an issue of inclusiveness too. The Jews knew themselves to be the "chosen people". However, they had forgotten that they were chosen to take the news of God's revelation and redemption to the whole world. They had, of course, to live true to the message and that meant avoiding sinful distortions from the surrounding culture. But they forgot why they were chosen. They became very snobbish about it. We are "the people". Others are "the nations" - "Gentiles" as it is translated. Circumcision of their males was not only a sign that they were "chosen" - it showed that they belonged to God's "exclusive club."
So we hear Paul writing to these Gentile believers, "at that time you were separate from Christ, excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world." That was their situation, their status. "But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near through the blood of Christ" (vv. 12,13).
It is not that the Jews had suddenly become friendly. By grace - by what God has done in Christ - the Gentiles had a new relationship with God and therefore a new relationship with all other believers.
"For he himself is our peace" - isn't that a striking phrase? "In his flesh" - in his own death - Christ has taken up all that the Law required to be done for both Jewish and Gentile sinners. He has "destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility." All who have received this work of grace are now reconciled to God through the cross, by which God has made an end of their hostility to himself and to one another. His deed and word of peace is for all - "peace to you who were far away and peace to those who were near. For through him we both have access to the Father by one Spirit" (vv. 14-18).
Saved and included - not because we are "affirmed", in spite of all we may be and do. Saved and included - because in his grace God, who says we are sinners and deserving of death, has loved us and gave his Son Jesus, the sinless one, to die in our stead. Saved and included - because in his grace God simply asks that we repent of sin and believe in Christ our Saviour. Saved and included - because in his grace God has given us his Holy Spirit who is working on us to transform us into the people he means us to be.
The church has always been in danger of becoming yet another a human institution which seeks approval and relevance by responding to the political wisdom of the time. The church is called to be the body of Christ making known his truth, his gospel and his grace within an alienated world. We have to find relevant ways of telling the message of human offence and divine forgiveness, but we cannot change it and be truly part of the body of Christ.
By grace, we "are no longer foreigners and aliens, but fellow citizens with God's people and members of God's household" (v. 19). But not only so - we become "a holy temple in the Lord", "a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit" (v. 22).
Saved by grace. Included by grace. Built together into Christ's body to carry his grace into an alienated world. Let us be sure to support and pray for one another as we step forward together with our Lord!
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