I just finished reading through the rather extensive thread “What does it mean to be saved” and I thought that it might not be a bad idea to revisit this theme, this time in the context of a relational theology.
The Relational Imperative
Mankind was created for relationship with God. As such, relationship is central to man’s existence. Thus, salvation is not a matter of right/wrong or inclusion/exclusion but rather connectiveness/disconnectiveness. Those connected to God are “saved” in the sense that their relationship (or the rudiments thereof) is now active through the spirit/Spirit connection that previously was dead.
What is central to this, however, is not the language of “saved” and “lost” but rather connected versus disconnected. The relational needs of this person are now being met. Of course, the ultimate meeting of these needs will be the putting on of incorruption (1 Cor. 15) but in the mean time, we are saved and being saved.
The Greek tenses make sense within the framework of relationship - just as I was married and am married. There is a definite day in which I took my vows and entered the covenant, but the covenant is perpetually existence and changing in the now.
Nebuchadnezzar
One of the many observations in the previously mentioned thread was that Nebuchadnezzar appears to experience salvation yet he was outside of the covenants. This is not strictly true, and I think that the author missed an important point of understanding the covenantal system. God established covenants with man for the purpose of restoring relationship with mankind. As such, the covenants are expansions of each other.
Thus, the covenant with Abraham is an expansion of the covenant with Noah, which in turn was an expansion of the covenants with Adam. (Expansion is probably not the best word, but we can play the semantics of it later.) The fact is that Nebuchadnezzar was outside the Abrahamic covenant and the Mosaic Law, but he was included in the Noahic covenant since he was a descendant of Noah. So there was a covenant with Nebuchadnezzar even though he was outside the Israelite system.
By extension, we can understand the covenant with Adam and Noah to be universal and therefore, the extension of the gospel to the Gentiles was a natural conclusion to the primary covenants although it seemed contrary to the tertiary covenant of the Law.
Salvation NOW
Another recurrent theme was the question of the value of salvation in this present world. Were the early Christians teaching salvation as “pie in the sky by and by” or were they dealing with the nasty here and now?
The presence of multiple tenses - was saved, being saved, will be saved - does imply that salvation is somewhat more than a single “prayed it” situation. As previously noted, this makes more sense in the language of relationship than in any other way I have seen it phrased.
In discussing the matter of salvation, it is rare for me to use the term “saved” when I am conscious of what I am saying. Sometimes I do, however, lapse into my training in that matter. I emphasize the restoration of a relationship with God over any eschatological emphasis. My reason is simple. We were created to live, not to die. Our primary arena for relationship with God is this world, for which we were created.
Do we over-do salvation?
The point I made about Nebuchadnezzar in that thread was not that he was ‘outside the covenants (plural)’ but that he was outside the covenant people. I agree that there is some sort of continuity in the covenants, but we have to be careful how we move from the ‘universal’ covenants wth Adam or Noah to the particular covenant with Israel, which is more a contraction than an expansion - it marks the choice of one family out of all the families of the earth and has what we might call a ‘missional’ purpose attached to it (‘be a blessing’). My question was whether it is appropriate to speak of Nebuchadnezzar’s rescue and transformation (accompanied by worship of the God of Israel) as ‘salvation’ when he is not part of the covenant (singular) community. The orthodox Christian position, after all, equates salvation with membership of the body of Christ - that is, of the new covenant community.
I think there is a lot to be said for your relational model of salvation and its emphasis on the now. My main reservation would be that it rather over-spiritualizes and over-individualizes the idea.
i) It over-spiritualizes in that I think ‘salvation’ in the Bible is a much more concrete, historical matter than we popularly take it to be. Israel needed to be saved from slavery in Egypt, the Philistines, the Assyrians, the exile, Roman oppression - from their enemies and the hands of all who hate them (Luke 1:71).
ii) It over-individualizes in that biblically salvation is in the first a national or corporate need, because the ‘meta-narrative’, if we can use that term in this way, is the story about a people. We have lost the sense of the church having a corporate calling - it is simply for us today a place in which individuals can find their own ‘salvation’, whether we mean by that a restored relationship with God or a guaranteed place in heaven, or whatever.
I would venture to say that we make too much of salvation. I would argue that Christianity is essentially a religion not of salvation but of election: God chooses a people for his own possession amongst the peoples of the earth and lives among them, formerly in the temple, now by his Spirit. It is only when things go wrong - either because of mishap (slavery in Egypt) or because of sin (exile in Babylon) - that the people needs to be saved.
Responses
Nebuchadnezzar & the Covenants
I understand what you’re saying about Nebuchadnezzar being outside of the “covenant people” community, but I disagree that salvation is a function of membership in the church. Relationally, the Church [expressly, the assembly of the firstborn which will come together at Mt. Zion (see Hebrews 12:23) as opposed to churches, the local manifestations of this universal covenant people] is a covenant people which includes true Israel, as defined by Paul (Romans 2:17-29).
This is not to argue that there is not a distinction between Israel and the church, which is very apparent in Scripture. Rather, to see the Adamic covenant as the most relational and most relevant. The church is one manifestation of God’s offer of salvation (ie. relational restoration) to all men, just as Israel was a different manifestation oikonomia or “economy”) of the covenant offer.
Over-spiritualizing
Relationally, I think salvation is both concrete and spiritual. I think our biggest problem in modern soteriology is the distinction between the physical and the spiritual. This division did not exist to the ancient Hebrews. At times, they spoke of the spirit in concrete terms and the body in immaterial.
Under such conditions, spiritual salvation is in a sense inseparable from physical salvation. They are not necessarily equal but they are somewhat co-existent. The exact implications of this are something I am still working out and will have to post somewhere else along the way.
Corporate Salvation
I could not agree more. The emphasis of individual “conversion” over relational restoration has destroyed the modern church’s dependency on God and each other. The church has become a gathering more than it is a body, and that has lent itself to turning the church into a single direction entity - preacher to people - rather than a multi-relational body.
Election vs. Salvation
I don’t think I would go this far. I think Paul is quite clear in Romans that salvation/justification/imputation/redemption is a necessary element of the personal-corporate relationship with God. I certainly do think we have so over-emphaized individual salvation that we have emasculated its power, making no more than a Christian parallel to Wiccan spells - I say these words and am magically special.
There certainly is an element of choose/election involved in God’s relating to mankind. I don’t think this is exclusion of people who are not of “the elect” as the hyper-Calvinists and inclusion of the elect no matter what religion or lifestyle. The election is of those in Christ [Ephesians 1:4 - He chose us in him]. How exactly that works under the previous covenants is also something I am working on and (with all the other stuff) will one day get posted as well.
Salvation and covenant
Not sure I follow you here. Could you clarify? Is your argument that the covenant with Israel is one manifestation of a universal covenant of salvation with Adam? If so, what makes the covenant with Adam one of salvation? In what sense does the Adamic covenant have priority (‘most relational and most relevant’)?
I agree that Paul makes redemption a necessary element of the personal-corporate relationship with God. But that doesn’t really answer the question of why that relationship exists in the first place. Historically we move from election to crisis to salvation (eg. Abraham to Egypt to exodus). Evangelicalism has focused so much on the salvation element in that process that it has lost sight of the calling, the reason for there being a distinct, holy people set apart from the other peoples of the world.
not over done...
I would not say that we “over-do” salvation. The bible is fixated on being saved from one thing or another from start to finish (nothingness, darkness, bondage, exile, economic oppression, sin, etc). That is the central point and basically it is the ONLY point it keeps making.
Our traditional mistake is that we take every mention of salvation and we try to bend it to mean “after-life”. There are many things that need salvation including nations, communities, the environment, our personal character, our economic status, our health, etc. The bible references all of these over and over. Our mistake is to take each mention of “salve” or “healing” and force it to mean heaven/hell.
The After-Life
I agree. There is an inordinate emphasis on the afterlife, I think because of the tremendous prominence of “hell” in Protestant preaching.