Salvation : Who is saved ?

Every question essentially begins with why , when , where , what , how and who .

I assume that in this case , i don’t really need to explain with regards to the why of salvation . Literally everything is at stake . It’s a matter of eternal life or death . I assume that there is also minimal explanation required for when (life after death) , where (earth to Heaven or Hell) and what (read the why) . Thus , as i assume also that the following is the intention of the reader who clicked on this entry , let us concentrate on the how and the who . 

Let me make this clear and concise although this may seem intially contradictory . Firstly , we (that encapsulates everyone except God) do not know who exactly is saved – we have not been told this – but we do know how to be saved . Secondly , we know that God is just , albeit obscure .

Who from the other side of the fence – ‘ who saves ? ‘ has only one answer . Scripture is embracingly clear :

” I am the way , the truth , and the life . No one comes to the Father except through me . ” John 14:6

However , that is merely the objective knowledge of salvation . Subjectively , what do we need to be saved ? Faith . But what does this mean ? What kind of faith ? The mere abstract , intellectual pursuit of truth is not sufficient to save you . But neither are intellectual mistakes sufficient to damn you . God doesn’t give you a theology exam when you die , as an entrance test to Heaven (or so we think) . So how are we saved ? Let us , again , consult with our data , namely , Scripture . These are the three answers revealed ; you must seek God , repent of your sin(s) , and believe (see Acts 3:19-20) .

1. Seeking the truth as a divine Absolute can be seeking God because God is Truth . Truth is what God is ‘made of’ so to speak , among other things , as the sun is made of light and energy . Truth seeking is nurtured and initiated by the will . It is the free choice of the will , of the heart – the love of truth – that makes one seek . And seeking is already a kind of faith . It is faith directed to the future , that is , it is really hope . Hope is a ‘theological virtue’ , something that connects us to God . We are promised that all who seek (Him) , find (Him) (Mt 7:7-8) . As Pascal said , that there are only three kinds of people in the world : those who have sought God and found him , those who are seeking Him and have not found Him yet , and those who never seek and thus never find Him .

2. Seeking must be supplemented by repentance . All can repent , for all know the moral law (Romans 1-2) and thereby their own sin . Merely seeking truth and even goodness is not enough , for the motive may be pride and self-righteousness , to be good with my own goodness , not God’s . Will i surrender to God if i meet Him ? – that is the question .

3. Faith is believing and thus receiving God , His grace , and life . But how can we believe and receive God if we don’t know Him ? We can’t . But we all do know Him (Romans 1) . How can we know him without Christ ? We can’t . We do know Christ through the Logos (John 1:9) . How much knowledge of God must we have to have faith and be saved ? The amount cannot be quantified and it isn’t for us to judge . However , we know that we all have enough knowledge of God to make us responsible before Him .

To summarize the solutions , Socrates (or any other pagan) could seek God , could reject repent of his sins , and could absolutely believe in and accept the God he knew partially and observed , and therefore , he could be saved – or damned if he refused to repent and believe . There is enough light and enough opportunity , enough knowledge and enough free choice , to make everyone responsible before God . God is just . And a just God judges justly ; not unjustly ; that is , He judges according to the knowledge each individual has , not according to a knowledge they do not have (James 3:1) .

Thus for the question whether everyone is saved , i can only answer that God is willing to give everyone everything , including salvation and forgiveness . He offers salvation and forgiveness . These are free gifts to everyone but a gift must be freely received as well as freely given . What more if we do not trust Him and do not believe in such gifts ?

Some ask ‘ why spend your life , why risk your life , to tell the world about Jesus if people can be saved without knowledge ? ‘ That is a good question . It deserves a good answer .

First of all , let me make clear that we are all called to be missionaries :

Then Jesus came to them and said : ” All authority in Heaven and on earth has been given to me . Therefore , go and make disciples of nations , baptizing them in the name of the Father , and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit , and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you . And surely I am with you always , to the very end of days . “

Matthew 28:18-20

Secondly , as i mentioned earlier , we do not know exactly who is saved and who is on their way to Hell . That’s why we risk all to save some . A mother doesn’t need to know that her children are going to fall through thin ice and drown before she is motivated to shout ‘get off the ice’ . All she needs to know is that she doesn’t know that they won’t drown – that they may drown .

There are also the questions about other religions other than Christianity . Are they true and do they help ? I shall avoid dwelling into the dangerous realm of religious comparison and impose of relgious freedom but simply hint that Christianity doesn’t proclaim other religions to be false , but that they all contain portions of the truth . Thus , as for whether they help , there is no doubt that they do if you discern with caution , both objectively and subjectively .

Finally , there is the most incessant question of all : ” Isn’t it enough to lead a good life ? Must we lead a Christian life ? “

For this , i shall direct you to an infamous essay by C.S. Lewis who explains this more articulately and perfectly better than me . It is quite lengthy , but it has become one of my favorite essays and i shall attempt to make bold the important points . However , everytime i have read it , it seems as though everything is relevant , like every part of a poem . Without further ado , i give you :

Man or Rabbit ?

“ Can’t you lead a good life without believing in Christianity? ” . This is the question on which I have been asked to write , and straight away , before I begin trying to answer it , I have a comment to make . The question sounds as if it were asked by a person who said to himself , “I don’t care whether Christianity is in fact true or not. I’m not interested in finding out whether the real universe is more what like the Christians say than what the Materialists say . All I’m interested in is leading a good life . I’m going to choose beliefs not because I think them true but because I find them helpful . ” Now frankly, I find it hard to sympathise with this state of mind . One of the things that distinguishes man from the other animals is that he wants to know things, wants to find out what reality is like , simply for the sake of knowing . When that desire is completely quenched in anyone,  I think he has become something less than human . As a matter of fact , I don’t believe any of you have really lost that desire . More probably , foolish preachers , by always telling you how much Christianity will help you and how good it is for society , have actually led you to forget that Christianity is not a patent medicine . Christianity claims to give an account of facts—to tell you what the real universe is like . Its account of the universe may be true , or it may not, and once the question is really before you , then your natural inquisitiveness must make you want to know the answer . If Christianity is untrue , then no honest man will want to believe it , however helpful it might be : if it is true , every honest man will want to believe it , even if it gives him no help at all .

As soon as we have realised this , we realise something else . If Christianity should happen to be true , then it is quite impossible that those who know this truth and those who don’t should be equally well equipped for leading a good life . Knowledge of the facts must make a difference to one’s actions . Suppose you found a man on the point of starvation and wanted to do the right thing . If you had no knowledge of medical science , you would probably give him a large solid meal ; and as a result your man would die . That is what comes of working in the dark . In the same way a Christian and a non-Christian may both wish to do good to their fellow men . The one believes that men are going to live forever, that they were created by God and so built that they can find their true and lasting happiness only by being united to God , that they have gone badly off the rails, and that obedient faith in Christ is the only way back . The other believes that men are an accidental result of the blind workings of matter , that they started as mere animals and have more or less steadily improved , that they are going to live for about seventy years , that their happiness is fully attainable by good social services and political organisations , and that everything else (e.g. , vivisection , birth-control , the judicial system , education) is to be judged to be “good” or “bad” simply in so far as it helps or hinders that kind of “happiness”.

Now there are quite a lot of things which these two men could agree in doing for their fellow citizens . Both would approve of efficient sewers and hospitals and a healthy diet . But sooner or later the difference of their beliefs would produce differences in their practical proposals . Both , for example , might be very keen about education : but the kinds of education they wanted people to have would obviously be very different. Again, where the Materialist would simply ask about a proposed action “Will it increase the happiness of the majority?”, the Christian might have to say , “Even if it does increase the happiness of the majority, we can’t do it. It is unjust . ” And all the time , one great difference would run through their whole policy . To the Materialist things like nations , classes , civilizations must be more important than individuals , because the individuals live only seventy odd years each and the group may last for centuries . But to the Christian , individuals are more important , for they live eternally ; and races , civilizations and the like , are in comparison the creatures of a day.

The Christian and the Materialist hold different beliefs about the universe . They can’t both be right . The one who is wrong will act in a way which simply doesn’t fit the real universe . Consequently , with the best will in the world , he will be helping his fellow creatures to their destruction .

With the best will in the world … then it won’t be his fault . Surely God (if there is a God) will not punish a man for honest mistakes ? But was that all you were thinking about ? Are we ready to run the risk of working in the dark all our lives and doing infinite harm , provided only someone will assure us that our own skins will be safe , that no one will punish us or blame us ? I will not believe that the reader is quite on that level . But even if he were , there is something to be said to him .

The question before each of us is not “Can someone lead a good life without Christianity?” The question is, “Can I?” We all know there have been good men who were not Christians ; men like Socrates and Confucius who had never heard of it , or men like J. S. Mill who quite honestly couldn’t believe it . Supposing Christianity to be true , these men were in a state of honest ignorance or honest error . If there intentions were as good as I suppose them to have been (for of course I can’t read their secret hearts) I hope and believe that the skill and mercy of God will remedy the evils which their ignorance , left to itself , would naturally produce both for them and for those whom they influenced . But the man who asks me, “Can’t I lead a good life without believing in Christianity?” is clearly not in the same position . If he hadn’t heard of Christianity he would not be asking this question. If, having heard of it, and having seriously considered it , he had decided that it was untrue , then once more he would not be asking the question . The man who asks this question has heard of Christianity and is by no means certain that it may not be true . He is really asking, “Need I bother about it?” Mayn’t I just evade the issue , just let sleeping dogs lie , and get on with being “good” ? Aren’t good intentions enough to keep me safe and blameless without knocking at that dreadful door and making sure whether there is, or isn’t someone inside ?”

To such a man it might be enough to reply that he is really asking to be allowed to get on with being “good” before he has done his best to discover what good means. But that is not the whole story . We need not inquire whether God will punish him for his cowardice and laziness ; they will punish themselves . The man is shirking. He is deliberately trying not to know whether Christianity is true or false , because he foresees endless trouble if it should turn out to be true . He is like the man who deliberately “forgets” to look at the notice board because , if he did, he might find his name down for some unpleasant duty . He is like the man who won’t look at his bank account because he’s afraid of what he might find there . He is like the man who won’t go to the doctor when he first feels a mysterious pain , because he is afraid of what the doctor might tell him .

The man who remains an unbeliever for such reasons is not in a state of honest error . He is in a state of dishonest error , and that dishonesty will spread through all his thoughts and actions : a certain shiftiness , a vague worry in the background , a blunting of his whole mental edge , will result . He has lost his intellectual virginity . Honest rejection of Christ , however mistaken , will be forgiven and healed—“Whosoever shall speak a word against the Son of man , it shall be forgiven him.” (Luke 12:10) . But to evade the Son of Man , to look the other way , to pretend you haven’t noticed , to become suddenly absorbed in something on the other side of the street , to leave the receiver off the telephone because it might be He who was ringing up , to leave unopened certain letters in a strange handwriting because they might be from Him—this is a different matter . You may not be certain yet whether you ought to be a Christian ; but you do know you ought to be a Man , not an ostrich , hiding its head in the sand .

But still — for intellectual honour has sunk very low in our age — I hear someone whimpering on with his question , “ Will it help me ? Will it make me happy ? Do you really think I’d be better if I became a Christian ? ” Well , if you must have it , my answer is “Yes.” But I don’t like giving an answer at all at this stage . Here is door , behind which , according to some people , the secret of the universe is waiting for you . Either that’s true or it isn’t . And if it isn’t , then what the door really conceals is simply the greatest fraud , the most colossal “sell” on record . Isn’t it obviously the job of every man (that is a man and not a rabbit) to try to find out which , and then to devote his full energies either to serving this tremendous secret or to exposing and destroying this gigantic humbug ? Faced with such an issue , can you really remain wholly absorbed in your own blessed “moral development” ?

All right , Christianity will do you good — a great deal more good than you ever wanted or expected . And the first bit of good it will do you is to hammer into your head (you won’t enjoy that!)  the fact that what you have hitherto called “good” — all that about “ leading a decent life ” and “ being kind ”— isn’t quite the magnificent and all-important affair you supposed . It will teach you that in fact you can’t be “good” (not for twenty-four hours) on your own moral efforts . And then it will teach you that even if you were , you still wouldn’t have achieved the purpose for which you were created . Mere morality is not the end of life . You were made for something quite different from that . J. S. Mill and Confucius (Socrates was much nearer the reality) simply didn’t know what life is about . The people who keep on asking if they can’t lead a decent life without Christ , don’t know what life is about ; if they did they would know that “a decent life” is mere machinery compared with the thing we men are really made for . Morality is indispensable : but the Divine Life , which gives itself to us and which calls us to be gods , intends for us something in which morality will be swallowed up . We are to be re-made . All the rabbit in us is to disappear — the worried , conscientious , ethical rabbit as well as the cowardly and sensual rabbit . We shall bleed and squeal as the handfuls of fur come out ; and then , surprisingly , we shall find underneath it all a thing we have never yet imagined : a real Man , an ageless god , a son of God , strong , radiant , wise , beautiful , and drenched in joy .

“ When that which is perfect is come , then that which is in part shall be done away.” (Cor 13:10)  . The idea of reaching “a good life” without Christ is based on a double error . Firstly , we cannot do it ; and secondly , in setting up “a good life” as our final goal , we have missed the very point of our existence . Morality is a mountain which we cannot climb by our own efforts ; and if we could we should only perish in the ice and unbreathable air of the summit , lacking those wings with which the rest of the journey has to be accomplished . For it is from there that the real ascent begins . The ropes and axes are “done away” and the rest is a matter of flying .

C.S.Lewis “God in the Docks : Essays on Theology and Ethics” Part 1 , Chapter 12 .