Did you know that Acts 4:12 is the only place in the Bible where the
noun “salvation” and/or the verb “to save” and the word “heaven” show up in the
same sentence…or in the same paragraph…or even in the same flow of thought? In the New Testament the word for “salvation”
occurs fifty-one times and the verb for “to save” occurs 106 times. At none of these occurrences do any of the
New Testament writers define salvation or God’s saving activity as our going to
heaven instead of hell when we die due to having faith in Jesus Christ. Hmmm?
To push the button a little more, I will make the
bold claim that limiting oneself and one’s belief to a definition of salvation
that pertains only to the after life can and will inhibit one’s experience of
salvation. Salvation as we have it in
the Bible is very much a present reality, the present reality of God’s acting
in our lives now revealing himself to us in the Holy Spirit and infusing the
saving work of Jesus death and resurrection to us and thereby creating in our present
lives a taste of the New Creation coming so that we might lives a signposts to
it and as the living proof that God is faithful and will deliver his creation
from the mess that it is in. Salvation is
a future certainty that is breaking in on us now.
We need to expand how we think of salvation. It isn’t only about me and my eternal
destination; though that is important. That’s
thinking small and, honestly, quite selfishly about God’s grace. Thinking big and humbly, salvation is a whole
creation event.[1] Start thinking this way about it. When God the Son became the man Jesus, he not
only took human being, human nature upon himself to deal with our sin, he took
physical matter upon himself in order to deal with death. The Resurrection of Jesus from the dead sent
a shockwave infusing the life of God into his creation by the power of the Holy
Spirit of which the fallout will be New Creation free of sin and death and in
which unhindered fellowship with God is the norm for everyone and everything in
it. When he returns, the shockwave of
his resurrection will bring about our own resurrection to live in the Kingdom of God in the New Creation. Therefore, what the Trinity did to save his
Creation in, through, and as Jesus of Nazareth affects all of Creation right
down to each and every sub-atomic particle.
In, through, and as Jesus of Nazareth the Christ God infused his self
into his creation setting in motion the New Creation that is coming when he
returns. It all has been, is, and will
be made New. The Prophet Isaiah said it
best: “for
the earth shall be full of the knowledge (knowing) of the LORD as the waters
cover the sea” (11:9). Salvation is bigger than just a human
matter. God even cares about the tiniest
particle of matter.
So, since salvation is so big, as expansive and as
deep as the universe itself (Go to the JPL NASA website and look at the
pictures that the Hubble, Chandra, and Spitzer telescopes are delivering and
just try to fathom how far and how wide all this is); since salvation is so big,
what is it to be saved? What does Peter
mean here at Acts 4:12 saying: “And there is salvation in no one else, for there is
no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved."? In
the context of Peter giving a defence for how it is they healed a man who had
been born lame. Peter and John were
standing before the same inquisition of temple authorities who ordered Jesus to
be crucified and so it is a truly in your face kind of moment here that they proclaim
that it was by the power and authority of Jesus of Nazareth whom they had
crucified that this man was healed.
Incidentally, in a third to a half of the occurrences of the Greek word
for salvation particularly in the Gospels salvation is a physical healing which
leads to the restoration of a person’s full fellowship in the people of
God. Back in that day people wrongly believed
that a birth defect was God’s punishment upon a family for some terrible sin
that the parents were trying to hide. This
healing meant that the sin had been forgiven (removed, born away) and the
punishment revoked. He was now a full
member of the people of God able to live a life free of beggar’s shame and
being an outcast. Sin removed and
personhood restored that’s what salvation is in this text and it served as a real
glimpse of how things will be when Jesus returns and establishes God’s kingdom
and all things are made new.
So how does this pertain to us? Paul writes at 2 Thessalonians 2:13-14: “God chose you as the
firstfruits of (into) salvation through sanctification by the Spirit
and faithfulness in the Truth. To this
he called you through our gospel, so that you may obtain the glory of our Lord
Jesus Christ.” If you are getting what
I’m proclaiming here about Jesus Christ and the salvation of Creation it is
because God has chosen you to have a foretaste of salvation now which you will
experience as the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit and you will respond with
faithfulness to the leading of the Good Shepherd as Jesus said there in John:
The sheep hear his voice, and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them
out. When he has brought out all his
own, he goes before them, and the sheep follow him, for they know his voice” (Jn 10:3-4).
I used a big word,
sanctifying. That means being cleaned up
and set apart for God’s purposes. It is
the work of the Holy Spirit in or upon us to bring us to experience as God’s
own work upon us an inner cleansing of shame and guilt and over time a healing
of our defects in character like self-loathing, low esteem, and excessive
pridefulness and in place of those things, he brings us to know compassion and
humility at our cores,…but it takes work on our part.
Once again, we come
back to prayer, to contemplation, to meditation on the Word. James writes: “Therefore, get rid of all
moral filth and the evil that is so prevalent and humbly accept the word
planted in you, which can save you” (1:21). The word of New Creation has been planted in
you each by the simple act of the proclamation of the Gospel that you hear here
each week. By your simply being here you
have heard the Truth that sets you free from darkness and drives you to know
the Truth. Jesus has removed anything
about you that you think might stand between you and fellowship with God. Take the time to go before the Lord and lift
up your soul and pray. Paul writes in
Hebrews: he (Jesus) is able to save to the uttermost those who draw
near to God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them” (7:25). Jesus has made it so that we can know
salvation now and he’s praying that we get it.
Go with it. Go with him. Amen.
[1] If only the Reformation had begun with Colossians 1, Ephesians 1-2,
and Romans 8 where Paul spells out the big picture of salvation. Western Culture would not be culminating in narcissism
and that soul-less beast we call the corporation.
