Soteriology 101

Soteriology comes from the Greek words soter, which means savior, and logos, which doesn't translate well into english, but is generally used by ancient Greeks to mean purpose or reason (usually in the context of rational understanding). Essentially, soteriology is the understanding of salvation: What does it mean, and how does it work?

"Salvation belongs to our God, and to Christ the lamb, forever and ever." Does this sound familiar? Growing up in a Lutheran church, this was part of the standard congregational-response service. I want to prefix what follows, in light of this song, with a crucial caveat: Salvation is a gift of God, to bestow as He chooses. While I have some fairly well-informed and cogent ideas of how it works, I do not mean by this that I alone have the answers, or that if you disagree with me that you are automatically condemned. In other words, I take no responsibility for the fate of your soul.

In the basic Christian model of the Universe, humanity rebelled against God and therefore faces the consequences of sin (that which separates us from God). Sin is an unfortunately nebulous term, and I should at some point blog purely on sin, but I'll save that for later. Essentially, the point I'm making is that salvation is the attainment of a proper relationship to God, which we lose through sin. Through Christ, God entered the world in order to provide two pieces: first, a perfect example to follow (the prophets are great, but people are better at mimicking what they see than simply learning through what they hear), and more importantly, to provide the fallen with an ideal avatar in order to attain salvation. The first I'll leave for now since it's relatively self explanatory. The second is both the topic at hand and the more controversial subject in general.

In order to be fully reconciled to God, someone had to be fully reconciled to God as an individual. The only way this was able to be accomplished was through God Himself taking on human form. This way, purely by definition, the man must be in a relationship to God since Jesus was an extension of God. With one person in this direct relationship, the next step is to make everyone else into a metaphor. The key here is the difference between a metahpor and a simile: a simile is to say that "X is like Y." However, this leaves both X and Y as separate entities, and therefore there is no necessary inclusion. However, if I am baptized in the name of Christ, and I seek to be an "imitator of God" (Ephesians 5:1, 1 Thessalonians 1:6), I become one with Christ, and therefore am also reconciled to God. Christianity involves a lot of complex usages of the properties of equality, and this is the most critical one.

"There is one body and one spirit--just as you were called to one hope when you were called--one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all." (Ephesians 4:4-6) Therefore, to be a Christian is to become one with Christ, in spirit and action. To be a Christian is to be as indistinguishable as possible from Christ. In this way, we are granted the same relationship to God, and therefore, ipso facto, salvation.

Contrary to popular protestant belief, we are not saved by faith alone. In fact, "faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead." (James 2:17) "I preached that they should repent and turn to God and prove their repentance by their deeds." (Acts 26:20b) "Anyone who does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me." (Matthew 10:38). It is true that it is not the deeds themselves that save us, but a person cannot have one without the other.

Most unfortunate of all, we must acknowledge that by Christ's own admission, the majority of people will not be saved. "For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow is the road that leads to life, and only a few find it." (Matthew 7:13-14)

In conclusion, the basics of salvation, as indicated in scripture, are as follows: We are saved by becoming one with Christ, this involves action as well as faith, and the majority of people will not be saved. I could go into great detail on any portion of this, but I thought I should toss out a few parameters before going into any of that.