How Am I Saved?

I received indirectly a response to my last post discussing Romans 1:17,18 that has got me thinking about more in there. This person emphasized that the important phrase in this text was about the righteous living by faith. He went on to assert that “the righteousness of God, which is trusting God, is revealed when we in fact trust God. This trust in God is what qualifies us for salvation, nothing more or less.”

I was raised in a religious environment that emphasized this belief so it is not new to me. However, based on what I have been learning over the past few years about the gospel and salvation, this assertion is starting to raise red flags in my mind. I in no way want to enter into a theological debate over the topic, but I do want to know what God's plan really is differentiated from any counterfeit that sounds very plausible, very religious or has been accepted by great numbers of people. I try to maintain an open mind and heart so that the Spirit of God can challenge and correct the many lies about God and His ways that permeate so much of religious beliefs, both in those around me and in myself.

In my search for truth, I am realizing that it has to stand the test of fitting into the heart in addition to passing intellectual tests using the Word of God as a virus check – test every spirit. The world is full of religious experts that can prove all sorts of notions about theology based on stringing together proof-texts, quotations, philosophy etc., but it is much more difficult to find people who are grounded in the Word but just as in earnest to live and grow in their heart-life and be open to learning from other people of like “mind”. I will say that some of the visitors to this blog site have blessed me with this perspective and spirit and are enriching my life.

So – I got sidetracked a little. As I was starting to say, I am quite uncomfortable with the statement above that could just as easily come from my own mouth only a few years ago. I am still learning more in this area and I do not want to make any dogmatic declarations, but based on my deeper understanding of what constitutes the gospel and salvation this explanation cannot work for me anymore. As I look at the context in this chapter, the message emerging is not the one expressed above but something quite different.

The core difference I believe, is where the source and origin is from – the initiative. “Religion” always wants to slip in some percentage of human performance no matter how small, into the mix. Paul was well aware of this penchant and took great pains to expose and denounce it. Unfortunately theologians have taken great pains to try to rationalize what he said to undo and confuse the very points he was trying to get across. Hence there is great confusion as to how we are saved and why. When we believe that our trust in God is what qualifies us for salvation, as I have been taught all my life and was again repeated in the above comment, then we in fact are inserting an ingredient of performance into the equation no matter how subtle it may seem. I have heard many of the arguments about this issue and I am sure this may heat some of them up again. But the Word, when properly understood both with the head and with the heart, simply does not support man helping out God in “saving” him.

Of course some of our problems come from starting with very different definitions for many of the words we are using in our discussions. This adds greatly to our confusion and is one of the major factors in heating up and extending arguments indefinitely. And even when the definitions are clearly spelled out it seems that others do not apply them when listening to repeated explanations. This again, I believe, is a symptom of disconnected hearts and an over-emphasis on left-brain arguments that sometimes demand to be “right” at all costs.

To present what I believe I am seeing here as the real message about faith in relation to salvation, I would like to start out by saying that there is a great difference between “having” faith and exercising faith. I know that at first glance that sounds ridiculous and it certainly exposes the problem of condensing heart concepts down into English words. But in my experience “having faith” always carried with it the subtle implication that somehow I had to work up enough “faith” to convince God to do whatever it was I was trying to have faith about. Usually in my mind the idea of faith was simply believing hard enough that what I wanted God to do would really happen and blocking out any and all doubts from my mind that might give God reason to refuse my request because I didn't have pure enough faith. That's stating it from a heart-perspective more than a mind perspective, but I don't think I am alone in that perception. Most of the religious world is trying to get God to do all sorts of things for them and trying to “use” God to force circumstances and/or other people to their own advantage. Then when God doesn't deliver what they want they assume they didn't have enough “faith”. This even opens up great opportunities for the enemy of God to step in and provide the supernatural power they are looking for and in the process they are deceived into believing that they have “the truth” because their prayers and faith seem to be “working” and they are being “blessed by God”.

I learned something yesterday about faith that made much more sense to me than this typical approach so familiar to us. It was pointed out to me that most of the references in the New Testament to faith in relation to Jesus are referring to HIS faith instead of ours. Different translations of the Bible render it differently depending on the translator's bias, but the original language as well as the contexts support a reading of “the faith OF Jesus” rather than “faith IN Jesus” as is so commonly thought.

This opens up a whole new realm of possibilities and insights from the Word. That is a subject for another study, but it has strong implications for this passage. Let me quote the verses I am looking at here.

For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, "BUT THE RIGHTEOUS man SHALL LIVE BY FAITH." For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, (Romans 1:16-18 NAS95)

Looking at the interconnections of these phrases I see the “gospel” as the focal point of everything else surrounding it in the text. It is the gospel that is described as the power of God. It is the gospel that is the revelation of the righteousness of God. It is the gospel that is lived out by those with faith. And it is the gospel that is the truth that is suppressed by those who are ungodly and unrighteous.

Since the gospel is defined as “the power of God for salvation”, then it would be very helpful to know what salvation means. Again, we are diverted by the commonly held assumption that salvation is all about getting us to heaven so we don't have to live in discomfort and pain in this sinful world anymore. Face it, that's the underlying belief of most of us though it seems crass to express it that way. If we honestly think about the way most people preach and teach about salvation today, you have to conclude that salvation is centered on human beings and God is just the external Force that must alternately be appeased or induced to make us feel better and get us out of our mess. This is sick and selfish thinking but, in reality, lies at the foundation of most religious systems, thinking and teaching.

What we desperately need is a much bigger perspective on what is really going on. We need the eyes of heaven to see the real issues and keep in mind the much larger controversy over the battle about God's reputation. That too, is another discussion that I try to address on my other web site but am only referring to for context. Our biggest problem is that our view of the gospel and salvation is so small and so self-focused that it corrupts our theology without our realizing it. That is why we find ourselves looking at these verses and putting the emphasis on living by faith (self-focused religion) instead of receiving the revelation of God thereby entering into an experience of real power in our lives.

I am beginning to sense that one of our big problems is our broken “receiver”. One of the tasks of maturity for an infant is learning to receive, and many of us never learned that very well. I know I certainly didn't, and it has been a serious problem for me all of my life. I believe this is a core problem in our relationship with God as well. We are so conditioned and determined that we must give something, that somehow we must do something to EARN, that it filters into our relationship with God and we contaminate the gospel with our faulty thinking and assumptions; hence, our emphasis more on our faith than on accepting the revealing of God's righteousness.

That triggers an even bigger block for understanding this passage because the word “righteousness” is possibly one of the most misunderstood words in the English language. That is not surprising though, because the core problem of the whole great controversy is our misconceptions and lies about what God is really like. So as long as we don't have healthy and truthful concepts of the truth about God we will equally have misunderstandings about the true meaning of the word righteousness.

This passage gives us a window into the true meaning of the word by telling us that, whatever it is, righteousness is revealed in the gospel, and the word gospel simply means the “good news”. If we take the definitions that I have on my definition page and apply them in this passage, it might read something like this –

I am not ashamed of the good news about God, for the good news is that the power to salvage us, to restore us to our original design and function is released in our lives when we begin believing the truth about God. This can happen first in those who have had a better picture of God to start with, but it will also happen in the hearts of everyone else as well who enter into this relationship by accepting and believing the truth about God.

In this good news about God, we find the righteousness of God – His faith and love – revealed which inspires faith within us that responds to His faith in us. It has already been stated in the Old Testament that real righteousness, people who want to be righteous, live in this relationship of spontaneous faith created within their heart in response to God's amazing love and faith in us.

On the other hand, the “wrath” of God, that misunderstood passionate love that appears so threatening to those who don't believe in His faith and love, is revealed from heaven to be working in a different direction from those who resist it. Everyone who refuses to respond to God's love and be brought into harmony with His faith and love for them, who suppress this truth about Him and cling to Satan's lies about God will experience the natural consequences of that resistance that they will believe to be “wrath”.

What I see here is an issue of getting my receiver fixed by God so that faith can more easily be produced in me spontaneously in response to the faith of Jesus in me. Jesus had so much faith in us that He took the immense risk of eternal death, took upon Himself all of the consequences of pain and suffering that happens when we resist God's power of love, and let all that sin and its effects kill Him through unfathomable internal torture while externally wicked men tortured His body and mind on the cross. He did this in faith that some of us would see enough of His love for us that we would allow Him to work and live in our hearts and restore us to the original intimacy and family relationship that God originally created us for.

If I am willing to believe with my heart that God indeed has this kind of love, that He is passionate about restoring me into close association and fellowship with the Godhead, that He trusts me enough to give me complete freedom to choose His love without any coercion, to even go so far as to offer an arrangement of marriage to God and all the privileges that that implies – then I will discover that faith will grow spontaneously in my heart, which was designed for this very purpose. I will discover that if I receive first, then I will find myself beginning to give to others and back to God.

But nothing that I give has anything whatsoever to do with “saving” me. That is absolutely preposterous! The only thing I can do to participate in salvation is to exercise my power of choice to give Him permission and authority to live in my heart and face the mirror of my heart in His direction. I surrender my “rights” to myself and abandon myself to His love, just as lovers give themselves unreservedly to each other in the act of making love. In that surrender I will find the abundant life that is found only in connecting to the one true Source of life. “For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it; but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it.” (Matthew 16:25)

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Judging - Mirror or Light?

It has been something of a mystery for years why Paul asserts in Romans 2 that when we judge others we are guilty of the same things. I have heard many explanations and expositions and declarations about this but they always left me dissatisfied. Maybe my mind works too simple, but I have felt there must be some way of understanding this better.

Lately an analogy has come to me that seems to fit. I like analogies as people probably notice who have listened to me lately. While analogies usually fall short of complete explanation and may fall apart if taken to an extreme, they can also be very useful in translating concepts that are better understood by the heart into language which is primarily the function of the mind.

The passage I have been meditating on is Romans 2:1-4. It must always be remembered clearly that the chapter breaks were not part of the original text and many times disrupt our ability to get into what the original author was trying to convey. This is indeed the case here as well. These comments by Paul are in the context of Romans 1 and all the things presented there about the two “sides” of God being revealed: righteousness and wrath.

I like the way this reads from the Bible in Basic English. It goes like this –

“So you have no reason, whoever you are, for judging: for in judging another you are judging yourself, for you do the same things. And we are conscious that God is a true judge against those who do such things. But you who are judging another for doing what you do yourself, are you hoping that God's decision will not take effect against you? Or is it nothing to you that God had pity on you, waiting and putting up with you for so long, not seeing that in his pity God's desire is to give you a change of heart?” (Romans 2:1-4 BBE)

The New American Standard Bible that I study from reads as follows –

“Therefore you have no excuse, everyone of you who passes judgment, for in that which you judge another, you condemn yourself; for you who judge practice the same things. And we know that the judgment of God rightly falls upon those who practice such things. But do you suppose this, O man, when you pass judgment on those who practice such things and do the same yourself, that you will escape the judgment of God? Or do you think lightly of the riches of His kindness and tolerance and patience, not knowing that the kindness of God leads you to repentance?” (Romans 2:1-4 NAS95)

What I am starting to see emerging as I have contemplated this longer and dialogged with God about it is that obviously there is a major difference between humans judging each other and God judging humans. It seems quite plain from the passage, though very baffling to most of us when applied to ourselves, that when we judge others for the “bad” things they do we are guilty of the same things ourselves. That is the part that I have struggled with for most of my life. It just seemed very illogical to claim that every time I judge someone for something I see in them that I am the same as they are.

I have over the years noticed more and more that the things I notice in others, the weaknesses and failings that seem to stand out for me, invariable show up sooner or later in my own life, albeit often in a different form or style. This has caused me to restrain myself more and more in my penchant for condemning others though it is still a great temptation. Many have settled on this principle as the full explanation for this passage. People in AA have a saying that goes, “if you spot it, you got it”. This is a very true fact of reality in how human beings are wired; we see most easily in others the weaknesses that plague our own lives.

But if that principle is equally applied to verse two then we introduce another major problem not so easy to explain. How can God “judge” people without having the same discrepancy that is seen when we judge them? I cannot except the arbitrary “religious” solution of simply saying God cannot sin or some other such declarations that shut down any exploration of this concept. I believe that there is a truth here that can be clearly understood and that will help us grow both in our understanding of our own nature and in the beauty of God's perfect character.

First of all I realized there might be a difference between the “judging” that we do and the “judging” that God does. Generally when we judge someone for their faults and sins we do it while infected with a spirit of condemnation. We are in fact projecting onto them the secret or not so secret feelings of guilt and pain we are feeling and want to draw attention away from ourselves onto others in a subconscious attempt to relieve our own uneasiness. This in fact is the process that I just discussed. But when God “judges” we must be extremely careful not to project onto Him the same motives and context that we are so familiar with inside ourselves. He has stated very emphatically, “'For My thoughts are not your thoughts, Nor are your ways My ways,' declares the LORD. 'For as the heavens are higher than the earth, So are My ways higher than your ways And My thoughts than your thoughts.'” (Isaiah 55:8-9) That is one reason I like the way the BBE renders this as a “decision” by God rather than a “judgment”. It conveys the idea that what He is doing is not the same as what we do that carries with it a spirit of condemnation.

Our paradigm of projecting onto God our own perspective has been much of the cause of most of our crazy ideas about God, about His character and motives. Many popular and deeply entrenched beliefs and doctrines could be traced back to contamination from this source. Because we view God through human passions and paradigms we tend to mold Him into our image instead of accepting the truth about Himself that He wants to reveal to us through His word and His Spirit. This passage is a good illustration of God's efforts to reveal the real truth about Himself if we will take the time to meditate and receive higher truth as we lay aside our preconceived beliefs and listen to a new and thrilling revelation of the heart of the Almighty.

The analogy that I see here that helps me understand this more clearly is that of a mirror. There are several places in the Bible that use this concept directly and indirectly. I have been learning that we are all like mirrors; we reflect to others whatever it is that we focus on, whatever we fill our minds and hearts with, whatever direction we aim our mirror. If we focus on the faults of others we find ourselves becoming those faults. That's one reason I am becoming more and more reticent to listen to the media and the news as much as I used to because I see that it produces within my heart emotions and reactions that are most unhealthy and even destructive.

But God is not a mirror, although when we create a heart-belief about God in our own image we come to believe that He in fact does mirror our own emotions and characteristics. But, in fact, God is in reality not a mirror but the ultimate source of all light. A mirror cannot even be useful if there is not an external source of light which it can reflect. That is an amazing thought in itself that usually escapes us. But that is why when God “judges”, it is so different than when we judge. When God judges it is simply a “revealing” of what is, not an arbitrary decision or accusation. When God comes near, His very presence reveals what is true just as a light exposes more and more detail of anything we look at as a bright light comes closer and closer to it.

When Paul asks the question in verse 3 about religious people thinking they can escape the judgment of God while judging others, it is like he is asking how a mirror can escape being discovered itself in the presence of light. And to carry it logically farther, if a mirror is directed toward the sins of someone else when the light is turned on, what will be seen in the mirror is those very sins – not a very good position to find ourselves in the the day of revealing (judgment).

But the really exciting discovery in this passage is the revelation of what God's light looks like. It is found in verse 4 and should be the focus of our mirrors if we want to come into harmony with God so we will be ready when He appears in glory. The solution for us and for those we tend to judge is the same – repentance motivated by the “riches of His kindness and tolerance and patience”. For contrary to popular religious thinking, it is not fear and intimidation and terror that leads us to repentance; it is the kindness and love and tenderness of God that draws us into His embrace of forgiveness and empowering presence.

And if we continue to disbelieve this truth about God? Then the unavoidable consequences will be the effects of resistance being stored up within our hearts against His kindness and love called the “wrath” of God as stated in verse 5. It is not wrath as we normally think of wrath from a human perspective except that it will seem like it is because we have locked our minds into believing that God is just like us and will stubbornly insist that He is the one who is hurting us. We will resent Him and accuse Him and join with the enemy of God, the greatest liar in the universe, in charging God with atrocities that, in fact dwell in the heart of Satan and all his demonic kingdom.

The alternative to this is to live in the truth about God and grow in knowledge of His true character. This is the experience described in verse 7, “those who by perseverance in doing good seek for glory and honor and immortality, eternal life.” (Romans 2:7)

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Resisting the Current

Wrath/power is revealed by the effects of resisting it.

Sin is transgression – resisting, living at cross-purposes with God's ways.

If you are enjoying white-water rapids flowing with the current you can have the thrill of being carried along with the powerful, surging water beneath you. But if you “dig in your heels” locking yourself to a rock or even trying to move cross-wise to the current, you will suddenly find yourself in realization of how intensely powerful and dangerous the water can be if you are not willing to move in synchronization with it.

The last half of Romans 1 is describing this very situation in contrast to the first half describing the very opposite. The identification of each is found in back to back verses 17 and 18 - “the righteousness of God is revealed”, and “the wrath of God is revealed”. Reading all the previous verses before 17 reveals the righteousness of God. Reading the following verses reveals the wrath of God.

But unlike the typical spin that most people assume by projecting their own feelings of wrath onto God's character, what in fact is revealed here is the natural consequences of resisting the powerful current of God's intense passion of love.

Just as trying to stop in the middle of a surging river or even move in a different direction suddenly and dramatically produces life-threatening danger, resistance to the power of God's love and His ways of relating produces life-destroying results. Why then do we blame God/the current for the dangerous consequences of our resistance when we could be enjoying the most exhilarating ride of our lives? In fact, this very penchant to blame God and accuse Him of arbitrarily imposing these “punishments” on those who resist Him in itself will put us in the path of resisting Him. If we chose to continue to blame God for sin's effects we will tragically find ourselves suffering those very effects. And the sad consequence will be that our conclusions will seem to be justified while in fact we are only living under the intense deception of sin and the lies that reinforce it.

Notice what Romans 1 really says about how God's “wrath” is revealed. I notice two important principles emerging here: (1) “they knew God” (v. 21), and (2) “God gave them over”, or released them. These are repeated in various ways throughout the rest of this chapter. What it is saying, to use our current analogy is that (1) they cannot help but notice that there is a strong current underneath their lives and that it is consistently urging them in a particular direction. But when they chose to “exchange” the real for the imitation (v. 23) and refused to “acknowledge God”, then in respect for their choice to resist the current of His love and passion for them God, in the intense anguish of His breaking heart for them “gives them over” to the terrible natural consequences of their stubborn resistance.

Just in case we glibly smile believing that we are safe from that problem, Paul goes on in chapter 2 to point out that when we harbor “judgment” in our hearts against others who are suffering these results of resisting the current we place ourselves in the same situation and will unwittingly find ourselves in the same danger as the ones we condemn.

I want to explore this much more but right now I want to sit in a raft and relish the sun and the spray in my face as the current of God's love surrounds me and carries me through this day.

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