Brother, Are You Saved.

I didn't grow up in the Presbyterian Church. I grew up in a denomination where questions like are you saved? and statements like, "You need to get saved," and "I'm saved," were uttered almost every time we gathered. It wasn't until many years after I had been adopted into the Presbyterian family that I came to understand that a better way to talk about what these people were referring to is to say "I, we, You are 'being' saved."

The difference is important and so I thought I would write a bit about being saved. There are actually two things that most Christians believe is happening because of what Jesus has done. Those who trust Jesus as Lord and Savior, are "justified" and they are "sanctified."

Justification is the forgiveness, the "slate wiped clean," part of what Jesus did for all those who follow him. Justification is a part of what happened when Jesus lived and died descended into Hell and was raised again. There are several, "theories of atonement," that try to describe how Jesus' life, death and resurrection justifies us, makes us clean and wipes away all sins for those who believe in Jesus. Each one is descriptive and satisfying in some ways and incomplete and troubling in other ways. Still Christian people agree that it makes a difference that Jesus lived and died and was raised from the dead. Presbyterian belief is that Justification is effective once and for all. Jesus didn't just die for the sins that were committed up to the point when you profess your faith in Jesus. If you accept Jesus' free gift of forgiveness you have accepted forgiveness for sins past, present and future.

The Bible also teaches that God was not just interested in accepting and forgiving me "Just as I Am," and leaving me in the condition in which I was found. That would be sort of like finding a poor and hungry person and saying to them, "God loves you. You are forgiven for your sins." and walking away from them. We do that sort of thing. We have a different understanding of how God relates to those who are mugged by sin and left to die on the side of the road.

I have heard many Christian people say, when they are talking about justification and sanctification, that God loves us enough to accept us just as we are. However, God loves us too much to leave us that way. Not leaving us the way that God found us is the part of the salvation that is called sanctification. In one sense those who are being saved can talk about their sanctification in the past tense. They have been sanctified because of their association with Jesus. His goodness and perfection is substituted for their imperfection and corruption.

In another sense our sanctification is not finished until it is finished. Lately I have come to understand that even the "work in progress" that I am, is a function of God's graciousness, not of my own concerted effort. It's a mistake to say that justification is God's work and sanctification is our work. We are permitted to partner with God in the work of sanctification, but it is God's work.

Salvation, (justification and sanctification) is by grace through faith in Jesus Christ. Paul says as much in Ephesian 2:8-9, "For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God-- 9 not the result of works, so that no one may boast."

Don't ask me if I am saved, as if I have achieved some status or arrived at some milestone. I am being saved. Often in spite of myself.