Interpretations of salvation

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My wife was on the phone with a close relationship and I overheard her conversation.  The lady was talking about her boyfriend's church and how she was trying to figure out the rules of the church.  

You would think the largest religion in the world would have clear definitions of what it means to be part of the religion.   If you ask a Christian, they will probably say they do, but then you talk to someone else in a different denonmination and you will find a different set of "rules".  How the heck did Christianity grow so big, without having a strong systematic structure to it?  

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Before answering this question, let me just say that this is another reason I believe that there is something way beyond "religion" in Christianity.  If I was starting to build a religion, I would have made a simple structure for everyone to follow to help define and provide direction for the adherents.    Instead Christianity is "real" in the sense that it accounts for the billions of different personalities that have existed throughout time.  

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Any denominations which bases its foundation on the word of God tends to believe in roughly the same thing.  Yet, there are still many ways people live out these beliefs.  This webpage is just an attempt to put a "ThinkReality.org" type of understanding to it.  

Paul, writes in Romans, this paragraph:

 "because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved. For the Scripture says, “Everyone who believes in him will not be put to shame.” For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; for the same Lord is Lord of all, bestowing his riches on all who call on him. For “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”   Romans 10:9-13 ESV

This is a pretty straightforward declaration.  It comes in two parts:  1)  Confess verbally that Jesus Christ is Lord and 2) Believe that God raised him from the dead.   The cool part is that he then backs up the fact of God protecting us with two Jewish Old Testament verses (Joel 2:32, Isaiah 28:16) and says this is for everyone.

Let's break apart these words in more detail.

Most people think of religion as a game of following the rules.  Christianity is about following a person.  

I don't meant this literally.  I do believe Jesus has appeared to people at times, but that hasn't happened to me.  I spend time trying to understand his teachings and following them to the best that I can in the world.  There is no set rules to follow, no specific grade to achieve.  Jesus said that all "commandments" could be summed up into two rules, "Love the Lord your God with all of your heart, mind, soul, and body" and "Love your neighbor as yourself".  I could unpack those two phrases for pages, but this is not the place for it.  My point is that this is an attempt to reach an ideal and not a specific goal.

This ideal has more to do with a specific position of submission than any action.  A good example of someone who might believe in Jesus, can even look spiritual, but has not committed themselves to Christ is found in John 12:42-43.  It reads like this:  

 Nevertheless, many even of the authorities believed in him, but for fear of the Pharisees they did not confess it, so that they would not be put out of the synagogue; for they loved the glory that comes from man more than the glory that comes from God.  ESV

A person can look like a Christian but doing everything for their own self-interest and in their own self pride.  

This is a one-time commitment with the hope to fulfill it all of your life.  It doesn't mean that you will (none of us do).  I relate this to my relationships on earth.  I make commitments to my family, my friends, and my co-workers.  Do I always complete them perfectly?   Do I always expect them to be perfect with me?  This is about committing your life to a person, not doing everything right.  

I do believe there are people who confess Jesus as Lord, but they say the words without a real commitment to him.    There is a parable in Matt 7 which directly speaks to this point:  

Not everyone who  says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who  does the will of my Father who is in heaven. On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’  Matt 7:21-23 ESV  

Part of the reason I think people might say the words, but never have a relationship with Jesus is that they never believe that Jesus rose from the dead.  his first part of the Romans 10:9 is preached all of the time much more eloquently than I can write.  Let us move onto the second part.

It is this second part that you never hear preachers preach on.   For if you confess Jesus is Lord, but still see Him as a man who died two thousand years ago, then your heart doesn't really believe the commitment means anything substantial.  Death is still a mystery and will drive you to behaviors not focused upon God, but rather on whatever the larger cultural says is right.  

Let's look at the first word, "believe".   It could also be translated, "to have faith".  This is not an action to be done, which makes it a really hard in today's action based society.  And Paul is asking us to believe in something that happened 2000 years ago.  Well, when he first wrote it, it would have been right then and much easier, probably, to believe.  

What does the 21st century churches do that help us believe that Jesus rose from the dead?  It seems like a lesser point to the majority of our teachings and our actions.  Yet, it is a basic foundation to the Christ follower's life.  

And to make this even worse, Paul qualifies it by saying, we have to believe "in our heart".  There are a lot of things which I understand in my brain.  That is not what Paul means.  This is not an intellectual theology that you are agreeing to.  This is a personal trusting in your life.  

For the truth to really be heartfully understood will mean different paths for different people.  When you believe something in your heart, it becomes second nature, like trusting a chair won't collapse when you sit on it.  If you really believe Jesus was raised from the dead, then something in your life is going to have to change.  No longer can you ignore Him, no longer does it make sense for us to live our lives as if you only have one shot and you better make the most of it.   

So could you be condemned by God if you don't believe, but you commit your life to Jesus' lordship?  Many Christians will point to other scriptures that salvation comes from the just trusting Jesus.  For example, in Acts 2:21, Peter preaches at Pentecost and says, "everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved".  So calling upon the name of the Lord is the equivalent of committing your life to God (i.e. you are calling upon the Lord implying the confession of Jesus as Lord").  What follows this statement is a long discussion about how the Jews had just killed Jesus and then he was raised from the dead by God.  So the second part is assumed as part of the "equation."

Why would it even matter that we believe that God raised Him from the dead?  As stated before, that believe will cause changes in your life.  After all, to believe this means you have to believe there is a God who does miracles in this world.  You have to believe there is something beyond death.  You have to believe that Jesus was unique (though I guess you could believe that other people have been raised from the dead, too).  These beliefs give you hope for the future and pull you out of your own selfish desires.   

This last point is most important.  You can confess that Jesus is Lord for selfish reasons.  This pulls us back to the Matthew 7 scripture, where people are doing great things in Jesus' name, but have no relationship to Him.   This could explain many of the complaints that people have with Christians.  There are people who will claim to be Christians which are not believers in the resurrection.  As such they live lives lacking the power of true faith.  

This is pretty serious stuff.  Christianity is asking for your commitment and believing that a man was raised from the dead 2000 years ago!  Sounds pretty crazy and if you haven't gone through the initial pages of this website (see The Beginning) I would expect you to think of me as a religious nut.  

For those who don't think I am crazy, let me speak more personally.  Some Christians use a term "born again" to describe their moment of salvation.  This term comes from John 3:3 where Jesus is talking to a religious leader.  I actually think of that moment as "dying".  After all, you can't be born again, without dying.  And dying is not easy, dying is not fun.  

I confessed my allegiance to Jesus before I believed in my heart that he rose from the grave.  Before making Jesus Lord, I spent a lot of time reading about him in the Bible.  There were many things I didn't understand, but I found him a fascinating character and over time really liked what he represented.  It made sense, given my fear of death, to confess my trust in him.

I lived that way for many years.  The thing is, that first confession was one of my own self will, my own decision, and so there were always doubts and there were habitual actions in my life that I couldn't control.  These were actions that were really driven by my fear of death and my sinful nature of wanting to stay in control.

But death kept on haunting me.  And so I kept on pursuing God.  And one day it hit me, that if Jesus was really raised to life by God, then He is much bigger, much more powerful than I was willing to admit.  My preconceptions of reality and life were so limited (and often so self-focused).  All of a sudden, I was more fearful of God than I was of death.  

That moment is horrible.  This isn't a perfect analogy, but it seems like I was an ant, looking up and seeing this incredible foot above my head coming down.  I had a choice to be made, and I was never going to be the same.  Either I ran into the fact that Jesus was raised from the dead and I was really little in the bigger scheme of things, or I was going to ignore everything that was logical and run away to my lies because it made me feel good for the moment.  

This was dying.   I died to self that day and started a new life.  But it had to be more than just a confession that Jesus was Lord, it was also a realization in my heart that there was something I could not do, something greater than myself, and that was Jesus rose from the dead.  Even though it was extremely hard to die on that day, I have never regretted the decision.    

Your experience with this could be significantly different.  One potential outcome of people who make a regular habit of going to church and a spiritual life is that the truths of God, including Jesus' resurrection become cemented into their heart.  That is a much steadier, "slow drying" process.  

Most people come to God emotionally.  They have a serious issue and find solutions in church.  As they see God work in their lives and other people's lives, it becomes easy to believe that Jesus might have been raised from the dead.  Over time, they understand in their heart that God is much bigger and the believe of Jesus' resurrection becomes second nature.

This is also why some people become so dogmatic about their Christian beliefs.  If they learn to trust God in the context of a specific church culture, they have great difficulty seeing it occurring in different ways.  These individuals have great passion for their church because through it they know God. 

And some people commit their lives to Jesus without much community support at all.  

We truly are a species of incredibly immense complexity with a creator that is greater than we imagine.   He can take care of you even beyond death.  Any reason to delay committing your life to Him today, if you believe that Jesus was resurrected, is just a selfish desire to stay in control.  The delay is not logical and the deferment of the greatest hope of all, will damage your inner being over time.  

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