ARE YOU SAVED?

The following is posted at the request of a number of people who read this recent “St Joseph Tract.” It was written to address the question of “being saved.” As such, it’s far from complete, or even thorough. The essentials of a grace-filled, sacramental life are only hinted at here—and there is no salvation without them; not by my estimate but by the words of our Lord Himself.

Next week, we’ll resume our review of Prayer Book history, but no doubt everybody needs a break after four weeks’ recounting the Puritans' grim assault on Anglicanism in general and the Common Prayer Book in particular. We'll see though, that the history of the Prayer Book is told not only by the many who've been nurtured on its comfortable words and but also by those who've squabbled over its contents--and not just in the past!


Are You Saved?

It’s a question we hear from well-meaning people in almost any setting: in the check-out line at the market, along a hiking trail in the park, sitting in the mall. Have you accepted Jesus as your personal Savior?

The person asking is usually driven by a desire to share with you the good news that he is saved, and hopes that you are, too. If not, he has the remedy: confess your sins, believe in Jesus Christ, and ask Him to be your Savior. That’s it: follow these simple steps and you’re going to Heaven. Often these sincere people will offer to help you on the spot. You can get saved in the checkout line.

While he may encourage you to go to a Christian church or a Bible fellowship and tell you it’s important that you “walk the talk” (which means to live the life of a believer), when pressed he’ll admit that although those things are helpful, you’ve already done all that’s necessary. Your eternal salvation is already secure.

He’s well-meaning, sincere—and wrong.

As much as these earnest people talk about the Bible, the “quick-fix” salvation they hawk is a fantasy, and a tawdry one at that. The message of the Holy Scriptures is radically different. The teaching of the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church (which put the Bible together in the first place) for the last 2,000 years is different. Those Christians who have actually “walked the talk” for 20 centuries (we call them Saints, people like St Mary of Egypt or St Francis of Assisi) would find this idea of being saved silly, immature and—worst of all—untrue.

Sincerity, nice as it is, is no assurance of truth.

History is full of sincere people who were very wrong: Adolf Hitler was probably the most sincere person of the 20th century. His sincerity proved deadly to many millions—and in the end, to himself as well.

Just because somebody says you can be saved by “believing Jesus died for your sins” or saying a “sinner’s prayer” doesn’t make it so, regardless of the sincerity of the person telling you it is; after all, they’ve done it and they’re saved. Right?

Or are they?

They’ll tell you they base their certainty of being saved on the Bible—but the Bible, if we actually take it as a whole, not just pluck out a few verses here and there, gives a completely different view of salvation.

Before anything else, it’s fair for us to ask our self-assured questioner, “What does ‘being saved’ mean?” What is salvation? The word “salvation” comes from Latin. Its original form, salus, means “health” or “wholeness.” Many times the question “are you saved” is accompanied by an explanation (or is it a threat?) that if you aren’t saved, you’ll burn for eternity in hell after you die. Fires and devils and eye gouges forever and ever and ever and then forever after that. Pretty grim—and pretty pathetic. The “god” behind such a scenario is not the God revealed in Holy Scripture, Who loves us and became one of us to bring us to salvation—to wholeness and spiritual health. The great fourth-century Bishop of Alexandria, St Athanasius the Great, says “God became like us, so we could become like Him.” For 2,000 years, the Church has proclaimed her Good News, her Gospel; this is the calling she holds out “for us men and for our salvation.”

Salvation isn’t escaping hell. It’s becoming a son or daughter of God. This doesn’t happen by saying a prayer or having a warm glow of certainty that you’re saved. It happens by wrestling daily with your love of sin, by living a life of grace, a life where we learn the hard lessons of loving our neighbor as ourselves and loving God above everything else—things none of us want to do, but this is what the Gospel calls us to. In the middle of His great Sermon on the Mount, in the fifth chapter of St Matthew’s Gospel, the Lord Jesus tells His disciples “Be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” He is calling us to live our salvation.

For 2,000 years Christians have understood that my personal salvation doesn’t depend on “getting saved” one day, but by living with God day in and day out, even when I don’t particularly want Him around. Salvation isn’t something which happened to me one day, it’s something which continually happens. As I live with Christ, I am made more and more—even if it’s by baby steps—like Him. Salvation isn’t escaping hell, but discovering in our lives, almost imperceptibly, the daily Presence of God. “He became like us, to make us like Him.” Salus.

So the next time you’re standing in the check-out line and some sincere soul asks if you are saved, give him an understanding smile and say “Well, since you’ve got a few minutes, let’s talk…” –Fr Gregory Wilcox