Saved for (not from)
I’ve noticed lately that a lot of the language around the idea of salvation revolves around the idea of being saved from something… saved from sin, saved from punishment, saved from isolation or alienation, from sin, from death, from hell.
But really the whole tenor of Christianity and the New Testament is that we are saved for something – saved to be more fully human, saved to be “in” Christ, saved to be re-connected to each other, saved for life, for love, for justice…
3 Responses to “Saved for (not from)”
Comments
Reply
-
author musician theologian
Maggi has kept a blog since September 2003, writing about theology and faith, the arts and literature, and a little about life and random nonsense...
In an increasingly secularised society few people have a good working knowledge of the Bible. Yet a great deal of our culture is built on stories or ideas that come from the Bible. Literature, art, music, language and even the fabric of our society - such as our justice system - are built on Christian concepts and biblical references. The Writing on the Wall provides a fascinating introduction to the Bible's best-known, and most influential, stories. Each chapter gives some background to the text of the Bible, and shows how the stories have become enmeshed in Western culture. Adam and Eve, the ten plagues of Egypt, The Prodigal Son and Mary Magdalene all feature - along with how the Bible has influenced everyone from Shakespeare to Monty Python, and Caravaggio to Banksy. 
Giving It Up explores the Lenten idea of 'giving up', taking it beyond the traditional idea of simply abstaining from something, and suggesting instead that what we need to give up is our existing ideas about God. With a daily readings for each day of Lent, from Ash Wednesday to Easter Sunday, it follows the heroes of the Bible who had to give up their own too-small ideas about God.
This is Maggi’s bestselling book of daily readings for each day of Advent, Christmas and Epiphany. Advent is the beginning of the Church year, and marks the anticipation of the coming Messiah. These readings explore how beginnings and endings in our own lives are illuminated by the different Gospel narratives of Christ's coming.
-
Search
Total agreement – I’ve been saying we’re ’saved for’ rather than ’saved from’ for decades.
To focus only on what we are saved from is to proclaim something, but it is not the Gospel. To proclaim the Gospel as what we are saved for is to proclaim a half-truth. The Gospel whole and not in part is not just what we are saved for not just what we are saved from but that we are saved from what we are that in Christ we might become new creations.
Very true. I think it’s a language point as much as anything – saved can imply being rescued from something, or being kept by someone, or for something, as in “who are kept by the power of God, through faith unto salvation”