John Mark Hicks

What is salvation?

In my first post in this series I proposed the below chart as a way of answering that important question. In this post I will comment on the seventh sector (7).

Sector 7 identifies salvation as the beginning of the new creation in the new humanity of Jesus of Nazareth.  Jesus, resurrected from the dead and exalted to the right hand of the Father, is the fountainhead of new humanity. He is new humanity and thus the ground of new creation.

Jesus was not resuscitated from the dead, but transformed from an Adamic to a glorious humanity.  Born within the Adamic world and thus bound over to death, he was raised from the dead to live in a new world. His resurrection is the beginning of the triumphant renewal of creation–it is new creation.

The body of Jesus, just as our bodies, is deeply entangled with the creation. Our bodies are from the dust of the earth. We, as flesh and bones, are part of the creation. We are the material imagers of God within the material creation. But within the present age–this present evil age, as Paul calls–our bodies are degenerating, declining and dying.

The resurrection of Jesus, however, is the reversal of this decay. It is a new creation through the transformation of that broken, dying body into a glorious body. It is not the creation of something new, however. Rather, it is the renewal of something old. Through the resurrection, the Father by the power of the Spirit made the body of Jesus new. It is regenerated, renewed and living–never to die again.

The resurrection of Jesus has injected a regenerating virus into the comos. The newness and glory of the resurrected body of Jesus is the beginning of the newness and glory of the new creation which will remake, renew and regenerate the cosmos itself. Jesus is “firstborn from the dead” not only in the sense that he is the first, but he is “firstborn” because he has the preeminence as the one who sustains, grounds and empowers the new creation itself.

Just as resurrection is new creation, so also the exaltation of Jesus to the right hand of the Father is the reign of Christ over the old creation until all things become new again. Jesus will reign until the last enemy–which is death–is destroyed, and the death Jesus will destroy is that power of death that reigns not only over humanity but over the creation itself.

The exaltation of Jesus is the assured word of God that death will be defeated, the creation will be redeemed, and humanity will be restored to its co-regency with God in the cosmos. Humanity will sit on the throne with Jesus to reign over the new creation as humanity, along with Jesus, shares in the materiality of that new creation with resurrected bodies.

Eden–with all the symbolism attached to that name–will be restored, but more than that….Eden will be glorified as new creation just as the body of Jesus was glorified.

The resurrection and exaltation of Jesus are the “already” of our “not yet” future and the future of the creation. God has accomplished redemption in Jesus. The act of God in Jesus, this eschatological act of resurrection within history, is the assurance of the future. And the Spirit of God bears witness to this assurance as the eschatological gift that is the presence of the future in our hearts.

During the Fall semester at Lipscomb University, I teach a class entitled “Nursing as Kingdom Vocation.” There I intend to cast a vision for those pursuing nursing as a career that their chosen path is a ministry in the kingdom of God. As nurses, they will participate in the mission of God (missio Dei) as God’s ministers. I want to briefly unpack this theological notion in this post—and hopefully say more about vocation in the future.

Missio Dei and Human Identity

God created with a purpose. Creation has a goal. God is actively pursuing that goal. This pursuit is the outworking of God’s mission. Broadly, the missio Dei is to draw humanity into the circle of the Triune fellowship, unfold the full potential of the creation and fully enjoy what has been created. God delights in, rejoices over and communes with the creation, both humanity and everything else. The divine mission is to fill everything—the heavens and the earth—and everyone with glory, that is, to enjoy and rest in the creation and each other with mutual delight.

Given this mission, God created humanity with a special identity. Theologians, following Genesis 1, call it the imago Dei (the image of God). Our human identity is that we are the image of God. We were created to image God in every aspect of our lives. We were designed to be like God. Moreover, we represent God in the creation.

This identity, however, means more than we are simply reflections of God though that is an important and essential dimension. It also means that we are co-workers with God. We are co-rulers over the creation—humanity is given “dominion.” We are co-creators in the creation—we are, for example, to procreate. We are junior partners in the divine mission. This is our missional identity. We are co-missionaries with God. The divine task is also our task. We were created with this identity for the sake of this mission.

With this identity, we are called, as participants in the missio Dei, to pursue the glory of God within the creation and human communities. It is part our mission, then, to develop the full potential of the creation, lovingly care for the creation, and to gratefully enjoy the creation. It is part of our mission to pursue familial, social and communal shalom, righteousness and love which is the presence of God within the world.

Our creaturely identity, then, entails a calling—a vocation (from the Latin vocare). We are called to engage the creation and each other toward the embodiment of shalom, joy, and righteousness. This vocation is rooted in our creaturehood, our ontology. It is our place in the creation.

Given what theologians have historically called the “Fall,” the creation is filled with violence, hatred and injustice. The creation is burdened, groaning and frustrated. As a result, God intends to make all things new. (Note: not make new things, but make all things new!)

God, thus, is engaged in new creation. It began with the resurrection and ascension of Jesus to the right hand of the Father—new humanity has emerged, transformed body and life, the beginning of the renewal of creation itself and the reconciliation of all things.

Broken humanity becomes redeemed humanity which is recreated in the image of God. This redeemed identity is an extension of our created identity. Redeemed humanity is a participant in the redemptive (as well as creative) mission of God, that is, to reclaim, renew and restore the creation as the place where God dwells with humanity.

This mission is holistic—it includes every dimension of what it means for humanity to live with God upon a renewed earth as a community participating in the Triune love of God. Human society is to become what Israel was intended to be—a community filled with shalom, justice, and righteousness; a community that fully embodied the love of God.

As image of God, our vocation is to develop, care and love the creation and enjoy the perichoretic life of God. As redeemed humanity—created anew in the image of God, our vocation is to renew, restore and reclaim an alienated, groaning and broken creation (including humanity) in partnership with God.

Vocation in the Kingdom of God

Vocation is a rather ambiguous word. In Christian history vocation has sometimes been limited to professional ministry, that is, preachers, pastors, monastics or priests. Thus, only a few had “spiritual vocations” or were authentic ministers in the kingdom of God. At other times, as in the present, vocation has been so secularized that it has lost all spiritual meaning. Vocation has been gutted so that it is purely secular.

Neither is the divine intent of creation. Every human person, because they are created in the image of God, has a vocation. They are tasked with participation in the missio Dei. As images of God, every human being is a royal priest or priestess upon the earth. Humans, both male and female, serve God in his temple which is his creation.

This means there is no “secular” work that is disconnected from our missionary identity. Every work—no matter how “secular” it is conceived by others—that serves the mission of God is sacred work. Every vocation is a sacred calling when that vocation participates in the mission of God.

Human beings, however, are called into multiple kinds of works or different vocations (using vocation in the more common sense of different career paths). While we all share the broad vocation of participating in the mission of God, this mission is pursued through various “vocations.” Every human being has multiple relationships into which they are called—they are called to embody the mission of God in family relations, in social relations, in communal (even political) relations, etc. All of these are “vocations” as we are called to pursue the mission of God as family members (whether as father, mother, brother, sister, etc.) or laborers (whether as machinists, educators, lawyers, etc.).

We, as participants in community, choose particular kinds of vocations or careers. As images of God, we choose these careers (vocations) as means to love God and love our neighbors. We choose these careers as means by which we participate in the kingdom of God in order to pursue the mission of God through these vocations.

These particular vocations, as conceived through the matrix of the kingdom of God, are particular means by which we partner with God in the missio Dei. Medical professionals partner with God in healing. Financial counselors partner with God in reconciling justice for creditors and mercy for debtors. Professionals in the legal community partner with God in pursuing justice. Environmental biologists partner with God in preserving and caring for the creation. Computer programmers partner with God in bringing order out of chaos. And the list could go on and on.

Partnering with God toward the fulfillment of the mission of God is ministry in the kingdom of God. Nurses, counselors, biologists and, yes, even lawyers are ministers—they are missionaries. Their vocations are missional.

It is the nature of the present age, however, that broken people use their vocations for their own self-interest rather than to love their neighbor. But this is exactly where kingdom people model, bear witness to and actively pursue the redemptive missio Dei. Kingdom people use their vocations to love their neighbors. They are a redemptive presence in their world through their vocations. God is present in them working toward the goal God has for humanity and the creation.

Conclusion

Within God’s creation, everyone is a missionary. Everyone has a vocation. And every career path—specialized vocation—is a ministry in the kingdom when it participates in God’s mission.

The sacred/secular distinction removes the sacred from God’s creation, reduces human vocation to self-interest, and undermines our identity as imagers of God.

Our identity is that we represent God in the creation. Our vocation is to participate in the mission of God. Our careers are specialized vocations that partner with God in that mission.

When we pursue those vocations we both proclaim and enact the good news of the kingdom of God!

What is salvation?

In my first post in this series I proposed the below chart as a way of answering that important question. In this post I will comment on the sixth sector (6).

Sector 6 identifies salvation as the fullness of the reign of God in the community of God’s people. The goal of God for human community is transformation into the likeness of God and the experience of the Triune love of God as participants in the divine fellowship. When humanity fully participates in the circle of God’s loving fellowship, then the reign of God will have fully arrived.

This salvific reality does not entail a loss of finitude or creatureliness. When glorified in the new heaven and new earth with glorified bodies that conform to the glorious body of the resurrected Lord, we will not be saved from finitude but we will be saved as finite creatures invited to share in the divine fellowship of the Triune community. We will not become omniscient or omnipotent, that is, we will not share God’s divine essence.  But we will become Godlike, that is, full participants in the divine love.

At the same time, our participation in the divine love–because it is experienced as finite creatures–is a journey  into the heart of God, deeper into the fellowship of the divine persons. Every morning God will be new to us because as finite creatures the infinite God will always have more to share with us and we will experience that love more deeply. God is like a bottomless well from which we drink–we will experience daily filling, joy and satisfaction but there is always more to drink. God will give us more moment by moment throughout eternity.

As community, we will grow more intimate with each other. It is important to emphasize the continuity between Sector 5 and Sector 6.  The relationships we begin now will continue into our glorification. More than that they will grow deeper, wider and more inclusive. Our relationships will not remain static but deepen and expand. We will know not only those with whom we have relationships now but we will also initiate new relationships with people we have never known.  The fullness of the kingdom of God as a community is an interactive web of relationships which will provide opportunity for growth on the new heaven and new earth.

The glorified community is not a static accomplishment as if we attain “perfection” (as in some kind of Platonic immutability where any change is bad) and thus there is no more work, no more loving, no more growing, no more knowing, no more connecting, etc. to be done. Rather, the fullness of the kingdom of God involves a dynamic growth into the heart of God as well as a dynamic growth among the people of God (growth in intimacy as well as growth in the numbers of people and the diversity of people with whom we will become intimacy). When God recreates, just as in the beginning God created, the Triune fellowship will create a dynamic reality that invites the redeemed community to pursue growth, intimacy, fellowship and relationship within the kingdom.

The reality that God created in Sector 4, though it is so dimly and rarely seen in our broken contexs, will be fully revealed in Sector 6.  The oneness of the people of God will emerge brightly on God’s visitation and the unity of the body of Christ–the kingdom of God–will be recognized as a gift of God’s gracious work. But the oneness does not entail some kind of Stepford human beings who are all identical. Rather, the oneness, like the oneness of the original creation, includes a diversity and a dynamism that reflects the reality of God who is both diverse (three) and loving (dynamic) while at the same time remaining one.

The fullness of the kingdom, then, is the reality of community as the image of God’s Triune fellowship.  It is the experience of intimacy without fear, love without suspicion, trust without doubt. It is love because God is love. No more barriers, no more ethnic bigotry, no more snobbish class-wars, no more alienation or marginalization.  The kingdom of God will experience community in a way that images the community of God’s own life and participate in the community of God’s life.

What is salvation?

In my first post in this series I proposed the below chart as a way of answering that important question. In this post I will comment on the fifth sector (5).

Sector 5 identifies salvation as the communal sanctification of the body of Christ living in a broken world. This body, through sanctification, becomes the instrument of God’s transforming work through which the kingdom of God breaks into the world for healing, reconciliation, justice and peace. Through the church–the community of God–the kingdom of God is realized as an alternative community to societial brokenness and thereby becomes both a witness and a means to the reality of the kingdom of God in the world as well as the communal embodiment of redemptive hope. But no matter how progressively realized the kingdom is within the present age, the community of faith (the church) awaits its full redemption in the eschaton.

That is a grand picture but, alas, an unfulfilled dream…at least in some respects. Just as Yahweh intended Israel to be a light among the nations, so Yahweh intends for the church to shine in the darkness. Like Israel, however, the church is tainted–sometimes even dominanted–by the darkness and does not appear as an alternative to worldly values but one its consumers.

Nevertheless, God is present by the Spirit in the body of Christ to sanctify and transform a people for good works in the world for the sake of the world. The church is a people for others rather than a people for themselves, but it is a people moving progressively (we hope!) toward the full realization of the kingdom of God on the earth. The church works for reconciliation and social transformation–it is for the world rather than isolated from it.

The community of God is a testimony of God’s goal for the broken creation. It is a place where peace, reconciliation and justice should reign as a witness to the world of what it is to become.  The church loses its witness when it fails to embody God’s goal for the creation. When the church is filled with wars, emnity and injustice, then it participates in that which it is intended to transform. The church, in the present, is a mixed bag of worldly brokenness and redemptive hope.

There is some discussion about whether the church is the kingdom realized or a sign of the kingdom to come. I tend to think both/and rather than either/or, but I also appreciate that the words must be nuanced. The church is the kingdom realized but not fully realized. The church is a sign of the kingdom but yet more than a sign. The church waits for an apocalyptic in-breaking of the reality of God upon the earth, but it is also the presence of God upon the earth in jars of clay.

Thus, in the present, the community of God is constantly undergoing progressive sanctification; it is always becoming and it never arrives.  There is always yet more to be and yet it is more than it was. The church between the already and the not yet, between the first and second comings of Christ, is engaged in a process of communal sanctification. It is never everything it should be (thus, the kingdom is never fully realized) but it is always more than its brokenness by the presence of  God within her (thus, the kingdom is realized by divine presence). The church progressively–despite its slips and lapses–becomes the kingdom of the God even though it awaits the fullness of that kingdom at the coming of our Lord.

The church, then, is a both a promise and a presence of the future; it is both a sign of and a realization of the kingdom of God.

Now that I have finished reading papers, grading exams and posting grades, I hope to have some leisure time to complete my series on Salvation and begin blogging about other topics that interest me.  However, given that this Christmas week, I want to call attention to a series of sermons that I regard as outstanding Advent lessons.

Dean Barham, following the Old Testament texts of the lectionary, has led the Woodmont Hills Church through the season of Advent in December. His lessons, once they are all posted, will be available here.

This past Sunday Dean, by the mercy of God, delivered a powerfully moving lesson. It was one of the best “Christmas” sermons I had ever heard (or preached myself!). Focusing on Isaiah 9:2-9, Dean reminded us that this child was born in darkness but was also the ray of hope’s light in that darkness. To people who hear the announcement and see (or believe in) the birth of the child, this son is “wonderful counselor, mighty God, prince of peace and everlasting father.”

This child will reign as a wise visionary with a goal (wonderful counselor), a powerful and effective ruler (mighty God), a just and peaceful ruler (prince of peace), and a faithful lover who will never abandon us (everlasting father).

Nation after nation has longed for such a ruler. Even Americans long for the next Lincoln, or JFK or Ronald Reagan….and some even believe they found him in our current President. Story after story in both Scripture (Abraham & Sarah, Moses, David…) and among the nations have found hope in the birth of a child…the hope that another would come who would be a light in the darkness.

The birth of Jesus is our hope. To us a child has been given. In the midst of darkness–whatever shape that darkness may take–God gives a child who embodies hope. Wars will cease; injustice will not last; oppression will end, and death will not win. Hope dispels despair and empowers life.

Hope changes the world. Real hope, that is, not a false one to which all nationalism clings. Our hope is the son of David, Jesus of Nazareth, born in Bethlehem, served among the hopeless in the Galilee of the Gentiles, crucified by Romans but raised from the dead by the Father through the power of the Spirit. This is real hope.

Now available on Amazon.

Over the years I have reflected on William Young’s book The Shack in the light of my own personal journey into the world of spiritual recovery.  I found much in Young’s novel that paralleled my own experience.

Previously, I posted on some significant themes I found in the the book–both in terms of pastoral and theological assessment–but Leafwood has now published my brief book with short chapters on The Shack as a parable of spiritual recovery.

For those who have read my previous material on God, faith and suffering (such as Yet Will I Trust Him or Anchors for the Soul), this book is a continuation of my journey. I think it is more profound and more mature than my previous writings on the subject. It is, nevertheless, still ultimately inadequate as an “answer” to the struggle of life, faith and peace continues in human hearts, including my own. Nevertheless, God offers peace even when there are no “answer?

The first part of this book discusses spiritual recovery while the second part addresses some of the theological questions that concern many. But even in the second part I am much more interested in how this parable and the theological questions it raises offer an entrance into the substantial themes of divine love, forgiveness, healing and hope. These are the main concerns of the book.

I think the question the novel addresses is this:  How do wounded people come to believe that God really is “especially fond” of them?

Only after reading the book through this lens are we able to understand how Young uses some rather unconventional metaphors to deepen his point.

My interest is to unfold the story of recovery in The Shack as I experienced it through my own journey. So, I invite you to walk with me through the maze of grief, hurt, and pain as we, through experiencing Mackenzie’s shack, face our own “shacks.”

I offer the book with this dedication:

In the past eighteen months many have showered their love upon me….
my employment—Lipscomb University and Harding Graduate School
my counselors—I have learned much about myself through your help
my church—Woodmont Hills Family of God
my bible class—the Sonseekers of Woodmont Hills
my men’s groups—where I continue to learn and practice intimacy
my spiritual care team—God’s gift to Jennifer and myself
my small group—you are all such a joy to me
my brothers and sisters—Mack, Sue and Jack…and sis-in-law Melanie
my nieces and nephews—Allison, Brittney, Ian, Carson, Logan
my mom—you love me no matter what
my daughters—Ashley and Rachel, both faithful and loving
my wife, Jennifer, for whose steadfast love I am deeply
grateful and without whom I would not be able to
share my story in this book.

They have embraced me and through them God has loved me profoundly.
Thank you!

What is salvation?

In my first post in this series I proposed the below chart as a way of answering that important question. In this post I will comment on the fourth sector (4). 

Sector 4 identifies salvation as the past inauguration of a new society of humans reconciled to God, each other and the cosmos. This alternative society is dedicated to following Jesus into the world for the sake of the world in continuity with the mission of God in creation and Israel. This society is the renewal of God’s missional intent as God works through humanity for the transformation of humanity and the cosmos.

As a past moment, it is rooted in God’s eternal election, the divine creative intent, the gracious call of Israel and the mighty act of God in Jesus. God chose a people through election. God created a community–both in the beginning and in Israel.  In Jesus God renewed and rebuilt a community upon whom God poured out the Spirit for the communal reconciliation of world.

The body of Christ, that is, the church, established by and rooted in the mutual love of the Father, Son and Spirit, is a new communal reality where all the fallen boundaries of the world are overcome. In the body of Christ humanity is one as it transcends the socio-economic, ethnic and gender barriers present in this evil age. Those distinctions neither determine nor bound the body of Christ.

We are the body of Christ in which the Spirit of God lives.  The life of the Spirit is an eschatological life, an empowering presence that constitutes and maintains the unity of the body. Pentecost (Acts 2), within the Luke-Acts narrative, is the overlapping (to use N. T. Wright’s language) 0f heaven and earth and is thus the constituting moment where a new community is animated and empowered to become the body of Christ on earth just as it is heaven.

The body of Christ already exists as a reality in the heavenlies in a way that is unencumbered by the brokenness of the present world. It is a heavenly reality in which all who have been reconciled to God participate. In the heavenlies we are one–reconciled to God, each other and the cosmos–even though on earth we live in broken and flawed relationships.

The church, therefore, is already one. There is one body, but it is cracked, scarred and divided in its present earthly existence. The mission of the church is, in part, to manifest this unity on earth just as it is heaven–and that is the story of sector 5.

Consequently, we pray that the will of God may be done on earth just as it is in heaven.  We pray that the body of Christ as it is know in heaven will also be known upon the earth. We pray for the unity of heaven and earth where the body of Christ might be fully experienced as one and we will know ourselves as God knows us, that is, we will experience the oneness of humanity in Christ as the body of Christ.

What is salvation?

In my first post in this series I proposed the below chart as a way of answering that important question. In this post I will comment on the third sector (3). 

Sector 3 identifies salvation as the future transformation of presently broken human persons (in both body and soul) into participants of a new humanity (both body and soul) in the new heavens and new earth.

To identify our personal future glorification as only the resurrection of the body is reductionistic. It is not comprehensive enough in the chart. Rather, our glorification is a metaphorsis into the likeness of Jesus the Messiah–the new human–in both body and soul; it is a passing from the old to the new in every way, a wholistic salvation of the person.

We are saved from death (thus, the resurrection of our bodies) and we are saved from corruption (thus, our souls–inner life–are fully transformed). Through our union with Christ, we are a recreated humanity as the image of God. This is our final state of glorification as we are united with the glorified Christ–the new human who reigns over creation in a glorified (resurrected) body.

This resurrected body is neither immaterial nor spiritual (that is, ethereal). Rather it is material and Spiritual. What I mean is our bodies will have material substance–they will share in the materiality of the new heaven and new earth, but they will be animated by the Holy Spirit rather than by “flesh and blood.” The life of the immortal body is not sustained by nutrition and blood (“life is in the blood”) as in the Adamic world, but it is sustained by the life-giving Spirit according to the model of the New Adam. The hope of the Christian faith is not the immortal soul, but the immortal body which is a part of the new creation in the new heaven and new earth. Our redemption–our salvation–includes the redemption of our bodies.

The soul–our inner likeness with God, our theosis–is perfected in the new heaven and new earth. While the process of perfection began in the past and continues in the present, it is not complete until we fully participate in the life of Christ at our resurrection. Then we shall fully be as he is though we do not know what that is like as we only now experience a foretaste of that future. We, like Jesus, will experience transfiguration in the new creation. We will be permanently transfigured into the image of God, a theosis of the new humanity in both body and soul.

We will be saved as part of the new creation to image God in the new heavens and new earth. We will be saved for eternal communion with God and to serve God as his images in the new temple, the new creation. God will save us to restore our original dignity and function, and God will glorify us by reinstating our dominion (reign) over the creation. Thus, with transformed bodies and souls we will again co-rule with God in the cosmos he created.

What is salvation?

In my first post in this series I proposed the below chart as a way of answering that important question. In this post I will comment on the second sector (2).  I debated with myself (which is an interesting thing to observe :-)) whether to proceed numerically 1, 2, 3…. or to proceed temporally (talk about all the past dimensions, then the present, then the future). I finally decided on the numerical method because in this series I ultimately want to emphasize what is usually neglected, that is, the cosmic (and often the communal as well).

Sector 2 identifies salvation as a present experience of “moral,” both inward and outward, transformation into the image of Christ who is the image of the invisible God. Personal sanctification is the process of becoming like Christ.

I put “moral” in quotation marks because I don’t want to simply identify this transformation by ethical virtues and practices (‘good works”) though it is a significant part of what I am attempting to describe.  The danger is to reduce our transformation to “doing ethics” rather than “being Christ” and to claim the power of this transformation as rooted in our own moral efforts rather than in the empowerment of the Holy Spirit.

Becoming like Christ entails moral transformation through the fruit-bearing power of the Spirit in our lives. We struggle against the “flesh” (σαρξ). There is a conflict or war inside of us. Indwelling sin battles against the indwelling Spirit so that we are often conflicted and we sometimes do not do what we want. Personal sanctification is a progressive though imperfect struggle against the sinful nature. We are neither perfectionists nor moral defeatists in this struggle–it is a battle that can be won only on the ground of the work of Christ and by the enabling presence of the Spirit but it is a hard-won victory through cooperative grace. The presence of the struggle reveals the presence of Spirit-enabled life. Through moral transformation we are saved from the debilitating power of sin.

This moral transformation is not limited to our inwardness, but is relational and kingdom-directed. It is practicing the kingdom of God just as Jesus did. It is becoming Jesus inwardly and outwardly.

But personal sanctification is not simply about moral transformation, struggle and victory, that is, defeating sin in our lives and being filled with the Spirit. It is also about being–living in communion and fellowship with God, participating in the mutual indwelling life of the Triune God. The Orthodox call personal sanctification theosis, that is, “defification.” It is an ancient characterization of life with God which goes back to at least Irenaeus in the late second century. It is reflected in 2 Peter 1:4 through the language of becoming partakers of the divine nature. We do not become ontologically divine (that is, we do not become infinite, omniscient, omnipotent, etc., so that we are God), but we experience the divine and become participants in the divine community.

Theosis includes moral transformation but it also includes ultimately participation in divine immortality (that is, glorification). Additionally, it includes a present experience of sharing the divine life and communion.  It is about being–living, sharing, communing–with God. Theosis even claims that believers may seek and experience a union with God that is analogous to Jesus’ own transfiguration, that is, believers may enjoy momentary experiences of eschatological communion through inward transfiguration even now as foretastes of what is to come. In other words, we may know God in ways that are beyond knowing and experience the depth of God’s love in ways that go beyond mere cognition (Ephesians 3:14-19).

God is certainly present with us in the now, but our awareness of that presence and communion is limited by our own brokenness and busyness. Spiritual practices, such as solitude, still our minds and hearts in ways that open up the fuller reality of God’s presence with us and enable us to experience the joy of our future blessedness even now. Theosis envisons not only our moral transformation into the likeness of Christ but opens our eyes to see that God draws us into the experience of divine union through the Holy Spirit who cries “Abba” in our hearts.

Our personal present salvation, then, is not only about moral effort (cooperative grace) but also about existential participation in the divine community. Our present salvation is about participation–participation in mission of the kingdom of God and participation in the Triune communion.

Though this participation we become Christ(ians) in the world.

What is salvation?

In my last post I proposed the below chart as a way of answering that important question. In this post I will comment on the first sector (1).

Sector 1 identifies salvation as a past, personal experience of reconciliation (healed relationship) with God through the forgiveness of sins and the imputation of righteousness.

I identify past as “Justification” because this is traditional (though western) language for the moment of conversion. It is technical theological jargon, a kind of insider language for western Christian theologians. It is helpful as a technical term because it economizes words. “Justification” is a categorical term that says alot  in one word rather than mulitplying phrases to describe what happens in “Justification.” 

Yet, there is a danger. When Paul uses the Greek term δικαιωσιν (justification, righteousness), it is not only used in reference to a past conversion moment but is also used as a synonymn for the present (e.g., Romans 6:13; sanctification) and future (e.g., Galatians 5:5; glorification) dimensions of salvation. Consequently, we cannot assume that every time Paul uses a cognate of δικαιος (just, righteous) that he is thinking about what theologians have called “Justification.” With that caveat, I think it is still helpful to use the technical terminology–at least in some contexts. But what is more important is to recognize the “past” nature of our salvation as a specific aspect of our rescue from brokenness.

Another important feature of identifying this quadrant is to recognize the personal nature of our salvation. I have avoided the term “individual” because I don’t want to raise the spector of individualism. We are not saved as isolated, disconnected individuals. But we are saved as persons, that is, we personally experience salvation. We are saved as persons by persons (Father, Son and Spirit) for relationship with persons (each other as well as the Triune community). Consequently, I do not have categorical problems with expressions like “personal relationship with Jesus or God” though I would have concerns about how that sentiment might be interpreted or applied individualistically.

What does it mean for persons to experience salvation as a past moment in their lives?  Perhaps we have to first ask what enslaves us. From what are we rescued or saved? What is broken? What or who captivates us?

Ultimately, relationships are broken, strained and hostile. This includes relationship with the self (we are fragmented people within ourselves), community (division, war, hostility), the cosmos (hostility) and God (broken communion). The personal focus of “Justification” is healing our personal relationship with God both forensically (guilt) and relationally (restored communion) . Relationship is restored and communion renewed through the forgiveness of sins (or non-imputaton of sin) and the imputation of righteouenss (Romans 4; 2 Corinthians 5).

Abraham was justified. David was forgiven. It is personal. I do believe we have a personal relationship with God. This is not a personalism disconnected from community but it is a personalism that recognizes that a person is healed through communion with God and the salvation is applied personally as well as communally.

This gift of relationship–reconciliation–is personally experienced through the presence of the Holy Spirit. This is not merely a forensic event (a “not guilty” verdict or a declaration that we are “in the right” by God’s act), but a communing encounter with the presence of God through the gift of the Spirit. The moment is forensic but also existential; it is both legal and relational. Indeed, the forensic (forgiveness of sins and imputation of righteousness) is a means toward the relational goal of existential communion.  But more needs to be said but I will leave that to sector #2.

This past act of “Justification” enables a present experience. It is not that we dwell in the past. Rather, we recognize that God’s past work in our lives empowers us to live confidently and boldly in the present. This is assurance. God’s act of justification is the ground of our assurance which we embrace through faith.

Justificaiton is God’s work–it is God’s declaration, God’s faithfulness, God’s forgiveness and God’s gift–which the Father accomplishes through the faithfulness of Jesus and applies to us through the work of the Holy Spirit. As we personally receive this gift through faith, we personally experience restored communion (relationship) with God.