Eyes to See Salvation

Well, it’s taken me a while longer to respond to Ryan’s post than it took him to respond to mine. There is so much that I’d like to spend time thinking about, but of course so many other things clamor for attention as well! However, I’m finally taking time to address some of the issues that Ryan’s raising as he has written in his post. It’s really great to force yourself to think through these things, and to admit where you are as you’re thinking through them. I pray that those who read this will be led to know truth more deeply.

I’m somewhat in shock that I need to define “salvation” as I start this off. Ryan says that if I’m going to claim that we need God’s revelation in Jesus Christ for salvation that I must define what salvation is (or what we need salvation from). My first thought is that only a middle-upper class American could possibly want someone to define what salvation is, and even then he has to be reaching. Can we not look at the world and see that we need salvation? I’m quite confident that the 3rd class country citizens who struggle through malnutrition, diseases, genocidal governments, daily deaths, tsunamis, etc., etc., etc. would not wonder what salvation means. I think they would know that they are in need of something greater to hope in that they themselves cannot just strive for and achieve. I’m still at a loss as to how even Americans can wonder about what we must be saved from. Do we not seek our own glorification above the good of others? Do we not see homicides and thievery almost daily? Do we not have strife, loss, difficulty in work, fear, etc.? There should be no way that we miss the fact that we need something/someone from outside of us to save us.

Having said that, it should be obvious to people who are reading this that Ryan is coming with a foundational proposition: that our Reason is not flawed and therefore that it will lead us to “the Good (God)”. I am basically coming with the assumption that our reasoning is flawed, and while our individual appreciations of God will vary based upon the minds that God has given us, our Reason alone will never lead us back to God. What can possibly make me say this? Hasn’t the use of reason and science brought us great progress? In some senses, maybe so. The activities in our lives are more efficient now, we’re more capable of getting what we want, and information is much more readily available. But, if our reason will lead us to God, then why hasn’t it yet? If our reasoning alone is capable of leading us to this God-figure that Ryan’s suggesting, then that must mean it is flawless (unless God is not flawless). And yet, no two people have fully agreed on the complete nature of God. Pain and evil actions still exist. You would at least think that our reasonable selves would learn from the past, and that the most reasonable of all societies - the “Enlightened” West - would have kept itself from exterminating the lives of millions in a world-wide war. But, that’s not what we find. Despite thousands of years of trying, our reason simply can’t seem to get us even to a plane of moral stability.

Through the entirety of his post, Ryan chooses to start from an unproven assumption. He says in the very first paragraph that I conclude that without God’s Word to us we’re “left to our own reason and experiences to tell us who God is.” And he then says “This is exactly what we have done anyway!” But don’t miss the fact that he has stated an assumption as a fact. He continues to assume that we are left alone to find out who God is. I’ve already discussed that I don’t believe we’re capable of knowing God apart from God’s initiation of knowing us. I readily admit this is an assumption, but I simply ask that we recognize that Ryan starts with an assumption as well (that I believe has no more validity than my own).

I really ought to address some of Ryan’s issues with the importance I place on the Word of God (revealed in the Bible). A few times he states that he doesn’t think I’m suggesting biblical divinity with what I’m saying. Then he says that he “would question the need for God to rely on man's written word.” But I don’t believe he’s asking the right question. Because it’s not that God is reliant upon a human book. I completely cede that God brings people to Himself who have never read the Bible (by this I’m mostly referring to men and women from places that do not now have access to the written Word). But, His Word - which is completely revealed in the Bible - is always in unity with what the Spirit is revealing. People don’t come to faith in God apart from knowledge of who He is, which comes only from the Spirit. The Spirit opens our souls to God’s Word, which reveals God’s nature (and which in turn reveals who we are in light of Him and tells us what He’s done for us). And, may I point out, that in the Bible, God’s Word is unified to His very nature. The gospel of John, chapter 1: “In the beginning was the Word. And the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”

But let’s specifically look at the Bible for a moment. Ryan questions the importance of the Bible, especially since “neither Jesus nor any of his disciples had any knowledge of the New Testament during his ministry.” But I’m not assuming that we need a leatherbound, King James Version with cross-references to come to salvation. The Word of God has been revealed to man progressively, and has come to fullness in Jesus Christ - The Word. This is the way in which the Word of God works: in the New Testament times, the Spirit was revealing the Truth concerning God to the apostles. The Spirit now works to illuminate what has already been revealed. So, to say that the apostles had no knowledge of the New Testament is false because what God was revealing to them is the New Testament Word of God. The Spirit was enacting the work of revealing and inspiring words of truth. However, that truth was not different from what God reveals to us today. (And I will remind you again, that God uses his Scriptures usually when bringing men and women to himself. Sometimes he supernaturally opens the hearts of unbelievers in other ways - dreams, visions, etc. But this is the great exception rather than the rule, and still they will not be without sufficient knowledge for faith in God’s salvation in Jesus.)

What’s more, in a sense we do receive all knowledge from God. For, all knowledge that is true is authorized by God’s Word. I should clarify that I don’t think that all details of our existence come from the Bible. Instead, the Bible defines and qualifies any knowledge we have. How we know things and what we are granted the right to know are expressed in the Bible. I don’t think right now it’s immediately necessary to expound, but if I need to later, then I will.

We really shouldn’t try to wear readers out in one sitting, but I want to address one more pertinent point in Ryan’s post. He wonders how God can possibly relate to us created beings when Jesus had omniscience while on Earth. Ryan questions whether Jesus could truly identify with humans, who are limited in knowledge and power as we walk through the earth; we don’t know how people will react to us socially, we don’t know what our future holds, we can’t presume to provide for ourselves. But, in Ryan’s specific example about his own life, let me ask: why is he under stress about what the future holds? Doesn’t Jesus speak directly to us and tell us that we have no reason to worry? (Matthew 6:25-34...“Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.”) But, if we’re trusting in our abilities to bring us to where we ought to be tomorrow, then of course we’re going to be stressed! Jesus was “tempted” to worry, distress, despair, and all other things. Yet these were overcome, not by a special tap into his omniscience or power. Because Jesus did not live simply to choose when he would and would not use his divine abilities. But he lived in complete submission to His Father - who, I must remind Christians, is also our Father!

So I will finish off this post with a response to Ryan’s accusation: “It seems that if the only way to see God revealing himself in the Bible is to come to the Bible with that very expectation then we are being set up to see what we make ourselves see.” But is Ryan not seeing what he makes himself see? Doesn’t he want to see a God who has endowed us with power to be individuals, capable on our own accord of succeeding? Doesn’t he take out the parts of the gospel accounts that seem to contradict his experience of life? In fact, when I come to the Bible allowing God’s Word to stand over me and define my existence, I am choosing to accept those things which I am incapable of explaining. I’m really seeing what I often don’t want to see, because it goes completely against where my natural self tells me to go. Die to myself? Love my enemies? Pray for those who persecute me? Believe in a man who died as a criminal? Wholly trust in a resurrection that goes completely against my experience of life and death? I would not want to make myself see these things. Rather, I accept them based upon God’s promise of life through them. But my belief is no more blind than any other man’s.