Saved?

Recently, I was asked if I am “saved.” The person asking the question pointed me to Romans 10:8-13[1] and asked for a simple yes or no answer as to whether I had “done what The Bible says to do in order to get salvation.” My answer was that I do confess that “Jesus is Lord” and that I believe in my heart that God raised him from the dead. Consequently, according to this passage of Scripture, I am “saved.” This was sincere and truthful, but I think that it ought to be only the beginning of the conversation. So, I want to take this opportunity to expand a bit more on what biblical salvation is all about.

What exactly does it mean to be saved? There is a common understanding, among some Christians, that all that really matters is whether an individual is “in” or “out”. According to this viewpoint, the main benefit of being “in” is that we get to go to heaven when we die. Consequently, the Bible gives us a simple formula to determine whether we are saved: do we confess that Jesus is Lord and do we believe in our hearts that God raised him from the dead? If the answer to both questions is affirmative, then we are "in", and we get to go to heaven someday. In all fairness, I doubt that the person I was speaking to about my salvation thinks along these lines, and I would not want to assume that to be the case. Nonetheless, this line of thinking is all too common in the Church, and I find it somewhat problematic.

What concerns me is that this viewpoint does not recognize the completeness of our salvation in Christ. Certainly, we are promised eternity with God, and I do not want to minimize the importance of that in any way. But, as I read the Scripture, I do not see salvation as merely fire insurance or a guarantee of heaven someday. Rather, as I have discussed in previous posts, it is an invitation into the Kingdom of Heaven, right here and right now. It is an invitation to love and serve others as Christ loves and serves us. It is the beginning of a changed life, filled with the Holy Sprit and a change in our loyalties from the temporal to the eternal.

While Jesus was walking the Earth, he promised his followers an Advocate, who would be with us forever. We are told that “[we] will know him, because he abides with [us], and he will be in [us].”[2] Paul, throughout his epistles, gives us a deeper understanding of what this promise entails. Specifically, he points to a changed life, which is exemplified by the contrast of the “works of the flesh” with the “fruit of the Spirit.” According to Paul, the works of the flesh are (in part) “fornication, . . . idolatry . . . anger. . .envy, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these.”[3] Paul goes on to explain what a Spirit-filled life (which could also be described as a “saved” life or citizenship in the Kingdom[4]) looks like: “By contrast, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.”[5] He tells us that “[t]here is no law against such things.” In short, salvation is an opportunity to experience life, right here and right now, filled with love and all that flows from it.

When we enter this new life, our loyalties change. Rather than being “enslaved to sin”, we become “slaves . . . to obedience, which leads to righteousness[.]”[6] Salvation, therefore, is not a gift that we must wait for temporal death to unwrap. Instead, it is a changed life that begins on the day we confess and believe, according to Romans 10:9-10, and continues to mature as we allow the Holy Spirit to change us from within. The assurance of our salvation is not a mere statement of belief. It is the changed life brought about by the Holy Spirit living within us, “as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come.”[7]




[1] The most relevant portion, I believe, is verses 9-10: “because if you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For one believes with the heart and so is justified, and one confesses with the mouth and so is saved.” (All Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version unless otherwise noted).
[2] John 14:16-17
[3] Galatians 5:19-21
[4] See Philippians 3:20 (“But our citizenship is in heaven, and it is from there that we are expecting a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.”)
[5] Galatians 5:22-23
[6] Romans 6:1-23 (specifically vv. 6, 16)
[7] 2 Corinthians 1:22 (NIV)(The NRSV translates this to say that God is “giving us his Spirit in our hearts as a first installment.”)