Hi ViaCrucis,
So you believe salvation is automatic for everyone?
No. While it is true that all have been objectively justified by Christ's work, since Christ died for all (Romans 5:18), the way God applies that objective work to us individually is through the Means He has established. Which is why St. Paul writes,
"
How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? And how are they to preach unless they are sent? ...So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ." - Romans 10:14-15,17
Salvation doesn't happen spontaneously out of no where, Christ commissioned His Apostles, and thus the Church, to "
make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit" (Matthew 28:19) and to "
and that repentance for the forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem." (Luke 24:47)
Hence the universal work of Christ which is objectively for all comes to us through the Means God has Himself established; it is why the Church has been given the task of preaching the Word and administering the Sacraments, as we see right there in Scripture. That is how God has chosen to work to create and give us faith, through which we have been freely justified by God's grace.
Salvation IS a gift and not by works, but we have to receive it by faith in order for it to become ours. Here's an analogy to help you with this:
- If I went to the store to buy an expensive gift for you, used my own money to purchase it, brought it home, gift wrapped it, brought it to you on your birthday and offered it to you in my hands -- that gift would not actually become yours (or in your possession) until you took it from me by reaching out your hands to accept it. Your other choice would be to reject it. Just because you have the ability to receive it doesn't mean it automatically becomes yours without any action (not "works") on your part. And if you did receive my gift, it also doesn't mean you did anything to "earn" it or provide it or work for it. You simply received the free gift I offered to you. If you refused the gift, it would not be yours because it never transferred ownership from me to you.
Yes, that's the same analogy I used to hear all the time growing up in Evangelicalism. The problem with it is that it places the locus of our salvation upon us. It is up to us to do the right thing. Simply saying there is only one work we have to do in order to be saved doesn't stop it from being works.
Here is the more appropriate analogy, if I am a person of great wealth and I assign an inheritance to you and place it directly into your bank account, this gift and inheritance already belongs to you. It's yours, you don't have to take it, you don't have to come to me to take it from me--it's yours. It's in your possession. However, how can you benefit from this gift if you do not know about it? Unless someone tells you that it is in your bank account. If you have not heard, then you cannot believe, and unless you believe you cannot enjoy the benefits of the gift.
Forgiveness is yours in Christ, not by your decision, not by your choice, not by any work; but by what Christ has done. Period. But how can you benefit from Christ's work unless you hear it? How can you hear it unless it is told to you? And so the good news of this gift is presented and given to you, that you might hear the Gospel, that you might benefit from the Gospel. That upon hearing this Word, upon receiving this Word (which is a passive thing on your part), through the preaching of the Word and the administration of the Sacraments, you are now the benefactor of that good word. For what Christ has accomplished for you is yours, that through faith you might take possession of it; but this faith is not a work of your flesh, it is the gift of God. For without the Spirit giving you faith through God's Means you could not know or believe, but would remain ignorant of it, lost in the despair of your sin, knowing only the condemnation that comes from the Law.
God is the one who has provided salvation. God is the one who has provided each of us with a measure of faith capable of believing Him. But God has given us a free will to choose or reject Him. Therefore, it is our responsibility to exercise our God-given faith by placing it in Him for our salvation. Otherwise, we do not possess it. God did His part, we are responsible for doing our part, which is to simply to receive it by trusting Him and what He did for us (that we could never do for ourselves). Believing does not equate to "works" on our part, since there is absolutely nothing we can do to earn, provide for, or accomplish our own salvation. Nowhere in Scripture is that an automatic thing for anyone. Otherwise, hell would not exist.
If the will was free then men could choose and follow after God by their own devices, strength, effort, and works; and indeed it would have been said that there are those who follow after God and obey His commandments and they are thus justified by their righteous works. But that is not what the Scriptures say.
The Scriptures say that we were dead in our trespasses, held in bondage to sin and death, and that there is no one who loves God, no one who seeks after God, no one who does good, no one who is righteous--no, not even one. And that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. That the wages of sin is death. That the heart is wicked and desperately sick, who can understand it? Therefore, at the right time, the time of God's own choosing, He sent His Son, born of a woman, born under the Law, and that by the life, obedience, death, and resurrection of God's Son God has freely justified sinners. So that there is a justice that is apart form the Law, for indeed no one can be justified under the Law, there is instead that justice which is by faith in Christ, which is God's gift, pure gift.
If you rely on the depravity of your will to be justified, then you will only find death, for there is only death in your bones. Our salvation is found outside of us, in what Christ has accomplished for us, once and for all. Believe the good news.
-CryptoLutheran
