The evangelical emphasis on personal salvation sorely neglects the fact that Christ is cosmic Lord and Savior. The Logos through whom all things are created is the same Logos through whom all things are being reconciled to God. God is not just saving some humans from sin and hell, but all creation from finitude and corruption of which evil is a contributing factor. So, it's not primarily about heaven and hell. It's about God fulfilling what God set out to create, i.e. a good creation. That, I think, should be the primary framework through which we think about this, and not whether someone claims to believe a doctrine in order to go to heaven. How personal salvation and eternal destiny figure into that framework has its place, but it should be secondary and appropriately qualified.
Early in the video Enns referred to life transformation. There are saints throughout human history that never heard of Jesus. And yet, they live like Jesus, they love like Jesus, they give like Jesus, they follow him unwittingly, I suppose. That is exactly what Christians are supposed to do, i.e. be like Christ. The mistaken notion that mere belief in a doctrine is life transforming, or at least sufficient if it isn't, couldn't be more mistaken. And I think the modern era has encouraged this wrong-headed kind of thinking.
Throughout most of human history, the pursuit of wisdom was never separated from the pursuit of a certain way of living. After the Enlightenment, intellectual assent took on a life of its own. Wisdom was not so much a way of life, but the ability to have clear and distinct ideas (Descartes) or ideas that agree (Locke). The ancients never separated knowledge of the good from participation in it. Socrates went so far as to say that if one knew the good thing to do one would do it, and if they didn't do the good thing that was an indication they didn't know what it was. That sounds strange to us, because we assume knowledge and doing are two different things. John says something very similar as Socrates when he says if you know God then you love, if you don't love you don't know God.
In the modern era we have separated knowledge (wisdom) from how we live. You can see this at the beginning of the last century when certain groups within the Christian community make the basis for Christian belief not adherence to faithful living, but adherence to a set of fundamentals that must be believed for salvation. Knowledge (pseudo-wisdom) and living become separate things. You see the same effect in modern philosophy with the much debated question, "Can one be an ethicist without adhering to the ethics they prescribe?" That question only makes sense in a context in which people put forward beliefs that have no bearing on how they live, lol.
That needs a little unpacking.
You do realize that it's not belief in a doctrine that is life transforming, but belief in the person and atoning work (blood--
Romans 3:25) of Jesus Christ for the remission of one's sin and right standing with God's justice; i.e., "not guilty," sanctified, that is life transforming, right?
And if we are going to be true to what both Jesus and the NT teaches, there is no salvation without saving faith in Jesus Christ (
John 3:18,
John 3:36).
A perfect life of love without faith in Jesus Christ does not save, for that is simply salvation by works, which the NT denies (
Ephesians 2:8-9). We don't know the real reason for the practice of such people, whether it was about God or self.
That having been said, those who know nothing of Jesus, however,
do know of God from creation alone (
Romans 1:18-20) and, if their intent was to serve the living God according to their conscience, then they
would be saved, for they made the only God they knew of also their Lord.
But let's not ascribe salvation where the NT denies it, right?
