What we Need to Be Saved From

[mkgal1]

The definition given of mature religion does not even mention God, so it seems to me that the problem is that this shifts the focus and makes freedom from brokeness and pain the goal with God just being used to reach that goal.

Religion is always about God.

What the text *does* say after the definition of mature religion is (which mentions Christ and our participation with Him): "For Christians, we learn to identify our own wounds with the wounding of Jesus and the sufferings of the universal Body of Christ (see Philippians 3:10-11), which is Deep Meaning that always feeds the soul. We can then see our own suffering as a voluntary participation in the one Great Sadness of God (Colossians 1:24). Within this meaningful worldview, we can build something new, good, and forever original, while neither playing the victim nor making victims of others. We can be free conduits of grace into the world."

 

[he-man]

I think you misread the quote.

I think you have avoided my post: Do you know what Nomina sacra means? It is a line drawn over the top of the letters when it is referring to a Holy thing or person. Here is the manuscript showing the Nomina Sacra over the θς and at the bottom of verse 4 it is over the θυ. Notice also that Christ has the Nomina Sacra Χυ

 

[Archivist]

What we Need to Be Saved From

The New England Patriots?

 

[Emmy]

What we need to be saved. Jesus told us in Matthew 22 35-40: " The first and great Commandment is: Love God with all thy hearts, with all thy souls, and with all thy minds. God is Love, and God wants loving sons and daughters. The Bible tells us: Love God and love each other. Give up all selfish desires and words, start loving and caring, be kind and always happy to help. God wants kind men and women:let us therefore be kind and always loving to our neighbour. All we know and all we meet. I say this with love and send greetings to all friends and loved ones.

 

[ViaCrucis]

There is an innate brokenness, a profound wrongness, a deep wound. Things are not as they ought to be. The revealed goodness of God is that there should be justice, peace, love; because that is Who He is and He is the author of all creation. And yet as creatures in the world do we observe the innate justice and peace of God amidst all creatures? No, we don't. God is not the God of the dead, but of the living, God is life and He is the author of life; yet there is death.

There is suffering, there is death, there is injustice, there is immense wrongness.

As Christians we see in the story of the Garden of Eden that this immense wrongness is not supposed to be, it is aberrant, a sickness infecting and infesting the created order; and we see that the intended communion between all God's creatures and between God and man is broken.

God, however, is not willing to abandon creation to this fate of ultimate nihilistic self-destruction and sadness, He intends to rescue, make new, and heal that creation. That's what salvation is, and what we are being saved from. We confess that Christ has died and Christ is risen, and is therefore the victor over sin, death, hell, and the devil; because it is the victory of Christ that is our salvation; because in Jesus we are victors with Him over sin, death, hell, and the devil. That is now in part, as we live in this mortal body in this present age, but it is in full when Christ returns and the dead are raised and God makes all things new.

Our participation with Christ, as His Church in the world, means bearing the reality of God's redemption in Jesus to the world, that is why we preach the Gospel, it is why we care for the broken, the hurting, and it is why we advocate for peace and justice. Not because this world is where justice dwells, but because as the Gospel-bearing people of God we proclaim the truth of what God has done in Jesus for the world. So as we confess that one day "they will beat their swords into plowshares" we bring that hope with us in this life to our neighbor.

We aren't going to fix the world--only God does that, having done it, is doing it, and will do it. But we can enter into the broken place of the world, and with the word of God's Gospel in our hearts and on our lips, serving our fellow man, confessing God's grace, shine a light into the dark places to deliver hope, bring rest to the weary, food for the hungry, kindness to those who have never known kindness, love to those who have never known love. To be Christians in this life on account of the hope we have for that life which is to come.

We are not saved from unhappiness, or present suffering, or pain; we aren't going to build a great society that somehow is immune from all the suffering that is present in this world--because as long as there is death, for as long as there is human nature swallowed up in its selfishness and ego there will always be a broken, lawless, and inhumane world in which some have and some have not. We can speak against this in this life, and preach the hope of what we have in Jesus for the future one, and declare the glorious undoing of death and the triumph of the Christ over all principalities, powers, and dominions, and dwell in the hope of that Gospel truth.

-CryptoLutheran

 

[fhansen]

There are any number of things we need to be saved from. All of them have to do in some way with sin and it's effect on our existence.

Ultimately though - to get to the bottom line - what we need to be saved from is God Himself. His wrath is being revealed against the world even now and it will reach a crescendo at the great white throne judgement.

Thanks be to the Lord that we can be saved from the wrath of God to come through faith in the work of Jesus Christ at Calvary on our behalf.

And yet Jesus is God dying for us, paying the price Himself. So it's a bit hard to reconcile God saving us from Himself. And while God necessarily and rightly opposes and hates evil, the primary message of the New Testament is that Jesus came to heal and save the lost-and that all men are sick and lost, truth be known. And their chief ailment, the source of their "lostness" is their spiritual separation from God, their very Source, their Creator, their Father.

While we may still prefer being lost so we can experiment with sin (a path Adam set us on), we have no idea where we came from, if anywhere, what we're here for, if for anything, and where we're going, if anywhere, without relationship with God, a relationship established by faith, a belief in God's existence and trustworthiness that was essentially dismissed by Adam.

 

[amariselle]

You quoted Romans 8:38 I was showing that they are much more than what you quoted. Ephesians 1:21-22

Showing that what is "much more than I quoted"? Sorry, I still do not understand what point you're trying to make.

 

[mkgal1]

And yet Jesus is God dying for us, paying the price Himself. So it's a bit hard to reconcile God saving us from Himself. And while God necessarily and rightly opposes and hates evil, the primary message of the New Testament is that Jesus came to heal and save the lost-and that all men are sick and lost, truth be known. And their chief ailment, the source of their "lostness" is their spiritual separation from God, their very Source, their Creator, their Father.

Exactly! Quoting for emphasis. Well said.

 

[mkgal1]

God, however, is not willing to abandon creation to this fate of ultimate nihilistic self-destruction and sadness, He intends to rescue, make new, and heal that creation. That's what salvation is, and what we are being saved from.

I really like how you articulated this. Maybe more people are able to agree with your language more than the words of author I quoted.

This paragragh--I think--clarifies the point, we aren't saved from suffering...merely our inability to deal with it. Instead of shutting down or being bitter and cynical.....we can offer love and grace to a world that is suffering:

We are not saved from unhappiness, or present suffering, or pain; we aren't going to build a great society that somehow is immune from all the suffering that is present in this world--because as long as there is death, for as long as there is human nature swallowed up in its selfishness and ego there will always be a broken, lawless, and inhumane world in which some have and some have not. We can speak against this in this life, and preach the hope of what we have in Jesus for the future one, and declare the glorious undoing of death and the triumph of the Christ over all principalities, powers, and dominions, and dwell in the hope of that Gospel truth.

-CryptoLutheran

 

[Kristen Davis]

1 Thessalonians 5:21 says,

"Test all things; hold fast what is good." (1 Thessalonians 5:21)

I think this includes that we test things which happen to us, in order to find out what God will do with it.

You can feed in Genesis 37-50, about how Joseph was betrayed by his own brothers, sold into slavery, then put in jail for what he did not do; yet, God used that horrible situation, by using Joseph to help to save many people's lives. He even found a way to reconcile with those brothers and to help save them, also, from starvation during a great famine.

So, God is able to make His all-loving use of anything, no matter how evil it is. This is like how our Heavenly Father has used the crucifixion of Jesus for His all-loving good for us.

Yes God examines our motives carefully especially when we do something wrong. However when we do the right thing he will also judge us accordingly but have mercy upon us when we are justified by our actions. James discusses this when God is linient on us if we have come to the holy spirit because of true repentance.

 

[SBC]

What we need to be saved from ~

Perishing

God Bless,
SBC

 

[Hillsage]

What we need to be saved FROM was told to us in the first sermon of the new church on Pentecost.

First we're told, in verse 38 and 39, to repent and be water baptized for the forgiveness of sins. Then we are to receive the Holy Spirit as the apostles had. And then Peter tells us just what we are to be SAVED FROM, as a result of receiving the above three fundamental doctrines. And that is summed up in verse 40.

ACT 2:40 And he testified with many other words and exhorted them, saying, "Save yourselves from this crooked generation."

In this age, we repent and are baptized into Christ to receive His NEVER ENDING forgiveness of SINS. And 'that' is something which WE can never do. Then we are to work out our salvation with fear and trembling from the crooked generation of this world/age which we live in. We do so in order to not suffer the TEMPORAL consequences of SINS in this life/generation.

 

[mkgal1]

Peter tells us just what we are to be SAVED FROM, as a result of receiving the above three fundamental doctrines. And that is summed up in verse 40.

ACT 2:40 And he testified with many other words and exhorted them, saying, "Save yourselves from this crooked generation."

In this age, we repent and are baptized into Christ to receive His NEVER ENDING forgiveness of SINs. Then we are to work out our salvation with fear and trembling from the generation of this world/age which we live in. We do so in order to not suffer the TEMPORAL consequences of SINS in this life/generation.

Well....that sums things up nicely, Hillsage!

I also see it as not just being about temporal consequences.....but that also helps affect others in the long run of things as well. Just like the author wrote as I quoted in the OP, as we are learning how to respond individually to suffering....we also aren't transmitting our pain onto others (so it's like a domino effect of healing). IOW.....our maturity (working out our salvation) positively affects those around us.

 

[Hillsage]

Well....that sums things up nicely, Hillsage!

I also see it as not just being about temporal consequences.....but that also helps affect others in the long run of things as well. Just like the author wrote as I quoted in the OP, as we are learning how to respond individually to suffering....we also aren't transmitting our pain onto others (so it's like a domino effect of healing). IOW.....our maturity (working out our salvation) positively affects those around us.

I think that recognizing that there is 'both' a temporal and a truly eternal consequence for sin is huge in Christian understanding of theology/doctrine.

And you are correct, when we are walking in obedience to the LordSHIP of 'Christ in us', which is different than the LORDship' of 'us in Christ', then we also affect those around us and the world we live in too.