Salvation: The Mystery of the ‘Why’ and the ‘How’

In faithful response to the mystery of salvation that God made known to us in his Son Jesus Christ, ¹ we are told to proclaim the good news we hold onto as our hope. ² The role of all believers is to proclaim by word and deed that God became man in Jesus of Nazareth, lived a sinless life, was crucified, buried and rose from the dead, and all of this has deep and powerful meaning for all people. We are told that just as sin entered the world through one man, the way to a full, whole life has been brought about by one man. ³ This is the mystery of the gospel: that God in Jesus Christ made a way for all people to be justified and drawn into relationship with him.

Layton Friesen writes, “a mystery is not a problem hard to figure out. A mystery is a reality that once ‘figured out,’ only opens up to new depths of mystery.” ⁴ In an attempt to carry on the conversation started by letter sent out by the BLO, there are a handful of items that could be expanded from the section on salvation, let alone the rest of the letter. Mystery seems to be the first notion to be dealt with in understanding how to proclaim the gospel well. There are two other questions that immediately come to mind from what is written in that letter: (1) Can we be assured of our salvation and, if so, how? And (2) What are we to do with those who had no opportunity to hear the gospel? Do we have any insight regarding their eternal fate?

On Mystery

We seem to struggle, societally, when we don’t know something. In a world where it feels as though anything I would like to know can be found through a Google search, the idea of not being able to access an answer to something might seem appalling. This quick access to information is both a good and a bad thing. Knowledge is power, as they say, so certainly a greater access to knowledge will lead to a more powerful, capable society. But this might be worth debating, considering the problem of misinformation and disinformation we face these days. What matters in this context, though, is we live with an underlying cultural assumption that if one wishes to know something, it can be readily found out.This assumption is well and good when it comes to mundane information. When one wishes to know the forecast or the best route to take driving somewhere, the assumption works. It breaks down, though, when we begin to enter more difficult areas of thought. The problem with this assumption isn’t exclusive to theology, but it certainly exists there. There are many theological truths we can know with a good amount of certainty—arguably, the same or greater amount of certainty we have when we take other claims to be true.

It seems clear, for example that God is love ⁵ and that God loved the world to the point of sending his Son to die for those who deserve death. ⁶ These are the things that seem clear and obvious because the surface reading of the text leads directly to this knowledge. The notion of mystery begins to enter in when we begin to ask the “why” and “how” of these things. For now, we can note that those theological truth claims that we can readily know tend to fall within the doctrine of perspicuity. That is, those things that God in the Bible makes so clear that anyone can understand and, by understanding, can come to a saving faith in Jesus.

The problem we are faced with is that it is correct to say that the workings of salvation are a mystery. Really, we could expand this to say the workings of God, and even much of who God is, is a mystery. As people experiencing the realities of a fallen world, we are unable to really know God. ⁷ Yet, we do know him to a degree because, “God acts to reveal himself to us. God uncovers things that were hidden, allowing us to know him and inviting us into relationship with him. This is part of the goodness of who God is—God is a revealing God, a God who wants us to have knowledge.” ⁸

So, because God is a revealing God who is good and wishes for as many as possible to come to him, ⁹ we know that through belief in Jesus we are saved. But why? Why is Christ’s death on the cross effective in doing away with sin and death? Must it have been the cross? Couldn’t he have been allowed to die of old age? We have good ideas to contribute to these questions. Concepts like Christus Victor, Ransom Theory and Substitutionary Atonement all seek to answer the question of why Christ’s death on the cross was effective. All of them have some Scripture that affirms their position, yet not one of them accounts for all the descriptions of salvation that we receive in Scripture. It is a mystery. We know in part and that partial knowledge invites further inquiry and consideration, but we must eventually accept we really do not know fully.

What is known is we have been given all of what we must know to have a saving faith in Christ, but the practical working of salvation remains a mystery. There are many questions that lay unresolved. The issue we particularly face today is that mystery is not a welcome word in many discussions. It can feel problematic, even embarrassing, to bring forward this notion that so many critical pieces of our faith are entrenched in mystery. In conversation with someone yet to accept Christ as Lord, to state that central pieces of the faith are a mystery can feel like a non-answer—an attempt to say, “That just is how it is, don’t ask questions.” On the other hand, it might seem that the notion of mystery fits Christianity into the postmodern standard of truth being entirely subjective—that the “truths” we claim to abide by and follow cannot necessarily be reasoned out but have been accepted as “our truth” because it feels correct. We need not accept either of these opinions. The issue isn’t so much theological but epistemological. Humans have limits. Every area of study has a point at which the expert must concede we do not know the whole picture. So, Christianity isn’t alone in dealing with this notion of mystery and the unknown, but that doesn’t quite help us know what to do with it.

What is the correct pastoral response to someone struggling with the notion of mystery and those parts of God that are not known? I suggest we must first develop a comfort with mystery. “We can’t give people what we don’t have.”¹⁰ In doing so, we model to others that a life of faith need not be one with full knowledge. Aspiring to know more, certainly, but recognizing there will always be mystery. Part of this modelling looks like responding to questions with the sometimes-feared answer of, “I do not know,” when we don’t know. Additionally, this comes with a recognition of our role. Paul Hiebert writes, “we need to remember that we are not God’s lawyers proving the gospel. We are witnesses to a new life.”¹¹

There are questions we cannot answer, but we can witness to the work of God in our life, and we can point to the faithful action of God through history. This seems to be our best option. In dealing with those areas of thought we do not—or perhaps, cannot—know fully, we are able to look back on those things we know with great certainty to establish a better foundation of understanding that, in turn, can help establish a context for an unknown situation. Imagine, for a moment, every word on this page was redacted (covered to not be read). You would know something is here to know, but you have no sense as to what it is. If the previous page remained as it is for you to read, you might be able to gain a clearer sense of what might be on this page. Further clarity would then require those redacted words to be revealed to you.

This is the way of faith. There are things we might do to develop a better foundation and context for understanding God and creation and our place in it. There are other things we are wholly dependent on God to reveal to us. While we pray and wait upon further revelation from God, we can stand firmly upon the foundation he has provided us with already. This is a part of the beauty of Christian fellowship. We have the Body, which we are a part of, to strengthen and encourage us in times of uncertainty. As Roth writes, “discipleship cannot be pursued alone. The context for the new creation that Paul writes about is always within a community of believers. We become the people God wants us to be by practicing discipleship together.”¹²

On Assurance of Salvation

While we may be able to develop a comfort with mystery in faith, there are points at which it seems especially important to be certain of things. I wrote above that we know belief in Jesus leads to salvation. From the very beginning of the church, the proclamation has been to repent of sinful living and believe in Jesus.¹³ But at what point do we cross that threshold from death into life? Is it possible to wander away from the path that leads to life? Again, as we begin to ask these deeper questions of salvation, we enter the territory of mystery.

What marks the beginning of new spiritual life? The Bible offers some amount of clarity regarding the point at which someone becomes justified before God. We might look to texts like Mark 16:16 and others like it that state “whoever believes and is baptized will be saved.”¹⁴ Or we might look to 2 Corinthians 5:17: “If anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!”¹⁵ A third category of passages to inspect are those that speak to the repentance and transformation expected with conversion. “You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; to be made new in the attitude of your minds; and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.”¹⁶

What depth of belief is required to be saved? What is the point at which one is “in Christ”? How much of one’s old self must be put off before one attains to the righteousness and holiness God gives in the new self? The traditional evangelical answer has been to point to the moment in which an individual says the sinner’s prayer, emphasizing Romans 10:9 as the best indicator for the moment of conversion. It seems that this does not account for the other two categories of conversion texts, though. The Romans passage points to a particular moment when one walks across a line, but what of putting off the old self—which seems to be a continuous process—or being in Christ—seemingly also a continuous process: is there a moment where one is fully in Christ? It seems we might need more to properly capture the biblical vision of conversion.

Hiebert picks this up in his text when he writes, “We need to return to a biblical view of transformation, which is both a point and a process; this transformation has simple beginnings (a person can turn wherever he or she is) but radical, lifelong consequences.”¹⁷ Perhaps to more accurately capture the biblical vision of salvation, we must actually use the phrase, “I am saved and am being saved,” as we move through the initial moment of conversion and into a life of considering the ramifications of accepting Christ as Lord of our life. This way of considering salvation is helpful as it includes the language of being in Christ and putting off the old self and helps us realize that salvation is for today rather than a distant future.

Let’s return to the question that got us here: can we know when we are “in”? This is the strength of the traditional evangelical position; it speaks to this certainty of whether an individual has been drawn into the kingdom of God or not. Paul, for example, seems certain of his own salvation.¹⁸ But it mustn’t end there. This is the place that Anabaptists can make a good contribution to the thinking of the church. The process of discipleship we emphasize as Anabaptists should additionally be thought of as the process of being saved. It is in this mindset that we work out our salvation with fear and trembling as God works to transform us.¹⁹

As we are being saved there seem to be four paths or ways that are always available. The first is to simply stop, turn back around and continue in our old ways. To consider salvation as something that happens and is happening opens the door to the understanding that one might make such a choice to discontinue the process of salvation in their life. This is the most obvious of the four paths, the other three can be far more difficult to discern from one another. Down the middle is the path laid out before us by God. This path is the one in which we “conduct [ourselves] in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ”²⁰ and take part in the good works that God has prepared for us to do.²¹ Clearly, this is the path we wish to walk as it is the way by which we come to salvation in Christ. The other two ways lay just to the left and right of this good way. Jones summarizes the danger well:

The doctrine of soteriology must follow the thread of Scripture in rejecting errors on two sides of the truth. The teaching of justification by faith stands against the error of legalism or works righteousness, of a doomed Pelagianism in which we attempt to be our own saviors. On the other side, the doctrine of sanctification stands against the error of antinomianism, of acting as though God’s law has nothing to say to the Christian life, as if it doesn’t matter how we live.²²

Taken on their own, these false ways might seem obviously problematic. A life in which there is no putting off the old self makes it difficult to believe that the process of salvation is taking place. On the other hand, a life that slips into legalism has taken back control of their life, rather than submitting to the lordship of Christ. Discipleship in the context of community can help to safeguard against both erroneous paths, perhaps especially against antinomianism. It is difficult to imagine—although situations certainly exist where this is the case—that a full community of people will neglect the fact that a life in Christ means that the old should be put off, that one should not sin just so that grace might abound.²³ “If you live according to the flesh, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live. For those who are led by the Spirit of God are the children of God.”²⁴ Paul is clear in saying that Christians cannot simply claim, “Grace! Grace!” and expect all will be well. There is grace (and how dependent we are on it!) but that grace cannot be license to do anything. The subtlety of this false way comes in discerning the “misdeeds of the body.” This, again, is a place where we enter into mystery; faithful followers of Christ do not have a full consensus on what is allowable and what is strictly off-limits for a follower of Jesus. We must pray for discernment.

The other erroneous path can be far more difficult to discern. People like clear boundaries; this is particularly true for those of us with a North American worldview. Clear boundaries can be incredibly helpful. Consider this: “Anyone who claims to be in the light but hates a brother or sister is still in the darkness.”²⁵ That’s a clear boundary. Within the Christian life, there is no room for hate. Knowing we must live lives worthy of the gospel, we can cling to these boundaries to know what a life worthy of the gospel looks like. But in doing so, we can stumble into a situation in which we presume that a failure to adhere to a boundary will result in a loss of salvation: I did not live a life worthy of the gospel, and therefore am not entitled to the benefits of it anymore. “We fall into Pelagian patterns when we fear that we are not saved, because our religious feelings have waned…or perhaps we harbor a sense of cold dread because of our repeated failures.”²⁶ When this is true of our patterns of thinking, we have slipped into a works righteousness in which we have denied the lordship of Christ and have, whether intentionally or not, claimed that we are capable of being good enough.

There is much need to regularly reflect on our lives and invite the Holy Spirit to make clear to us where corrections must be made. This is part of what it means to work out our salvation with fear and trembling. In reflection we can be affirmed we are indeed on the path of salvation. Not because we will not be confronted by issues that need to be changed—certainly, we will always have parts of our lives in which we must yet be perfected—but because we are intentionally submitting to the power of the Holy Spirit to convict and transform us. As Paul writes, “Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me.”²⁷

The workings of salvation in the life of people by God is a mystery. As we strive to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of us, we must recognize that it will not be wholly clear whether others are doing the same. Even within myself, I recognize the need to regularly inspect my intentions and whether I am truly submitting to the lordship of Christ. How could I know with any great certainty that is the case in someone else? As Friesen writes, “It is only God who can finally judge whether a response is real saving faith. We do not see into the heart as God does. It is our task to proclaim the good news.”²⁸ It is in this proclamation that we are invited to simply be faithful to the command placed on all believers and to enter into the mystery of salvation.

---

¹Ephesians 1:3–10.
²Matthew 28:18–20.
³Romans 5:12–21.
⁴Friesen, from the conclusion of his teaching letter Gracious Judge, Holy Saviour.
⁵1 John 4:16.
⁶John 3:16.
⁷1 Corinthians 13:12.
⁸Felker Jones, Practicing Christian Doctrine: An Introduction to Thinking and Living Theologically, 32.
⁹2 Peter 3:9.
¹⁰Brown, Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent and Lead, 177.
¹¹Hiebert, Transforming Worldviews: An Anthropological Understanding of How People Change, 312.
¹²Roth, Beliefs: Mennonite Faith and Practice, 91. Emphasis added.
¹³Acts 2:38.
¹⁴Mark 16:16. All Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com The “NIV” and “New International Version” are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.™
¹⁵2 Corinthians 5:17.
¹⁶Ephesians 4:22–24.
¹⁷Hiebert, Transforming Worldviews: An Anthropological Understanding of How People Change, 310 (emphasis added).
¹⁸Consider texts like Philippians 1:21–26.
¹⁹Philippians 2:13.
²⁰Philippians 1:27.
²¹Ephesians 2:10.
²²Felker Jones, Practicing Christian Doctrine: An Introduction to Thinking and Living Theologically, 152.
²³Romans 6:1.
²⁴Romans 8:13–14.
²⁵1 John 2:9.
²⁶Felker Jones, Practicing Christian Doctrine: An Introduction to Thinking and Living Theologically, 158.
²⁷Philippians 3:12.
²⁸Friesen, from page 4 of Gracious Judge, Holy Saviour.

Works Cited

Brown, Brené. Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent and Lead. New York, New York: Penguin Random House, 2012.

Felker Jones, Beth. Practicing Christian Doctrine: An Introduction to Thinking and Living Theologically. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2014.

Hiebert, Paul G. Transforming Worldviews: An Anthropological Understanding of How People Change. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Academic, 2008.

Roth, John D. Beliefs: Mennonite Faith and Practice. Harrisonburg, Virginia: Herald Press, 2005.