Fordthought
  • Blog
  • Word of the Week
  • Dig Deeper

Word of the Week: W/C 14/09/15 - Salvation

13/9/2015

 




Being released from the limitations of human existence and sin to eternal life with God

Picture
PictureImage: Weebly
Salvation in Christian context is the idea of being saved from sin and obtaining eternal life with God. Christian theologians such as Paul and Augustine looked back to the Adam and Eve narrative in the Old Testament and suggested that the human relationship with God which Adam and Eve originally enjoyed broke down at the Fall. Through sinning by disobeying God and eating of the Fruit mankind "Fell" and all humans share in this disobedience. However, God through his love and mercy constantly cares for his creation, first by giving them laws to obey, sending the prophets to guide them and finally by becoming Incarnate in the form of Jesus, suffering and dying on the cross for the sins of the world. By his death the relationship is restored and a way to heaven is opened up - this is known as Atonement

Many exclusivist Christians believe that humans can only be saved by the death of Jesus Christ on the cross and salvation is only available to those who place their faith in him. Hence he is the Saviour. Faith is more than simply belief in the teaching and example of Jesus; it is about placing one’s trust in these things. Most Christians believe, however, that faith cannot come from the believer alone but requires the grace of God. This is defined as a blessing from God which is undeserved. This is offered freely to all people but we exercise free will in either accepting or rejecting it. God wants everyone to come to faith but does not force people to do so as this would interfere with our free-will.
PictureImage: John Hain
Salvation is also achieved through worship and love. Worship may include prayer, bible reading, attending services and receiving holy communion – at the Last Supper Jesus instructed his followers to eat bread and drink wine “in remembrance of me”. Christians have long debated the relative importance of “faith” and “works” - it was a large element in the reformation by Martin Luther in the Sixteenth Century.


Christian love takes the form of agape – selfless love. This can be summed up as love of neighbour – “do unto others as you would have them do unto you”. It is about loving without counting the cost or expecting anything in return. Jesus said that “greater love has no man than to lay down his life for a friend”. This, after all, is what Jesus did, not just for his friends but for all of sinful humanity.

PictureImage: Geralt
These ideas about Salvation do of course raise interesting questions and objections - Why are all humans affected by the “Original Sin” of Adam? This does not make biological or moral sense. Why did God need to be elaborately incarnated and die to restore the relationship? Why bother with the whole of the suffering of human history if God is Omnipotent - he could have just made Adam and Eve not to sin! And many have argued that Salvation is just wishful thinking to help us deal with psychological and social traumas that we face in our daily lives - these religious ideas are just designed to make us feel there is some purpose to our suffering and that it will all be ok in the end.

What do you think? Is the Christian view of Salvation credible? Or wishful thinking?

The Christian view of salvation is nicely summed up in this video animated by Rich Oster and narrated by Fiona Green:



Comments are closed.

    Archives

    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014

    Categories

    All
    Abortion
    Absolutism
    Agnostic
    Analogy
    Apophatic
    A Priori
    Aquinas
    Article
    Assisted Dying
    Banking
    Bertrand Russell
    Book Review
    Buddhism
    Christianity
    Covenant
    Dawkins
    Design
    Diaspora
    Dig Deeper
    Epiphany
    Equality
    Euthanasia
    Existentialism
    Fallacies
    False Dichotomy
    Family
    Fertility
    Genesis
    Hajj
    Higher Education
    Holocaust
    Hospice
    Human Rights
    Human-rights
    Hume
    Islam
    ISRSA
    Justice
    JWT
    Life After Death
    Love
    Martyr
    Messiah
    MOOC
    Narnia
    NDE
    News
    Nirvana
    Ontological
    Plato
    PPE
    Pro Choice
    Pro-Choice
    Pro Life
    Pro-Life
    Prophet
    Reformation
    Relativism
    Religion
    Rights
    Science Vs Religion
    Secularisation
    Sport
    Stewardship
    Surrogacy
    Teleological
    Temple
    Ten Commandments
    Theology
    Viability
    Via Negativa
    Warfare
    Wittgenstein
    Word
    Word Of The Week
    Word-of-the-week

    RSS Feed

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.