In much Western Christianity, Jesus saves us from God. “Justification by faith” became the way to our salvation. (I plan a future series regarding the deficiency of this atonement theory.) We have grievously dishonored God by our sin. God is too holy, just, and glorious to allow such sin to be overlooked. To preserve God’s honor, it must be punished. The innocent and righteous Jesus becomes our “whipping boy” by taking on all of God’s wrath and being tortured to death. All those who have faith in Jesus and his sacrifice for humankind are “justified” (proclaimed innocent even though in reality still guilty) as Jesus’ innocent suffering is “imputed” to them. We are saved by child abuse.
This theory is often called transactional atonement or penal substitutionary atonement. It assumes God will not or cannot forgive our sin without there being punishment. Such logic overlooks the many hundreds of times in the Hebrew Scriptures where God forgives sin without a drop of blood being shed. It also disregards those occasions when Jesus forgave sin during his ministry before his crucifixion. (Furthermore, if the sin is “paid for” through Christ’s sacrifice, then there is no need for forgiveness. The debt has been paid for everyone.)
Thomas Erskine (1788-1870), a Scottish lay theologian, exposed the fallacy of such a theory. Erskine influenced F.D. Maurice and George MacDonald who, in turn, impacted the theology of C.S. Lewis (along with help of Lewis’ Oxford colleague J.R.R. Tolkien). The Scottish theologian pointed out the difference between forgiveness and our actual experience of salvation. According to Erskine, God has forgiven all of humanity from before the beginning of creation. The Incarnation was not Plan B after humans corrupted Plan A. God, from eternity, always planned to become incarnate in Jesus and to offer a “Father’s unconditional love” to Her children. Such forgiveness is an indispensable part of God’s everlasting and indiscriminate love.
However, forgiveness by itself does not save. Someone can forgive another without that other accepting the forgiveness and being transformed by it. There must be an openness from that other to such mercy and grace. From God’s side, we are safe in Her love. From our side, we must allow that love to heal and make us whole. Erskine used examples of forgiveness offered but not acknowledged or received. Suppose a mother forgives her son who has hurt her in unconscionable ways. However, the son, who now lives in a faraway country, does not know about that forgiveness. As he matures, he regrets his treatment of his mother and feels deep and paralyzing guilt. A false report arrives telling him his mother has died, and his grief becomes unbearable. He has been forgiven by his mother who wants nothing more than to hold her son in her arms and heal him with love. But the son does not know of this forgiveness which could soothe his heart and soul and allow for a new and redemptive beginning. But suppose the mother finds her son and they are reconciled. Healing and wholeness can now take place in ways that the son never thought possible.
Erskine went on to insist that because God has loved us unconditionally from all eternity and nothing can cancel that love, we should never assume we are “saved” from God or God’s wrath when conceived as everlasting, retributive punishment. If there is wrath from God, it is a part of God’s all-consuming and healing love. Its purpose is remedial, not punitive—correcting, not punishing—saving, not damning. Becoming aware of God’s unfathomable love and the divine forgiveness which flows from that self-giving love becomes a learning process which may well extend into eternity. And no doubt, some of that education will be painful.
As we have seen in the past, Paul uses three tenses with the verb “to save.” The past tense expresses the profound truth that from all eternity, God has loved and chosen us for a destiny of ever-evolving growth in the likeness of Jesus. From God’s side, we are safe in Her loving arms. The present tense communicates that salvation (which means “healing” and “wholeness”) is a process. We are all in process of “being saved/healed/whole.” The future tense extends that process into time and eternity. We will become healed and whole because God’s love is dependable and transformative. As God’s unfathomable love unfolds with endless possibilities of growth, joy, and adventure, we are destined for ever-expanding “salvation.”
But the question remains: “What are we saved from? We are saved from sin and our false selves. Erskine offered one of the best definitions of sin:
“Sin consists in the absence of the love of God from the heart as the dominant principle. So, sin is not so much an action as a manner of existence. It is not necessary to go to the expense of an action in order to sin—the habitual state of most minds, of all minds indeed naturally, even in the most quiet form, is sin; that is to say, the love of God is not dominant in them… The soul ought to feel the love of God as a governing element along the whole course of its existence—every movement of thought and feeling and desire ought to contain it as an essential part of its nature. And when this principle is wanting, we need not count the moral aberrations that the spirit makes. Its whole existence is an aberration. It is an outlaw from the spiritual system of the universe. It has lost its gravitation.
In such a state of things, it is evident that a pardon that did not bring back the wanderer and restore his lost gravitation would be of no use to him. Until his gravitation is restored, he is a blot on the creation. Love to God is the gravitation of the soul, and it is restored by the operation of the Spirit who takes of the things of Christ and shows them to the soul. Faith is the receiving of the Spirit’s instruction. A faith that does not restore gravitation is useless, and that only is true gravitation that keeps the soul in orbit.”
THE UNCONDITIONAL FREENESS OF THE GOSPEL by Thomas Erskine in the annotated edition provided by Richard L. Leimbach (2023) pp. 31-32.
We are not saved from God or God’s wrath because God’s unconditional love has embraced us from before the beginning of creation. We are saved from a lack of love, from sin, and from our false selves which can never give us the dignity, peace, and joy God has in store for all creation—which leads us to part two of this series as we consider what we are saved for.
(Scripture passages which reveal God’s love for each and all of us from before the foundation of the world can be found in I Corinthians 15, Ephesians 1, Colossians 1, Romans 8, and the book of Revelation (where we are told that Jesus is “the lamb slain from the foundation of the world.” In other words, the unconditional, indiscriminate, self-giving, non-violent, everlasting love of God has been the force behind creation and will secure its glorious destiny. We and all creation shall be loved into our healing and endless potential.)
