How in the World is God Saving the World?

Last month I posted a blog entitled “What in the World is Salvation.”  The argument I tried to make was that salvation (as understood by both ancient Jews and Christians) is not nearly as much about getting into heaven when we leave this world as it is about heaven coming to this world.  In short, Jesus Christ came to save the world.  (For more detail, you may want to go back and read that post.)

This month I want to talk about how God is saving the world. 

By the way, to say that salvation is God’s global redemption project is not to say that everyone in the world will be saved.  As much as God longs for all people to receive his gift of salvation, he won’t force it on us.  In the end, we still have the choice.  And some, I believe, will chose the comfortable familiarity of their hell to the breathtaking, painful beauty of heaven.

That said, if salvation is the redemption of our messed-up world, the healing of humanity and the restoration of the cosmos, then how is God getting it done?

The answer to that question is, in a word, Jesus. 

By the way, some Christians seem to believe that Jesus came to save us from God.  Their understanding of the wrath of God leads them to believe that God is extremely angry with humanity, so angry that he has to pour that anger out on someone.  They believe that Jesus came to be the scapegoat that stood between an angry God and sinful people. 

But there is another way of understanding what Jesus did on the cross.  Jesus died on the cross to save the world from our sin, not from God.  It was humanity’s sin that sent this world spiraling down into the abyss of anger, hatred, violence, greed, selfishness, lust…the list goes on.

The audacious claim of Christianity is that the cross of Christ is the pivotal moment in human history; that somehow the death of Jesus changed the trajectory of the world.  On the cross Jesus loosened the death grip that evil had on the world and brought us his salvation.  On the cross Jesus brings healing to our broken world. 

Christians are, at the core of our being, people of faith.  We are people who believe that it’s actually true!  Jesus came to save us from our sin and, dying on a cross outside the city walls of Jerusalem, he accomplished what he came to do.  On that dark, beautiful, Good Friday, salvation came to this hurting world!  We believe that it is true!

So, first of all, Christians are people who believe.  We believe that Jesus came to save the world and that he did not fail.  We believe in Jesus! 

Secondly, Christians are people who live out their beliefs.  We live as if it is true because we believe that it is true!

We love our enemies because Jesus, the one who loved his enemies is delivering us from the sin of hatred and violence.  Salvation has come!  We feed the hungry, heal the sick, shelter the homeless and open our doors to immigrants because we don’t have to be greedy or fearful or hateful any longer.  Salvation has come!  We refuse to live in this world as if this world is hopeless.  We refuse to be those people who believe that the world is bad and getting worse, that we need to hide out in our bunkers every Sunday morning waiting till things get so bad that Jesus has to step in and save us.  No!  We live in this world as people of hope because we believe that Jesus has already stepped in and saved us. 

 

Yes, our world is broken and hurting, but we believe that the healer has already come and the cure was his cross.  So now we take up our crosses and follow him.  We take up our crosses and follow Jesus because we believe in Salvation…and believing we have life through his name.  We are Saved!  The world is being Saved!