5/8/2023 0 Comments Actio sequitur esseAnd I must begin by stating flatly what the goal is not: The goal of salvation is not to get us into heaven. … But first we need to understand clearly the daring goal of the salvation that is in Jesus Christ. While the cross was never far from the thinking of the preachers of Acts, the accent was always centered on the resurrection and the life that comes from him. This helps explain why the dominant message in Acts focuses on Jesus’ resurrection rather than on his death. Scripture identifies two types of life: bios, the physical created, mortal life: and zoë, the spiritual uncreated, eternal life.… No wonder Dallas Willard comments, “the simple and wholly adequate word for salvation in the New Testament is ‘life.’” Paul is here using a very specific word to identify our life which is “hidden with Christ in God” (Col 3: 3): zoë, the eternal, uncreated life that originates in God alone. For the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and death (Rom 8: 1 – 2, emphasis added). Paul writes, “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. The salvation that is in Jesus Christ is a new order of life. These fragmentary half-gospels miss the heart of the salvation that is in Jesus Christ, which is a radically new life - a daily life we received from God. The second is a theology from the left, which understands salvation primarily in terms of social and economic liberation on earth. The first is a theology from the right, which thinks in terms of salvation primarily in terms of heaven after we die. This understanding of salvation stands in stark contrast to the two views of salvation that reign supreme today. They spoke of a life in the kingdom of God encompassing all of human existence, both here and hereafter. Jesus and the early Apostles preached a salvation radically different from the kinds of salvation being preached today.
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