Saved?

Believer, or non-believer? Saved, or not saved? Christian, or non-Christian? Cultural, or Activities, or Relational Christian? In our group last year we talked about authentic Christianity and who are authentic followers of Christ. My pastor just recently wrote an email on what it means to be saved. I thought it would be good blog information.

"... the Word of faith that we are proclaiming: That if you confess with your mouth, 'Jesus is Lord,' and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.'" - Romans 10:8b-9

What does it take to be saved? Obviously, this is a most important question and let me assure you that you'll get different answers from different Christian theologians and certainly, different answers from adherents to different religions. Before I tackle that question with you, maybe it would be wise for us to look (once again) at the meaning of the word, "saved." What is it exactly that we are being saved from? In other words, we can't just use the word "saved" without indicating the thing or person or situation or place that one is being saved from. Does that make sense?

In a nutshell, let's state that when we are saved, we are saved from Satan, sin, self, our past, sickness, God's wrath, hell and purposelessness. Wow, a lot more there than we might have thought at first, huh? Having given a rather simple answer to that first question, we might then go on to ask, "What are we saved for?" Again, rather quickly, we are saved for God's glory, for Heaven, for Kingdom work, to become worshipers and to enter the family of God whereby we become heirs to all things spiritual, and we are saved in order for us to know life as it was meant to be lived, in other words, we now have a purpose, a reason for living.

That then, brings us to the question of how are we saved? As we stated a few moments ago, that question is answered in a good many ways by a number of different folks, and anytime that happens, it seems to me we have to go to the one plumb line that we have, and that is the Bible. Here, in the most important theological letter in the New Testament, we come upon a major find: Paul tells us that there are two component parts necessary for us to be saved: public confession of Jesus as Lord (the One who has been put in charge, the One who has the authority) and a personal belief that God raised Jesus from the dead (as Paul tells us in another passage, if Jesus was not raised from the dead, then we are hopeless and should be pitied by all). Why the necessity of a public confession? Simply because it was being demanded at that time, that all Roman citizens and slaves were to pronounce or confess that "Caesar is Lord." To not give that proclamation might mean death or prison. Christians were not wimps, they knew Caesar was no Lord, and by the same token, they knew Jesus was! If a person is not willing to confess that Jesus is Lord publicly, then is that person not ashamed or afraid? For many people at that time and even today, that public proclamation is given at their baptism or when they join a church. Of course, we are talking about believer's baptism and not infant baptism, since infants can't make any kind of confession, right?

The second component is to believe personally that God raised Jesus from the dead, validating His person, His teachings, His identity and His total uniqueness. I hope even as we write these words, that you are seeing that a lot of people who, when asked, might answer that they "believe in Jesus," are really just saying that they believe that Jesus once lived, that He was a real person. Not good enough, huh? That's the same thing as saying, "I believe that Napoleon lived." Big deal. What difference does it make? None. The only thing that matters is that we believe personally that God raised Jesus from the dead!

So, here at the beginning of this new year, let me ask you: are you saved? Would you like to be? (see above!)

This is Pastor Bruce (Bendinger from Church of the Lakes)