A Theology Lesson
I can hear many of you now. "Oh, goody! A theology lesson! Just what I was hoping for to start my New Year! Oh, Joy! Oh, Wonderful! Thank you, Mark!"
Really, it's not that bad. Most of this you already know. I'm just organizing it for you. So hang in there.
The word "theology" comes from two Greek words: "theos", meaning "God," and "-ologos," meaning "study of". So, "Theology": the study of God. We would like to ignore theology (certainly many of us would), but we can't. It is a discipline that we all have to come to terms with. Even the atheists (the word literally means "no God") and the agnostics (which means "unknowable"), have to come to terms with theology. Why? Because we are all hard-wired as spiritual beings (we are a composite of the physical, mental and spiritual), and as such, have an extremely strong sense that there is "something out there" that is greater than us and that we are directly linked to. We can deny its existence or simply conclude that it can never be known and understood, but that doesn't sit well with us. Something is still nagging at us. Something still prods us to keep wondering, "Is whatever it is that is out there, know me, care about me, have a desire to relate to me and communicate with me?" "What's out there... (and we slip and say)...God? So we know He's there. We know He's real. And now we know that we are compelled to learn about Him and how we relate to Him.
So I'll jump right into the meat of this.
Theology contains high-sounding words like, "Salvation, Sanctification, Justification, Glorification". ("See, Mark. I knew you were going to bore me to tears with this."). No I'm not.
As I said earlier, most of this you already know. I'm just organizing it for you. But to explore these terms, we have to begin somewhere. So we will begin with this life. We are alive. We exist. We are living, breathing, functioning entities that exist and are very real. Only the truly far out minds deny that concept. And we will leave them to themselves.
"For in him we live and move and have our being." (Acts 17 :28a). Paul made this statement while in the Areopagus in Athens close to 2000 years ago. He was visiting Athens for the first time and gravitated to the Areopagus, the forum where the idle and curious Greeks went to debate life, since they had nothing else to do that day. Paul's statement contains two concrete facts: 1) we are real, living, breathing humans and, 2), we live within God. He is the source of our lives. The way Paul states this indicates that we could not exist apart from Him. That would explain why we are just naturally curious about God. We wouldn't be alive without Him.
Understanding that we are alive and exist because of God and as a part of Him, we immediately get greedy and begin to wonder, "is this life all that there is? Is there more beyond this life?" We sense that there is because we sense that God, the Creator of all things, is immortal. He has always existed and will always exist. We can't really explain that concept but nothing else seems to make any sense. God has always been and will always be. All of creation has come about because He has actively desired it to be, and has had a hand in every detail (see the opening pages of Genesis). Further, all of creation functions according to laws that govern the design. God's laws. Astronomers and physicists understand this in spades.
"For the wages of sin is death," (Romans 6 :23a). This is one of God's universal laws. Notice how Paul states this as an equation: Sin = death. It is straightforward and to the point. It is an unalterable law of God's universe. You sin, you die. Ok, but what is sin? Sin can simply be defined as "transgression of the laws of God." You break God's laws, you suffer the consequences. No exceptions. It's the law of the universe. It's unalterable and unapologetic.
"For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." (Romans 3: 23). Umm. This is looking bad. Sin equals death and everyone has sinned (including me). This is looking very bad. Very, very bad. I was actually hoping for an extension of life and it is looking like that is not going to happen at all. This is actually a disaster. I wish I had never started down this theology road. Is there any hope here?
"For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came through Christ Jesus." (Romans 3: 23-24). Wait a minute.
It sounds like you are telling me that there may be a way out of this "sin equals death" law.
Can you explain that a little more clearly?
"For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord." (Romans 6: 23). I'm not sure that I completely understand this but it sounds like you are saying that not only do I NOT have to die because of my sin, I actually get eternal life with God because of what Christ has done for me. Maybe I am beginning to understand some of this theology. And I like what I am learning!
The law says that when sin goes down, someone (the perpetrator, usually) has to die. But you are telling me that Christ has imposed Himself in my place and has died as my substitute (substitutionary death). So now I am actually free and saved to be with God for all time (salvation). And further, God doesn't see me as some kind of freeloader who got in here in an undeserving manner, he sees me as being sinless and fully justified by His grace (justification). So, I guess that I get to live my 70-80 years or so in this life, and then I die, and then because of Christ, I get to go to heaven. Is that how it works?
Actually, no. It's nothing like that. That is a common misconception that many people have but there is nothing in scripture that attests to that at all. I don't know where we ever got that idea. Let's look at some passages from Scripture that explain it more clearly.
Salvation.
Scripture tells us that God, out of his incredible love for us and His absolute refusal to lose us, sent His Son, Christ Jesus, into the world to live as a human, to teach us "how to live life," and then went to a Roman cross and died a substitutionary death on our behalf. If we understand that and fully believe that God has done that for us by His grace, we are saved from a permanent separation from Him for all time (see John 3:16). But salvation (being given entrance into God's presence for all time) doesn't occur at the end of our lifetimes, as is so commonly understood. It happens instantaneously at the very moment that we put our faith and trust in Christ. "I tell you the truth, whoever hears my word and believes Him who sent me has eternal life and will not be condemned: he has crossed over from death to life." (John 5:24).
Christ is saying here that at the very instant that we look Him in the face and say, "Lord, I believe in you and I will follow you," that at that moment, God moves us from death to life. In a very real sense our eternal life begins at that moment. There is no waiting period involved.
Justification
Justification simply means "to be declared not guilty." We are declared not guilty for the sins that we have committed. Justification happens simultaneously with salvation.
"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. For it is with your heart that you believe and are JUSTIFIED, (my emphasis), and it is with your mouth that you believe and are saved." (Romans 10: 9-10). Paul indicates that those two theological conditions happen at the same time. What triggers those two things happening in our lives? True belief which leads to a confession of faith. Then salvation and justification happen instantaneously and simultaneously.
I used the term "true belief." What does "true belief" mean? In the terminology of our present day, one might say, "You can't just talk the talk; you have to also walk the walk."
"Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven." (Math 7: 21). Here Christ is telling us that real belief, true belief, means a total commitment to following God's will for our lives. But how can we possibly do that since we can barely keep to the schedules that we set for ourselves? How will we ever do those things that God desires us to do in our lives?
"If you love me, you will obey what I command. And I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Counselor to be with you forever--- the Spirit of the truth. The world cannot accept him,
because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you." (John 14: 15-17). Christ sends the Holy Spirit into our lives to teach us, encourage us, support us, defend us, and to pick us up when we fall. As a result of the Spirit's function in our lives, we are able to do God's will for our lives.
So salvation and justification are being lavished on us by God as a result of our entering into a relationship with Christ, and, as if that were not enough, Christ also sends the Holy Spirit to live in our lives. "But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you." (John 14: 26). So Christ has not set us up to fail. He has actually arranged things so that it is impossible for us to fail. But we need to be cognizant of the fact that the Holy Spirit has come into our lives and is present with us moment by moment and be receptive to His presence. "Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit," Paul tells us (Gal 5:25).
Sanctification
Sanctification simply means to "be set apart" or "made holy." Whereas salvation and justification occur instantaneously, sanctification is a process. It is the Holy Spirit working in our lives on a day by day, moment by moment basis. We have all experienced this. It is a lot of, one step forward, two steps back, or, two steps forward, one step back. We do this all of the time. It will go on our entire lives and may extend beyond these lives. It will continue until we are the finished product that God needs us to be. The remarkable thing is that the Holy Spirit has incredible patience with us and will not depart from us until the job is finished. It is a truly
amazing thing to know that the Holy Spirit (the Spirit of Christ) lives with us the entire time and walks us home when all of this is over. Christ explains to us about the Holy Spirit in this passage.
"But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is to come. He will bring glory to me by taking from what is mine and making it known to you." (John 16: 13-14). Christ is telling us that the Holy Spirit will function in our lives according to our individual needs and will streamline His work in our lives to meet those particular needs. He will continue that process until we are sanctified; made holy.
Glorification
Here's where I reach the end of my understanding. Of course, we are talking about "heaven" here and our individual places in heaven. Heaven is a vast and virtually unknowable topic for those of us on this side of it. If you want to read one concept of it, read Revelation 21 and 22. John, the author, paints a pretty incredible picture of glory or heaven. But as several very wise Christian authors have pointed out, the "real thing" may be even more magnificent than that. We have no way of knowing. The truth is that even if it were described to us as it actually is, it is very likely that it simply wouldn't make any sense to us. Our minds simply cannot grasp the enormity and complexity of God's domain. However, N.T. Wright does a commendable job of getting us close in his book "Surprised by Hope." I can certainly recommend it to you.
So I'm done. See, that wasn't so bad. And most of that you already knew. I just put it into an order that was fairly easy to follow. Now you can go and have coffee with the people who have
gone to seminary and throw around terms that will impress them. Most importantly though, you have a very workable understanding of some things that you always wondered about, but now know.
Happy New Year!
Mark