Chapter 3 - Salvation is a Life
Willard starts Chapter 3 by challenging the idea that salvation is just the moment when our religious life begins instead of "the daily life we receive from God." Our entire lives are to be saturated by God and His word. Willard tells us: "A close look at Jesus' "great acts" of humility, faith, and compassion recorded in the Gospel narratives finds them to be moments in a life more pervasively and deeply characterized by solitude, fasting, prayer, and service." From here, Willard asserts that our lives must emulate Jesus in the daily disciplines as well as the "great acts".
Willard also stresses that Jesus had a physical body just like we do. Emulating Jesus requires that we do what He did physically; so our salvation and spiritual life are also part of our physical life.
"If salvation is to affect our lives, it can only do so by affecting our bodies. . . To withhold our bodies from religion is to exclude religion from our lives." We tend to relegate our faith to certain aspects of our week and certain places - Sunday morning services, small group meetings, etc. We are now being exhorted to "take Christ into the workplace". This sounds good, but really points up the mistake we are making of our faith being separate from the rest of life.
In fact, salvation is "not just forgiveness, but a new order of life." Modern Christianity too often describes salvation as just forgiveness of sins. But, in early Christianity, salvation was clearly a new way of living - being reconciled to God. Because of our idea of salvation being just forgiveness, it becomes easy to regard the historical disciplines as quaint oddities, often misguided.
Willard talks about the fact that the cross was actually a rather late development as a symbol of Christianity; the first time it was used was about 430AD. The reason is that the early church thought about Christianity as transcendent life. As the church's understanding of salvation narrowed to "just" forgiveness of sins, the cross as a symbol became more important.
The message of Jesus was one of a new life, and the early disciples understood this better than we tend to. "The resurrection was a cosmic event only because it validated the reality and the indestructibility of what Jesus had preached and exemplified before his death - the enduring reality and openness of God's Kingdom."
Willard now spends several pages on the interaction between faith and works. He says that "works are simply a natural part of faith . . . not . . . to prove that one has faith . . ." Faith displays itself in the New Testament in 3 dimensions: 1. A new power within the individual through repentance and forgiveness, 2. An immediate but also developing transformation of the character, 3. Power over the evils of our present age.
Faith is often seen as a purely "mental" act, but the New Testament is really quite practical and shows how faith influences all of our lives, including the physical. Yes, the body has been corrupted by the Fall, but our spiritual lives are to encompass all of our lives - physical, spiritual, and mental. That is where the spiritual disciplines come in. The next three chapters discuss the theological basis for the disciplines.
2 comments:
Sounds like an interesting book. The only thing that's concerning to me from what you've shared about this book so far, is that he places alot of emphasis on acts/works. I agree that most Christians (including myself) fall short in this area and could be doing more to grow spiritually and become more like Christ. However, I hope that somewhere in the book he clarifies that unless the acts are done for the right reason (to change who we are on the inside), it's pointless because it's not changing our character. I agree that the more you pray, the more you're "Christ-like", but just because you pray doesn't mean you're growing spiritually. It has to be done with the right heart, in order to grow and become more like Christ (in the way that God wants us to). I know that for me personally, I have prayed for spiritual growth for the past several years and low and behold, God has taught me quite a bit!!! No matter what discipline you choose to do, I just hope this author makes it clear that it's not enough to go through the motions. Your heart has to be in the right place for God to do His work. It's what is on the inside that radiates out in everything we do and say. I wouldn't want someone to just start fasting because it's what Christ did. Like Priscilla Shirer says, you fast to get God's attention and let Him know you're serious about changing whatever it is. I'm interested to hear what else he has to say!
I see your argument against legalism. It is indeed important that we don't equate doing spiritual disciplines with earning God's favor. In fact, Willard comments later in the book that this is one of the problems that developed in monasticism.
Willard is never talking about salvation by works. But, he is talking about how we can be more Christ-like by engaging in spiritual disciplines. The idea of salvation as a life is not that we earn our salvation, but that we live our salvation. Jesus is our Savior, but also our friend and confidante. Living our salvation means to live as Jesus lived, which is often so different from our regular lives.
I've been reading ahead and there's more good stuff to come!!
CCM
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