{"id":10345,"date":"2024-11-04T17:19:47","date_gmt":"2024-11-05T00:19:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/?p=10345"},"modified":"2024-11-04T17:19:48","modified_gmt":"2024-11-05T00:19:48","slug":"who-is-saved","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/?p=10345","title":{"rendered":"Who is saved?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Click here for a pdf version.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hebrews 9:24-28<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A Sermon for the Twenty-Fifth Sunday after Pentecost<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We\u2019re coming to the end of the church year and in these final Sundays, we ask the big questions of what it all means: What is salvation? Who is saved? Where does it all go?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today we ask: Who is saved? Everyone? A few? Many? Perhaps the common view today is that everybody is going to be saved. Everybody goes to heaven. There is no judgment and nothing is really at stake in this world. While nobody is perfect, and everybody is good enough in some way to be saved. Death is simply transitioning from this world to the next. There is no judgment, nothing at stake.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are prominent Christian thinkers who say this. Some years ago, the Archbishop of Canterbury, one of the most prominent leaders of worldwide Anglicanism, said that what matters in this life is that you have some intention to do good. It\u2019s merely \u201cthe intention\u201d that matters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Very similar to this is the prominent Roman Catholic theologian Karl Rahner (1904-1984), who said that everybody is basically an anonymous Christian, everyone is doing the best they can with the light they have. Because they are, we can say that everybody is saved. It\u2019s a matter of good intent, not results, and we\u2019ll be the judge of good intentions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This view that everybody is saved because everybody has good intentions is common in the world today. God is love and grace and ho-hum, that\u2019s that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It makes sense that secular people believe this, but what\u2019s puzzling is: Why is this the case also among many Christians, even prominent leaders?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We could say there are several reasons. First, there is astonishing ignorance about the Bible. Take for example, the parable in Matthew 25:46 about the last judgment. It says that some will go to eternal life and others will go to eternal punishment. But there are other verses in the Bible that say something quite different. For example, Paul in Romans 11:22 writes: \u201cGod has consigned all men to disobedience, that he may have mercy on all.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We can see that the question: Who is saved? is not a question answered simplistically by a Bible verse, case closed. This comes down to the matter of knowing your Bible and what it\u2019s really about. It doesn\u2019t work to have some simplistic verse or idea from the Bible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Second, there is a self-serving ignorance about the problem of justice. People will say, as the famous German poet Heinrich Heine did on his deathbed: \u201cOf course, God will forgive me. That\u2019s his job.\u201d That attitude is widespread even among Christians today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We can call that view pan-grace-ism. Everybody is saved, and it\u2019s all grace. The trouble with that is that it is unjust. If everyone is saved, then there is no justice for the victims of tyrants, terrorists, human traffickers. There is no justice for all crookedness, meanness, and every day evil we and others suffer in our jobs, communities, and families. God will forgive. It\u2019s his job, his business.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Shakespeare put it well in As You Like It<\/em>, when he wrote: \u201cAll the world\u2019s a stage, and the men and women merely players. They have their exists and their entrances. And one man in his time plays many parts . . . .\u201d At the end God rings down the curtain and says: \u201cWasn\u2019t that interesting?\u201d This view that overlooks injustice makes nonsense out of tragedy and evil.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The same goes for those who have God figured out and know exactly who is going to hell. The first Great Awakening, which happened in this country in the 1730\u2019s-1750\u2019s, was a series of revivals to awaken people to their need of a savior and the savior they needed.  Jonathan Edwards, the great Presbyterian preacher, began the Great Awakening, with his sermon: \u201cSinners in the hands of an angry God.\u201d His fire and brimstone preaching aimed to alert listeners to the danger of sin and the terror of being lost, so that they might turn from their disastrous ways and toward Christ.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The underlying issue is that some people are going to be damned. We can find this in the Bible. Matthew 7:13 says: \u201cEnter by the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is easy, that leads to destruction, and those who enter it are many.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Again, the question of justice comes up. What if some of those who go the wide way do so because they are confused, misled, or mentally ill? It seems unjust given the brokenness of life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What about those people who have never heard the Gospel? And the \u201crighteous Gentile\u201d (Acts 10:22)? Are they all eternally lost? What is God\u2019s justice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The third kind of ignorance has to do with how we work with God. We\u2019re like Adam and Eve in the temptation story in Genesis 3. We think we\u2019ll somehow make it work. We\u2019ll deal with the Lord when we have to. We\u2019ll figure him out. We can handle him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We\u2019re also like Prometheus, confident of our ways. In Greek mythology (8th<\/sup> Century BC), Prometheus steals fire from heaven and gives it to humanity. One of the morals of the story is that even the best intentions can have unintended harmful consequences. As we have noted before, When Mary Shelley wrote the novel Frankenstein <\/em>(1818), she gave the novel a subtitle, The Modern Prometheus.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Or consider the play, Dr. Faustus<\/em>, by Christopher Marlowe (1592). Faust made a deal with the devil that he would have knowledge and power in his life, and when he died the devil would have his soul. But in the end, he learns what he gave up was more valuable than what he had gained.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And then there\u2019s Peer Gynt<\/em>, by Henrik Ibsen (1867). It\u2019s about a man who identifies himself through the mirror of the outside world. He wants to be true to himself, that\u2019s popular, but he learns that being true to himself is actually a petty self-centeredness. In one scene when he has to look at himself, he finds he is like an onion, one layer after another is peeled away until there\u2019s nothing at all, an empty existence which he had lived for himself. (At the end, he is saved by the love of a good woman.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Adam and Eve, Prometheus, Dr. Faustus, Peer Gynt \u2013 we are like them. We have the idea that if we\u2019re just stubborn enough, just clever enough, we can get around God. The word for that is the sin of presumption. We presume that we can get by. We\u2019ll make it. We\u2019ll live one world at a time. We\u2019ll deal with the next world when we get there. In the meantime, we\u2019ll do what we want to do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What is the Christian answer to this? What is God\u2019s justice? God\u2019s justice is spelled out in the cross and the cross alone. When we ask: What happens to those who have never heard? The answer is: I don\u2019t know. What happens to those who have gone astray? I don\u2019t know because God is running the universe his way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We like to say: \u201cOf course, God is running the universe through the cross, but wink-wink, everyone will be saved.\u201d Or we might say: \u201cOf course, God is running the universe, and some will be damned.\u201d And the answer is: \u201cNo, salvation is by the cross alone and faith alone.\u201d And anything else is of the devil, as Luther says (Smalcald, 3\/8\/10).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Well then, what do we have to hang onto? Is it all up in the air? And the answer again is: No.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We have a promise and we have certainty, as Paul writes in Romans 6:5: \u201cFor if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.\u201d And in Philippians 3:12: \u201c. . . because Christ Jesus has made me his own.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s outside of me, in spite of me. And for the rest, I don\u2019t know. It\u2019s up to God. It\u2019s not something where we can say: \u201cIt\u2019s this, or it\u2019s that.\u201d That\u2019s God\u2019s business, not ours. It\u2019s not like the general idea out there in the air that finally what salvation is about is good intentions and good works.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Imagine, if you will, that we have a table here today with a pitcher of pure water and two empty glasses. I\u2019d fill both glasses with pure water, but I\u2019d take an eye dropper of sewage and squeeze it into the second glass.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then I present these two glasses to you. Which would you like to drink? The glass with pure water, or the glass with some sewage in it?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Gospel is like the pure water. Martin Luther and his colleagues in the Reformation said (paraphrase): \u201cThe church is that assembly of believers among whom the Gospel is preached purely <\/strong>and the sacraments are administered according to this Gospel\u201d (CA 7).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cPreached purely<\/strong>\u201d means like that pure water.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Lutherans here are reflecting what Paul writes in Galatians 2:5 and 14 about \u201cthe truth of the Gospel.\u201d The truth of the Gospel or the pure Gospel is that salvation is by Christ alone, by the cross alone, by faith alone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The only promise that is certain is that the cross alone gives you salvation. What about all those other questions about who is saved? We don\u2019t know. We let God be God. We live by faith, not by sight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And anytime anyone adds something to that \u2013 you have to have good intentions or good works, or a conversion experience, or a warm feeling in your heart \u2013 that\u2019s like putting sewage in pure water. It pollutes the Gospel. It\u2019s dangerous. It causes harm. It\u2019s serious.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What it\u2019s really about is stated well by Paul in 1 Corinthians 2:2: \u201cFor I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.\u201d Luther is saying the same thing in different words when he says: \u201cThe cross alone is our theology.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In our Hebrews text for today it says: \u201cFor Christ has entered, not into a sanctuary made with hands . . . but into heaven itself, now to appear into the presence of God on our behalf\u201d (Hebrews 9:24).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Because of him alone, and in him alone, we have the certainty of salvation. Amen<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hebrews 9:24-28<\/p>\n

A Sermon for the Twenty-Fifth Sunday after Pentecost<\/p>\n

We\u2019re coming to the end of the church year and in these final Sundays, we ask the big questions of what it all means: What is salvation? Who is saved? Where does it all go?<\/p>\n

Today we ask: Who is saved? Everyone? A few? Many? Perhaps the common view today is that everybody is going to be saved. Everybody goes to heaven. There is no judgment and nothing is really at stake in this world. While nobody is perfect, and everybody is good enough in some way to be saved. Death is simply transitioning from this world to the next. There is no judgment, nothing at stake.<\/p>\n

Select here<\/a> to read more or here <\/a>for a pdf document.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10345","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10345","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10345"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10345\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10350,"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10345\/revisions\/10350"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10345"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10345"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10345"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}