Saved? The bad news...

Some people are really turned off by talk about being "saved".  Some, who have been in church for awhile take that term for granted.  But this blog wouldn't make any sense if it didn't say anything about the facts of salvation.  Please bear with me as I retell the story which lays the foundation for everything else I'll ever have to say.

facts of life

What is this narrow gate the Bible says to enter by and why is it even there?  In the beginning I referred to the "journey" we are on just because we are born.  We all find ourselves here and we all know that some day we will die.  This situation has led every generation to seek answers to eternal questions about life, death and the purpose of it all.  If you don't believe we have a soul that lives on beyond physical death, then the rest of this will seem pretty irrelevant. 

The Bible says we not only have a soul, but a spirit.  The soul is sort of like the psychological side of us.  It includes the mind, the will, and the emotions.  The spirit is different and probably less familiar in our culture.  Some Native American tribes saw themselves united with nature in a spiritual sense, and other cultures are more sensitive to spiritual reality than we generally are.  But the Bible says we are created in the image of God and that God is a spirit. (see Genesis 1&2)  The Bible furthermore says that we must be born of the spirit in order to enter the kingdom of God (see John 3:5).


In order to understand what that means we must realize that there was a change from the way things were set up at first.  There came a time when man took the initiative to live apart from what God had given him.  He chose not to trust the goodness of his life or the relationship he had with God, and wanted more.  This is the story of Adam and Eve and it is very bad news.

But it looks so good!

The Bible says that Adam and Eve died when they betrayed their relationship with God and went beyond the one simple boundary they had been asked to respect.  It was the death of their spiritual connection with God.  They were physical and He is spiritual.  Without their spirits being alive in relationship with God, they lost connection to His love and peace and everything they had enjoyed together.  Suddenly they became aware of their smallness in the world.  They were unprotected.  They felt guilt and shame for the first time.  Distrust entered their own relationship and they discovered the strategy of blaming each other in order to cope.  On top of all this, God told them how this behavior had released a curse on them and on the earth itself.  It was a mess that was going to become messier and messier with every generation going forward.  (see Genesis 3&4)

But that is not all God had to say that day.  He also announced that events in the future would lead to the crushing of the evil power unleashed (Genesis 3:15).  It's hard to recognize much in those few words but they are talking about Jesus who would be born of a woman and who would defeat the enemy who had taken over the earth.  Everything in the Bible from this point through the Old Testament is about God preparing the way for a Savior to come and defeat evil, end the curse, restore our relationship with God and our dominion over the earth.

Luke 2:10-11

The New Testament, then, is the story of the birth of that Savior, Jesus Christ, his life, death, resurrection, the return of the Holy Spirit to the people who will receive, and what happens when they do.  These times continue to this day.  The journey to the narrow gate is coming to believe that something is desperately wrong with you and your life.  Entering by it is believing that Jesus is the answer to your need, that he is your personal Savior, and accepting what he did to save you.  It involves laying down all of your own mess and letting it become his.  This story is referred to as the Gospel in the Bible.  It is the "good news" that the angels announced to the shepherds ("But the angel said to them, 'Do not be afraid.  I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people.  Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord.'" -- see Luke 2:10-11).

More about the Good News next time.