Study Questions
Chapter 8
The salvation of Christ
‘Salvation’ is a wonderfully wide-ranging word and it would be a great mistake to think that it refers only to the forgiveness of our sins. God is as much concerned with our present and future as with our past. His plan is first to put right our relationship with him, and then progressively to set us free from our self-centredness and bring us into harmony with other people. We owe our forgiveness and reconciliation chiefly to the death of Christ, but it is by his Spirit that we can be set free from ourselves and in his church that we can be united in a fellowship of love. These are the aspects of Christ’s salvation to which we now turn.
The Spirit of Christ
As we have seen, we should not view our sins as a series of unrelated incidents, but as the symptoms of an inner moral disease. To illustrate this, Jesus used the picture of the fruit tree. The quality of fruit, he taught, depends on the quality of the tree from which it comes. ‘Every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit.’
The cause of our sins, therefore, is our sin, our inherited nature, which is polluted and self-centred. As Jesus put it, our sins come from within, out of our ‘heart’. This is why an improvement in behaviour depends on a change of nature. ‘Make the tree good,’ said Jesus, ‘and its fruit will be good.’
But can human nature be changed? Is it possible to make a sour person sweet, a proud person humble, or a selfish person unselfish? The Bible declares emphatically that these miracles can take place. It is part of the wonder of the gospel. Jesus Christ offers to change not only our standing before God, but our very nature. He spoke to Nicodemus about the crucial need for a new birth, and his words still apply to us today: ‘Very truly I tell you, no-one can see the kingdom of God without being born again...You should not be surprised at my saying, “You must be born again.” ’
In some respects, the way Paul puts it is even more dramatic. He blurts out a sentence which, in its original Greek, has no verbs: ‘If anyone in Christ – new creation!’ This, then, is the possibility of which the New Testament speaks - a new heart, a new nature, a new birth, a new creation.
This amazing inner change is the work of the Holy Spirit. The new birth is a birth ‘from above’. To be born again is to be ‘born of the Spirit’. We don’t need at this point to go into the intricacies of what Christians believe about the Trinity. For the time being, it is enough simply to consider what the apostles had to say about the Holy Spirit as they reflected on their experience of what had happened to them.
First, however, it is important to realize that the Holy Spirit didn’t suddenly come into existence at the point when the disciples began to experience him on the Day of Pentecost, a few days after Jesus returned to heaven. The Holy Spirit is God. He has always existed and has been at work in the world right from the very beginning. The Old Testament contains many references to him, and the prophets looked forward to the time when his activity would increase and spread, when God would put his Spirit within his people, and so enable them to live in obedience to him.
While the Old Testament prophets indicated that this would happen at some unspecified time in the future, Christ promised that the Spirit would come like this very soon. A few hours before he died, he met with his disciples in an upstairs room and talked about ‘the Advocate’, ‘the Spirit of truth’, who would come and take his place.
Indeed, the presence of the Holy Spirit would be even better for them than his own presence on earth had been. ‘It is for your good that I am going away,’ he said. ‘Unless I go away, the Advocate will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you.’ The advantage was that Christ had only been with them, at their side; but ‘he...will be in you’.
There is a sense in which we may say that the teaching ministry of Jesus was a failure. Several times he had urged his disciples to humble themselves like little children, but Simon Peter remained proud and self-confident. He had often told them to love one another, but even John seems to have deserved his nickname ‘son of thunder’ right up to the end. Yet when we read Peter’s first letter, we cannot fail to notice its references to humility, and John’s letters are full of love. What made the difference? The Holy Spirit. Jesus taught them to be humble and loving; but neither quality appeared in their lives until the Holy Spirit entered their personalities and began to change them from the inside.
The second chapter of the book of Acts tells us about the Day of Pentecost and how ‘all of them were filled with the Holy Spirit’. We shouldn’t imagine that this was a freak experience just for them, although we are not to expect an exact repetition of some of the things that happened then, like the rushing wind and tongues of fire. But ‘be filled with the Spirit’ is a command addressed to all Christians. The inner presence of the Holy Spirit is a spiritual legacy for every Christian. Indeed, if the Holy Spirit has not made his home within us, we are not real Christians at all. As Paul wrote, ‘If anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, they do not belong to Christ.’
This, then, is what the New Testament teaches. When we put our trust in Jesus Christ and commit ourselves to him, the Holy Spirit enters us. He is sent by God ‘into our hearts’. He makes our bodies his dwelling place, his temple.
This does not mean that we are no longer able to sin. Not a bit of it! Indeed, in some ways the conflict intensifies; but on the other hand, a way of victory has been opened. Paul gives a vivid description of the battle in the fifth chapter of his letter to the Galatians. The opponents fighting it out are ‘the sinful nature’ and ‘the Spirit’. ‘The sinful nature’, he explains, ‘desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the sinful nature. They are in conflict with each other.’
This is not dry theological theory; it is the daily experience of every Christian. We continue to be aware of sinful desires which pull us down; but we are now also aware of a counteracting force which is drawing us upwards to holiness. If we allowed the sinful nature to have free rein, it would stampede us into the jungle of immorality and selfishness which Paul lists in verses 19–21. If, on the other hand, the Holy Spirit is allowed his way, the result will be ‘love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control’. Paul calls these attractive qualities ‘the fruit of the Spirit’. He pictures our human character as an orchard which the Holy Spirit is cultivating. Let him make the trees good, and their fruit will be good too.
How, then, can the sinful nature be subdued, so that the fruit of the Spirit may grow and ripen? The answer lies in our attitude to it. ‘Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the sinful nature with its passions and desires.’ ‘Live by [or ‘in’] the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature.’ We must take up an attitude of such fierce resistance and ruthless rejection towards the sinful nature that only the word ‘crucifixion’ will do to describe it; but we must surrender the undisputed authority over our lives to the Spirit who lives within us. The more we make a habit of saying ‘no’ to the sinful nature and ‘yes’ to the Spirit, the more the ugly works of the flesh will disappear and the delightful fruit of the Spirit will take their place.
Paul teaches the same truth in 2 Corinthians 3:18: ‘We, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.’ It is by the Spirit of Christ that we can be changed so that we become more like Christ, as we continue to maintain our focus on him. Yes, we have our part to play, in turning from what we know to be wrong, in the exercise of faith and discipline. But making us holy is essentially the work of the Holy Spirit.
William Temple used to illustrate the point in this way. It is no good giving me a play like Hamlet or King Lear, and telling me to write a new play just like it. Shakespeare could do it; I can’t. And it is no good showing me a life like the life of Jesus and telling me to live a life just like it. Jesus could do it; I can’t. But if the genius of Shakespeare could come and live inside me, I would then be able to write plays like he did. And if the Spirit of Jesus could come and live inside me, I would then be able to live a life like he did. This is the open secret of how to live as a Christian. It is not about us struggling in vain to become more like Jesus, but about allowing him, by the power of his Spirit, to come and change us from the inside. Once again we see that to have him as our example is not enough; we need him as our Saviour.
It is through his death on the cross that the penalty of our sins may be forgiven; it is through his Spirit making his home within us that the power of our sins may be overcome.
The church of Christ
Sin tends to pull us out of harmony with other people. It alienates us not only from our Creator, but also from our fellow creatures. We all know from experience how easily a community, whether a college, a hospital, a factory or an office, can become a hotbed of jealousy and ill feeling. We find it very difficult ‘to live together in unity’.
But God’s plan is to restore our relationships with one another as well as with himself. So he does not save independent, unconnected individuals in isolation from one another; he is calling out a people to belong to him.
This is made clear right from the start in the early chapters of Genesis. God called Abraham to leave his home and relations in Mesopotamia, and promised to give him both a land for his inheritance and descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and the grains of sand on the beach. This promise to multiply Abraham’s offspring and through them to bless all the nations of the earth was renewed to his son Isaac and his grandson Jacob.
Although Jacob died in exile in Egypt, his twelve sons survived him and became the ancestors of the twelve tribes of ‘Israel’, the new name God had given to Jacob. It was with these ‘children of Israel’, rescued years later from their Egyptian slavery, that God renewed the promises he had made to Abraham.
But how exactly were all the families of the earth to be blessed? As the centuries rolled by and the history of God’s people unfolded, it seemed to the rest of the world that Israel was more of a curse than a blessing. God’s people built high walls around them to protect themselves from being contaminated by contact with the Gentiles. It looked as though they were going to miss out on God’s plan for them to bless the other nations of the world. So had God’s promise to Abraham been completely hollow? No. The predictions of many of the prophets pointed to the time when the Messiah would appear. That’s when, at last, people from every point of the compass would come and enter the kingdom of God.
At last the Messiah came. Jesus of Nazareth announced the arrival of the global kingdom which had been anticipated for such a long time. Many would come, he said, from north, south, east and west, and sit down with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. God’s people would no longer be isolated, but a society whose members would be drawn from every nation on earth. ‘Go...’ the risen Jesus told his followers, ‘and make disciples of all nations.’ The sum total of these disciples he called ‘my church’.
So God’s undertaking to Abraham, repeated several times to him and renewed to his sons, is being fulfilled in the growth of the worldwide church today. ‘If you belong to Christ,’ wrote Paul, ‘then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.’
One of the most striking pictures which Paul uses to express the unity of believers in Christ is that of the human body. The church, he says, is the body of Christ. Every Christian is a member or organ of the body, while Christ himself is the head, controlling the body’s activities. Not every organ has the same function, but each is necessary for the maximum health and usefulness of the body.
The whole body is also energized by a common life. This is the Holy Spirit. It is his presence which makes the body one. The church owes its unity to him. ‘There is one body and one Spirit,’ emphasizes Paul. Even the divisions in the outward organization of the church, regrettable as they are, do not destroy its inward and spiritual unity. This is unbreakable, since it is ‘the unity of the Spirit’ or ‘the fellowship of the Spirit’. It is our common share in him which makes us deeply and permanently one.
It would, of course, be ridiculous to claim to belong to a great worldwide body, the church universal, without in practice sharing in one of its local expressions. It is here, as members of a local church, that we find opportunities to worship God, to enjoy fellowship with one another and to serve the wider community.
Many today react against the church as an institution, and some entirely reject it. This is often understandable, for the church can certainly be desperately old-fashioned and inward-looking. We need to remember, though, that the church is made up of people – sinful and fallible people. This is no reason to reject it, for all of us are sinful and fallible too.
We also have to bear in mind that not everyone who belongs to the visible church is necessarily a member of the real church of Jesus Christ. Some whose names are included on church rolls and registers have never had their names, as Jesus put it, ‘written in heaven’. Although this is a fact to which the Bible often refers, it is not for us to judge, for ‘the Lord knows those who are his’. Those who declare faith in Christ are welcomed into the visible church through being baptized. But only God knows those who actually exercise faith, for only he can see the heart. There is certainly a considerable overlap between the two groups. But they are not identical.
The Holy Spirit is not only the author of the common life of the church, but is also the creator of its common love. The chief fruit of the Spirit is love. His very nature is love, and he gives it to those in whom he dwells. All Christians have shared the remarkable experience of being drawn to other Christians whom they hardly know and whose background may be very different from their own. The relationship which exists and grows between the children of God is deeper and more special even than blood relationships. It is the life of the family of God in action. The truth is that ‘we know that we have passed from death to life, because we love each other’, as John says. This love is not sentimental nor even necessarily emotional. Its essence is self-sacrifice; it reveals itself in the desire to serve, help and enrich others. It is by love that the divisive force of sin is neutralized, for love unites where sin divides, and brings together where sin pulls apart.
Of course, the pages of the church’s history have often been spoiled by foolishness and selfishness, even by outright disobedience to the teaching of Christ. Still today some churches appear to be dead or dying, rather than vibrant with life; and others are torn by divisions and plagued with lovelessness. We have to admit that not all those who call themselves Christians show either the love or the life of Jesus Christ.
It is by love that the divisive force of sin is neutralized, for love unites where sin divides, and brings together where sin pulls apart.
Even so, the Christian should be part of the local Christian community and be committed to sharing in its worship and witness, however imperfect it may be. For the church is the place where we find the new quality of relationship which Christ himself gives to those who belong to him.