The Appropriation of Salvation in Christ
The Appropriation of Salvation in Christ
The Christian hope of salvation rests upon the death and resurrection of Christ. So how is that salvation mediated and appropriated? In what follows, we shall consider several models of the appropriation of salvation. Some emphasize the role of the church, others the personal commitment of the believer.
The Church as the Means of Salvation
In the third century, Cyprian of Carthage (died 258) penned a slogan which would have a decisive impact on Christian understandings of the role of the church as the mediator and guarantor of redemption: extra ecclesiam nulla salus (Latin; “outside the church, there is no salvation”). This pithy maxim was open to a number of interpretations. That which predominated throughout the Middle Ages can be argued to have resulted directly from the growth in institutional authority of the church after the collapse of the Roman empire. Salvation required membership of the church. Christ may have made the hope of heaven possible; only the church could make it available.
The insight that the institution of the church was the guarantor of the hope of heaven was rapidly assimilated into church architecture. The great portals of Romanesque churches were often adorned with elaborate sculptures depicting the glory of heaven as tactile affirmations that it was only by entering the church that this reality could be experienced. Inscriptions were often placed over the great west door of churches, declaring that it was only through entering the church that heaven could be attained. The portal was allowed to be identified with Christ for this purpose, speaking words directed to those passing by or pausing to admire its magnificent ornamentation. An excellent example is provided by the Benedictine priory church of St.-Marcel-lès-Sauzet in southern France, which was founded in 985 and extensively developed during the twelfth century. The portal to the church depicts Christ addressing these words to all who draw near:
You who are passing through, you who are coming to weep for your sins,
Pass through me, since I am the gate of life.
Although the words are clearly to be attributed to Christ (picking up on the image of Christ as the “gate of the sheepfold” from John 10), a tactile link has been forged with the building of the church itself. This was often reinforced visually through the physical location of the baptismal font close to the door of the church, thereby affirming that entrance to heaven is linked with the sacrament of baptism.
On the other hand, some regard salvation as a purely individual matter which has no necessary connection with the institution of the church. Some Pietist writers held that it was an individual's free decision to repent and admit Christ into their soul and thus secure the hope of heaven. The institution of the church plays no critical role in this process whatsoever, however valuable it may subsequently be as a means of pastoral support and spiritual nourishment. The door through which people enter heaven is thus understood to be, not the institution of the church and its attending sacramental system, but personal conversion – a deliberate decision on the part of individuals to throw open the doors of their lives and admit Christ as a living presence within them, a presence which may be experienced and felt.
Most Christian theologians would agree that the church is involved in some manner in mediating salvation. “All salvation comes from Christ the Head through the Church which is his Body” (Catechism of the Catholic Church). Some argue that commitment to the church secures salvation; others recognized that individual believers had to make some kind of response if they were to benefit from the death and resurrection of Christ; others accepted both these points. Martin Luther, for example, spoke of faith as a hand which embraced Christ; the Catechism of the Catholic Church declares that “God's free initiative demands man's free response, for God has created man in his image by conferring on him, along with freedom, the power to know him and love him.” Yet it is perfectly possible to hold these corporate and individual accounts together, seeing the church as mediating the means of salvation for those wishing to appropriate it individually.
Three main models have been used, particularly within Protestant theology, to help grasp the way in which believers, either individually or corporately, connect with and benefit from the “benefits of Christ.”
Christ as a Representative
This model understands Christ as the covenant representative of humanity. Through faith, believers come to stand within the covenant between God and humanity. All that Christ has achieved through the cross is available on account of the covenant. Just as God entered into a covenant with his people Israel, so he has entered into a covenant with his church. Christ, by his obedience upon the cross, represents his covenant people, winning benefits for them as their representative. By coming to faith, individuals come to stand within the covenant and thus share in all its benefits, won by Christ through his cross and resurrection – including the full and free forgiveness of our sins.
This idea is particularly associated with the Reformed theology of the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, which developed a sophisticated covenant theology. Adam was humanity's representative under the old covenant of works; Christ has become our representative under the new covenant of grace. These covenant theologies are seen in their most fully developed form in New England Puritanism during the eighteenth century.
Participation in Christ
A second approach stresses that, through faith, believers participate in the risen Christ. They are “in Christ,” to use Paul's famous phrase. They are caught up in him and share in his risen life. As a result of this, they share in all the benefits won by Christ, through his obedience upon the cross. One of those benefits is the forgiveness of sins, in which they share through faith. New Testament scholar E. P. Sanders (born 1937) states the importance of “participation in Christ” for Paul in the following words:
The prime significance which the death of Christ has for Paul is not that it provides atonement for past transgressions (although he holds the common Christian view that it does so), but that, by sharing in Christ's death, one dies to the power of sin or to the old aeon, with the result that one belongs to God. [...] The transfer takes place by participation in Christ's death.
Participating in Christ thus entails the forgiveness of sins and sharing in his righteousness. This idea is central to Luther's soteriology, as his image of the marriage between Christ and the believer makes clear. In some way, faith unites us with Christ and thus enables us to participate in his attributes.
Christ as a Substitute
Christ is here understood to be a substitute, the one who goes to the cross in our place. Sinners ought to have been crucified, on account of their sins. Christ is crucified in their place. God allows Christ to stand in our place, taking our guilt upon himself, so that his righteousness – won by obedience upon the cross – might become ours. This idea is not found to any significant extent in the theological writings of the patristic and medieval periods. It becomes significant in the sixteenth century, particularly in the writings of John Calvin, and continues to be developed by conservative Protestant theologians, such as James I. Packer.