The Meaning of Salvation ...

Friday, Jan 20, 2017. When you are in trouble and someone helps you out of it, you are thankful for the salvation. When you are in danger and you get protected, you are lucky and celebrate salvation. The bible speaks about salvation in Christ Jesus - and we do good in checking this out in depth!

The fact …

The apostle Paul takes quite some time in his message to the Hebrews to talk about the salvation in Jesus. Let us listen to his words:

1 Therefore we must pay much closer attention to what we have heard, lest we drift away from it. 2 For since the message declared by angels proved to be reliable, and every transgression or disobedience received a just retribution, 3 how shall we escape if we neglect such a great salvation? It was declared at first by the Lord, and it was attested to us by those who heard, 4 while God also bore witness by signs and wonders and various miracles and by gifts of the Holy Spirit distributed according to his will. (from Hebrews 2)

Paul points to the facts. Of course, we can ignore facts - and there have been many who argued against facts. The bible itself asks Christians to be critical, by the way, and carefully examine things and then stay with what has been proven to be reliable. That is, what Paul does here: he points to what has been found to be reliable!

Still proven today …

Can we check things today? Can we come to the same conclusion which Paul came up with? I believe that we can. There are various levels - and not every single person can check all levels. Historians investigate history, theologians investigate what has been written over time in theology. But we all can experience the presence and gifts of the holy spirit, when we come to faith and live in faith in Christ Jesus.

The bible talks both about historical facts as well as about the human condition. It talks about what humans are and do, and where it talks about the human behavior we can see and observe the truth in the biblical analysis. We can also look into history and dig deep to find that the bible is rooted in concrete historical facts and events. This is, of course, more difficult, due to the need to interpret historical artifacts and to interpret sources and documents.

Today we live with science, and that is good! My understanding of science is that it is an activity which fits to Christian faith completely. The world, created and given to us, is to be explored, it is trusted into our hands to live therein, to maintain it and to be enjoy it. At the same time, it is a difficult world, full of dangers, and humans with their freedom of choice do things which are quite questionable on many layers. Forgiveness is one of the key tools of faith, one of the key stories. And the power to heal our soul is there with the holy spirit. It is so desperately needed everywhere in the world. We are offered salvation in Jesus, every single human, and it is a deep and wide reality, which can come to us through faith. (Roland Potthast) ... more texts