Why We Are Saved

This week I relayed to the kids a story from high school that was meant to illustrate forgiveness. Instead, to me it ended up illustrating the limits of an example.

The story is that when I was in ninth grade, I forgot to do a packet of English worksheets. I was normally a conscientious student, but this packet had been assigned several days before it was due and I simply, honestly forgot. As I result, I had none of them done, and receive a grade to match. This Zero followed me through the grading period, sandbagging what would have otherwise been a healthy A and weighing it down to a C+ or B-. By the end of the quarter, despite otherwise strong test and homework scores, I still was hovering around low B.

That's when the teacher, Mrs. Langemo, called me forward and at the end of class shared with me what she'd decided to do. (This was before computer grading, which has made omitting a missed assignment an easy thing.) Knowing how badly that set of worksheets had hurt my grade, and knowing how much I wanted an A in her class, she reasoned that if I had done them, I probably would have scored around a 94%, which would have allowed my quarter grade to rise to an A, and so that was exactly the grade she was giving me. Case closed.

I used that story with the kids because it was a story of forgiveness and also of a sweet motivation. I knew at the time, because she said it often, that Mrs. Langemo had a heartfelt affinity for all of her students. She told us so. Every year, to all of her classes, she would express that she loved them. And you believed it; not that she merely had enthusiasm for her job or a fondness for young people in general, but that she cared individually and wanted every student who came through her door to succeed, in English and in life. Mrs. Langemo loved us.

And since God forgives us because of his great love for us, I thought it made a great example. Except that when I asked the kids "Why do you think my teacher did that for me?" most of them answered with something sensible like, "Because she knew you were a good student," or "Because she knew you deserved an A," or "Because she knew you'd try hard after that to remember to do all your homework." Stated simply, they reasonably believed that Mrs. Langemo's "forgiveness" of the unfinished work was conditioned on her belief that I wasn't willfully ignoring my assignments, and that in other ways I'd shown my good intentions. Put another way: yes, I would have deserved the grade I had coming (a B), but I also had proved myself deserving of an A.

As I reflected on this later, I came to realize how imperfect our metaphors for the forgiveness of God really are. Not that we as humans don't legitimately forgive one another, or love one another unconditionally. But the kids' analysis was right: whether or not my teacher loved me, her offer to raise my grade was based on an expectation about the quality of the work I would have done. I may not have earned an A, but my history as a student in her class earned her consideration.

But this is not the way God forgives us. How could God rescue Paul, "the worst of sinners" (1 Timothy 1:15-17) if grace was offered because our own merit? How could Jesus have pardoned the woman caught in adultery, whose sin was obvious and shameful, or associated with the cheater Zacchaeus? How could the people of the church at Ephesus have been redeemed by God, when they were as Paul wrote, "dead in your transgressions and sins…gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature objects of wrath"? Paul gives the answer as he continues in Ephesians 2: "Because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in our transgressions - it is by grace you have been saved."

There is a noxious version of the gospel out there that goes like this: God expects you to measure up. God knows you haven't. Jesus died for you, and that should motivate you to live for him. Receive God's forgiveness and then get over your struggles. Resolve to strive to measure up like God expects you to do. I have seen many Christians - kids, teenagers, and adults - interpret the gospel in this way: Christ died, so I'll try. The problem is that it gets forgiveness wrong. The death of Jesus is not just a motivator, but an actuator (yes, that's really a word) - in other words, it produces a definite (not just a suggested) result. The result of Jesus' sacrifice is that by faith we can be free from condemnation, free from shame, and free from the Law, which never brings life.

So when Paul writes (Galatians 2), "I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me," he is not writing of possibilities or probabilities, but certainties. How do we know? Because he continues, "I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing!" But Christ didn't die for nothing! And he didn't die in the hope that we - and let's be specific, that includes children - will choose to be good boys and girls. Christ died so that we could be saved.

When I was growing up, there was a banner that hung in my church that said, "Christ served to save; we are saved to serve." But that's not quite right. It makes salvation seem less like freedom from sin and more like parole: yeah, you're out, but watch yourself this time or the real punishment's coming.

Which brings us around to the question, why are we saved?

Many people can relay when they were saved. Every Christian should at least be able to tell how we are saved. But what about why we are saved? The answer must surely entail a certain amount of wonder. God saves us because of his love for us. OK, but what is the nature of this love? Are there really no strings attached? How can he love like that? It's these seeds of doubt, I'm convinced, that keep some people holding onto a version of love and forgiveness that imposes some performance obligation on the part of the forgiven. This is "I love you" with a comma, rather than "I love you", period.

I'm not saying we should all walk around dumbfounded and clueless as to why God saves anyone. But neither, just because "the Bible says so" should we reduce God's love to some cold, propositional truth, as ordinary as saying, "the sky is blue" or "2+2=4". Words, in any context, that are repeated over and over run the risk of becoming cliches, and we've done it in the church when we pronounce God's love without any accompanying awe or humility or wonder.

God loves us? Yes he does. God loves even us. Even you. Even me. And it fuels his mercy, which is the engine of his grace. And by grace, through faith - not resolve, not best of intentions, not daily quiet times, not camp rededications - we are saved.

A generation of strivers is first cousin to a generation of keepers of the law. Believing that God's forgiveness is possible shoots too low. Let's do our best, in word and deed, to communicate to kids a vision of God's forgiveness that will make them not strivers, but celebrators. How would culture change if we could plant 50 or more kids in every North County middle school who, rather than believing in the prospect of God's forgiveness, were convinced of its reality in their own lives, and were motivated and humbled by that?