‘Saved’ from What?
May 15th, 2008 by Nathan White
One of my favorite little books is gotta be RC Sproul’s Saved from What? It’s just an easy-to-read but profoundly-in-depth book about the gospel. And I’d strongly recommend it as a gift to unbelievers and/or new believers in the faith.
Sproul’s main thesis essentially surrounds the meaning of the cliche ‘Are you saved?’ or ‘I’ve been saved’. That is, we’ve become so accustomed to using the language ‘I’ve been saved’ that the true meaning behind the term is more often than not lost. Thus, Sproul examines what it means to be ’saved’, and shows from scripture that we are saved:
- From God (from His wrath)
- By God (and only by God)
- For God (for obedience and holiness)
The more and more I contemplate Sproul’s outline, and the scripture he gives to support this framework, the more and more I am saddened by the Church’s seemingly refusal to admit such things.
We don’t want to be saved from wrath; we want to think that God exists to make us happy, to make our dreams come true, and that being ’saved’ is really only fire-insurance and/or saved from a meaningless life.
We don’t want to be saved by God; we want to be saved by our ability and decision-making. Affirming that our nature is dead in sin and lacks any ability to come to God on our own is just too frightening.
We don’t want to be saved for God unless ‘for’ God means that our dreams are fulfilled, life becomes some kind of fun journey, and this ‘for’ gives us meaning and purpose that we could’ve never had without God.
Have we forgotten the very essentials of the gospel message? The message that God is infinitely angry, not with just imperfection, but with every evil and good deed we offer in and of ourselves?
Have we forgotten that salvation is of grace and grace alone, and that because our sin and depravity run so deep that we cannot even glance at the Lord outside of Him granting life?
Have we forgotten that being ’saved’ not only means saved from eternal wrath, but being saved from God’s personal wrath, and being saved from sin in this life as well?
Where do you go to church? Do you go to a church where the gospel is preached? I hope and pray that you do, and that you sit under the pure teaching of the word each and every week. For the essentials of the gospel are just that: they are essential. And the streets are filled with preachers who will do everything they can to steal you soul by offering you happiness, excitement, entertainment, and essentially, a gospel with you and you alone at the very center.
Saved from what? Saved from God’s wrath, saved by God’s grace, and saved from our own sin -in THIS life, not just the next.
Nathan,
Those were some accurate and much needed insights.
Too much of what passes for the gospel is nothing more than just another way to make us happy…
This sounds like a good book; I’ll look into getting it.
bob
I still think some of these notions are childish for most people. I think many people tend to think of God’s “wrath” in terms of God getting “angry” with the same sort of human emotions and hatred that we see on earth. That is, God “hates” people who do bad things or believe wrong things about Him (or don’t have enough thoughts about Him at all), so He gets mad and sets them on fire for eternity since, well, that’s the most excruciating thing you can do to someone.
Any thinking person realizes this cannot be reconciled with a God who “is Love” unless that person has no appreciation for the word at all. Someone with even an iota of a conscience would not set their dog on fire, and they are but simple animals, not a person created in the image and likeness of God.
That being said, it is reasonable to suggest that God allows men the freedom to live outside of His realm where all is utter darkness and horror. If God is indeed “good”, anything that is not of Him can only be horrible. His “punishment” is His absence (and I think Romans 1 supports this notion). That is, if God is love, light, goodness, generosity and mercy, Hell can only be hatred, darkness, wickedness, selfishness and ruthlessness.
These seem to be very important distinctions, since too many commit a certain degree of character assassination when it comes to God.
JamesK,
That’s all well and good but without defending those concepts from the word of God then your idea of what’s what is no better than anyone elses…
Here’s mine “God is actually a tree” and if we don’t bow down, then he will plant us in the ground as punishment”..that sounds reasonable to me..
Now tell me why your ideas hold more water than mine…
As you can see…unless you go to the word and use that as the basis for what you “believe” about how things are…then any old idea is correct.
bob
Well then I guess Jesus assassinated God:
“Vengence is mine says the Lord, I will repay” does not sound as if hell is an act of self-immolation. Then there are these sorts of passages: “Then I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse! The one sitting on it is called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he judges and makes war. His eyes are like a flame of fire, and on his head are many diadems, and he has a name written that no one knows but himself. He is clothed in a robe dipped in blood, and the name by which he is called is The Word of God. And the armies of heaven, arrayed in fine linen, white and pure, were following him on white horses. From his mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations, and he will rule them with a rod of iron. He will tread the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God the Almighty. On his robe and on his thigh he has a name written, King of kings and Lord of lords.”
Nah! It sounds as if the Wrath is a little different than the wrath of Romans 1 which is wholly earth bound and only a foretaste of the Wrath which is to come. In any case, it is not as if punishment were out of God’s control as if it existed on its own. To the contrary, Scripture tells us that all things are upheld by the power of his might, and where his power is there also is he, omnipresent and omniscient, knowing exactly how to discharge his duty as the King who does not weild the sword in vain. It is good to exact vengence in righteousness, love to hate that which is evil. And a you failed to mention, JamesK, our God is a consuming fire. “Then Death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire.”
bob–
I highly recommend the book. It’s small and a quick read, but I can think of no better book to give to the lost. Certainly put it on your list.
James–
Just about every time you comment here we come to the issue of scriptural authority. I will ask again, as I have many times before, and as others on this thread have as well: where is the authority backing your opinions? Where can we find these truths in scripture, or is there something that supersedes scripture in authority? Where in Romans one do you see your view? How can you, my friend, accuse of of slandering God when you continually use your own intellect (so it seems to some of us) to define who God is and what He is like? Are we really in a position to define what ‘love’ truly is?
I have come to welcome your comments here as one who is always cordial with me, but I must warn you with all sincerity that you seem to have created a god in your own likeness rather than taking close and studied looks at scripture and see how it portrays Him.
“Where in Romans one do you see your view?”
As I read the passage, God’s wrath is revealed as “giving up” the wicked to do as they will. This isn’t a passive sort of merely tolerating the existence of something but rather allowing the full weight of evil to be felt by the one committing it. The penalty of sin is death, not because God is the author of death (on which Scripture is clear) but because death is the natural result of sin. Also: Christ on the cross did not ask why God was inflicting punishment upon Him but why he had been “forsaken”, yes? These sentiments are echoed throughout Scripture, and they seem to overshadow some of the hyperbole and poetry of Revelation and the Psalms.
By the way, I’ll admit that I have an “idea” of God, but I do, in fact, use Scripture to form those ideas. The problem is that my ideas agree with not just one tradition within the Christian faith. If you’re asking me to agree with everything John Calvin stated about Christ, for example, you may as well suggest I tow the Catholic theological line, or the Arminian. These are all traditions (small “t”). My ideas arise not because I disagree with Scripture but because I see something in Scripture that others might not (although others will agree).
No, JamewK, we are asking why you do not agree with Scripture.
JamesK,
Tisk Tisk, context context context….please
What is the subject here? How Hell is? No.
God is not the author of Death?
There are just too many verses to list here…!
Context context context…
Nothing you sited had anything to do with the subject at hand…what is the eternal punishment?
But we do have scripture that people have listed that directly speak to this issue..
Again….if nobody has held your position in 2000 years…you might want to rethink it…
Nathan:
Thank you so much for including Pilgrim Scribblings in the Blogroll which you posted back in March. I quoted you in a recent post. Check it out.
Be encouraged today, dear brother.
In His great love,
David
Nathan:
Another great book recommendation. Sproul is such a wonderful author. I recently gave a trendy megachurch friend a copy of “The Holiness of God” (perhaps Sproul’s best book). He said it was life changing and wants to get together with me to discuss it. I plan to next give him “Chosen By God”, but it sounds like I ought to take a look at this book that you are suggesting as well. I always appreciate you reviews; your best one so far (in my opinion) was on the 2v Whitefield biography. Maybe some day you’ll give us a review on the 2v of Martyn Lloyd Jones; I’ve only read parts of it but was fascinated in his preaching while Nazi bombs are going off in the distance (and not so distant). Well anyway, thanks for your great work as usual.