Question: There seems to be a lot of talk among Christians about the "gift of salvation" offered by accepting Christ as one’s Savior, as Lord and various other formulations. I find this a little curious because as I understand Christian theology, salvation comes from a sort of spiritual transaction.

"Gift" usually implies that something is given without expecting anything in return. If I give you a gift (say a new CD), I give it to you freely without expecting anything in return whatsoever. Furthermore, though I might hope you’ll take the CD home and listen to it and even enjoy it, you’re entitled to do whatever you want with it. Perhaps it’s a Shostakovich CD and you absolutely detest Emitri’s music (personally inconceivable, but we’re all entitled to our opinions!). You’re perfectly entitled to drop it in the nearest rubbish bin and forget all about it. The point is, it’s now yours and you can do with it what you will.

Salvation, as I understand it, is a gift. However, I also hear that you just have to "have faith" and you’re saved. "If you believe that Christ has given his life for you and accept his gift of grace, you’re saved." Or something similar. Now is that really a gift? I have to believe in order to receive it? I don’t get it if I don’t believe?

Let’s apply this to the CD scenario. I walk into your office with the Shostakovich CD and say, "I’ll give you this CD as a gift, but you have to come for coffee with me first." Is this a gift? Close, but not quite. You have to do something before I’ll give it to you.

So it is with Christianity. I am not saved unless I accept Christ and so on. In that case, salvation is most certainly not a gift. If salvation is a gift to humans – truly a "gift" – then it seems to follow that we’re all saved regardless of whether we believe it or not, accept it or not, or even know it or not.

Lawrence

Answer: Dear Lawrence,

Interesting question – and you have hit upon what can seem to be a paradox. Christianity, as it is explained in the New Testament, and it was practiced in the early church, was not a religion – it was a relationship with God. Problem with humans – we simply cannot leave Christianity alone, as an intimate relationship with God that he offers every human being. We want to institutionalize it, incorporate it, draw boundaries around it, make a club out of it (to keep the rif-raff out, especially the kind of rif-raff that the Gospels tell us that Jesus hung out with). So we start making rules and regulations, and before long some churches don’t resemble Christianity at all.

This is not to say that there are not Christ-centered churches and denominations that insist that Christianity is first and foremost a personal relationship that one enjoys with God – there are many. But there are some who insist upon making it all into a religion.

In the third paragraph of your question, you note that you would give me a new CD "freely without expecting anything in return whatsoever" – "it’s now yours and you can do with it what you will." Precisely the point of God’s grace – his gift.

In the next paragraph you note, "However, I also hear that you just have to ‘have faith’ and you’re saved." You rhetorically note, "Now is that really a gift?"

In the next paragraph you go back to the CD metaphor and say that if you offer me a Shostakovich CD (and I would probably accept it, like it and enjoy it, but not value it as highly as you appear to, since my musical tastes are slightly different!! But Shostakovich is also an excellent point here, because God is not offering us leftover junk – the salvation he offers is precious) but you say that I will have to have coffee with you so it’s not really a gift.

EXACTLY! When God offers us the Shotakovich CD (salvation) all we have to do is to accept it – that is, if we do not reach out our hand and ACCEPT it – if we do not BELIEVE and TRUST in him – then we cannot receive it. In order to have the CD we must accept it – that is what we must do. We must have FAITH enough to reach out and accept that CD he offers.

He does not ask us to come for a cup of coffee as a condition – he does not offer us salvation if only we will give him offerings, or if we will obey him, or if we jump through the specific hoops that some well-intentioned Christian may present.

Salvation is unconditional. We do not earn it, nor is there anything we can do or must do to keep it. Another way of saying it is this – God loves you right now as much as he ever will. He will never love you more, he will never love you less.

Grace is the word that Christianity uses to discuss the subject you raise. Grace, in its pure and unadulterated truth, is scandalous to the human mind. We do not operate like God. For us, it is "you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours." You help me, I’ll help you. You did something for me, now I am obligated to pay you back.

We can never do anything that obligates God to do anything for us. He loves us because he is love – that’s the way he is. He does not love us because we earn it, because we appease him, because we catch him on a "good day". He loves us unconditionally – and gives us salvation without any strings – but he does not force that "CD" on us. We have a choice.

Because we do not operate on God’s economy, it is hard to believe, trust and have faith. We think that there must be some small print somewhere. We cannot conceive that God would take the risk of us not appreciating the Shostakovich CD, and that we would throw it away. We think that God must surely insist on putting us through our paces, qualifying us, testing us, proving us, etc. – before he gives us such a lavish gift. But that’s just the point. God is not the way we are.

And therein is the reason why so many people do not know God as they could – they simply cannot believe him, trust him and have faith in him – that he is who he says he is. Why? Because we have never met anyone quite like him. And that is true. When we meet God, it changes our lives forever, for there is no one like him.

Hope this helps – thanks for the question. May God bless you.

In Christ,

Greg Albrecht