Theological Journal – January 27 Moltmann Monday: What Does Salvation Mean?

Salvation means many different things to different people in different circumstances. And that’s as it should be, as far as it goes. But I don’t think it goes quite far enough. I often pose the following question to help get at this issue:


“Do you know that Christ has no interest in making a difference in your life or mine? None. Nada. Not at all! Not even for a nano-second does he think about that. To put it bluntly, Jesus Christ has not, does not, and will never entertain the idea of making a difference in our lives!”


Do you believe that? Really? I suggest that much of what we know as Christianity does not believe it and fancies Jesus making a difference in their lives as the essence of what being a Christian, walking with Jesus, is all about. And they would be wrong. And if they are wrong about that, about salvation, maybe that’s a big part of why the story of the church in North America has reached a dead end in America.


So, do you believe Jesus has no interest in making a difference in your life or mine? I do. And, since today is Moltmann Monday, I’ll let him tell you why:


"With Christ in faith a wholly new life begins. It is not a restored life, and it is not a rejuvenated life either. It is not even a life reborn out of its origin. The resurrection of Christ has no historical prototype. It is something completely new in history. It is the beginning of the new creation of everything." (The Source of Life)


Do you get it? No, Jesus does want to make a difference in our lives. He was to give us different lives! Yes, different lives. And the lives we now live we live out of that newness, growing into it as we go through life. Paul puts it like this: “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. And the life that I now live in my body, I live by faith, indeed, by the faithfulness of God’s Son, who loved me and gave himself for me” (Gal.2:20).


Paul, Moltmann, and me (that’s going from the sublime to the ridiculous, isn’t it). Three different ways of saying that salvation is at its core not a renovation project, even an extreme makeover. It’s a complete tear down and rebuild with the resurrected Jesus taking residence in us making us the different people we were always meant to be.


Jesus making a difference in our lives is akin to putting lipstick on a pig. Jesus giving us a different life is something else altogether. The something else that makes and keeps us Christian – Christ ones.