SALUS

“Christ is discovered in the sufferings of the Cross.”—Abba Isaac the Syrian

“Do you know Jesus as your personal Savior?”

I can’t count how many times I’ve been accosted by some well-meaning evangelical with that question. In my university days, it was an unusual day when someone didn’t interrupt one of my walks across campus to ask me about my eternal status.

Growing up in the south, where Baptist is as close as we come to having a State Church, I’ve heard it at all times and in all places: football games, hospitals—even once when I was—as we used to euphemistically say—“parking” with a girl!

Most of the time I politely smiled to keep the questioner at bay. Occasionally I’d ask what they meant by the question, but that was almost always when the inquisitor was a pretty girl. When I did bite, we’d review what I recall were titled the Four Spiritual Laws. In essence these boiled down to accepting Jesus as “my personal Savior.” When I questioned what that meant, what it actually entailed, invariably the answer would be “that’s all there is to it. Ask Him to be your Savior and you’re saved.”

Turns out, that’s not quite all there is to it. Such confident answers don’t match the reality of life—or meet the challenges of the Gospel.

Our Baptist friends are right to say we need to accept Christ. But “accepting Christ,” “knowing Him as our personal Savior,” isn’t a process of formulaic repetition. Salvation is an ongoing process. I’m “saved,” transformed, not with a statement but by life-long growth in Grace—the life of God, lived out in me. My salvation comes as I continually, over the course of my life, follow Christ where I often don’t want to go.

Sometimes, I refuse to follow. That’s what sin is.

Salvation—which comes from the Latin word salus, “health”—is the daily plodding after the Lord Jesus. Sometimes the days are brilliant with beautiful vistas and dazzling sunsets; we dance along His path. Some are heavy and gray and we barely move. Most of the time, someone like me plods along in guarded hope, not knowing what’s coming next but with a slow certainty that He is there. We’re all damaged from life. Our salus—restoration as His sons and daughters—is His goal. Whatever that requires, He’ll do.

Abba Isaac says we “discover” Christ. We ferret Him out of the stuff of our lives. He’s with us—always has been—Jew, Muslim, Buddhist, Baptist or even Anglican. He is with us, drawing us to Himself. The question isn’t “have you accepted Him?” but “will you accept Him today, right now?” Today will you pick up the Cross, the burden of your life which you were created to bear, and follow Him?

If you do, you’ll discover Him in unexpected places. In fear, if you plod after Him, you’ll find your faith. In sorrow, you’ll discover joy. The Gospel isn’t the sentimental shlock of cute internet postings or lugubrious hymns. It’s the growing certainty, built over a lifetime, that all that is, is Grace. Nothing that comes to us, no matter how dreadful, no matter how much it hurts, no matter if it kills us, for those who follow, “nothing can separate us from the love of God which is ours in Christ Jesus.”

Our sufferings become Christ’s. He takes them and makes them holy, good, useful. He takes what is broken and makes it whole—restores it to salus. It takes a lifetime—but He’s forming us for eternity.