The modern church has done a huge disservice to the world and the Kingdom of God by the way in which we have presented the gospel.
To quote a familiar idiom, “We have majored on minors and minored on majors”.
The preaching of the gospel or “good news” in the modern world has focused almost entirely upon a single aspect of what humanity is being saved from, and hardly focused at all upon what man has been saved to! You may want to remember this as we go forward in this article because I will refer back to it.
In order to make this an easier read, I will begin with defining both salvation and eternal life. This will make our study more productive and keep us more focused. However, I will say now that the meaning of the actual words and what they represent are not precisely the same.
The words saved and salvation are very similar. They are the English representations of the Greek words sozo and sōtēríaand are defined this way – to deliver, make whole, preserve safe from danger, loss or destruction. So the concepts of saved and salvation are not just about avoiding danger, but being brought to safety.
“Saved” occurs 54 times in the Bible while “salvation” 44 times.
Both are used in reference to eternal salvation as well as being saved from natural dangers and so have a broad range of meanings.
As per our topic of “eternal salvation”, the danger being averted is not just from eternal punishment in the Lake of Fire but from an eternity apart from God.
God IS life, light, love, peace…, these are not just things God gives us, He is the source of them all and they are descriptions of His very person.
I will offer you a few examples from scripture…
- He IS life – “When Christ (Who IS YOUR LIFE) appears, then you too will be revealed in glory with Him.” – Colossians 3:4
- HeIS light – “This is the message which we have heard from Him and declare to you, that GOD IS LIGHT and in Him is no darkness at all.” – 1 John 1:5
- He IS love – “And we have known and believed the love that God has for us. GOD IS LOVE, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God in him.” – 1 John 4:16
- He IS peace – “For HE HIMSELF IS OUR PEACE, Who has made both one, and has broken down the middle wall of separation” – Ephesians 2:14
These provide a nice segway into the definition and meaning of eternal life.
The words “eternal life” are aiōnios zōē and mean perpetual life or existence.
Now this requires a little more help to understand because everyone is going to exist forever. Central to the essence of all human beings’ is their spirit. It IS what we are! It is also that which was breathed out of the mouth of God that made human’s living eternal beings.
“The LORD God formed the man from the soil of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.” – Genesis 2:7
These are deep topics, but for the purposes of this article we will just say that since God is eternal, that which proceeds from His person is also eternal. No conscious being God has ever created will ever cease to exist. Quite literally that would be impossible!
So “eternal life” therefore MUST have a deeper meaning than simple existence.
None other than Jesus Himself offers us the meaning of eternal life and it is recorded for us in John 17:3.
“Now this is eternal life – that they know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, Whom You sent.” – John 17:3
Obviously the word “know” here is also important. It is the Greek word ginṓskō which in this context means – To know in a completed sense, that is, to have the intimate and relational knowledge of or with.
The translators of the New English Translation have this note to offer on this verse:
The author here defines eternal life for the readers…
It is not just unending life in the sense of prolonged duration. Rather it is a quality of life, with its quality derived from a relationship with God. Having eternal life is here defined as being in relationship with the Father, the one true God, and Jesus Christ Whom the Father sent.
The statement here in John 17:3 enables us to correlate the statement made in John 1:18 of the prologue, that Jesus has fully revealed what God is like, with Jesus’ statement in John 10:10 that He has come that people might have life, and have it abundantly.
These two purposes are really one, according to John 17:3, because (abundant) eternal life is defined as knowing (being in relationship with) the Father and the Son.
The only way to gain this eternal life, that is, to obtain this knowledge of the Father, is through the Son (cf. John 14:6).
If we look at the teachings of Jesus, eternal life was the central theme of all He taught. We know that from the fact that such was the command of the Father.
As the above referenced verses in John 1:18 and John 10:10 says, Jesus came to reveal the Father resulting in eternal life, so John also tells us that eternal life was the message the Father commanded Jesus to teach.
John 12:45-50, “(45) And he who sees Me sees Him Who sent Me. (46) I have come as a light into the world, that whoever believes in Me should not abide in darkness. (47) And if anyone hears My words and does not believe, I do not judge him; for I did not come to judge the world but to save the world.
(48) He who rejects Me, and does not receive My words, has that which judges him— the word that I have spoken will judge him in the last day.
(49) For I have not spoken on My own authority; but the Father Who sent Me gave Me a command, what I should say and what I should speak. (50) And I know that His command is EVERLASTING LIFE. Therefore, whatever I speak, just as the Father has told Me, so I speak.”
So any teaching Jesus gave had this goal at its heart – eternal life through revealing the Father.
So the question is, what does eternal life have to do with salvation?
Well, from mankind’s perspective, salvation is almost always about being saved from an eternity in hell and that is certainly a worthy goal. No one in their right mind would want an eternity of suffering, but there is much more to salvation than avoiding a horrific future. In fact, it could be argued from scripture that even our understanding of hell is somewhat off.
Whatever else hell and the lake of fire are, they are an existence apart from the possibility of knowing God.
Now on the surface, this does not sound terrible to us in our current condition, but there will be a day when it will be the only thing that matters to any human.
For now, we have been placed in creation which teaches us about God and invites us to know Him. Even for those who are not yet saved, there is enough light of the knowledge of God in the world to stave off complete spiritual starvation. But there will be a day when all those who rejected God’s salvation will be forever cut off from their Creator. Banished from His presence into the oblivion of eternal spiritual darkness.
Let me tell you that there is literally no way to conceptualize even a moment like this by comparing it to any physical experience currently available to us.
We were made from and for God, so an existence apart from Him would be like being a fish removed from water, but never allowed to die. Like a starvation from which no death will come and deliver you. It is an existence where you are consumed from within, never to know relief.
The scriptures use the words “gnashing of teeth” and it is a sad thing that it conjures notions which are not consistent with what Jesus meant regarding eternal damnation.
Often people think of gnashing teeth, like a man biting down on something to endure pain. This however, is NOT how this phrase was used.
If you look at the places where the “gnashing of teeth” are mentioned, NONE of them are in reference to physical pain. Instead they all touch on the condition of the heart. Either anger, or frustration, or irritation or mental torment are indicated.
So in keeping with this, Jesus’ teachings on the eternal suffering of the lost reveal an eternity of unsettled passions and unsatisfied desires, angers and frustrations which can never know relief but only an eternal intensifying of those things.
This may very well be why the eternity of the damned is described like a fire in that it consumes you, without destroying you finally.
The Bible tells us that hell is the place people go BEFORE the final judgment. After the final judgment both hell and death itself are cast into the lake of fire along with satan and all his angels as well as all who do not know God.
It is natural for most people to make the assumption that salvation is all about not going to this horrible place when you die and while that certainly plays a part, it is strictly not what salvation is about.
As I said earlier there are 2 components to salvation:
- What you are being saved FROM
- What you are being saved TO
Scripture teaches us that everything is first and foremost about the Godhead -the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Therefore even salvation and eternal life – what it is and its purpose, are God focused not man centered!
One of the most well known verses regarding salvation is John 3:16,17. For all of its familiarity though, I think most people miss the main focus of salvation and that is the love of God.
Let’s read it,
“(16) FOR GOD SO LOVED THE WORLD that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. (17) For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.”– John 3:16-17
Notice that while humanity is the one in need of salvation and in fact the one being offered it, salvation’s purpose and focus is actually the love of God. “For God SO LOVED…”.
If salvation was man focused, this would have read, “because man’s need for salvation was so great…etc.” but it doesn’t!
So salvation and eternal life go hand in glove. What we are being saved from is disassociation from God and all the miseries which accompany such an offal state.
What we are being saved to is knowing God personally and intimately and to live in that state of bliss eternally. Where we will experience this forever is often referred to as heaven and the New Earth.
So there you have it in a nutshell.
Salvation is about being reconciled to God and can be well captured in the following verses found in 2 Corinthians 5:17-21,
“(17) Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new. (18) Now all things are of God, Who has reconciled us to Himself through Jesus Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation,
(19) that is, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses to them, and has committed to us the word of reconciliation.
(20) Now then, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were pleading through us: WE IMPLORE YOU ON CHRIST’S BEHALF, BERECONCILEDTOGOD.
(21) For He made Him Who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.”
So any gospel message which presents salvation as nothing more than a means of avoiding hell is no gospel message at all! Such a gospel is MAN focused not God focused.
Remember, Jesus Himself, by the command of the Father, made the entirety of His message about eternal life – not sin or even hell, but eternal life!
So being reconciled to God our Creator is what salvation is all about and that out of a deep and honest conviction to honor God’s desire to know us and be known by us. That He truly deserves our loyalty and love in response to Creation and subsequent pursuit of us.
A truly strong case could be made for saying that anyone who “accepts Jesus as their Lord and Savior” with the only goal in mind being to avoid hell, rather than honor and come to know God, does not really know Him at all and is therefore not saved. We have been invited into a relationship NOT a plan or scheme.
To teach salvation as only a means of avoiding hell is to lie against the gospel and make salvation all about us rather than God.
Remember the words of our Lord Jesus Who told us that many will come at the last day touting all the things they did which represented Jesus and His kingdom and they will be told, “Depart from Me I never KNEW you.” I think that very clearly places the emphasis where it truly belongs!
For related articles see:
- How to be saved
- Who is Jesus?
- What if someone’s never heard of Jesus?
- Hell, hades and the Lake of Fire
Blessings!
