Connecting the Power of Human Existence with the Power of Salvation
Once we forsake or cloud the meaning of "salvation" (or "redemption" or "regeneration") and substitute for it mere atonement or mere forgiveness of sins, we'll never be able to achieve a coherent return to concrete human existence. We'll never be able to make clear just exactly what it is that our lives have to do with our "salvation". Futile efforts of believers through the centuries somehow to tack obedience – or "works" or "law" – onto grace, or to insist that Christ cannot be our Savior without also being our Lord, are a historical proof of this point.
But the idea of redemption as the impartation of a lifeprovides a totally different framework of understanding. God's seminal redemptive act toward us is the communication of a new kind of life, as the seed – one of our Lord's most favored symbols – carries a new life into the enfolding soil. Turning from old ways with faith and hope in Christ stands forth as the natural first expression of the new life imparted. That life will be posed to become a life of the same quality as Christ's, because it indeed is Christ's. He really does live on in us. The incarnation continues.
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