Salvation and the Corporeal World

Note: Last Updated 7/29/2024.

Vinoth Ramachandra:

     But the cross speaks of a God who is entangled with our world, who immerses himself in our tragic history, who embraces our humanity with all its vulnerability, pain and confusion, including our evil and our death. Here is a God who comes to us not as a master but as a servant, who stoops to wash the feet of his disciples and to suffer brutalization and dehumanization at the hands of his creatures. In identifying with us in our humanity he draws the human into his own divine life. So what this means is that the closer we get to God, the more human we become, not less. And our created, physical bodies have a future. In raising Jesus from death, the Creator was affirming our humanity: this historical, embodied existence has a future.

     So our salvation lies not in an escape from this world but in the transformation of this world. Everything good and true and beautiful in history is not lost forever but will be restored and directed to the worship of God. All our human activity (in the arts and sciences, economics and politics) and even the nonhuman creation will be brought to share in the liberating rule of God. This grand vision centers on the cross of Jesus Christ. There a vision of future hope opens up for the world.

     You will not find hope for the world in any religious systems or philosophies of humankind. The biblical vision is unique. That is why when some say that there is salvation in other faiths I ask them. “What salvation are you talking about?” No faith holds out a promise of eternal salvation for the world the way the cross and resurrection of Jesus do.

(Vinoth Ramachandra, The Scandal of Jesus, [Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2001], pp. 23-24.)

Timothy Keller:

When we look at the whole scope of this story line, we see clearly that Christianity is not only about getting one’s individual sins forgiven so we can go to heaven. That is an important means of God’s salvation, but not the final end or purpose of it. The purpose of Jesus’s coming is to put the whole world right, to renew and restore the creation, not to escape it. It is not just to bring personal forgiveness and peace, but also justice and shalom to the world. God created both body and soul, and the resurrection of Jesus shows that he is going to redeem both body and soul. The work of the Spirit of God is not only to save souls but also to care and cultivate the face of the earth, the material world.

     It is hard to overemphasize the uniqueness of this vision. Outside of the Bible, no other major religious faith holds out any hope or even interest in the restoration of perfect shalom, justice, and wholeness in this material world.

(Timothy Keller, The Reason For God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism, [New York: Dutton, 2008], p. 223.)

καὶ αὐτός ἐστιν πρὸ πάντων καὶ τὰ πάντα ἐν αὐτῷ συνέστηκεν ~ Soli Deo Gloria