Editor’s Note: The following essay is one in a series dealing with topics of interest and importance as Presbyterians prepare for the 217th General Assembly this June in Birmingham, Ala. Author Johnson explains: “The report from the General Assembly Task Force on Peace, Unity, and Purity of the Church provides us both the occasion and the urgency for theological dialogue within the PC(USA.) This and succeeding essays are offered as a constructive effort in that direction.”
The New Testament invites us to be “rightly dividing the word of truth” (II Tim. 2:15, KJV). Sometimes it seems like the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) has taken this to mean “just divide” in a win-lose strategy, winner take all. I believe the time has come to explore alternative ways to move ahead without compromising the Gospel or pursuing a win-lose approach.
The first issue to raise: Jesus Christ as the means of our salvation. Both Scripture and the Presbyterian confessions expound at length how Jesus Christ saves us from our sins and sinfulness. He is the expiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world (I John 2:2.) The atoning work of Jesus Christ was accomplished by his life and ministry among people, his teachings, his death on the cross, and his resurrection. I will deal with particular theories of atonement in a later essay.
The question often put to Christ’s atoning work is whether Jesus is the only means of our salvation or whether he is one means of salvation among many by which God saves sinners. This question has sharply divided Presbyterians for at least several decades. In 2001 the 213th General Assembly (meeting in Louisville, Ky.) commissioned its Office of Theology and Worship to address the issue. They produced the excellent short treatise, “Hope In The Lord Jesus Christ.” Hope ably surveys the creeds and confessions of the PC(USA) and reaffirms the centrality of Jesus Christ for the Gospel, hence for Presbyterians.
The 214th General Assembly (Columbus, Ohio) adopted and commended “Hope In The Lord Jesus Christ” to the Church. In response to an overture, the Assembly also lifted out a paragraph that all sides could affirm unequivocally, being well grounded in Scripture and the whole range of PC(USA) confessions:
Jesus Christ is the only Savior and Lord, and all people everywhere are called to place their faith, hope, and love in him. No one is saved by virtue of inherent goodness or admirable living, for “by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God” [Ephesians 2:8]. No one is saved apart from God’s gracious redemption in Jesus Christ. Yet we do not presume to limit the sovereign freedom of “God our Savior, who desires everyone to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth” [I Timothy 2:4]. Thus, we neither restrict the grace of God to those who profess explicit faith in Christ nor assume that all people are saved regardless of faith. Grace, love, and communion belong to God, and are not ours to determine. (Lines 155-168)
As an observer I watched the 214th General Assembly pass this excerpt quietly, with hardly a dissenting vote. It was the watershed moment in the meeting. With a great sigh of relief the commissioners thus united could move on to the rest of their sometimes contentious other business.
Current liberals and conservatives still divide, dispute, and differ sharply with one another over the means of our salvation, and Jesus Christ as the pre-eminent means. Where the sides agree fundamentally is just that: Jesus Christ is primarily a means of salvation (or of revelation, if you prefer). The agreement of the sides may in fact be more important than the details of their disagreement. As a mere (?!) means of salvation (or of revelation), Jesus Christ answers well what our age wants from the Gospel, namely, “What is useful about it?”–utilitarianism. “What about it actually works?–pragmatism. And, “What do we get out of it?”–economics. The Gospel of Jesus Christ in our time and culture is widely touted as the best way to meet all human needs, solve every human problem, and answer all human questions. We Presbyterian Christians–right, center, or left–freely use such calculations to gain leverage with our culture, our time in history, our partisan opponents, and ourselves.
But suppose Jesus Christ is more than a means of salvation? Suppose he is the salvation of which he is also the means? Aren’t the means always subordinate to the end for which they are the means? Isn’t the means to an end essentially disposable, once we have used it to reach the end we seek? When we have finished washing the dishes with a dishrag, don’t we throw the rag away, eventually? But “Jesus is Lord,” we say. He is more than a mere means to an end, more important than something we can use and throw away, and higher than our calculations can reach, much less domesticate. The whole issue changes dramatically when we consider who Jesus is, precisely as a human being–the Word made flesh (John 1:14), God with us–Immanuel, (Matt. 1:22), the Lord God (Phil. 2:11+), the Son of God, of the same substance as the Father (John 20:31+).
On the one hand, if Jesus is truly God as a human being, then to say he is the only means of our salvation is not enough. For life with the human Jesus Christ (= life with God) is what constitutes salvation. “How can we sinners be saved by Jesus Christ“ may not be the only question to ask. Sinners that we are, and brought into the saving presence of Jesus Christ by the Spirit, we may also need to ask, like the Calvinists of old: “Are we willing to be damned for the glory of God?“ Isn’t that exactly what happened to Jesus Christ (see Mark 15:34, II Cor. 5:21)? Doesn’t our salvation depend upon it? Does not this very God-as-a-human-being, Jesus Christ, carve out the space where God and sinful humanity meet, define our lives by Jesus’ quite historical life-death-and-resurrection, and govern all of life accordingly? “Salvation”–fellowship with Jesus Christ, life with God–turns out to be a daunting, demanding, untamable, rugged calling indeed!
On the other hand, if Jesus is truly God as a human being, then to say that he is one among many means of salvation is not enough, either. For by whatever measure we may want to apply, Jesus Christ constitutes who God is toward all humanity, indeed toward the entire universe. As Karl Barth puts it, “as he [Jesus] is, so is God.”* The saying works in reverse, too: as Jesus is toward God, so is our humanity toward God. No earthly reality is exempt from this divine address (see Matt. 28:18b and 20b, and Col 1:15-20). There may be other means of salvation or other means of revelation, but, because of who Jesus is, they are all bound to answer to Jesus Christ at some point.
Thus does the atoning work of Jesus Christ require the incarnate person of Jesus Christ, who according to both Scripture and the Presbyterian confessions is God as a human being. Thus does the atoning work of Jesus Christ become truly the act of God for our salvation (and revelation), for Jesus is God as a human being. Thus do we honor and worship Jesus Christ as an end in himself and not as someone who is merely useful to us. For as this human being came among us, so does God come among us even now. To say that Jesus Christ is God as a human being may be the most radical thing a Christian will ever say. And, I submit, this affirmation changes the way we Presbyterians will want to talk with one another about Jesus Christ, God, salvation, revelation, and the current issues of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A..), to which we all belong.
*Clifford Green, ed., Karl Barth: Theologian of Freedom (London: Harper Collins, 1989), 56.
Merwyn S. Johnson is director of the doctor of ministry program at Erskine College/Theological Seminary in Due West, S.C. He holds a B.A. from the University of Virginia; B.D. and Th.M. from Union Theological Seminary (Va.); and a D. Theol. from the University of Basel.
