Salvation in the Present Tense: Are We “Being Saved”?

The chorus of a popular hymn from the early 20th Century1 goes like this:

Saved… by His pow’r divine,
Saved… to new life sublime!
Life now is sweet and my joy is complete,
For I’m Saved, Saved, Saved!

It certainly is a thrilling reality, to know oneself as saved by God’s grace. The American church over the last hundred years or more, has so focused on the past tense, completed sense of salvation, however, that they’ve ignored the idea of salvation being in the present tense. The Bible actually speaks of three tenses when it comes to salvation: we have been saved (in the past: Eph. 2:5,8, 2 Tim. 1:9, Tit. 3:5), we also will ultimately be saved (in the future: Rom, 5:91 Thess. 5:9-10, 1 Pet. 1:5), and we are being saved now (in the present: 1 Cor. 1:18, 15:1-2, 2 Cor. 2:15).

One of the key passages, as you see above, for this concept of salvation being a present tense “being saved” reality, is 1 Cor. 15:1-2. Which says, “Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you”” unless you believed in vain. (ESV)”

Bill Mounce, a Greek professor and author, recently addressed how we should translate the Greek phrase for “being saved”, which some Bibles (like the King James Version) have as “are saved”. His comments reveal how the context of a book and one’s theology often help determine the translation of particular phrases. This is how language works. There is no absolute sense where the tense of a Greek verb has only one translation choice when it comes to putting it into English. That being said, I think Mounce’s case for 1 Cor. 15:2 being understood as “are being saved”, is quite strong. I also like his stress on the idea of being on “the straight and narrow” path, as the ultimate descriptive of our reality as Christ-followers.

Let me know what you think of this present tense salvation concept. I’ve shared thoughts related to this idea previously. A few posts which might help are listed below:

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1 Words and music by Jack Scholfield (1918). Hear the tune in a new, contemporary choral arrangement here.

Ephesians 3 & 4 on Unity

I’ve been involved in an online discussion recently on the topic of unity and separation. And I’m finding once again, that for many fundamentalists (surprise), even convincing them that unity with other believers outside a local church is not strictly optional is proving a hard sell.

I won’t bore you with the entire discussion (although some may find it helpful). I will however, take the occasion to share some thoughts on how Ephesians 3 and 4 make a strong case for the idea that unity with other believers is urged upon us in light of our mutual membership in the universal church, which is Christ’s body.

…I believe that in the world we find ourselves in, with its thousands of churches with no real interconnectedness and cooperation between most of them, intentional unity becomes somewhat odd and so a default isolationism sets in. The American situation of freedom from persecution, and good ol’ American individualism also prejudice us toward a self-existant, sufficient idea of our individual local church. Add the history of sectarian fights and all that fundamentalism has endured from all quarters, and I guess it’s little wonder that we have to defend the very idea of the “essential fact of unity” bearing with it a responsibility to act out that unity in visible ways.

Now tallying up the teaching on unity is a bit of a tall order, but just focusing on Ephesians 3 and 4 should suffice for my purposes. Given the setting I’ll just try to draw a brief sketch and not get too detailed.

Eph. 3:1-13 The inclusion of the Gentiles into the “one body” of the Church, (alongside Jews equally), is the mysterious “eternal purpose” of God. And through this new reality in the universal church, heavenly beings can see the manifold wisdom of God.

Eph. 3:14-21 Paul prays for the Ephesian believers individually to experience more fully and to know more deeply the love of Christ, together in a shared experience with all the saints. And he prays for Christ to receive glory in the universal church throughout all generations.

Eph. 4:1-3 On the basis of this cosmic purpose of the global and universal church, Paul exhorts the Ephesians to walk worthy of their calling (shared with all saints), and to bear with one another patiently aiming to maintain this unity of the Spirit (that God is working throughout the universal church as described previously) in a bond of peace. A bond between their brothers in their own city, and a bond which extends beyond even (by implication in the cosmic nature of Ephesians as the wider context).

Eph. 4:4-6 As a further ground for this activity of living together in light of the unity of the Spirit, Paul lists how unified the Ephesians are with all the saints, they share one Lord, faith, baptism and one Father God. God being over all and through all and in them all, as well as in all believers.

Eph. 4:7-10 As a practical reality working out from this existential unity, grace was given to Paul and the Ephesians, indeed to all of us, according to the measure of Christ’s gift that he gave to man in general. And this gift is tied into cosmic realities again as Jesus is ascended above all heavens, and filling up all things through this gift.

Eph. 4:11-16 The gift includes the offices of apostles and prophets and evangelists (all universal church offices, I would think), as well as pastor-teachers, and these men God has given the church (and by the way that means historical theology is important as the teachers of yester-year remain a gift to the church) are to equip all the saints for ministry-work and for mutual up-building of the universal body of Christ (as well as it’s local manifestations). All of this with the goal of all of us attaining to “the unity of the faith”, and knowledge of the Son of God.. leading to maturity and growth and experiencing the fullness of Christ, himself. Christ being the head joins the entire body, so it may grow and build itself up in love.

I would contend that yes, the local church is included in this picture. But everything about the context roots the local church reality in a context of global unity. And just as all believers want to have the fullness of Christ and true knowledge of the Son of God, so too, they should all have unity of the faith and work toward unity with one another.

Since Christ is head of the universal church, what right have we to act as if our own church is all that matters in a given locale? Why ignore other gospel preaching churches and seek to do everything on our own without recognizing and finding ways to celebrate our unity in the faith with these other believers? The mentality is wrong, not just the practice. Yes it’s easy to do nothing, given our current culture and background. It’s easy to focus on our own church and act independently of others. Easy, but is it right?

Preserving the Truth Conference: A Success?

First Baptist Church in Troy, MI hosted a new conference this past week. The Preserving the Truth Conference had over 350 in attendance and included the following main speakers: Kevin Bauder (president of Central Baptist Seminary in Minneapolis, MN), Dave Doran (pastor of Inter-City Baptist Church and president of Detroit Baptist Theological Seminary in Allen Park, MI), Mark Minnick (pastor of Mt. Calvary Baptist Church in Greenville, SC) and Chris Anderson (pastor of Tri-County Bible Church in Madison, OH, blogger at My Two Cents). The conference was a “symposium on Biblical separation”.

It seems to be somewhat of a success, with great discussion in the panel session, and hopes that fundamentalism can work through remaining questions on how to implement separation in faithful and careful ways. The concern is how they relate to conservative evangelicals on one hand, and more right-wing fundamentalists on the other. On the one hand, their stated goal is to “[preserve] the truth through careful separation, robust theology, and cultural conservatism”. Yet it seems apparent that the organizers of the conference are hoping to address issues which are problems in the mind of many young fundamentalists who are leaving fundamentalism for greener, conservative evangelical pastures.

Here are some accounts of the conference (which I did not attend).

Here is the link to the audio or written notes from conference workshops and plenary sessions, as well as some additional material contributed for the initiative.

I’m optimistic about this conference, even though I wonder about the defense of “conservatism” as part of the rescue of Fundamentalism. Also the inclusion of multiple peripheral issues as key points related to the preservation of truth and the Fundamentalist movement doesn’t seem to help in stemming the drift of the young people out of fundamentalism. Still questions are being raised and addressed, and some solutions are being offered. Even though I differ with some of their emphases, I’m happy to see things like this happening, and can hope it has a positive impact in the future. I suppose this is happening elsewhere, but I’m happy to report the reformation of fundamentalism continues.

I hope to listen to some of the audio and interact more on this topic in future posts. I’m discussing some of my initial impressions over at Sharper Iron, right now.

Let me know if you were present at the event, or what your take is on it. Was it a success? Or is it the first step toward lasting and positive change?

New Sponsor: The Theological Research Exchange Network

The Theological Research Exchange NetworkThis being a thankful time of year and all, I wanted to express my appreciation to the Theological Research Exchange Network (TREN) for placing an advertisement on my site. I have heard of this service before and thought I’d make everyone aware of it.

TREN “is a library of over 10,000 theological thesis/dissertation titles representing research from as many as 70 different institutions”. Dissertations are available from over 125 institutions and conference papers are available from the following national conferences:

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TREN now offers an edocs service where you can find, purchase and download dissertations online. Many papers are offered for free too.

If you are doing theological research, or even if you are just looking for an elusive dissertation to help with some particular study of yours, the Theological Research Exchange Network will definitely be worth looking into.

To check out TREN, and also to help ensure their continued sponsorship of Fundamentally Reformed, please click their advertisement at the top of my sidebar (or the logo above). Thanks!

“Galatians (Zondervan Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament)” by Thomas R. Schreiner

Bible commentaries abound today. Scores of commentaries confront the would-be expositor of any book of the Bible, and almost nobody blinks at a new series of commentaries anymore. It goes without saying that the relative value of a given commentary is all over the map, and here perhaps more than anywhere else, a discerning eye is called for.

You guessed it, I’m getting ready for the “but you have to check out this new commentary series” line. But I really mean it. The new Zondervan Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament (ZECNT) series will live up to any amount of hype one can dig up. I’ve reviewed several commentaries, I own bits and pieces of a score of commentary sets, and have examined others besides, yet this series promises to be a true must-have, when it comes to exegetical commentaries.

Like many other students of Scripture, I’ve been schooled in Greek, but that was some time ago. I also aim to fix an opinion on any passage I plan to teach. But with the amount of scholarly material one must evaluate, the task can be a bit daunting. Opening a commentary for answers can lead to far more questions than originally conceived. And some commentators stand out for their pious, know-it-all approach to informing us of their thoughts on the subject.

In sharp contrast, Thomas Schreiner in his ZECNT commentary on Galatians, excels at making the task of studying and making judgments easy. He provides all the relevant arguments on a given question, both the pros and cons. He defends positions that he ultimately rejects, all in the effort of explaining what is at stake and how to best see the big picture in a given exegetical question.

The clarity and candor on display in Schreiner’s work is complemented by the brilliant (can I use that term of a commentary?) ordering of material conceived by the ZECNT editors. After allowing for an in-depth introduction to set the stage for the book, each unit of the text is addressed in such a way as to best help the teacher or preacher work through the material of the Text and see connections to the overall outline of the book, catching the flow of the larger argument. Greek is used throughout but never in an over the top way. Almost universally, the Greek follows the English, and the effect is to draw one into the Greek arguments more easily, encouraging and promoting the revival of long-forgotten Greek exegetical skills.

Each section begins with a literary context of the unit and a tie in to the over-arching outline of the book. Then the main idea is summarized in a few sentences. The English translation of the text is next given in a special graphical layout which highlights the relationship between the various clauses and phrases which make up the text. Following this, the structure of the textual unit is discussed and a more detailed exegetical outline is provided for the text just before a detailed explanation of the text (with footnotes) is offered. Finally, a pastoral application section concludes the discussion on the passage at hand. Theology is thus applied to life in a masterful way, which will help guide the teacher and pastor to make appropriate and relevant applications from the exegetical study he undertakes.

At the end of the commentary the major themes of the book are discussed, giving an overview, or summary of all that Galatians has covered. This section is a miniature biblical theology in a sense, and will be of great value to those seeking a bigger picture view of the book, before they dive into the separate pieces.

Now on top of all the positive things I’ve mentioned up to this point, Zondervan is to be commended for choosing a competent and careful scholar to pick up his pen for the Galatians commentary. Thomas Schreiner has written books on the question of Paul’s use of the Law, and on the more practical side of how the OT Law relates to Christians. He also is one who’s publicly disputed the New Pauline Perspective, standing for a conservative, Reformed view of justification by faith and imputation. The expertise and faithfulness Schreiner has shown over the years makes him eminently qualified to write this book. And furthermore, his attitude and style in writing remains irenic, open and fair-minded, even when he stands forcefully against a contemporary exegetical trend.

The problem passages are many in Galatians, and Schreiner succeeds in navigating them well. I’m particularly impressed by how the book maintains a pastoral perspective throughout. I shouldn’t be surprised, however, since Schreiner himself is a preaching pastor even as he fills the roles of professor of NT and associate dean of Scripture and interpretation for Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. A fine combination of learning and grace exude from the man himself and this book.

I can’t recommend the work more highly, and I’m now interested in checking out other titles of this exceedingly useful commentary series. If the Galatians volume is truly representative of the larger series, then the Zondervan Exegetical Commentary of the New Testament series is truly a must-have resource for the exegetically minded pastor and teacher.

Pick up a copy of this book at Amazon.com, Westminster Bookstore or directly from Zondervan.

Disclaimer: This book was provided by Zondervan for review. The reviewer was under no obligation to offer a favorable review.