Hill Abbey Thesis – Redefining the Gospel, Sin, and Salvation

As I have put together this essay, I have realized my complete insufficiency for the task at hand, but I hope that God can speak through me a little bit of truth despite that. I do not fully understand the things I speak of, but God has given me experiential knowledge that I wish to communicate, though my skills of communication are insufficient. I present some hard concepts in very compact form, so try to bear with me.

I want to ask four questions, and attempt to at least give some semblance of an answer to them. 1) What is the gospel? 2) What is the law? 3) What is sin? 4) What is salvation? After a brief discussion of each of these four topics and an attempt at a definition of each of them, I will try and tie them together and give a few thoughts on how I think they relate to each other and interlock. So, here we go.

What is the gospel?

Despite many differences in the way people present the gospel from tradition to tradition or person to person, all of its various presentations revolve around the cross. I think that God was wise in picking such a symbol for his gospel: merely two intersecting wooden beams. And yet these two beams of wood are the most meaningful symbol that ever was and will be. They are amazingly simple, but symbolize such depth and meaning. However we see the gospel, it must revolve around the cross. And what does this symbol stand for but God’s love? That Jesus Christ, the very son of God, the divine human, the god-man, would humble himself so much as to become a *human*. That he would die humiliated and naked on a cross when he was completely blameless and Lord of all creation: such is the meaning of the gospel and such is the meaning of the cross. God’s love. The cross is an symbol of God’s love for the cosmos, and the very heart and center of the gospel in any form of its presentation is that cross. The cross transcends theology and theories of atonement and all human explanation. It is a mystery. It is God’s undeniable and ultimately powerful “I love you” to the cosmos.

What is the law?

When Paul, John, the author of Hebrews, James, Peter; in short all the authors of the New Testament speak of ‘the law,’ they are referring to the Mosaic law. We do not mean here just the outward forms and rituals of Jewish ceremony, but also ‘moral law.’ The code of rules set forth by God dictating what is right and wrong, what is moral and immoral. For our purposes, we define the law as such. Rules and regulations about what is right and wrong. Righteousness by the law is conformity to its rules and regulations.

What is sin?

Sin is simply the transgression of the law. It is the breaking of a rule, it is doing something immoral, it is falling short of one of the commandments. We must be careful not to over-extend the definition of this word. Sin — despite its many harmful and negative consequences — in itself is strictly the transgression of the Mosaic law. We can talk about the effects of sin, but for our purposes, we want to make a clear distinction between the act of sin and its consequences. Sin is a snapshot in time, the breaking of a rule.

What is salvation?

Salvation is redemption. Salvation is life. Salvation is to be freed from the power of sin. Salvation is to be baptized and to be identified with the Church; it is to die to fallen humanity in Adam and rise again and partake in redeemed humanity in Christ. I do not speak metaphorically of the Church, redeemed humanity, fallen humanity. These are not nominalist forms and unreal mental concepts but actual metaphysical entities. Salvation is to partake of the divine nature, to live up to our status as sons of God. Salvation is to cease committing sin, for whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin, because his seed remains in us, and we cannot sin, because we are born of God (1 John). Salvation is to be free from all things, but to be free first and foremost to love and to forgive unconditionally. With the hope of our glorification and deification always before us, it is to enjoy eternal life and to enjoy it to its fullest potential, right here, right now. It is to fall before the cross and experience the mystery of the undeniable and ultimately powerful love of God.

So now we raise a very important question. What does the cross have to do with salvation?

The cross is the fulfillment of the law. He that loves fulfills the law, for the law is summed up in the single command to love thy neighbor as thyself. Love is the fulfillment of the law: the living and beating heart of the law, that which animates and breathes life into it. The cross, the ultimate allegory of love, is the fulfillment of the law. It brought to light what the shell of the forms encased: a spiritual thing. And when Christ died, the law died with him. Sin — wrong action — was crucified and buried with Christ.

There is no condemnation for those in Christ who walk in faith and love, according to Paul. To John we cannot sin, because we are dead to the law. The metaphysical ideal of sin-ness we are no longer identified with, because on the cross Christ took away our sins. No longer do we work works according to the standard of moral law, but according to the law of love. With the law died sin, because sin comes by the law, as Paul says in Romans. But we are dead to the law, and if we are dead to the law we are dead to sin, because sin comes through the law. And we know, John says, that Christ was manifested to take away our sins. Think about that without your normal theological framework for a second. Try to step outside of your interpretive framework. Christ died to take away the existence of our sins. No ‘if’s,’ ‘and’s,’ or ‘but’s’ about it. Period. Sin = non-existent.

I am here proposing a paradigm shift in how we see sin. If Christ destroyed our identification with sin and our bondage to the law, we are free indeed. The question of ‘is this action sin or not’ should not occur to a child of God, because one who is born of God cannot sin, because he is dead to sin and no longer identified with sin-ness. To ask such a question betrays a wrong mindset. We ought to be striving to lay hold of salvation, not trying to get away with ‘gray’ things, walking fine lines, and getting as close to sin as we can without sinning. As brethren of Christ, we have been made free so that we might take hold of eternal life and begin living it right here, right now. On this earth. In this body. We do not look at things in terms of moral law, but we look at things in terms of being truly human. You need to realize that you do not commit sin as a Christian, because sin is dead. It doesn’t exist to you, because you are not under the law.

What makes us human as oppose to animal is our self government, reason, and capacity to love. The measure in which a man exercises and possesses these things is the measure of his ‘humanity.’ The more a man loves, governs himself, and exercises his mind (reasons), the more he partakes in redeemed and glorified human nature. So the child of God seeks to strain towards salvation, as I have defined it above. He may still sin, at least according to the moral law, in his actions. But he is moving and striving to partake in salvation and life abundantly and he is no longer under the rule of the law because he died to the law through baptism. It is not legitimate to hold him to the law or to say that he ever sins if he walks according to the new covenant of faith and love, because sin simply doesn’t apply to him in the new covenant. Christ was manifested to take away our sins. He died so that we Don’t have to beat ourselves up over sin when we walk in love.

An action either fosters a person’s humanity and salvation, or else it smothers them. All sin as we know it from the law smothers and detracts from a person’s humanity and salvation. It makes them less human and more animal. For example, lying, the more one does such a sin, the more it hardens his soul, or detracts from his humanity. When one begins to lie, he is arrogantly creating a false world in his mind, and the more one lies, the more real this false world becomes to him, until finally he is swallowed up in a fantasy. Lying has a dehumanizing affect. The person who lusts or does pornography is hardened more and more and begins to view all people as sex objects, until he is swallowed up in a mental world of sex. All sin works this way: avarice, gluttony, pride, wrath, envy. Even things we generally label morally neutral, like entertainment, have an affect on the soul that is either positive or negative.

The reason I bring this up is to illustrate a point about sin. Because God has revealed his salvation to us — his plan of redemption and glorification for humans — we concern ourselves with grasping that salvation. Being a Christian is not hard in that he who is born of God finds Jesus’ new commandments of love not difficult, as John says. It’s not about depriving yourself of things, it’s about seeking good things. Some people ask ‘is watching a tv a sin?’ Or perhaps they say ‘well, watching tv isn’t a sin… so it’s not wrong for me to watch it…’ But that’s missing the point. The gospel isn’t about depriving ourselves or being righteous by not doing ‘sinful’ things. Neither is it about accepting Jesus’ sacrifice so that when we die we get to go to heaven. It’s about becoming more human and more divine and not going down the path of dehumanization. That’s why I’m harping on sin, because in the law, the point is to not break rules. According to the gospel, the point is to be saved, as I have defined it above. The saved man sees watching tv in light of his partaking of salvation and his striving to become more fully human. If it inhibits him or is not a good and holy part of living as a redeemed human, then it is unpleasant to him. If it does not move him forwards towards God and salvation, it does not interest him.

So. In summary. The gospel is God’s love for the cosmos symbolized by the simple cross. The cross was the death of sin imputed by the law and the beginning of the law of freedom and love. The point: being saved means living life and living it fully and abundantly. Salvation is equivalent to our glorification. Don’t let sin bring you into bondage, because it doesn’t apply to you anymore. It died on the cross with Jesus so that you might be a child of God and keep Jesus’ new commandments: those of the spirit and love.