Home pageWhat is actually in God's mind when He talks about salvation? Is that what people commonly think of? What is God's role for the church in this work of salvation? Is that what all churches are working on? Unfortunately, there are churches and churches, each one imagining that they have got it right. But it doesn't take much discernment to see that they have very different ideas about salvation and church. There are some churches who are formal institutions to which people go for socio-religious functions like weddings and funerals. But even among other churches that seek to follow the Bible and grow, the differences in focus are many. The only way we can tackle this issue is by looking at the Bible and what it says. We do that because this is God's answer to all questions concerning Him, His ways, His plans, what He wants for us and what He wants from us. He Himself inspired the authors of the Bible to put to pen the ideas He gave them, and so, looking to the Bible is the best way to understand God's ideas about salvation and the church.
Look at the subject of salvation. What do people typically offer when they invite people to come to Jesus? Health and wealth, healing of all their sicknesses, solution for all their problems, promotion, marriage, and everything nice and enjoyable. Some people do experience miracles when they come to Jesus in desperation. Many others don't. Even those who have received miracles find later on that miracles are not guaranteed all the time, and many of them leave Jesus. Why does this happen? Because preachers are offering people things which Jesus has not promised. What He has said is not that He will give us an enjoyable life on this earth, but that we will go through many troubles here, for example, Jn.16:33. But many preachers hide these truths from people, wishing not to discourage people from coming to Jesus.
What Jesus actually offers is freedom from sinning here on earth, and a trouble-free, enjoyable life with Him all through eternity (Matt.1:21). This is the single, most important goal with which Jesus took the form of a Man and came to this earth. Adam and Eve sinned, and so have we all, and if Jesus had not come, all of us would end up with eternal punishment in hell. And God cannot forgive us just like that because His justice demands that our sins must be punished. So, because He loved us whom He had created, and because He didn't want us to face the judgment, He took our punishment on Himself when Jesus suffered and died in our place. Now if we want to turn away from sin and live a life that is pleasing to God, we can accept this sacrifice of Jesus and receive forgiveness. That is the simple way we begin to experience salvation. He not only forgives us, but accepts us as His children, and sends the Holy Spirit to live in us.
Since God's aim is to 'save' us from our sinning, He doesn't leave us with mere forgiveness of sin. The Holy Spirit begins to teach us to deny ourselves when we are tempted to sin, and to live according to the will of God (Rom.8:13;Lk.9:23). This is a lifelong, progressive process, where we learn increasingly to stop sinning (1Jn.2:1). Ultimately, God's goal is to help us to become like Jesus in His character (Rom.8:28,29). Another point worth mentioning is that this character is not confined only to our external behaviour, but it is a transformation of our entire life (1Thess.5:23).
We can see that this is not the message that is commonly heard. Very few people come to experience salvation in this way, because very few have heard that this is possible, and that this is what Jesus offers. Unfortunately, many Christians wrongly assume that salvation is merely to come to faith in Jesus, and that then it is their duty to help other people to come into that experience. So, many Christians do not seriously experience spiritual growth in their lives.
The church is a system God has proposed that will support such a growth among individuals in it. If God's goal for individuals is to grow towards becoming like Jesus, His purpose for the church is to enable and train them to experience this (Eph.4:11-13). The apostle Paul was very clear in His mind as to this ultimate, overall goal, even as he travelled and preached and set up new churches (Col.1:28,29). But here again, many churches are sidetracked into different emphases. For some churches, the main goal is to evangelise, lead many people to Christ and set up new churches, and then think that the Holy Spirit will take over and teach these people. Some others focus almost entirely on Bible study, diving deeper and deeper into it, and not realising when their actual lives do not match with what they are proclaiming. For some others, it is all about getting people to get baptised in water. Some others focus on the supernatural gifts of the Holy Spirit, healing, prophecy, casting out demons, etc. For some others it is about organising the church, establishing different activities, and identifying leaders to take care of them.
Much of this is good and required, and needed to form the whole. The real problem is when while carrying out all these things, churches miss out that the real overall focus should be on spiritual transformation of the people to become more and more like Jesus and to love one another. If that is missed out, all the other activities will be like scaffolding without a building being built.