Salvation Seminar Week 2.
Jesus prays that we who believe in him
“may be one; even as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may
be in us .... that they may be one even as we are one. I in them and you in me
that they may become perfectly one ....” (Jn 17:21, 22-23.)
This abiding in God point to a reality, a
manner of existence, diametrically opposed to hell.
Hell is the state of definitive
self-exclusion – we exclude ourselves! – from communion with God and the
blessed of Heaven. The sufferings of hell consist in the loss of the vision of
God, the loss of the oneness with God which is the only thing our hearts
ultimately desire and yearn for.
But is that all salvation is about? For
Heaven’s sake, no! Salvation is not just fire insurance!
In the OT Hebrew Scriptures we see the use
of covenants which are more than merely contracts about things or obligations.
Covenants are about pledges of persons to each other, they bring the persons of
the covenant together in a family relationship similar to adoption. Moreover,
the covenant was also a commitment to love, to remain faithful and loyal. So in
Deuteronomy, where we read of God entering into a covenant with Israel, Israel
is now entering into a family relationship with God, where both sides – Israel
and God – pledge love and loyalty to each other.
Jeremiah was a prophet during very dark
and desperate times in Israel’s history. Many were prisoners, slaves, and
exiles, and those remaining in Judea were under constant threat and oppression.
God spoke through the prophet to say: “I will be the God of all the families of
Israel, and they shall be my people.... I have loved you with an everlasting
love; therefore I have continued my faithfulness to you.... I am a father to
Israel.... The Lord has ransomed Jacob, and has redeemed him from hands too
strong for him.... Is Ephraim my dear son? Is he my darling child? ... My heart
yearns for him; I will surely have mercy on him.... I will make a new covenant
with the house of Israel .... I will put my law within them, and I will write
it upon their hearts, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people....
They shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest....” (Jer 31:1,3, 9, 11, 20, 31, 33, 34.)
God here speaks of his covenant
faithfulness, and proclaims a new covenant still to come – the covenant in
Jesus Christ. In Christ, all that the law intended to teach us is fulfilled.
The fulfillment of the law, the goal of all God’s law is to teach us to love.
To enable us to love. To fill us with Love. This is the law put within us, the
law “written upon our hearts” – that we know God, that we share in God’s Love.
That’s beatitude!
Jesus gives us a “new” commandment to love
one another “even as I have loved you.” Whew! Hard enough to love others as
ourselves. But to love as Jesus, as God loves? Impossible! Yes, if we tried on
our own steam. But “God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy
Spirit who has been given to us” (Ro 5:5). Not impossible for God.
Salvation is much, much more than escaping
the fires of damnation. It is entering into the life of the love between the
Father and the Son. That love is the Holy Spirit who has been given to dwell
within us, the new covenant “law” of love written on our hearts. This is the
personal gift of God, the Holy Spirit sent to us from the Father and Son (Jn14:16; 16:7).
Salvation, then, consists of sharing in
the life, the Love, of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit – three Divine
Persons, one God indivisible.
Salvation, Heaven, begins now and lasts for eternity. It is our abiding in God, and God abiding in us (Jn 14:17, 23). This blessedness is what we are “saved” for.
Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic Church is located in California City, CA. Visit our website at ollcalcity.org.
Dibby Allan Green has a BA in Religious Studies (Westmont College, 1978) and MA in Theology (Augustine Institute, 2019), is a lay Catholic hermit, and a parishioner of Our Lady of Lourdes Parish.