Part III, Chapter XXXVIII, 3

The joys of eternal life are all comprehended in Scripture under the name of SALVATION, or being saved. To be saved is to be secured either against particular evils or, absolutely, against every evil, including want, sickness, and death itself. And because man was created immortal, not subject to corruption or anything tending to the dissolution of his nature, and fell from that happiness through Adam's sin, it follows that to be saved from sin is to be saved from all the evils and calamities sin has brought upon us. Thus in Holy Scripture the remission of sin and salvation from death and misery are the same thing, as appears from the words of our Savior. Having cured a man sick with palsy by saying (Mat. 9.2.), “Son, be of good cheer; your sins are forgiven you,” and knowing that the scribes thought it blasphemy for a man to claim to forgive sins, he asked them (v.5.), “Which is easier to say, Your sins are forgiven you, or, Arise and walk?” He thus signified that, as far as saving the sick man was concerned, “Your sins are forgiven” and “Arise and walk” amounted to the same thing; he used the former expression only to show that he had the power to forgive sins. Reason also makes it evident that, since death and misery were punishments for sin, release from sin must also be release from death and misery: that is, absolute salvation, such as the faithful shall enjoy after the day of Judgment through the power and favor of Jesus Christ, who for this reason is called our SAVIOR.

Of particular salvations, such as are meant in 1 Sam. 14.39., “as the Lord lives, who saves Israel,” that is, from its temporary enemies; and 2 Sam. 22.4., “You are my Savior; you save me from violence”; and 2 Kings 13.5., “God gave the Israelites a Savior, and so they were delivered from the hand of the Assyrians”; and similar passages, I need say nothing. There is neither difficulty nor any interest at work to corrupt the interpretation of texts of this kind.

But general salvation must be in the Kingdom of Heaven, and its location presents a great difficulty. On one hand, since a kingdom is a state established by men for their lasting security against enemies and want, it seems that this salvation should be on earth. For salvation is presented to us as the glorious reign of our King through conquest, not as safety won by escape. Wherever we expect salvation, therefore, we must also expect triumph; and before triumph, victory; and before victory, battle—none of which can readily be supposed to take place in heaven. Yet however sound this reasoning may be, I will not trust it without very clear passages of Scripture. The state of salvation is described at length in Isaiah, 33. ver. 20,21,22,23,24.

“Look upon Zion, the city of our solemn assemblies: your eyes shall see Jerusalem a quiet habitation, a tent that shall not be taken down; not one of its stakes shall ever be removed, nor shall any of its cords be broken.

But there the glorious Lord will be to us a place of broad rivers and streams, where no galley with oars shall go, nor shall any splendid ship pass by.

For the Lord is our Judge, the Lord is our Lawgiver, the Lord is our King; he will save us.

Your tackle is loosened; they could not firmly secure their mast or spread the sail. Then the prey of a great spoil is divided; even the lame take the prey.

And the inhabitant shall not say, I am sick; the people who dwell there shall be forgiven their iniquity.”

These words give us the place from which salvation shall proceed: “Jerusalem, a quiet habitation”; its eternity: “a tent that shall not be taken down,” and so forth; its Savior: “the Lord, their Judge, their Lawgiver, their King; he will save us”; the salvation itself: “the Lord shall be to them like a broad moat of swift waters,” and so forth; the condition of their enemies: “their tackle is loose, their masts weak, the lame shall take their spoil”; and the condition of the saved: “The inhabitants shall not say, I am sick.” Finally, all this is included in the forgiveness of sin: “The people who dwell there shall be forgiven their iniquity.” It is therefore evident that salvation shall be on earth when God shall reign in Jerusalem at Christ's return, and that from Jerusalem shall proceed the salvation of the Gentiles who shall be received into God's Kingdom. The same prophet declares this still more expressly in Chap. 66.20, 21.: “And they”—that is, the Gentiles who had any Jew in bondage—“shall bring all your brethren as an offering to the Lord out of all nations, on horses, in chariots, in litters, on mules, and on swift beasts, to my holy mountain Jerusalem, says the Lord, as the children of Israel bring an offering in a clean vessel into the House of the Lord. And I will also take some of them for Priests and Levites, says the Lord.” This shows plainly that the chief seat of God's Kingdom, the place from which the salvation of us who were Gentiles shall proceed, shall be Jerusalem. Our Savior confirms this in his discussion with the woman of Samaria about the place of God's worship. He tells her (John 4.22.) that the Samaritans worship what they do not know, while the Jews worship what they know, “For salvation is of the Jews” (Ex Judais, that is, it begins with the Jews). It is as though he said: You worship God but do not know through whom he will save you, whereas we know it will be one of the tribe of Judah, a Jew, not a Samaritan. Accordingly the woman's reply was to the point: “We know the Messiah shall come.” Thus our Savior's saying, “Salvation is from the Jews,” is the same as Paul's (Rom. 1.16,17.): “The Gospel is the power of God to salvation to everyone who believes; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith”—from the faith of the Jew to the faith of the Gentile. In the same sense the prophet Joel, describing the day of Judgment (chap. 2.30,31.), says God would “show wonders in heaven and on earth, blood and fire and pillars of smoke. The sun should be turned to darkness and the moon to blood before the great and terrible day of the Lord comes”; and he adds in verse 32., “And it shall come to pass that whoever calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. For on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem shall be salvation.” Obadiah, verse 17, says the same: “Upon Mount Zion shall be deliverance; and there shall be holiness, and the house of Jacob shall possess their possessions”—that is, the possessions of the heathen. He specifies these more fully in the following verses as the Mount of Esau, the land of the Philistines, the fields of Ephraim and of Samaria, Gilead, and the cities of the South, and concludes, “The Kingdom shall be the Lord's.” All these passages place salvation and the Kingdom of God after the day of Judgment upon earth. On the other hand, I have found no text that can plausibly be used to prove that the saints ascend into heaven—that is, into any Coelum Empyreum or other ethereal region—except that it is called the Kingdom of Heaven. It may bear this name because God, the King of the Jews, governed them through commands sent from heaven by angels to Moses to restore their obedience, and shall send him again from there to rule both them and all other faithful people everlastingly from the day of Judgment. Or it may be because the throne of our great King is in heaven, while the earth is only his footstool. But that God's subjects should have a place as high as his throne, or higher than his footstool, seems unbecoming to the dignity of a king, and I can find no clear text for it in Holy Scripture.

From what has been said of the Kingdom of God and salvation, it is not hard to interpret what is meant by the WORLD TO COME. Three worlds are mentioned in Scripture: the Old World, the Present World, and the World to Come. Of the first St. Peter says (2 Pet. 2.5.), “If God did not spare the Old World, but saved Noah, the eighth person, a preacher of righteousness, bringing the flood upon the world of the ungodly,” and so forth. The First World, then, lasted from Adam until the general Flood. Of the Present World our Savior says (John 18.36.), “My Kingdom is not of this World.” For he came only to teach men the way of salvation and to renew his Father's Kingdom through his doctrine. Of the World to Come St. Peter says (2 Pet. 3. 13.), “Nevertheless we, according to his promise, look for new heavens and a new earth.” This is the WORLD in which Christ, descending from heaven in the clouds with great power and glory, shall send his angels and gather his elect from the four winds and from the farthest parts of the earth, and thereafter reign over them under his Father everlastingly.

The salvation of a sinner presupposes a prior REDEMPTION. Whoever has once become guilty of sin is liable to its penalty and must pay—or have another pay for him—the ransom demanded by the one offended, who holds him in his power. Since the one offended is Almighty God, in whose power all things lie, the ransom God sees fit to require must be paid before salvation can be obtained. By this ransom I do not mean satisfaction for sin equivalent to the offense: no sinner can ever make such satisfaction for himself, nor can a righteous man make it for another. A man may make amends for the harm he does another by restitution or compensation, but sin cannot be taken away by compensation; that would make the liberty to sin something that could be bought and sold. Sins may, however, be pardoned for the repentant, either freely or upon such penalty as God sees fit to accept. In the Old Testament what God usually accepted was a sacrifice or offering. To forgive sin is not an act of injustice, even when punishment has been threatened. Even among men, although a promise of good binds its maker, threats—that is, promises of evil—do not; still less can they bind God, who is infinitely more merciful than men. Our Savior Christ, therefore, did not redeem us by satisfying for men's sins in the sense that his death of its own power could make it unjust for God to punish sinners with eternal death. Rather, at his first coming he made that sacrifice and offering of himself which God was pleased to require for the salvation at his second coming of those who in the meantime should repent and believe in him. And although Scripture does not always call this act of our redemption a sacrifice or offering, but sometimes calls it a price, we must not understand by price something whose value entitled him to claim our pardon as a right from his offended Father, but the price which God the Father was pleased in his mercy to demand.

CHAPTER XXXIX. ON THE MEANING IN SCRIPTURE OF THE WORD CHURCH

Scripture includes all the joys of eternal life under the name of salvation, or being saved. To be saved is to be made safe, either from particular evils or from every evil, including need, illness, and death itself. God created human beings immortal, free from decay and therefore from anything that could destroy their nature. They lost that happiness through Adam's sin. So being saved from sin means being saved from every evil and hardship that sin brought upon us. That is why Scripture treats forgiveness of sin and rescue from death and misery as the same thing. Our Savior showed this when he healed a man with paralysis by saying (Mat. 9.2.), “Son, take heart; your sins are forgiven.” He knew that the scribes thought it blasphemous for a man to claim to forgive sins, so he asked them (v.5.) “Which is easier to say: ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or ‘Get up and walk’?” He meant that, as far as saving the sick man was concerned, saying “Your sins are forgiven” and saying “Get up and walk” amounted to the same thing. He used the first expression to show that he had the power to forgive sins. Reason also makes this clear. Since death and misery were punishments for sin, release from sin must also mean release from death and misery. That is complete salvation, which the faithful will enjoy after the day of Judgment through the power and favor of Jesus Christ. That is why he is called our Savior.

I need say nothing about particular acts of salvation, such as those meant in 1 Sam. 14.39., “as the Lord lives who saves Israel,” meaning from their current enemies; in 2 Sam. 22.4., “You are my Savior; you save me from violence”; and in 2 Kings 13.5., “God gave the Israelites a savior, and so they were delivered from the hand of the Assyrians.” Such passages present no difficulty and give no one an interested reason to distort their meaning.

But the place of general salvation raises a great difficulty, because that salvation must be in the Kingdom of Heaven. On one hand, the word kingdom suggests that salvation will be on Earth. A kingdom is an arrangement people establish for lasting security against enemies and need. Salvation is presented to us as the glorious reign of our King through conquest, not as safety through escape. So where we expect salvation we must also expect triumph; before triumph, victory; and before victory, battle. It is hard to suppose that battle will take place in Heaven. Yet however sound this reasoning may be, I will not rely on it without very clear passages of Scripture. Isaiah, 33. ver. 20,21,22,23,24, describes the state of salvation at length:

“Look at Zion, the city of our solemn gatherings. Your eyes will see Jerusalem, a peaceful home, a tent that will not be taken down. None of its stakes will ever be pulled up, and none of its cords will be broken.

But there the glorious Lord will be for us like a place with broad rivers and streams. No rowing galley will travel there, and no splendid ship will pass through.

For the Lord is our Judge, the Lord is our Lawgiver, the Lord is our King. He will save us.

Your rigging hangs loose; they could not hold their mast firm or spread their sail. Then the great plunder is divided, and even the lame take a share.

No resident will say, ‘I am sick.’ The people living there will be forgiven their wrongdoing.”

These words tell us where salvation will come from: “Jerusalem, a peaceful home.” They tell us how long it will last: “a tent that will not be taken down,” and so on. They name its Savior: “the Lord, our Judge, our Lawgiver, our King. He will save us.” They describe the salvation: “the Lord will be for them like a broad moat of swift water,” and so on. They describe their enemies: “their rigging is loose, their masts weak, and the lame will take their plunder.” They describe those who are saved: “No resident will say, ‘I am sick.’” Finally, they include all this in forgiveness of sin: “The people living there will be forgiven their wrongdoing.” It is therefore clear that salvation will be on Earth when God reigns in Jerusalem at Christ's return. From Jerusalem salvation will reach the Gentiles admitted into God's Kingdom. The same prophet says this more explicitly in Chap. 66.20, 21.: “And they,” meaning the Gentiles who held any Jew captive, “will bring all your brothers from all nations as an offering to the Lord, on horses, in chariots, in litters, on mules, and on swift animals, to my holy mountain, Jerusalem, says the Lord. They will do so as the children of Israel bring an offering in a clean vessel into the House of the Lord. And I will also take some of them as priests and Levites, says the Lord.” This makes it clear that Jerusalem will be the chief seat of God's Kingdom, the place from which salvation will come to us who were Gentiles. Our Savior confirms this when speaking to the Samaritan woman about where to worship God. In John 4.22. he tells her that the Samaritans worship what they do not know, while the Jews worship what they know: “For salvation comes from the Jews” (Ex Judais, meaning it begins with the Jews). It is as though he said, “You worship God, but you do not know through whom he will save you. We do know: he will be a Jew of the tribe of Judah, not a Samaritan.” The woman therefore replied quite to the point, “We know the Messiah will come.” Thus our Savior's statement, “Salvation comes from the Jews,” means the same as Paul's statement (Rom. 1.16,17.): “The Gospel is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it God's righteousness is revealed from faith to faith”—from the faith of the Jew to that of the Gentile. In the same sense, the prophet Joel describes the day of Judgment (chap. 2.30,31.), when God will “show wonders in heaven and on earth, blood and fire and columns of smoke. The sun will turn dark and the moon to blood before the great and terrible day of the Lord comes.” He adds in verse 32, “And whoever calls on the Lord's name will be saved. For on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem there will be salvation.” Obadiah says the same in verse 17: “On Mount Zion there will be deliverance; there will be holiness, and the house of Jacob will possess what belongs to them.” He means the possessions of the Gentiles, which he specifies in the following verses: Mount Esau, the land of the Philistines, the fields of Ephraim, Samaria, Gilead, and the cities of the South. He concludes, “The Kingdom will be the Lord's.” All these passages place salvation and the Kingdom of God on Earth after the day of Judgment. On the other hand, I have found no passage that can reasonably be used to prove that the saints will ascend into Heaven, whether into a Coelum Empyreum or any other region of the upper air. The only possible argument is that it is called the Kingdom of Heaven. It may bear that name because God, as King of the Jews, ruled them through commands sent from Heaven by angels to Moses to bring them back to obedience. From Heaven he will send him again to rule them and all other faithful people forever from the day of Judgment. Or it may be called that because our great King's throne is in Heaven, while Earth is only his footstool. But it does not seem fitting to a king's dignity that God's subjects should occupy a place as high as his throne, or higher than his footstool. Nor can I find any clear scriptural passage supporting it.

What I have said about the Kingdom of God and salvation makes it easy to understand the world to come. Scripture mentions three worlds: the old world, the present world, and the world to come. St. Peter speaks of the first (2 Pet. 2.5.): “If God did not spare the old world, but saved Noah, the eighth person, a preacher of righteousness, when he brought the flood on the world of the ungodly,” and so on. The first world, then, lasted from Adam to the general Flood. Our Savior speaks of the present world (John 18.36.): “My Kingdom is not of this world.” For he came only to teach people the way to salvation and, through his teaching, to renew his Father's Kingdom. St. Peter speaks of the world to come (2 Pet. 3. 13.): “Nevertheless, according to his promise, we look for new heavens and a new Earth.” This is the world in which Christ will come down from Heaven in the clouds with great power and glory. He will send out his angels, gather his chosen people from the four winds and the farthest parts of Earth, and from then on reign over them forever under his Father.

Saving a sinner requires a prior redemption. Someone guilty of sin is liable for its penalty. Either that person or someone else must pay the ransom demanded by the offended party, who holds that person in his power. Since the offended party is almighty God, who holds everything in his power, the ransom required before salvation can be gained is whatever God chooses to require. Ransom here does not mean a payment equal in value to the offense. No sinner can pay that for himself, and no righteous person can pay it for another. A person can repair harm done to someone else by restoring what was lost or offering compensation. But compensation cannot erase sin, because that would make permission to sin something that could be bought. God can instead pardon those who repent, either freely or in return for whatever penalty he chooses to accept. In the Old Testament he commonly accepted a sacrifice or offering. Forgiving a sin is not unjust, even if punishment has been threatened. Even among human beings, a promise of something good binds the person who makes it, but a threat—a promise of something bad—does not. Still less does such a threat bind God, who is infinitely more merciful than human beings. So when our Savior Christ redeemed us, he did not pay for human sins in the sense that his death, by its own power, would make it unjust for God to punish sinners with eternal death. Instead, at his first coming he offered himself as the sacrifice that God chose to require for the salvation, at his second coming, of those who repent and believe in him in the meantime. Scripture does not always call this act of redemption a sacrifice or offering; sometimes it calls it a price. But that does not mean a price whose value entitled him to demand our pardon from his offended Father. It means the price that God the Father mercifully chose to ask.

Chapter XXXIX. What the Word Church Means in Scripture