Christ or faith the Savior?

[Evangelical]

The early church's idea of salvation was firmly rooted in the person of Christ the Savior. They did not quibble over the meaning or role of faith and works, or question whether one's faith was "real faith" or not, on the basis of a person's understanding on the relationship between faith and works, as many evangelicals do today.

It can be said that in history, Catholicism contributed the idea of salvation by faith and works. Calvin gave us salvation by faith alone, Arminius gave us salvation by faith with man's responsibility, and Luther gave us salvation by faith which is never alone which is somewhere between Arminianism and Calvinism.

Unfortunately the majority of Christianity has been pre-occupied with theories about salvation rather than the Savior Himself. They often confuse salvation itself with theories of how we are saved. Nee, Lee and others contributed or recovered rather, to Christianity the idea and more importantly, the practice of salvation by the Person of Christ, the Savior.

Catholicism's view of salvation is rooted in James 2:14-26 about faith and works. Protestant/evangelical Christianity's view of salvation is rooted in John 3:16, that salvation is by faith alone. Pentecostals take this one step further and put even more emphasis on faith being extended to the physical realm to accomplish miracles, signs and wonders. Unfortunately these approaches place too much emphasis on either faith and works. Catholics, Protestants and Pentecostals often argue over these things and miss the more important matter of Christ's Person.

The problem with a John 3:16-only view of salvation is that even the devils believe in Christ (James 2:19). Even a devil could agree with the first page of a gospel tract where it says "believe in Christ and you will be saved". A devil could even claim to know Christ (Acts 19:15). This is why a view of salvation based only on belief ("I believe in Christ") or knowing Christ ("a personal relationship with Christ") is inadequate. I think Christians outside of the recovery recognize this too. They know that not everyone who says "I believe in Christ" is really saved, and that not everyone who claims a "personal relationship" with Christ really has one. But their approach I think is wrong - they introduce other terminology such as "genuine faith" and "genuine relationship" to distinguish the true from the false. They start demanding proof and evidence, or apply a list of rules about how to tell if someone's faith is genuine or not. I think a better approach is to place the emphasis on Christ's Person - a person has either gained Christ and is in Him or they haven't.

An example from the bible that illustrates this is Peter versus Judas Iscariot. Both Peter and Judas knew Christ and had a personal relationship with Him. They both gave up everything to follow Christ. But the difference was during the 3 years of spending time with Christ, Peter had "gained Christ" and Judas hadn't.

For these reasons a better view of salvation is found in Phil 3:9:

and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ--the righteousness that comes from God on the basis of faith.

Calvinists, Arminians, Protestants, Evangelicals, Catholics and Pentecostals only see this part of Pauls words: "the righteousness that comes from God on the basis of faith". In this, they might even place more emphasis on the faith rather than the "righteousness that comes from God". They usually don't acknowledge the first part which is to "gain Christ (vs 8) and be found in Him". A typical evangelical gospel tract mentions none of this.

A more comprehensive definition of salvation and something which cannot apply to devils can be taken from Phil 3:8-9 to say "Salvation is to gain Christ and be found in Him, not having a righteousness of our own, but the righteousness that comes from God on the basis of faith.".

While most of Christianity is preoccupied with faith and works, i.e. whether they have enough faith, whether their faith is in the right thing, whether their faith is genuine or not, whether their faith can be affected by sin and "lose their salvation", or whether they have done enough works, it seems that only the recovery and the local churches have a real interest in gaining Christ and being found in Him.

The English Bishop Joseph Hall (1574-1656) wrote in "Christ Mystical"

The loss of one's all in this world (St. Paul echoes the sacred words) is as nothing; all things put together are but as dung, compared with the one thing which St. Paul so longed to gain, Christ himself - his presence in the soul, spiritual union with the Lord. "To gain Christ is to lay fast hold upon him, to receive him inwardly into our bosoms, and so to make him ours and ourselves his, that we may be joined to him as our Head, espoused to him as our Husband, incorporated into him as our Nourishment, engrafted in him as our Stock, and laid upon him as a sure Foundation"..