Last week we saw how Jesus’ visit to Jericho brought about an extraordinary result: Zacchaeus, a chief tax collector and a man of great wealth, dramatically amended his life. In response, Jesus announced, “Today salvation has come to this house, because this man, too, is a son of Abraham.”
Christians often speak of salvation, but don’t have a clear understanding of what exactly this means. Many churchgoers think salvation refers to a future time when God’s people will be evacuated from this broken world and transported to a blissful place called ‘heaven.’ As I have often written, this is emphatically not the Biblical understanding of the term.
The Bible tells the story about the one true God who created all things and placed mankind in authority over his handiwork so that the world might flourish. But because of humanity’s idolatry and disobedience, the creation instead become a place of misery and death.
This same tragic tale had unfolded right there in Jericho. Instead of worshiping Israel’s God and living in accordance with his commands, Zacchaeus had been bowing down before mammon. Although Zacchaeus had been fashioned in God’s image, that image had been defaced by his lust for money. He had instead become an agent of evil, perpetrating injustice by stealing from his neighbors.
The Apostle Paul sternly warned the Galatian church: “Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows. The one who sows to please his sinful nature, from that nature will reap destruction.” So it was with Zacchaeus; he had sowed according to his greed and had reaped a life of alienation, discord and enmity.
This state of affairs was precisely the opposite of God’s good intentions. God desires that his creation be a place of joy, abundance and peace; a place where people live together in loving community.
When we see things in this light, the term salvation ought to take on a much deeper and richer meaning. True Biblical salvation does not involve being rescued from the world, but rather involves the actual rescue of the world. God has no intention of abandoning his creation to the dark forces of sin and death. Rather, he intends to deliver the creation, to cleanse it from all that threatens to ruin it.
How did this drama play out on that day in Jericho two millennia ago?
Salvation begins with an acknowledgement of the Lordship of Jesus. Jesus claimed to be the Messiah, God’s anointed king who would establish God’s kingdom over all the earth. Zacchaeus clearly acknowledged Jesus’ royal authority and submitted himself in obedience to the king. His heart of stone crumbled and was replaced by a heart which reflected the lavish generosity of the God he had now come to worship. He pledged to give half of his possessions to the poor!
Additionally, the penitent tax collector promised, “if I have cheated anybody out of anything, I will pay back four times the amount.” Zacchaeus did not pluck this idea out of thin air. The Torah requires that those who have stolen from their neighbors must repay them four times over.
This is the principle of restorative justice: justice which does not merely seek to punish the wrongdoer but calls for the offender to compensate the victim, thereby creating the potential for the re-establishment of right relationship.
Imagine the effect this would have had in the entire community of Jericho. People trapped in poverty would now benefit from Zacchaeus’ benevolence. Downtrodden people would find new hope and encouragement. Those who had been victimized by Zacchaeus’ prior depredations would unexpectedly find their purloined property restored to them four times over.
As for Zacchaeus himself, he had once been a figure of contempt and derision; now there was the very real possibility that he could be welcomed back into fellowship with his family, friends and neighbors.
Salvation requires a radical change in human behavior. The brokenness found in Jericho was the result of human behavior. In order for things to be set right again, there would have to be a radical reversal in Zacchaeus’ conduct. It was the tax collector’s repentance – a clear change in his actions – which led Jesus to announce that salvation had arrived.
Because of Zacchaeus’ transformation, the world took a small but significant step in the right direction. True, his net worth took a big hit. But the overall quality of Zacchaeus’ life – and the life of his community – drastically improved. Division and discord were replaced by comity and community.
On the day of Jesus’ arrival, Zacchaeus began to properly reflect the kindness, justice and generosity of God. As the result, one little corner of creation looked just a little bit more like the place God intended it to be, and more closely resembled the place it will be when God has fully established his sovereign rule over all things. Salvation, you see, is not just a future event, but something that comes about in the present time whenever people follow the Lord Jesus.
What then should we conclude about the nature of salvation? Salvation is the rescue of the created order from that which threatens to ruin it – namely, sin and death. From the very beginning, God entrusted his world to human beings so that it can be a place of joy, peace & life. Our obedience, therefore, is absolutely necessary for salvation.
For many Christians, the word “salvation” conjures up an image of people standing before the pearly gates, eagerly awaiting entry into “heaven.” The Biblical version of salvation is much more interesting: human beings restored in the image of God so that they can fulfill the key role for which they were marked out in the first place – the role of exercising God’s authority over creation.
At this point, some readers may be wondering how all this squares with Paul’s doctrine of justification by faith, apart from works of the law.
Many people in the church think about “works of the law” as a general term encompassing all human conduct. But this is emphatically not the case. When Paul speaks about works of the law, he’s referring to the Torah: the commands given specifically to the children of Israel at Mount Sinai.
There was nothing wrong with the Torah; it was God’s gracious gift, showing Israel the pattern of conduct they needed in order to flourish in the promised land. As Paul wrote to the Romans, “the law is holy, and the commandment is holy, righteous and good.”
The problem was the people to whom the law was given. Like all human beings, the Israelites were obstinate & rebellious. They needed a heart transplant, a transformation deep within them, giving them the desire and power to follow God’s commands.
The second part of Paul’s doctrine is equally misconstrued. Faith is often conceived as a passive posture, limited to belief or trust in Jesus. This is woefully inadequate. When Paul writes about faith, he’s referring to a complete, whole-person commitment to the Lordship of King Jesus. This stronger understanding of faith includes more active elements such as loyalty and allegiance. And clearly, giving our complete loyalty to Jesus requires a change in our conduct.
When Paul contrasts “faith” with “works of Torah,” many Bible readers think he’s saying, “Stop trying to do the right thing and just trust Jesus instead.” This is a terrible distortion of the apostle’s message.
What Paul is really saying is twofold. First, membership in God’s family is now available to all people, not just Jews. Remember, the Torah was given only to the people of Israel. If membership was limited to Torah, then only Jews would have access to God. But now, membership in God’s family is available to people of every nation through allegiance to Jesus.
Second, although the commands of the law were right and proper, the hard-hearted people of Israel didn’t keep them. But now, through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, Christians have the power to live in obedience to God, and thereby become the image bearing human beings who are qualified to properly govern the world. The Torah has been left behind, not because behavior doesn’t matter, but because something much better has come along – the very presence of Jesus himself living in us! As Paul puts it: “This is the key: Christ in you, the hope of glory!”
Appropriate human behavior has always been crucial for God’s plans, plans which have come to fulfillment in Christ and his Spirit. Paul wonderfully summarizes it this way: “The goal is that we should serve in the new life of the Spirit, not in the old life of the written code.”
