Becoming Children of the Light
In my current teaching series, “Think Again,” I’m critiquing popular views of salvation in light of Easter.
Jesus rising from the dead forced his disciples to think again about what it meant to be saved. I’m arguing in this series it should compel us to do the same. Many Christians have uncritically accepted pop versions of salvation they’ve never seriously held up to the light of Easter.
The conservative evangelical view is that salvation is avoiding judgment and securing one’s place in an afterlife paradise. The liberal view seems to be bringing heaven to earth through social engagement.
These popular understandings of salvation are popular because they emphasize an important aspect of salvation. The conservative evangelical view, for instance, emphasizes our need for forgiveness while the liberal view highlights the importance of bringing God’s kingdom to earth as it is in heaven.
But neither provides a substantial enough framework. Securing forgiveness and a place in heaven is clearly not sufficient. Jesus’ favorite teaching topic was the kingdom of God and most of his teaching involved moral imperatives. We are called to follow Jesus, not just transactionally believe he lived, died, and rose from the dead so we can “get in.” But laboring to “make the world a better place” doesn’t fully capture it either. It seems no matter how hard we work we are never free of sin and its destructive consequences. And, let’s be honest, you don’t really need God to be a good person and make the world a better place. That much is just observable.
The view of salvation I advance in this series is participation in the life of God, or as the Apostle Peter once framed it, becoming “partakers in the divine nature.”[1] Or as the patristic Irenaeus is credited with saying, “He (Jesus) became what we are that we might become what he is.”
Salvation involves forgiveness, but Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection is not a forensic transaction so that a God previously unable or unwilling to forgive would be freed to do so. Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection is the very incarnation of God’s mercy. In other words, if the same God who has been forgiving human sin since the beginning of time were to take on flesh and dwell among the very people he created, his forgiveness would look like living a righteous life, humbly suffering mistreatment, and repaying that mistreatment with a continued offer of life and love. As I’ve said many times, Jesus didn’t die FOR God. Jesus died AS God. His death and resurrection IS the very expression of God’s mercy whose character is, has always been, and forever will be mercy.[2]
But it is God’s mercy toward us that invites us into a new way of being; God’s way of being. We were created in the image of God, meant to reflect God’s merciful character in the world. That is only possible as we submit ourselves to Jesus and obey his leading. Having been loved by God through Christ we should want to love God in return and that love should express itself in our love for one another, just as Jesus commanded.
We should want to see God’s kingdom come to earth as it is in heaven and we should be willing to suffer for that purpose. Because that is what loving response looks like. That is what God looks like. God suffered to give us life. We suffer to give life to the world.
Salvation is not getting something from God. Salvation is getting God. It is the gift of getting to live in real life. Jesus said it this way, “Put your trust in the light while there is still time; then you will become children of the light.”[3]
Put your trust in the light and become children of the light. That is salvation. We put our trust in Jesus, and we become the people we were created to be.
I had a brief conversation with someone in our lobby yesterday after service. She was responding to a comment I made in my message about how faith understood properly casts out fear. There should be no anxiety in Christian faith. We are forgiven, called, and welcomed in Christ, not because of anything we believe or do but simply because God is merciful. She mentioned that while she no longer feels anxiety toward God, worried that if she doesn’t believe or behave properly God may leave her out, but that she still senses something she describes as fear; a fear of not becoming who God created her to be.
I told her she’s beginning to understand what salvation really is. When your deepest concern is not becoming the person God created you to be, not because you’re worried God will lock you out, but because you love God and want to experience the full and abundant life Jesus lived, died, and rose from the dead to give you, you’re just becoming Christian.
Jesus became what we are that we might become what he is. Put your trust in the light and become children of the light.
Salvation is becoming a child of the light.
[1] 2 Pt 1:4
[2] See Walter Kaiser’s book Mercy: The Essence of the Gospel and the Key to Christian Life (New York, NY: Paulist Press, 2013).
[3] John 12:36
Jesus rising from the dead forced his disciples to think again about what it meant to be saved. I’m arguing in this series it should compel us to do the same. Many Christians have uncritically accepted pop versions of salvation they’ve never seriously held up to the light of Easter.
The conservative evangelical view is that salvation is avoiding judgment and securing one’s place in an afterlife paradise. The liberal view seems to be bringing heaven to earth through social engagement.
These popular understandings of salvation are popular because they emphasize an important aspect of salvation. The conservative evangelical view, for instance, emphasizes our need for forgiveness while the liberal view highlights the importance of bringing God’s kingdom to earth as it is in heaven.
But neither provides a substantial enough framework. Securing forgiveness and a place in heaven is clearly not sufficient. Jesus’ favorite teaching topic was the kingdom of God and most of his teaching involved moral imperatives. We are called to follow Jesus, not just transactionally believe he lived, died, and rose from the dead so we can “get in.” But laboring to “make the world a better place” doesn’t fully capture it either. It seems no matter how hard we work we are never free of sin and its destructive consequences. And, let’s be honest, you don’t really need God to be a good person and make the world a better place. That much is just observable.
The view of salvation I advance in this series is participation in the life of God, or as the Apostle Peter once framed it, becoming “partakers in the divine nature.”[1] Or as the patristic Irenaeus is credited with saying, “He (Jesus) became what we are that we might become what he is.”
Salvation involves forgiveness, but Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection is not a forensic transaction so that a God previously unable or unwilling to forgive would be freed to do so. Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection is the very incarnation of God’s mercy. In other words, if the same God who has been forgiving human sin since the beginning of time were to take on flesh and dwell among the very people he created, his forgiveness would look like living a righteous life, humbly suffering mistreatment, and repaying that mistreatment with a continued offer of life and love. As I’ve said many times, Jesus didn’t die FOR God. Jesus died AS God. His death and resurrection IS the very expression of God’s mercy whose character is, has always been, and forever will be mercy.[2]
But it is God’s mercy toward us that invites us into a new way of being; God’s way of being. We were created in the image of God, meant to reflect God’s merciful character in the world. That is only possible as we submit ourselves to Jesus and obey his leading. Having been loved by God through Christ we should want to love God in return and that love should express itself in our love for one another, just as Jesus commanded.
We should want to see God’s kingdom come to earth as it is in heaven and we should be willing to suffer for that purpose. Because that is what loving response looks like. That is what God looks like. God suffered to give us life. We suffer to give life to the world.
Salvation is not getting something from God. Salvation is getting God. It is the gift of getting to live in real life. Jesus said it this way, “Put your trust in the light while there is still time; then you will become children of the light.”[3]
Put your trust in the light and become children of the light. That is salvation. We put our trust in Jesus, and we become the people we were created to be.
I had a brief conversation with someone in our lobby yesterday after service. She was responding to a comment I made in my message about how faith understood properly casts out fear. There should be no anxiety in Christian faith. We are forgiven, called, and welcomed in Christ, not because of anything we believe or do but simply because God is merciful. She mentioned that while she no longer feels anxiety toward God, worried that if she doesn’t believe or behave properly God may leave her out, but that she still senses something she describes as fear; a fear of not becoming who God created her to be.
I told her she’s beginning to understand what salvation really is. When your deepest concern is not becoming the person God created you to be, not because you’re worried God will lock you out, but because you love God and want to experience the full and abundant life Jesus lived, died, and rose from the dead to give you, you’re just becoming Christian.
Jesus became what we are that we might become what he is. Put your trust in the light and become children of the light.
Salvation is becoming a child of the light.
[1] 2 Pt 1:4
[2] See Walter Kaiser’s book Mercy: The Essence of the Gospel and the Key to Christian Life (New York, NY: Paulist Press, 2013).
[3] John 12:36
Recent
Archive
2026
January
February
March
April
May
June
July
August
Categories
no categories
No Comments