Saturday, 8 November 2014
Salvation Death Repentance
Every religious book or scripture is a guide to the human being to follow the proper path. What is the proper path then? It is a path, which leads the person towards the Ultimate Truth, the path that breaks the chain between a soul and a body. This path leads us toward the phase of non-duality. The attainment of this phase is possible only after leaving the body and the purification of the soul. The purification of the soul is possible through good deeds, virtues and your deep faith in God and Jesus Christ. All religious scriptures of the world convey the message of humanity, virtue, morality and a complete devotion towards God, the one and only cosmic power. These are the tools to attain the ultimate objective. The scriptures discuss various themes through which they teach to reconcile with God and to dedicate ourselves to the services assigned by God to us.
While the thorough reading of the bible, we come across many themes. The themes of God, Holy Spirit, creation, humanity, the life of believers are some of the major themes. Salvation, death and repentance are one of the prominent biblical themes. Salvation is the escape given by God to human beings from all sins. The theme of death is depicted in the bible as the separation between two things. The theme of repentance is associated with the complete surrender of human being by confessing sin and appealing for the Grace of God. These three themes interconnected with each other. The paper throws the light on these three biblical themes. They can be regarded as the central themes.
The Theme of Salvation
Salvation is a process in which God adopts his believers and includes them in His family. The theme of salvation has a direct connection with Adam and Eve, the first creation of God. Having been tempted by the Satan, they rebelled against God. Their fall in such case was inevitable. But because of Adam and Eve, God did not stop to save His human being from sins. His creation, especially man, is the most valuable creation for him. So God tries his best to save the mankind, and to establish the Law of nature on the earth. For the ascent of mankind, God incarnates himself in the form of a prophet, and He spread the message of God. In every era, God sends his messengers and Prophets wherever He feels that the man is waiting for His blessing. According to the Christian belief, Jesus Christ sacrifices his life for the sake of the human being. He was the son of God, and Jesus' pure blood was inevitable for the salvation of mankind. Hence, He sent Jesus on the earth. It was a salvation of mankind and Jesus was the representative. He repented on behalf of entire human community. So his sacrifice was for the salvation of mankind.
God always wants to save the sinners, because He is loving and caring towards his believers. For the sake of the salvation of sinners, He has to use a medium, a person. Christianity offers salvation through grace. There are three phases of salvation. The phases have been described in the form of tenses. The first phase is past. It means that the process of salvation has already occurred in the past with the faith on Christ. The person has been delivered from the consequences of all sins (John 3:16). He has attained the blessing of God.
Phase two is associated with the present tense. It refers to the present deliverance. It is an ongoing process in believers' lives. Phase three is associated with the future tense of salvation. It is the phase, which motivates the believers to keep their faith intact in Jesus Christ. He will only be the savior for them (The Doctrine of Salvation).
'Broadly speaking, one might say that salvation is the overriding theme of the entire Bible' (Salvation). Among these themes, salvation is the term that can be defined as ‘God's way of providing his people deliverance from sins’. (Fairchild) It is our sins, which make us separated from the grace of God. Because God is pure and sacred, and our sins make us impure, we part us from the Almighty Lord. Without God's grace, life becomes worse than Purgatory. Human being has to lead a life full of miseries and sufferings. Adam and Eve both rebelliously moved away from their Almighty father and led a miserable life. (Arnold) The biblical theme 'fall is also the outcome of denial to God and saying no to repentance. While discussing the biblical theme ‘fall’ Rohr gives an example of two opposite women, first is Eve, who said no to god, ‘she becomes the mother of all of sinful humanity. But after Mary’s yes to God, she became the mother of all the redeemed humanity,’ (Rohr) which explains her presence in the genealogy of Jesus. The difference between Eve and Mary is that Mary never left her God. She was ready to do anything for God. She was all the time available for the service of God. She has a saint like nature. Hence, God chose her for his noble mission. Eve, on the other hand, is doubtful about the intention of God. She was not ready to be completely devoted and committed towards God. Eve’s conceit and Mary’s complete sacrifice towards God stand in stark contrast with one another. These themes are also associated with salvation and repentance. Mary deserves salvation, as she was a holy woman, but Eve could not attain the status. In Bible, salvation is associated with the concrete relationship of the human being with God. According to Old Testament, the only way of salvation of mankind is to have deep faith in God. The people at the time of Old Testament age look forward to Messiah. They were waiting for the promise of God to come on the earth in the form of Messiah. “The Scripture foresaw that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, and announced the gospel in advance to Abraham: ‘All nations will be blessed through you.’ So those who have faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith” (Galatians 3:8-9, quoting Genesis 12:3). With a deep faith in God, the human being can attain the path of salvation, although faith in Jesus became necessary after the work of the Cross. The reconciliation with God is the first process of salvation. The mankind starts getting enlightened by the truth and the ignorance is removed from his mind. The removal of ignorance gives them the divine strength and helps the man to fight against the darkness and ignorance. The atonement for our salvation became no one but Jesus Himself in the New Testament era. Full trust in him can definitely lead us to the path of salvation according to Christian belief. 'For God has not destined us for wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us so that whether we are awake or asleep we might live with him. Therefore encourage one another and build one another up, just as you are doing.' (Thessalonians 5:9-11)Like Christianity, the concept of salvation is there in other ancient religion such as Hinduism also. For example, in GeetaLord Krishna says,
'Abandon all varieties of religion and just surrender unto me, I shall deliver you from all sins. Do not fear.' (Bhagavad Gita Chapter 18:66)
For a salvation, the one and only prerequisite is the complete faith and abandon to the God and to bend in front of him with the feeling of nothingness of our existence. The New Testament has already given the solution of the human problem.The solution is Christ. The deep faith and complete dedication to Christ.
Death and Resurrection
As mentioned above, death is associated with the separation of two things. What are these two things? Well, they are body and the soul, between tangible and intangible substance. Body is tangible which can be seen or felt. The intangible substance is the soul that makes this body live,. The dust stays in our body in the form of flesh. Our body is formed by the five elements according to Hindu Philosophy. These five elements are earth, water, fire, air, and ether or space. This body is the rental one. We rent soil from the earth for the flesh; we rent water in the form of blood and watery substances of our body. We rent substance from fire that glows our eyes, face and entire body and keep our body warm from inside. We take substance from the air that makes us move, and we take substances from space, which have occupied our body. At the time of death, every element demands its share back from you. Body is the temporary abode of the soul. The body has to surrender itself before these five elements, and the soul has to surrender before the Almighty Lord or the Absolute Truth. It is the divine separation of body and soul. It’s an upward and downward journey of soul and body. Body goes into the earth and soul goes up to the God.
Everything that has beginning, its end is certain and unavoidable. No one and nothing in this world are imperishable. Still the people try to forget the eventual reality of life, and that is death. Death is always associated with darkness, gloominess and sorrow. In fact, it is as real as birth. It is natural, and it should be accepted and welcomed just like we welcome birth. Today's culture is materialistic, and we try our best to deny death. In science, the human body has been given excess prominence and even if the body is constantly suffering, the doctors try to save it. According to Christian belief, death is the separation of body and soul. In New Testament, the death is compared with sleep. It's a permanent sleep. Death is a person's departure from his earthly stay.
The soul of the dead person has two types of fortune, either he lives happily in a paradise or he has to suffer the affliction Purgatory or hell. In both Old Testament and New Testament, death is mostly viewed as an uncertain ending, although Jesus changes that idea with his proclamation to the thief next to him on the Cross. “Today you shall be with me in paradise” (Lk. 23:43). The Apostles and Christian writers have never taken death as a gloomy or sorrowful phenomenon. The gain something noble; we have to sacrifice something. The grandeur of God and his blissful companionship is only possible when the body is separated from the soul. Soul or spirit is in a confined position when it dwells in the body.
John 10:28 reads ‘and I give eternal (spiritual) life to them, and they shall never perish.’ What happened after death? Does every soul reach to the Absolute Truth or to God? In Old Testament, for example, it is the belief that the spirit of the believers reaches into the presence of God. In Psalm16:11, the idea of leaving this world and going to the divine abode to find pleasure and ultimate joy. This joy can never be attained on his earthly life. The great saints like Abraham, Isaac and Jacob all have attained the divine status. (Codell )
The idea of repentance is closely associated with the glory of death as claimed by many saints of Old and New Testament. The union with God is not possible for the sinner. For this union, the soul has to be washed away from his sins.
The resurrection is the concept that is associated with death. The Christ is related to resurrection. According to Paul, Christ has conquered death. “For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, he cannot die again; death no longer has mastery over him” (Romans 6:9). Unlike those, who had been raised to life only to die again at a later time, Jesus was raised to never die again.
Repentance:
Repentance is an act of changing one's mind from evil thoughts and deeds to the virtuous thoughts and deeds. It also includes changing the affection of the person from concrete to abstract, from materialism to spiritualism, from earthly things to heavenly things. In short it can be called as a journey of the person from a curse to unending blessing of our divine father. When Judas sold his Master for thirty pieces of silver, his heart started feeling gloomy with the misdeed he had committed. His gloominess and despair led him to take the drastic step of committing suicide. But despair and running away from life is not at all an act of repentance. Judas, by committing suicide tried to run away from his sin. One very popular Biblical story that does involve repentance is the story of King David. He saw the beautiful Bathsheba bathing from his roof. Bathsheba was the wife of one of David's soldiers. David committed adultery with Bathsheba and she became pregnant. David kills her husband and marries her. It was his sin for which he repented. According to New Testament, the repentance turns from the sin. In Old Testament the Ezekiel 18 is the chapter that talks about the term repentance. “if a wicked man turns from all his sins which he has committed, keeps all My statutes, and does what is lawful and right, he shall surely live; he shall not die” (Ezek 18:21). In the Old Testament, the person is given a chance to be good and to give up all his evil thoughts and action. If the person improves in his behaviour, God will be with him. The virtues of the person are very important factor in the process of repentance. Realization of the sin is important, and after realization of the sin the second process is to confess the sin. There is no manipulation allowed in confessing your sin. When the sins are confessed, the person should not hide anything in his mind. Complete openness before the Almighty is must in confession process. Being a Christian, we just say, “Lord, forgive me of my sin, “but at the same time, they maintain a facade between them and God. The strong fortification remains between a man and the God due to the hiding tendency of human beings. So according to the Christian teaching, we should be faithful in confessing our sins before the Lord. The heart should be clean and crystal clear before the God. "Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts: And see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting,” (Psalms 139:23-24,).
In Old Testament, Israel is personified as a sinner and to wash out her sins she needs to be repented. Repentance is the only remedy for her to survive. In Gospel of John, Jesus Christ explains the condition of the everlasting life is belief in Him, e.g., (John 3:14-18; 4:1-14; 5:24; 6:35-40, 47; 11:25-27; 20:30-31). As assured by Christ "I tell you nay, unless you repent, you shall all likewise perish." (Luke 13:3)
As we discussed in the paper, the mortality of the human life and the death is one of the parts of the cosmic cycle. Death is the concrete thing, and it can be seen and felt and proved. But salvation and repentance are completely associated with spiritualism. They cannot be proved on the material basis. But they have the strong evidences in almost all the religious scriptures available in the world. The three themes are discussed both in Old Testaments and New Testaments. They are also discussed thoroughly in non-Christian scriptures also. While describing the death theme, the Bible sometimes connects the phenomenon with the gateway to the divine world. In the New Testament, the life after death has been glorified. Salvation of mankind is only possible through a deep faith in Jesus Christ. The repentance according to Christian belief should be genuine and not fake or superfluous. It should come from within your mind. There is a solution for the sin of every human being. The solution according to the New Testament is Jesus Christ.
References
Beauty of Repentance – Come clear before God. N.p.: Bible Study.com, n.d. Web. 3 Nov. 2014. <http://www.greatbiblestudy.com/repentance.php >.
Bhagavad Gita Chapter 2 text 23. USA: Bhagavad Gita Trust, 1998. Web. 3 Nov. 2014. <http://www.bhagavad-gita.org/>.
Bible New Testament.N.p.: n.p., n.d. Web. 3 Nov. 2014. <http://www.devotions.net/bible/00new.htm>.
Bible Psalm.N.p.: Bible hub, n.d. 144-81. Web. 3 Nov. 2014. <http://biblehub.com/psalms/139-23.htm>.
Codell, Carter. BYU Harold B. Lee Library.N.p., n.d. Web. 3 Nov. 2014. <http://eom.byu.edu/index.php/Godhood>.
Galatians 3:8–9. N.p.: n.p., n.d. Web. 3 Nov. 2014. http://biblia.com/bible/esv/Ga3.8-9
Fairchild, Mary. "What Is God's Plan of Salvation?." about religion. N.p., 2014. Web. 3 Nov. 2014. Path: http://christianity.about.com/od/conversion/p/salvation.htm.
Fuller, Daniel. The Hermeneutics of Dispensationalism.N.p.: Northern Baptist Theological Seminary, 1957. 144-81. Print.
Rohr, Richard. "Great Themes of Scriptures Franciscan Media publishers."N.p., 2013. Web. 2 Nov. 2014.
Mathew, Arnold. "Salvation." bible studyTools.com.N.p., n.d. Web. 3 Nov. 2014. Path: http://www.biblestudytools.com/dictionaries/bakers-evangelical-dictionary/salvation.html.
Soteriology - The Doctrine of SalvationThe Meaning and Scope of Salvation.N.p.: Bible.org, 2013.Web. 3 Nov. 2014. <https://bible.org/article/soteriology-doctrine-salvation#P113_10001>.
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