| The picture of Salvation. It’s so elusive to me, the meaning of salvation, the true impacts of it upon one’s life, while still living. It seems to be as diverse a response as any, and also to be an impossible attribute to discern of another. It is not necessarily that one with fruit has salvation, for more are patient, or kind, than are saints; more are speaking His truth than are living it; while the remnant is saved, the many claim to be; and while the multitudes are church goers, only few are churches going. There are those who confuse temples for buildings, and call works of cut stone “Houses of the Lord”, while there are also those who are as living stones, who are themselves the true temples. How many times has Christ’s church, in the two thousand years since His life, been divided over circumcision, baptism, dress code, worship, communion, tithing, interpretation, tongues, sovereignty, and all matters of doctrine? In a certain understanding, more has been done to disfigure, maim, and separate His Body, by the church, since His crucifixion, than was done in the hours previous, by the Pharisees and the Centurions. I wonder though, if this is truly an exchange of the power to divide, or simply a change of title for those who do it. The Church, and the church. Both of these are made of stone, but one is a building made of stones, and one is a people, who are as living stones. One of these, through His death he tore down, and the other, three days later He rebuilt. One of these is a house divided against its self because of discrepancies among men, and the other is a people scattered among men while ever remaining One Body. It has been said that the greatest trick the devil ever pulled, was convincing the world that He didn’t exist. Yet even the Word of God tells us, “The beast you saw was, and is not, and is yet to come up out of the abyss and go to destruction.” Maybe then, the greatest trick he ever pulled was convincing the world that these two things, The Church and the church, are one in the same. The Law Oddly enough, we end up right back where we began, or so it will appear. Established as the measure of a righteous man, and a necessity for the promises of God, it is also ironic, paradoxical, that the law is the very thing that brought us death. Even before the law was given to Moses, it was the word that God spoke to Adam, not the fruit itself or the tree, which made it a sin for the man to eat, for if God had not declared a boundary, there could not have been a trespass. For the Pharisee, the Centurion and the church, it is the law, the boundary, that is how men are recognized among men for being without trespass. Yet while it is through their obedience that they gain recognition among men, for what they uphold, it is also through the law that they will be judged guilty before God, for a true righteousness had been attained for them, one that required faith and not obedience, compassion and not sacrifice, but one that through living to the law is nullified. And the only one who is promised with eternal life, “Truly I say to you, on this day you shall be with me in paradise”, is a criminal, with a recognition of his need for a savior, and Who that Savior Is. So now I ask myself again, now that I have been given this salvation, what does it mean for my life? |