Once Saved Always Saved?

I used to publish articles on Helium.com, a free Web site that works like a blog, discussion forum and citizen journalism site all at once.  My favorite article is the first one I ever wrote.  The article was titled "Once Saved, Always Saved?" and tackles the question of salvation.  It has received the highest ratings of any of my articles at Helium, and even after two years it is still voted the best of 22 articles.  It's too long to post here (even by my standards), but I'm proud of it, and I want to make it available to you.  So here is the link.  If you want to read it, feel free and leave comments here.  If not, I understand.  My blogs are long enough as it is.  :)

http://www.helium.com/items/263471-once-saved-always-saved

Injustice

I heard about a situation last week that made me very angry. A church leader was not happy about something, so the leader took it out on people who were not even involved. I won't go into anymore than that for sake of anonymity (not mine, but those involved), but please understand that this was the end result. I don't believe it was the church leader's desire or intention to involve the innocent, and I don't want anyone to get that idea. But the fact remains that people who were not involved in the situation ended up bearing the brunt of this leader's displeasure.

So I got mad. I wrote an angry Facebook note and pondered Todd Agnew lyrics for the rest of the night. I also looked up artwork of Jesus clearing out the temple.

I really like this painting of the cleansing the temple. Other paintings had whips cracking, people running and tables flying. But this simple oil painting shows something the others didn't: Jesus with his fist raised.

Right after Jesus triumphantly entered Jerusalem--the week before he died--Jesus took time to "cleanse the temple." That's a nice churchy-way of saying that he kicked some major butt. He overturned tables and chased out the businessmen who had turned the holy temple of God into a profitable free-for-all. (Basically, they sold animals for sacrifice at exorbitant prices, but that gets into a long discussion about the immorality of the money changers who took advantage of the people's desire to worship, and that's not what this is about.) Needless to say, people ran away in fear and terror. After all, it's not everyday a homeless man drives business owners out of the church. But I digress. After driving out the guilty, Jesus went back to teaching and healing. He wasn't mad at anyone anymore; those people were gone. The story always reminds me that Jesus only ever got angry at people who led others astray.

I always like this story. I really enjoy it when Jesus kicks butt. (Who doesn't?) I especially like it when the story quotes the prophet Jeremiah in the Old Testament. Apparently, it was foretold that the savior of the world would throw the smack down on the unjust. Well, maybe not those words exactly. ("Has this house (the temple) which bears my name become a den of robbers to you? But I have been watching! decalres the Lord." -Jer. 7:11)

Sometimes, though, I can't help but wonder why God doesn't simply kick people's butts anymore. Every now and again I get into a theological debate with myself regarding the nature of God and the definition of justice. It usually doesn't end well. There's always that annoyingly unanswerable question leftover: Why. Why did this happen? Why are unjust church leaders still leading? Why did the innocent have to suffer? Why not just kick some butt and get it over with?

Underneath those unanswerable questions lies a larger church question. How do we as the church handle injustice? What does the church do with injustice inside its walls? What about outside of them? How should the church respond?

I don't have the answer to that. There are many injustices in the world, and I couldn't possibly name even half of them here. I do believe this principle, though: the church IS called to respond. As God's representatives in this world, we ought to actively be fighting against injustice, and not just political hot-topic injustice, either. We ought to seek out social, economic, racial and discriminatroy justice (among others) and find a way to right it. After all, Jesus isn't physically here. We're his hands. We're his feet. We're his body. We're his raised fist.

I just pray I'm patient enough to let him get the first hit.

All scriptural references are from the New International Version (NIV) unless otherwise stated.

The image "The Expulsion of the Money Changers from the Temple" by Giotto di Bondone was found at www.biblical-art.com