HOLY SATURDAY

Saturday, April 19, 2014

Romans 8:1-11

Has a zealous person ever asked you if you were ‘saved?’ 

This portion of Paul’s great letter to the Christians in Rome, along with our position between the momentous deed of Good Friday and the great event of the Lord’s Day, give us a moment to contemplate the great mystery of salvation in Christ. 

I share with you a piece from the theologian George Caird. 

There is a story told of a former Bishop of Durham that he was accosted one day by a member of the Salvation Army, who asked him: 'Are you saved?' to which the bishop replied: ‘That depends on whether you mean sotheis, sozomenos, or sesomenos. If you mean sotheis, undoubtedly; if you mean sozomenos,  I trust so; if you mean sesomenos, certainly not.’  

Sotheis is an aorist participle, denoting a single act in the past, and it refers either to the finished work of Christ on the Cross or to the baptism in which the Christian has once for all embraced his salvation. 

Sozomenos is a present participle, and describes an ongoing process of salvation, the journey of the Christian from the City of Destruction — or, perhaps we should say, from the Cross, where he felt the burden of sin slip from his shoulders — to the gates of the Celestial City.  

Sesomenos is a perfect participle, and designates a final consummation, the sounding of the trumpets on the other side, the disclosing of the salvation which is ready to be revealed at the last time.  

We may, then, paraphrase the bishop’s answer as follows: if you mean ‘Did Christ die for me?’, undoubtedly; if you mean ‘Are my feet firmly set upon the highway of salvation?’, I trust so; but if you mean ‘Am I safe home in the blest kingdoms meek of joy and love?’, certainly not.  

This story perfectly illustrates the threefold character of the New Testament doctrine of salvation.

• G. B. Caird, Principalities and Powers (1956), 80-81. 

Today’s reading, in just eleven verses, speaks to the three-fold character of salvation. 

1)

“For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death.” (8:2)

2)

“...those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit.” (8:5)

“But if Christ is in you, though the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness.” (8:10)

3)

“If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also through his Spirit that dwells in you.” (8:11)

- Matthew Kieswetter