By Lamont H. Fuchs, Ed.D.
The nineteenth-century English scholar, Bishop B.F. Westcott, was a regius professor of divinity at Cambridge University.
On one occasion, he was approached by a zealous undergraduate who asked him, “Are you saved?” “Ah,” said the Bishop, “a very good question. But tell me, do you mean…?” And then he mentioned three passive participles of the Greek verb “to save,” indicating that his answer would depend on which of the three the student had in mind. “I know I have been saved,” he said. “I believe I am being saved; and by the grace of God that I shall be saved” (Mejovial, 2017).
This story is an intellectual understanding of salvation. I pray Bishop Westcott has internalized the philosophical aspects of being saved, is indwelled by the Holy Spirit, and accepts Christ as his personal Savior. It sounds like it.
I don’t know that as a fact. No one does. God knows for sure, and I pray Bishop Westcott has not doubt he is saved. But you and I do not know and won’t know until we meet him in heaven one day. See? This is the sticky part of our Christian understanding of salvation. Who is saved? Who is not? People say they are and then fall away. Others say they are but do not act like it very much. Some people live a life of sin and profess to repent and accept Jesus as their Savior on their deathbed. Judges look at those last-minute people facing death as fire escape salvations or fire insurance purchasers who say they words but may not really get the indwelling Spirit.
I have heard preachers say that those who say the Sinner’s Prayer in front of an audience, revival, or even some Christian events are not really saved. Some people see five, six, seven and up to twelve-year-old kids come forward and repeat what was told to them and get baptized under peer or youth pastor pressure to accept Jesus as not saved.
Some see older men and women live sinful lives only to come forward with tears in their eyes, pleading they are saved and need baptism. Some profess they are born-again Christians in prison only to be judged as a charlatan trying to get an early release on parole or better treatment inside. Can you believe that a murdering criminal as pathetic as Jeffery Dahmer accepted Jesus as Lord and was saved? Where do you fall in all that? As others have said, we will all be surprised to see who is in heaven and who is not.
To open this bucket of worms wider, let us discuss what it takes to be saved. If you want to get into a serious debate, here is a good one. Acts 2:21 says, “And it shall be, that whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved.” Look that up in any translation you want. They all say the same. How about the second thief, who was pardoned by Jesus while on the cross in his last minutes on earth? What did he do to deserve what Jesus did for him? One day, I saw an advertisement on TV to order a free pamphlet from some televangelist on the seven things you must do to be saved. Seven? This kind of advertisement is a completely separate sermon from this one and would be an excellent follow-on to this.
You do not know. You cannot see the soul or the Spirit indwelling in a person, young or old, good or bad. The best we can do is become fruit inspectors. Does the person who says they are saved show the fruit of the Spirit? That is tenuous in itself. We all work on our salvation and our sanctification. Have you ever seen a convert who gave their life to Jesus and from day one is changed, as the Bible says, into a new creature. The old person is gone, and a new life is born. Then again, others struggle to break old habits and fight with sin every day with faith they will be able to win again tomorrow. Some fail and then fight to get back. How often have you seen people fresh out of drug addiction clinics go back within days, weeks, months, years after time? Total failures, and I am confident God loves them.
The question of this devotion remains the same. Are you saved? We need not judge whether others are. We can bask in the light when it shines and help lift others from the ditch when they fall, but we will never know who is saved and who is not on this side of heaven. To think like that is judging other as you feel and not as God thinks. He sees the soul. He tests our spirit; He dwells in those He chooses. His ways are far from ours.
First and foremost, we should get credit for nothing. There is nothing we can do to earn salvation. We only accept it. Jesus paid it all. He paid for our salvation then He gave it to us to accept. We can do nothing to lose our salvation once He has sealed us with His Spirit. There is nothing we can do to make God love us more, and we can do nothing to make God love us less. When we consider how high God’s love is , it is beyond our understanding. We do not know what all God’s love is, and we will never know until we meet our Lord. It is a mystery of God and will remain one.
I know that God loves us; God loved us even when we were lost, and our lives chained down in sin. He loved us so much that He gave His only son to save us. Simple yet so complex. He will never leave us or forsake us.
