Salvation often seems more like a Protestant issue than a Catholic one. And when Catholics don’t engage with the doctrine of salvation, they can develop some misunderstandings about it.
For instance, the topic of salvation can be grouped in our bookstores in the “self-help” section. Lots of things under that heading can be helpful, but salvation is not a self-help concept, as we will see. Another misunderstanding is viewing the issue purely from a “fire insurance policy” framework. Salvation is objectively a “saving” from hell, yes, but that significantly condenses the breadth of the matter.
Not Just Self-Help
Salvation isn’t something we do to become better. Rather, it is about something that God has done for us. God has given us a gift beyond comprehension.
Before exploring this gift, it will be helpful to get some background on what the ancient Roman Empire thought about gift-giving.
Recently within Pauline scholarship, John Barclay published a monumental work called “Paul and the Gift.” He notes how gift-giving was a major part of daily life in the ancient world, and how the Greek word charis was used often by nonreligious writers. A wealthy individual would give a gift to somebody he considered worthy—that is, someone who would not pocket the gift and walk away. Rather, the worthy person would gratefully receive the gift and give a gift back in return. A relationship of mutual gift-giving would develop.
With this background in mind, let’s look at Paul’s famous quote on gift-giving. He says, “By grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God” (Eph. 2:8). God has engaged in gift-giving to humanity! How exciting! Everybody likes to receive gifts.
But there are some differences between what God does in Ephesians 2 and what the ancient world thought of gift-giving.
God does not focus on giving gifts to worthy individuals, as the Romans did. Like the parable of the sower (Matt. 13), God spreads the gift-seeds recklessly, whether on good soil or bad soil. The latter looks like an utter waste of seed! Yet Paul says in his letter to these Romans that Christ died for the ungodly and unworthy (Rom. 5:6). This is saying that the gift God offers to humans is to unworthy receivers. Humans are sinful, defiant, and inclined to nasty selfishness. It flips the Roman concept of charis on its head. Surely humans are just going to pocket salvation and walk away. Yet God gives gifts to all.
A good example of this gift-giving in the Gospels is the episode of Zaccheus. In Luke 19, a worker for the Romans, Zaccheus, is approached by Jesus, who desires to give the gift of his presence. Anybody in his right mind would not offer a gift to this guy. He is not worthy and, from a human standpoint, will not offer a gift in return. Zaccheus is stealing from the people of Israel as a tax collector. His primary concern is taking money with the force of the Romans behind him, not receiving and giving gifts!
Keep in mind who the Romans were, too. They were terrorists and bullies. There are coins that depict them raping their subjects. Any basic respect for the human person went out the window for the Romans. Zaccheus is on the wrong team! He should not be approached by Jesus! Certainly, he will be ungrateful for a gift.
Yet Zaccheus turns into a worthy recipient. He experiences a conversion instantaneously, it seems, and gives a gift back to Jesus in a way that he knows Jesus would want: to return his stolen goods back to the injured parties and to give alms to the poor. Jesus gives a gift, it is received, and a gift is given back.
Now let’s turn to the specific gift God gives to humanity. Primarily, it is the death and resurrection of Jesus. This gift of atonement and payment of debts is for another article, but what needs to be highlighted here is that humans receive this gift by dying and rising themselves. What do I mean? They mystically, invisibly, and spiritually enter into the death and resurrection of Jesus. Humans are “crucified with Christ” (Gal. 2:20), are “buried with him” under the waters of baptism (Rom. 6:3), and “rise” to new life (Col. 2:12).
This concept of entering into Jesus’ resurrection life is connected to the second misconception about salvation:
Not Just Fire Insurance
Salvation is not just a protection against hell, although that is a weighty advantage in and of itself. Condensing it into a “get out of hell free” card is a tremendous disservice. For it’s also about new life.
Humans receive the gift of Jesus’ resurrection life—the life that involved Jesus being able to defy logic and reality when he appeared to the disciples in their room although their doors were locked (John 20:26). This is the life that changes wealthy people to suddenly give their lives to lepers, whose skin is decaying and falling off (St. Francis of Assisi). It is the life that changes the jobs of comfortable people to the jobs of suddenly picking dying people off the streets and caring for them with tenderness (St. Mother Teresa). In a word, we enter Christ’s school of love.
This new life involves an ontological change in our being. Humans *partake* of the divine nature (2 Pet. 1:4). They share in Jesus’s divinity. Christians truly become the body of Christ, which is why when people persecute Christians, Jesus says they are persecuting him (Acts 9:4-5).
Christians are literally what their title is: Christian means “little Christ.” As Fr. Jose Maria Castillo once emphasized, when I look at my hand, I don’t look at just a hand—I look at Jesus’ hand. This is why numerous miracles occur even today (see the studies found in Craig Keener’s book Miracles). I witnessed one last year at Damascus Catholic Youth Summer Camp, in fact.
To conclude, salvation is neither a self-help issue nor just about fire insurance. However, there is a sense in which salvation is self-help. For if you truly care about your well-being, you’ll gratefully receive the gift of salvation from Jesus. You’ll die to your old ways of selfishness and pride, enter into a gift-giving relationship with God, and give immense gifts back to God (the highest gift of which is your gift of self). As Paul continues in Ephesians, “we are his [God’s] workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them” (Eph. 2:10). We are made for giving gifts back to God, for God is the one invisibly propelling us to do this. Nor is salvation just fire insurance; rather, it is about receiving the gift of eternal life.
(To learn more about other misunderstandings on the topic of salvation, see the book by my professor at the Augustine Institute called Salvation.)