What Do I Need To Know To Be Saved?
“Now before I became a Christian I was under the impression that the first thing Christians had to believe was one particular theory as to what the point of [Christs's] dying was. According to that theory God wanted to punish men for having deserted and joined the Great Rebel, but Christ volunteered to be punished instead, and so God let us off. Now I admit that even this theory does not seem to me quite so immoral and so silly as it used to; but that is not the point I want to make. What I came to see later on was that neither this theory nor any other is Christianity. The central Christian belief is that Christ's death has somehow put us right with God and given us a fresh start. Theories as to how it did this are another matter.”1
This is a quote from one of C.S. Lewis' most popular and influential books, Mere Christianity. In this book, Lewis is concerned with explaining Christianity at its core, the foundational beliefs that are common to all Christians. It's his answer to the question, “What is the minimum that we need to know about Christianity in order to trust in its message and be saved?”
So when he says that you don't need to believe any particular theory of how the atonement works, is he cementing his position as our best-loved heretic, or is he right? Most, if not all, gospel talks I've heard have included an explanation of how the atonement works. In fact, I'd guess that many of us would say that Jesus being punished instead of us, is the gospel; that is what you need to trust in if you are to be saved.
The technical term for this explanation of how Jesus' death saves is “penal substitutionary atonement”, meaning Jesus is substituted for us so that he suffers God's wrath and we don't. Because there have been many people over the last two centuries who haven't wanted to believe that God is angry with humans because of their sin, evangelicals around the world have rushed to defend “penal substitutionary atonement”. In fact, it has been so defended that you could be excused for thinking that evangelicals regard belief in this theory as “the mark of true Christian faith”.
I recently heard Phillip Jensen tell of a man who asked a few hundred churches in Sydney for tapes of the sermon given at their church on a particular date. He was doing this as a kind of survey of preaching themes. He discovered that almost every sermon included as its theme or application one or both of the following: evangelism and/or penal substitutionary atonement.
As Phillip noted, if there's going to be two topics that are over-emphasised, you could do worse than these. Also, he suspects that there was an element of this man “finding what he was looking for”, in that he came to the survey with a particular theory to prove. Nevertheless I suspect that in most of our churches penal substitutionary atonement is preached completely out of proportion to its place in the Bible. My aim in this article is not to dispute this explanation of the atonement1 but to ask the question: Is this what we need to know and trust in if we are to be saved? When we preach the gospel, is this a necessary part of the message, a “must have” in every gospel talk?
It seems like a big question but the answer is very simple. No. You do not need to know and understand this explanation of the atonement in order to trust in Christ for salvation. For proof of this you need look no further than Acts 2: the first great evangelistic sermon. Peter preaches here that Christ died but God raised him from the dead and in doing so declared him to be the King of the world. Despite no mention of what Jesus' death achieves for us (besides being a prelude to resurrection), 3000 people repent and are baptised.
This pattern continues in the book of Acts. In the fifteen or so evangelistic speeches recorded for us no explanation of how the atonement works is ever given. Rather, Jesus' new position as King of the world is preached, along with the message of forgiveness of sins being provided through him.
Penal subsitutionary atonement is not the gospel if we define the gospel as “the message that we need to hear and trust in if we are to be saved.” On this point I agree with Lewis. However, there is a sense in which the whole Bible is the gospel—it is one big message of hope through Jesus—and it is here that I disagree with Lewis. In the chapter I quoted, Lewis goes on to try to explain how the atonement works and finishes by saying, “if [this explanation] does not help you, drop it”. This is false. If penal substitutionary atonement is taught in the Bible—in however small a way in comparison to our preaching—we cannot simply drop it. To deny it would be to reject God as much as by denying anything else he has said to us. 1 Corinthians 1 tells us that the message of the cross is foolish—to reject part of it because it doesn't seem very clever to us is to miss the point.
So what is the point of this discussion? Is it all just a silly academic exercise? What’s the take-home value?
In part, I don’t know what the point is. I think we have massively over-emphasized one aspect of the atonement for quite some time and so we may not be able to recognize what the consequences are until we stop doing so. But I do think it is important to shift the focus of our gospel preaching and conversations with friends back on to the central theme of Jesus being King of the world (and of everything else too.) This will give us greater freedom as we prepare evangelistic talks and also as we share our beliefs casually with our friends. We don't need to be worried that we have to explain how the atonement works in order for our friends to hear what they need to hear.
Notes
1 Though in my quick reading of the New Testament I couldn't find any reference to Jesus being punished by God on the cross. Write to me at this address if you do find something: ben[at]ecuwollongong[dot]org
Ben Beilharz
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