OUR DOCTRINE OF SALVATION RESTS UPON OUR FAITH IN THE GOD WHO HAS COME TO US IN CHRIST AND OUR KNOWLEDGE of what this God has done and is doing for men. This holds true also of our doctrine of salvation in history, It is not a speculative theory, nor does it rest on the view that we have in the Bible a supernaturally revealed program of future events. It roots in our vision of God: the power of his Spirit of truth and love and his gracious purpose revealed in Christ, which includes individual and social, time and the eternal, the world of today and the movement of history.

(1) He is the transcendent God. We deal not simply with time and change, with the finite and human. We have a God whose power and purpose transcend these. (2) He is the living God, the God of action. He is not simply the creator who stands at the beginning, nor the God of judgment waiting at the end. He is in history, present with his purpose, his direction, his ongoing judgment, his transforming power. (3) He is the God who works with men, calling men not simply to belief and obedience but to a fellowship which is at once receptive and active, in which he gives them his Spirit and in which they share in his work.

Against the background of this faith we consider now the main questions which arise in connection with the understanding of salvation in history. (1) What is the goal of God in history? (2) What is the way of God for reaching this goal? (3) What may we hope for as regards its attainment? The meaning of the kingdom of God, the place of the Church as means and as goal, the relation of individual and social, of divine action and social order, of divine deed and human agency, all these enter in.

The Goal of God

God's goal in history has been conceived in two main forms, that of the kingdom of God and that of a people of God. Both are figures of speech taken from human life and need study as to their meaning and value.

1. The kingdom of God is the term most commonly used to express God's goal and the Christian hope, whether conceived as lying beyond history or as including human history as well. Its meaning is best given by the phrase "the kingship of God"; its primary meaning is rule rather than realm. The phrase itself is not used in the Old Testament, but the idea is basic. Israel's faith was in the God who was Lord of all; her hope was that his rule would be established on earth. She saw her own salvation in the overthrow of evil and the coming of that rule.

There is a certain paradox in this idea of God's rule as that which is and that which is to come. It rests upon the fact of the twofold nature of that rule. There is, first, the rule of the creator and governor, the God who makes and sustains and governs all things. All things have their being in him, and nothing, not even the forces of evil, exists apart from him or can escape that order within which all things move. This is his universal and necessary rule. But there is another rule of God, an inner and ethical rule, the sway of righteousness and love and truth. It is God's rule in the faith and life of man.

This rule of God is personal. It rests upon an I and Thou relation, upon God's personal approach and man's personal response. It is a free relation, and yet it involves the authority and rule of God. Indeed, only here does his complete authority obtain; for here the whole life is opened to him and his sway is over inmost thought and desire as well as outward conduct. Here earthly analogies fail. True, men sometimes wield power over others by inner and spiritual influence; but there always remains the "salt unplumbed estranging sea" which separates each isle of self from all others. Yet the free self is not destroyed when God thus enters in. Rather it comes to true attainment.

While this rule is inner and personal, it is not merely subjective or individual. It includes the social and historical. That was the primary emphasis, indeed, in Old Testament thought. It was not removed with the deepening spiritual conception of the New Testament. God's rule concerns the total life of man, and that life, for good or ill, is necessarily social. Whether we think of the evil to be overcome or of the good to be achieved, this redemption of man's associated life belonged to God's goal. State, industry, international relations, education, art, recreation, as well as the association of men in the worship and service of God, all belong here.

This inclusive view was that of the prophets. They envisaged the just rule of princes, peace among the nations, Israel as the servant of other peoples, even a transformation of the physical world in which desert and drought and famine should give way to fruitful abundance. Our need is to see that this goal of God belongs to the present age, not merely to a coming millennium, and to ask as to the Church's message and the responsibility of Christian men.

As we consider the way of God as revealed in Christ and the good life which God would give to man, we must ask what these mean for the world of today and our present social order. This is not an attempt to outline a program of social change but simply to see the life of today and the obligation of man in the light of the goal of God. What does it mean to affirm the coining of God's rule over all life and his purpose to bring the good life to all? We may illustrate this by reference to two fields of crucial importance, and first to the state.

For man's achievement of the true and full life he needs certain conditions: security, so that he may live and work in peace; freedom to think, to worship, to have access to the truth, to shape the order under which he is to live and to which he gives obedience; justice in the administering of that order. This is the way in which a Christian should view the task of the state. Here the state is seen as servant of men under God. Its goal is not its own glory and power but the good of men; the test of the state is the well-being of its people. Its task is more than conserving order; it is creative service. It is concerned therefore with education, preparing youth to live, with conditions which make for health of body and spirit, with the opportunity to work. This does not mean paternalism or totalitarianism, for freedom is a primary good. It does mean that the state will give support in all those human concerns where individual effort alone is not adequate.

Of increasing importance for this conception of the kingdom of God is the relation of the state to other states. The ideals and practices of international life have been dominantly pagan: the will of each nation as its own supreme law, its own welfare as its supreme if not its sole concern, power and material well-being as its goal, force as its final reliance. Where the relation to other peoples has not been that of indifference and isolation, it has very commonly been a type of imperialism—economic, political, or by direct domination. Association through treaty has usually meant a calculation of profit from give and take and a setting of the profit of one group against that of the rest. Today the century-old movement of science, technology, and the economic life has compelled even the most materially minded of men to see how impossible the old way of national selfishness and strife has become.

As we seek to understand God's kingdom in the light of the spirit of Christ, what would his rule require in the relations of nations to each other? Our question is not one of means of attainment or forms of organization, but rather of the goal. That may be suggested briefly: a sense of solidarity, of the welfare which can come to one only as it comes to all; the way of co-operation in working together for this common good; a regard for peoples of all races and nations as being equally children of the one God; a spirit of good will and service; a sense of stewardship, with each nation recognizing its possessions and power as a trust committed to it by the God to whom all belongs; an acknowledgment of the authority of God as above all powers and authorities of earth, the God of love and righteousness.

2. The second form in which God's goal in history has been conceived is that of a people of God. So it was in Israel. "I ... will be your God, and you shall be my people" (Lev. 26:12). So in the New Testament God is seen as creating for himself a people, the true Israel which he is gathering from all nations. The Church is a family, the household of faith, the household of God (Gal. 6:10; Eph. 2:19; 1 Pet. 2:9, 10).

But this idea of a people of God is much more than the survival of an older concept; it roots in the total Christian faith. God's supreme relation to man is that of father. Our fellow men are for us children of God and our brothers. Together we form the family of God. That ideal demands new men, men who have become true children of God in the spirit of his Son. But it demands fellowship, too: only in a communio sanctorum, in the family of God, can we learn to become children of God; only so can we live the full life of children. The goal of God is a new humanity, new in the spirit of true sonship, new in all the relations which make up life.

3. What is the place of the Church in this goal of God? Historically the Church presents two aspects, that of an institution and that of a fellowship. In neither aspect can we equate the Church with the kingdom of God; in both the Church is essential in God's goal and to his working.

The Church stands for the highest expression of fellowship. Here we see men united in that which counts most in life: in faith, worship, apprehension of the truth, common service of others, and mutual help in the spirit of love. So far as the Church is truly the Church of God's purpose, it is the highest realization of his goal of a people of God. Yet we must recognize that God has children outside of the visible, historical fellowship. Similarly, when we think of the kingdom of God, having in mind his moral-spiritual rule, however imperfect it may be, that rule is present wherever we find in individuals and in society the presence and power of faith and truth, of love and righteousness. Obviously, that takes us beyond the Church.

Kingdom of God, people of God, and Church are not rival concepts. They are all efforts to express the same great end: new men in a new world. They refer to the same creative-redemptive purpose of God: to overcome evil, to bring men into the fellowship of his own life, to create for himself a humanity in which this life of truth and love and righteousness shall be realized.

The Way of God

The ways of God will never be fully known to man. We know in part. We walk by faith and not by sight. We face the mystery of evil. We are finite creatures seeking to understand the Infinite and the way of his working. Yet we do know, though it be only in part. Ours is a self-revealing God. In Jesus Christ, in his life and death, in his word and work, we have "the light of the knowledge of the glory of God" (2 Cor, 4:6). We not only know what God is in his power and holiness and love, but we know something of the way of his working. Faith for the Christian means always trust and obedience. But trust is no blind submission; it is our answer when God reveals what he is. And obedience is no mere formal response to commands or laws, nor some single act of surrender; it is walking with God in oneness of spirit and life.

All this means that we need to know alike the goal of God and the way of his working if we are to serve him, and that applies to God's work in bringing his kingdom upon earth. God's way of working points the way for man's living. That does not mean a separate body of truth miraculously communicated. It is not a program of future events given in apocalyptic vision. Human life is one. God is one, and his goal for man is ever the same: life in its fullness through a fellowship of faith and love. His way of working is the same whether he deals with individual or group, with the life of the day or the slow movement of history. Hence our discussion will have a close relation to the question of individual salvation as already considered. At the same time there will appear the differences which arise when we deal with the group life of man and the ongoing movement of history.

1. God works in man and with man and through man. The kingdom is God's gift; our hope for a new world rests in God. But the nature of this goal determines the way of its coming. The kingdom of God is personal-ethical-spiritual; it is "righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit" (Rom. 14:17). Such a kingdom cannot come by compulsive power. With social-historical life as with individual life God enters only as man responds; God works as men open to him their mind and will that he may work in them and through them. True, "every virtue we possess, and every victory won" is of God. There is here no place for self-sufficiency or pride. At every step and in every task "God is at work in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure" (Phil. 2:13), The ethics of Christianity is religious. But equally the religion of Christians is ethical; it is that of children, not slaves, of workers together with God, not cogs in a machine driven by dominating force. We are saved by faith, not by works, by the faith which opens the door to God's saving help. But the surrender is no passive act or one-time deed; it is a conscious, purposive, active, intelligent giving of self day by day, that the will of God and the work of God may be done in us and through us. And all this applies to the social-historical life equally with the individual.

We cannot, therefore, separate God's way of working from the way that men should take. That will appear at almost every point in the discussion which follows, and first of all when we speak of God's way of love.

2. God's way is that of free, self-giving, creative love—agape. God's love is good will; he desires the highest good of all his creatures. It is merciful and forgiving. It is creative, not by a single act but in continuously seeking to bring forth for men all those goods which go to make up man's life. It is self-giving; God enters into man's life, giving himself in fellowship to all who will receive him. It is more than omnipresence or world-sustaining power; he gives his own life and dwells in men as personal presence. He becomes in man the spirit of truth, righteousness, love, and peace. This is the meaning of the doctrine of the Holy Spirit, which signifies at once the presence of God and the gift of life.

And this way of God becomes the way for men, not only for the intimate personal relations of home and friendship but for all man's associated life. Men ask whether the way of love is not an impossible ideal Has not the whole movement in the evolution of life on earth been one of self-assertion, the struggle for survival and for individual advance in competition with others? And is not that the dominant motive today in all social spheres, economic, political, international? Yes, that motive not only largely controls individual and social life today but finds its defenders in the economic and international spheres. Nevertheless, our whole social situation today proclaims that without the spirit of good will the human race cannot survive. Today the challenge is clearer than ever: love or perish. Further, looking back one can see that this spirit has actually been at work. The rule of selfishness, the greed for goods and power, the reliance upon force, these have indeed been a power. But regard for others, the spirit of good will, the willingness to work with others and for others, these too have been present, binding men together, making possible home and community, and lifting life to higher levels. Without these, indeed, the race would long since have perished. There is no Christian life, no salvation, except as this spirit obtains. The presence of this spirit is the work of God. Social salvation is the carrying of this spirit, by God's grace, into the whole associated life of man.

3. God's way is that of truth. If religion means a person-to-person relation—man and God, man and man—then truth must enter in. That does not mean information supernaturally given, the mere disclosure of doctrine and demand. It means the God who is truth speaking to the creature man whom he has made to know the truth. It concerns understanding, a grasp of meaning. The misuse of reason is tragic, whether it comes from faulty understanding or evil purpose. The disparagement of reason is folly. God's Spirit is the Spirit of truth as well as of love and righteousness, and it calls for reason in man. In our social life selfishness and folly go together. Sin makes men blind. It enslaves them in prejudice, narrowness, false ideals and goals, ignorance of the way of life and of the source of help. God uses the truth for deliverance: "the truth will make you free" (John 8:32). "The truth" in the Christian sense means first of all God's revelation of himself, the truth in which all other truths are grounded. It means the ideals that should rule us, the ways that lead to life and peace. So the prophet, the preacher, the teacher, have a central place in Christianity. Jesus ended his earthly work on the cross. But that work began with his teaching, and the cross itself is not only reconciling love but a light that shows the heart of God and the way of life for man.

Over against the entrenched wrongs of our social life truth seems like a feeble weapon. But truth is God's instrument; with it he calls men to faith, challenges the sins of society as of individuals, shows man his true nature and need, and points men to the enduring goods of life and the way of their attainment. Here belong, as instruments needed for this work, home and Church and school, the printed page and all the modern ways of bringing the spoken word and the pictured scene to the multitude. Their dedication to God's service seems a long way off, yet they are being used today. The immediate need is for the Church to awaken more fully to its obligation and opportunity in bringing men the truth. The Church has neglected its teaching task: to train a people that will understand the faith, to make clear its ideals and its demands upon the social life as well as the individual, to declare faithfully the sins of nations, of our economic life, of race pride and injustice, to set forth the sovereign God of all life. Conversely, our educational systems must cease to concern themselves so exclusively with mere knowledge and skills and give so little heed to the truth that counts for life, to matters of ideals and character and faith. The difficulties are obvious, alike as to agency and method. We have not yet found the way for the adequate functioning of religion in education. But if our society is to be saved, then we must find a way to bring to our youth the truth that goes beyond the scholarly, the scientific, and the technical,

4. God's way for society is a way of order and judgment; this is his own way of action, and this is required of society. Commonly men think of such an order and its enforcement as something impersonal, external, and negative. True, there is a restraining power in the order alike of the moral universe and of nature. That order sets limits to the forces of evil and makes evil self-destructive. We see its judgments in history, sometimes in dramatic form as in the fate of certain dictators and war makers in recent history. But it may come slowly as in the sure decay of nations where people clamor for rights and shirk duty, where injustice is tolerated, world obligations evaded and the nation exalted above God, or where men make gods of wealth and power.

But the primary meaning of the principle of order as the way of God is not negative but positive and constructive. The goal of God is free men; with nations as with individuals righteousness and truth and peace must first live in men's hearts and minds and wills and be the free expression of the inner spirit. But the need of God's order remains. That order is a finger pointing the way of life. It is a summons to obedience, not in order to make men slaves but to set them free. It is the sure support of all right endeavor. The dependable world is the expression of a dependable God, with whom is "no variation, or shadow due to change" (Jas. 1:17). Such order belongs to human society. In a world of ignorance, imperfection, and immaturity there is need of a control that is external —even more so in relation to willful evil. But even in the present imperfect world our man-made orders, economic and political, so far as they accord with God's ways, work positively as an aid in securing the justice and welfare and peace which express God's rule. We say with Dante: "In his will is our peace." Indeed, all the goods of life, health, material welfare, freedom, truth, joy, enriching fellowship, come when men know God's will and make it their way.

5. There is a free action of God in history. He works through human instruments, but he is always more than these. There are a purpose and wisdom and power which transcend our finite humanity. He is the God who works, the living God. He is not the less free because his action is not arbitrary but flows from his character and purpose. These determine his world order, but they do nor exclude that freedom of the living God which is everywhere witnessed in the Scriptures. Faith finds in history more than an impersonal order, established once for all, moving on of itself to a goal of salvation or judgment. Time is more than "an ever-flowing stream" which "bears all its sons away." There is more in history than incessant, unmeaning change. It shows neither inevitable progress nor inescapable deterioration. It is the scene of meaningful action, that of God as well as man.

As such it brings periods of crisis, times when action is peculiarly decisive. Here is the meaning of the distinction, emphasized in recent writings in this field, between the two Greek words for time, chronos and kairos. The primary meaning of kairos is measure, so it comes to mean a given time and, more especially, the right time. It is time with a meaning, a decisive time, a crisis. The thought appears again and again in the New Testament. We read of "times or seasons [chronos, kairos} which the Father has fixed" (Acts 1:7). "You know what hour it is," writes Paul; ".. . the day is at hand" (Rom. 13:11,12). One may recognize the error of the early Church in thinking that the new age was just ready to be ushered in by Christ's visible return, and the mistake of the apocalyptists in outlining the detailed program of God's action; but the basic truth remains of crucial periods and decisive events in redemptive history. The coming of Christ was the supreme deed, the central event, the beginning of a new age.

We see Christ's coming to earth as the supreme event in God's action, as the central kairos in our history. God sent his Son "when the time had fully come" (Gal. 4:4). We see this as we consider the preparation in Israel, the new unity of rule and of speech brought by Greece and Rome, the free intercourse which these secured, and not least the deep needs of men. ¹

But there have been other crucial periods, seasons of God's special action, fateful times for the movement of redemption in history; and we may well ask if we are not in such a period today. We see a situation that has been in the making for a century or more: the advance of science and technology with the growth of wealth and power; a spirit of revolt, of revolution, which has come with the new sense of human worth and dignity and the right to self-rule and a fitting share in the goods of life—the latter as a new and notable fact in the life of the awakening millions of the Orient. We see men and nations brought together in ever closer union but without knowing how to live together—the strife of classes and races and peoples, present in times of "peace" and coining to terrible expression in world war. At the same time we see a new vision coming to the Church and to not a few leaders of the nations. The Church is seeing the meaning of the gospel for life in these larger relations. It is hearing a call to a common witness and a united effort. The nations are struggling with the problem, not only of ending war, but of working with each other and for underprivileged peoples. Faith sees God's action in such a crisis: evil made clear by its consequences, the challenge to follow a new way, the gospel seen in new and larger meaning, the compulsion to decision, the fateful consequences of such decisions for good or ill. Here we see the significance of kairos as a distinctive time event, das Einmalige, time not as endless succession but as meaningful moment, when God speaks in action, when man makes a decision (krisis}, "and the choice goes by forever 'twixt that darkness and that light." ²

6. The individual and the group both have their place in God's way of working. Basic for Christian faith is God's concern with the individual, alike as object of his love and as instrument for his purpose. It is not institution or doctrine or rite which comes first; it is God speaking to man, man making answer to God. God's use of the individual is recognized by us all. That is the meaning of the roll call of the heroes of faith in Heb. 11. The significance of the individual remains today despite the growth of associated life and action. The final test of social organization and action is found in the kind of individual life which it brings forth. The basic need of every social organization is individuals who will bring understanding and devotion. Without this it becomes institutionalized and depersonalized, defeating its very end. Prophetic religion has similarly recognized the place of individual leaders, those who hear God's word for their day, who proclaim it to the people, who lead the people in the service of God.

The common error is to suppose that individual and social are in necessary opposition. Undoubtedly they may become such in thought and practice, as in the extremes which we witness today in social theory. There is the individualism which fails to see that historically speaking there is no really human life apart from the group. Only in fellowship can man be truly man. The real danger here appears more in practice than in theory, the practice which makes self-interest the rule of action for individuals or group or nation. With this moral defect there goes the failure to see the solidarity of human life, the need of co-operation and of mutual service in the spirit of good will. The other extreme is equally false and even more dangerous. It is the exaltation of the institution and of social control, with the individual or the human mass viewed as possession and tool and with that absolute control of all life which we call totalitarianism, the clearest modern examples of which are fascism and communism.

The way out of this false opposition is the Christian conception of man as personal, made for an individual life of truth and faith and freedom, but made equally for fellowship in love and service. Here is the being who can be man only as he finds God and makes him supreme, above state and all else, and only as he finds his brother man and the fellowship without which he cannot become

RELIGION AS SALVATION

a person or live the personal life. Our task here is to see the way God uses the group life in his work of human salvation.

The forms of human association are as varied as the interests and activities of life. The home, the Church, the state, and economic association are the most important of these, including in the state all forms of political organization from the smallest local unit to the United Nations. The Christian must regard each of these as sphere and intended instrument of God's working as he seeks the good of mankind.

The function of the Church has already been considered. It is God's chosen agent for proclaiming his gospel, mediating his grace, and ministering to man's needs, especially in worship. It is at the same time called of God to set forth in its own life the meaning of the kingdom of God. It is not itself the kingdom of God; it should be its highest exemplification. All Christian thought recognizes the home as instrument in God's work of making men and establishing his rule. What is needed today is to combat the forces which militate against the home, to realize the temptation of parents to shift their task to Church and school and commercialized entertainment, to summon the home to a new appreciation of its divine calling.

The state and the economic order demand a special word. Many regard the state as a strictly secular institution, to be carefully divorced from religion, dwelling strongly here in America on the separation of Church and state. The extension of its functions, moving so rapidly today, is viewed with deep concern, including not only totalitarianism but the development of the "welfare state" in the Western democracies. With this goes the insistence that religion should be viewed as "spiritual" and as an individual concern. Needless to say, the totalitarian states, fascist and communist, are even more opposed to the idea of religion, or the Church having any relevance to matters political and economic, or the right to set any authority above the sovereign state.

It is of first importance that Christian thinking should be clear here, not simply as to the demand of God in a given social situation, but as to the purpose and way of God. God is concerned with the highest good and the total good of man. He offers us no blueprint for the social order, nor can the Church, speaking in his name, offer such. But the Church clearly has a duty that bears directly on the social order and the ruling powers.

First, it must set forth the purpose and will of God: an 'order of society which stands for justice, truth, peace, equal and full opportunity for all men as being alike children of God's love, good will between nations and groups, and the readiness to work with others and to serve. And it must seek to make plain what this demands in given situations, summoning the people to understanding and support when the nation takes these ways.

Second, it must point out where the state or the economic "order fails in these ends. Such failures are obvious to the Christian conscience, and the Church of the last generation or two has made marked progress in discernment and in witness. We may note a few: war and the reliance upon force; a self-centered nationalism; the worship of the state; the denial of freedom to men; discrimination on racial or religious grounds; an economic order which puts wealth and control of means of production into the hands of the few and leaves great numbers to poverty, unemployment, or economic uncertainty. The Church must be free and courageous in such declarations, resisting the devices of smear and slander, of appeal to prejudice and passion, as directed against all criticism.

Third, it is not the task of the Church to propose economic and political systems or to identify itself with any one of these, knowing that the purpose of God will always transcend every human program or achievement. It may well, however, recognize that some movements and institutions stand far closer than others to Christian principles, that others are radically opposed in principle. It need not approve every action of the United Nations Assembly, but it may see that its basic principles and aims are in accord with God's will. It must judge the specific plans and actual work of democracy and yet may recognize its avowed ideals of regard for man as man, of justice, freedom, equal opportunity, and concern for human welfare to be in accord with the Christian way.

It remains to point out again that home, Church, state, the economic order, and all other forms of rightful human association are not simply subject to the Ruler God but are called to be instruments of the Savior God in his good purpose for man. Clearly there are higher and lower levels of good in their service, but it is wrong to think that while preaching the gospel serves God's redemptive work, the world of politics and economics is a merely secular world, or at most one that comes under God's rule but cannot serve his saving purpose. We see this clearly on the negative side. A self-centered, militaristic, totalitarian state lowers the whole moral-spiritual life of a people. We observe backward peoples where sheer poverty and misery are the seedbed of revolution and war, where despair opens the door to ambitious leaders and false plans. On the positive side it is clear what an economic order can mean which combines social co-operation and individual responsibility, which brings to all opportunity for work, just compensation, access to those natural resources which are God's alone in absolute ownership and which belong to individuals and states only in trust for the good of all. Inseparable from this is that ideal order of the state whose meaning and goal we are slowly apprehending. Such an order means the realization for mankind of God-intended goods, material and spiritual. It affords conditions under which Church and home may more freely achieve their true life and serve God's purpose.

The subjects considered above have usually been treated under social ethics. Some would dispute their relevancy to a doctrine of salvation. The divorce of the two in this field is most clearly apparent among neo-orthodox thinkers, some of whom are deeply interested in the application of Christian principles to our social problems while finding no movement of God's redemptive action in this social-historical sphere. Ethically this is an advance on the traditional apocalyptic attitude, but in relation to the doctrine of salvation it continues the apocalyptic tradition with its pessimism as regards the present age. What we need is to assert the Christian unity of ethics and salvation: no salvation which does not bring man's moral response and action; no ground for social hope except as we know that there is the saving work of God. Here, as in individual experience, we should hear Paul's word: "Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for God is at work in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure" (Phil. 2:12-13).

1) For a popular statement see T. R. Glover, The Jesus of History, ch. IX.

2) Lowell, "The Present Crisis."