{"id":334,"date":"2025-03-01T04:54:47","date_gmt":"2025-03-01T04:54:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.cssigniter.com\/demos\/coastline\/?p=93"},"modified":"2025-04-24T21:30:47","modified_gmt":"2025-04-25T01:30:47","slug":"historia-de-salvacion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/beta.church\/en\/historia-de-salvacion\/","title":{"rendered":"V. Salvation\u00b4s history"},"content":{"rendered":"

#Values<\/a>: Values are definitions of what we hope will identify us. These articles are primarily intended for those who wish to join us in this project\u2014whether through prayer, donations, or collaboration.<\/p>\n

Salvation is not just the forgiveness of sins, but a union with Christ in a covenant relationship. Jesus Christ reveals the loving character of God, who seeks us out and calls us to be reconciled to Him.
\nBeta Values #3: Union with Christ<\/b><\/p>\n

A common phrase among Christians is, \u201cRepent, sinner.\u201d While there\u2019s truth in this expression\u2014since salvation includes the forgiveness of sins\u2014it goes further. Salvation is primarily about reconciliation: entering into the new covenant relationship with God through the love of Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 11:25; Hebrews 9:11\u201315). The mistake lies in thinking of salvation as merely a set of ideas disconnected from Christ, when it should be understood as a relationship with Him. To understand this more fully, we must first grasp the need for salvation.<\/p>\n

The story in Genesis tells us that the moment we turned our backs on God, something within us withered and died; a long freefall away from the fullness of life began, guided by death itself. For in turning away from the God of life, we turned toward death. Sin has thus become embedded in our society, and we see its marks everywhere. At its core, sin is distancing ourselves from God and His ways\u2014removing Him from the center of our hearts and replacing Him with ourselves or something else. This shift causes our identity to be shaped by whatever has taken His place. For example, when we place ourselves at the center, we often do so at the expense of others. The cure is Christ, who leads us to reconciliation with God by rightly placing Him at the center of our hearts.<\/p>\n

When in Christ we become a \u201cnew creation,\u201d we experience a new beginning that affects all relationships touched by sin. Our relationship with God is restored (2 Corinthians 5:14\u201321). Our relationships with others begin to be restored in the church (Galatians 3:28). And our relationship with the rest of creation will be restored at Christ\u2019s return (Colossians 1:20; Acts 3:21; Revelation 21:1; 2 Peter 3:10).<\/p>\n

The New Testament describes salvation in relational terms. Christ is the vine and we are the branches (John 15); He is the head and we are the body (Ephesians 4:15\u201316); and several times, He is described as the bridegroom and the church as the bride (John 2\u20134; 1 Corinthians 6:16\u201317; Ephesians 5:31\u201332; Revelation 21:1\u20132). As Phillip Cary puts it: \u201cThe Gospel gives us more than grace or forgiveness of sins. More fundamentally, it gives us Jesus Christ Himself, God incarnate.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, today the gospel is often centered on the individual\u2014their feelings and experiences, on how Christ fits into our lives\u2014rather than showing that Christ transforms everything.<\/p>\n

\u201cFaith must be taught correctly, namely, that by it you are so closely united with Christ that He and you become as one person, which cannot be separated but remains united to Him forever and declares: \u2018I am as Christ.\u2019 And Christ, in turn, says: \u2018I am as the sinner who is united with me and I with him. For by faith we are joined together into one flesh and bone.\u2019 Thus Ephesians 5:30 says, \u2018We are members of Christ\u2019s body, of His flesh and bone,\u2019 so that faith unites Christ and me more intimately than a husband is united to his wife.\u201d<\/b><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u2014 Martin Luther<\/i><\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u201cSin keeps us from being all that God has created us to be\u2014as individuals and in relationship with God and others.\u201d<\/b><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u2014 Diane Leclerc in Essential Beliefs<\/i><\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u201cGod kept returning to us, with constant loving guidance, through the words of the Law, the testimony of the prophets, the apocalyptic visions of a better future\u2014and finally came to us as the very Son of God. Since we could not go to God, because we showed again and again that we were powerless to fix our broken relationship with Him, God came to us and healed the breach as only God could.\u201d<\/b><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u2014 William H. Willimon in This We Believe<\/i><\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u201cNot by works but solely on the basis of God\u2019s grace and in union with Christ, through faith sinners are forgiven and made righteous, even though the struggle with sin and the pursuit of renewal remain daily tasks.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Those renewed produce good works and can be confident that the just and faithful God will attend to their final salvation.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In short: there was a consensus about God\u2019s grace as the foundation of salvation, justification by faith as both a declaration and an inner transformation, and good works as the natural fruit of the justified life.\u201d<\/b><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u2014 Summary of the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification by Veli-Matti K\u00e4rkk\u00e4inen<\/i><\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u201cTherefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, so death came to all people, because all sinned.\u201d<\/b><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u2014 Romans 5:12<\/i><\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u201cAlthough convinced of our sin, Wesley was even more convinced of God\u2019s power to save. We are given a new birth that enables us to turn around, start over, and have the image of God restored in us\u2014because Christ dies for us and rises again so that He may accompany us into the Kingdom.\u201d<\/b><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u2014 *William H. Willimon in This We Believe
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Salvation is not only the forgiveness of sins, but a union with Christ in a covenant relationship. Jesus Christ is the one who reveals the loving character of God, who seeks us out and calls us to be reconciled to Him.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":457,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-334","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-values"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/beta.church\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/334","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/beta.church\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/beta.church\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beta.church\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beta.church\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=334"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/beta.church\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/334\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1148,"href":"https:\/\/beta.church\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/334\/revisions\/1148"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beta.church\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/457"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/beta.church\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=334"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beta.church\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=334"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beta.church\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=334"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}