Wednesday, March 17, 2021

Jonathan R. Wilson on Salvation as "Knowledge"

  

Salvation As Knowledge, Power, and Love

 

The good news of the kingdom has once again been anticipated in our reflections. In the kingdom of God come in Jesus Christ, God transforms our ignorance, our weakness, and our alienation.

 

In place of our ignorance, God grants us knowledge. To be saved is to know Christ and all his benefits. This knowledge is not the work of Christ alone but also the Holy Spirit, who guides us into all truth (Joh n14-16 passim). If we take this passage as a cue, we may say that salvation is not only knowledge, it is truth. Here we get closer to our desire to show that salvation is not facts or information. Truth is not “mere” knowledge. It is a way of life—it is wisdom.

 

Truth is for living and it is known in a way of living. In other words, salvation is not simply gaining some knowledge or understanding some ideas. Nor is it getting the knowledge and then deciding whether to live by it. Rather, salvation is knowing Christ as we live like him and in him. That is, we do not know Christ apart from our life in Christ. The knowledge that is salvation is the knowledge of the kingdom of God. That knowledge is available only in Christ. He is the wisdom of God for our salvation; as we know him, we enter into wisdom.

 

To say that knowledge of the kingdom is available only in Christ leads us to the truth that through Christ as example, we also see salvation as power. If humankind apart from Christ is feeble, then Christ’s gift to us is power. However, this power is not the power to accomplish whatever we have dreamed of; it is not power at large, ready for any task. Rather, salvation as power is the ability to live in the kingdom of God. (Jonathan R. Wilson, God So Loved the World: A Christology for Disciples [Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker Academic, 2001], 130-31)

 

Such jives nicely with the following passages:

 

It is impossible for a man to be saved in ignorance. (D&C 131:6)

 

He shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied: by his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many; for he shall bear their iniquities. (Isa 53:11)

 

On Isa 53:11, see:

 

The People Being Justified by the Messiah's Knowledge in Isaiah 53:11

 

John Murray on Isaiah 53:11 and the Knowledge of the Servant Justifying Believers