The Saved and the Lost

I just did a word search for various forms of the words “saved” and “lost” in the Bible. (As an aside, having a good program for searching the Bible, and knowing how to use it, is a real joy. I use Accordance, and recommend it highly.)

Briefly, here is what I found. In the Old Testament, there is a lot of saving and losing, but you're saved or lost in ordinary life. You can be saved from your enemies generally (e.g. Numbers 10:9, Deuteronomy 33:29, 1 Samuel 4:3, and many others), the Philistines specifically (1 Samuel 7:8, 2 Samuel 3:18, etc.), lions (1 Samuel 17:37, Psalms 22:21, Daniel 6:27), and other temporal threats.

It is in Jesus's teachings that we first see the words saved and lost used in contexts that extend beyond ordinary life, e.g.,

Mark 8:35 For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it.

The issue, of course, is with that second occurrence of “save,” which it seems can only refer to some transcendent notion of salvation, rather than to an ordinary, temporal salvation. John seems even more explicit in a parallel verse:

John 12:25 Those who love their life lose it, and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life.

This is interesting to me, precisely because it tests my world view, which is that Christianity today is too hung up on the notion that our purpose is to seek a good afterlife, whereas I think that our purpose in life is to serve God through love by working for justice and peace in this world. Yet the obvious interpretation of the “eternal life” seems to be the afterlife.

But is it the correct interpretation? Does God look forward to the afterlife? Does God think about what he does in terms of his own salvation? Of course not! God doesn't dwell in the past, because dwelling in the past would mean dwelling on our sin. He doesn't dwell on the future, for he knows that he will be there when it comes. God loves us, and seeks relationship with us in the here and now. He loves eternally, hopes eternally, and seeks eternally. He does not love us to save himself. He just loves us. When we, in love, place someone else first, without thought of ourselves, aren't we living as God lives? Isn't that the eternal life, lived in the present, through our finite selves? Isn't that what Jesus was talking about?

And what do we gain from such an interpretation? Coherence. We align the Old Testament and the New, so that each helps to illuminate the other, rather than contradicting one another. The God of the Old Testament is the God of the New Testament.

Peace