I hear this often: It’s not about you or us. It’s not
about our salvation. (Generally spoken with a real or imagined air of moral
superiority.) It is about glorifying God.
Now I get it, I do. But it is semantically incorrect. That
is, if the “It’s” refers to the meaning of the whole shebang. Because you see, although
the catechism is correct when it teaches that our chief aim is glorifying God—it
is speaking narrowly and locally of our aim, not of God’s aim. And really, it is stating the obvious, because
the only arrow in our quiver is to try (and generally fail) to glorify God. We have nothing to do
with or contribute to our salvation, so yes, in that sense it is not about our salvation. In
that sense it can’t be.
But in the bigger sense, in the global sense, it is about our salvation. The Nicene
Creed nails it when it states:
For us and for our salvation he came down from heaven.
Bingo. If you, like I do, believe the Nicene Creed is supportable
through scripture—well then there you have it. It is about our salvation.
I recall folks saying something similar - "Love God for who He is, not for what He has done for us." But how would we even know who He is if He did not come down from heaven for us and for our salvation?
ReplyDelete^ probably one of my favorite lines in the creed in addition to "begotten, not made; of the same essence as the Father."
@Persis I Love the Nicene Creed. I generally view it as defining my circle of orthodoxy.
ReplyDeleteThanks for pointing this out.
ReplyDelete