AdventWord, Quaker History, Spiritual Practice

AdventWord 2024: Salvation

Salvation is a tricky word

Quakers are remarkably quiet about Salvation – there are only a few references in Quaker Faith & Practice (the book of discipline for Britain Yearly Meeting) and a quick internet search will show a similar lack of discussion.

We are more concerned in our own transformation, and how that plays out in our lives, hearts, passions and the world around us right now.

The Paradox of Human Nature

As humans we are both profoundly wonderful and profoundly broken beings. We have the capacity to be accepted, loved, held at one with the Divine, and through that we experience profound Love and connection to people, animals, creation, God.

Yet as well as loved and accepted – we can also feel separate, insignificant, insecure, fearful…. All of this causes us to feel wounded and wrongheaded. This in turn can lead us to act wrongly towards others, and ourselves, as we spiral around our scared inner selves trying to save ourselves – to make the fear go away, to be in control, to heal ourselves.

We often cling to things that look good – money now has a bad image, but ‘being good’, or saving the world, or living in a certain way can become focuses that tear us away from the Divine and help us instead stay in that spiral of self help and self salvation.

This concept accounts for the fact that Friends have generally put less emphasis on the physical facts of Jesus’ life than on the spiritual meaning. It enables us to feel that acceptance of the miraculous recorded facts about Jesus, while permissible or perhaps even desirable, is not of paramount importance. The basis of our Christian-ity is not these facts but the spirit revealed in Jesus’ acts and teachings. And the essential power of Jesus is not to be sought in the physical miracles but in his transforming power in lives with which he comes into contact. This we test and testify to by our own experience.

Dorothy Hutchinson, Jesus & Quakerism, Friends Journal

In Dorothy Hutchinson’s article quoted above; she states that Jesus is only quoted as using the word Salvation once – in response to Zacchaeus, the corrupt fraudulent tax collector, declaring that he would now repay all he had stolen and give half his riches to the poor.

The word used is sótéria – Strong’s Greek 4991.

It encompasses the ideas of rescue, safety, and preservation, both in a spiritual and eternal sense. The term is often used to describe the comprehensive work of God in saving humanity, including justification, sanctification, and glorification.

A Journey of Acceptance

This fits with my own current understanding of Salvation – that it is freely given, but my own acceptance may take time! But each time I’m able to step out of my own egotistical focus and instead give over and accept and focus on what God envisions I can be changed and grow more able to release all that I’ve been hanging onto.

The quote below is one that helps me remember this isn’t only my struggle, but instead one that resonates with many others.

What does Salvation mean to you?

Give over thine own willing, give over thine own running, Give over thine own desiring to know or be anything, And sink down to the seed which God sows in thy heart And let that be in thee, and grow in thee, And breathe in thee, and act in thee, And thou shalt find by sweet experience that the Lord knows that and loves and owns that, And will lead it to the inheritance of life, which is God’s portion.

Isaac Penington