Salvation.

[pawnraider]

What is the Anabaptist view of salvation?

I was watching a video of a Conservative Mennonite who appears to be more or less a theologian and he said, "Salvation is not about just getting a ticket to heaven. Salvation is all about getting our lives straight so that God can use us to do his work in the world." Later he goes on to say, "We have to learn how to cooperate with what God is doing in the world." This all sounds very much like he thinks salvation depends on what we do. More or less a works based salvation. I get the impression that he thinks that it not only depends on what we believe but on what we do as well. My many years of studying the Bible leads me to believe that our salvation does not depend on what we do but on what Jesus Christ has done.

I certainly hope that I haven't misunderstood what he is saying. I'd like to post a link to that video but I don't know if it's allowed.

[ohio jones]

I'd like to post a link to that video but I don't know if it's allowed.

Video links are allowed. They can be embedded using the TV (er, monitor) icon next to the font= button.

[Josh]

Imagine you are flailing about in an ocean, at risk of drowning.

A person comes along in a boat and offers you a life preserver.

Some people choose to reject the life preserver. Others accept it, but are too comfortable in the ocean to tug on the rope and climb into the boat.

Some get into the boat and live a comfortable life in the boat. The rescuer wishes for more, but he isn’t going to throw you back into the ocean.

Some people do foolish things and fall out of the boat. Will you cling to the life preserver again or will you reject it?

Others decide to join the rescue crew and help others lost at sea get life preservers and get into the boat.

Eventually, the boat reaches its destination on dry land and disembarks. The rescue crews go to an eternal rest, rejoicing that they can spend time with the Chief Rescuer.

Those who rejected the offer find themselves drowning for eternity.

None who are rescued are rescued because of their own works to fashion a boat, a raft, a rope. They merely accepted a free gift.

[pawnraider]

I'd like to post a link to that video but I don't know if it's allowed.

Video links are allowed. They can be embedded using the TV (er, monitor) icon next to the font= button.

Here's the link. Let me know if you all think I'm getting him wrong. The part I'm questioning begins at about 2:45.

[Josh]

pawnraider,

Anabaptists view salvation as not just a future event (“fire insurance”), but also something that happens right now: we are saved in the present from our sins.

A phrase became popular in the Eastern Mennonite Middions to Eastern Africa: “We have been saved, we are saved, we are being saved, we will be saved.”

This is starkly different than the Reformed view of salvation, where God cherry picks some people to saved but not others, and the individual really has no participation in the matter at all.

[cmbl]

Robert Friedmann was an Austrian Jew who served in the Austrian army during World War I. His experiences in the war caused his interests to change from engineering to history. One of Friedmann's professors in graduate school assigned him to research Hutterite codices. In them, Friedmann discovered what he called an "existential" or a "concrete" Christianity - that is, a Christianity meant first to be lived. Friedmann came to the United States shortly before the outbreak of World War II, and later joined the Mennonite Church. Weeks before his death in 1970, he mailed the manuscript for The Theology of Anabaptism to the editor of the Studies in Anabaptist and Mennonite History series.

Friedmann's account of a Hutterite elder explaining the Anabaptist view of salvation is the one that I turn to:

A personal experience may serve to dramatize this situation and make the genius of Anabaptism come more alive. Several years ago, after a conference in South Dakota, a number of ministers decided to visit a nearby Hutterite bruderhof, the oldest one in the United States, and I was invited to join this group. We were cordially received and shown around and then the elders were ready to discuss their way of life. One of the first questions the ministers asked was this: "What do you people teach regarding salvation?" Thereupon the very intelligent brother, who had very likely not anticipated this question, paused a moment and then said quietly but with great assurance, "If we live in obedience to God's commandments, we are certain of being in God's gracious hands; we do not worry further about our salvation. Rather, we try to walk the narrow path in the fear of the Lord. We fight sin and practice brotherly love. How then can redemption be lacking?"

This reply was as simple as it was authentic. Now it was the ministers, trained in conventional theology, who were surprised and even a bit shocked. They had not anticipated such an answer.

Friedmann continues,

One may rashly judge that such teachings smack of meritorious acts. But that would be a serious misinterpretation of a statement such as the one above, true to an ancient tradition. As early as 1541 Pieter Riedemann, one of the great lights of early Hutterianism, vigorously denied this approach in his great Rechenschaft as follows:

Many say of us that we seek to be good [fromb] through our own works. To this we say, "No," for we know that our work, so far as it is our work, is naught but sin and unrighteousness; but insofar as it is of Christ and done by Christ in us, so far is it truth.

After quoting another early Anabaptist, Friedmann summarizes,

It is living in "childlike obedience" without any thought of "working" for salvation or gaining merits by work that was meant by the Anabaptists of four centuries ago, as well as the Hutterite brothers in South Dakota today.

[MaxPC]

pawnraider,

Anabaptists view salvation as not just a future event (“fire insurance”), but also something that happens right now: we are saved in the present from our sins.

A phrase became popular in the Eastern Mennonite Middions to Eastern Africa: “We have been saved, we are saved, we are being saved, we will be saved.”

This is starkly different than the Reformed view of salvation, where God cherry picks some people to saved but not others, and the individual really has no participation in the matter at all.

Agreed. The highlighted phrase above is also found in Catholic World. Salvation is outside of time.

Nevertheless (and I believe this is the point being made in the video) we are to show the fruits of our salvation by maturing in discipleship; by helping others; by living a life of obedience to God's teachings as an example to the world and continuing to bear the fruit of that gift of salvation. We cannot be Christian Couch Potatoes. This teaching is very clear in James 2 in the Bible.

James 2:14-26

Faith Without Works Is Dead
14 What does it profit, my brethren, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can faith save him? 15 If a brother or sister is naked and destitute of daily food, 16 and one of you says to them, “Depart in peace, be warmed and filled,” but you do not give them the things which are needed for the body, what does it profit? 17 Thus also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.

18 But someone will say, “You have faith, and I have works.” Show me your faith without your works, and I will show you my faith by my works. 19 You believe that there is one God. You do well. Even the demons believe—and tremble! 20 But do you want to know, O foolish man, that faith without works is dead? 21 Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered Isaac his son on the altar? 22 Do you see that faith was working together with his works, and by works faith was made perfect? 23 And the Scripture was fulfilled which says, “Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness.” And he was called the friend of God. 24 You see then that a man is justified by works, and not by faith only.

25 Likewise, was not Rahab the harlot also justified by works when she received the messengers and sent them out another way?

26 For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also.

[Praxis+Theodicy]

Much of the question you asked is best explored in the question "What is "salvation," but your concern, coming from (I'm guessing) an evangelical or reformed viewpoint (correct me if I'm wrong) is more about the question "How do we get our salvation?"

In much of the evangelical world, "salvation" is essentially a ticket to Heaven (or an escape from Hell. We used to call this "fire insurance"). It has nothing to do with our life here on Earth. It is merely a spiritual matter which ensures that our eternal souls will be with God after our earthly bodies die instead of separated from God in Hell.

I think the video you watched may have been from Anabaptist Perspectives entitled "Salvation as Participation With God". If this is so, I'd give the video another watch, go and study the New Testament passages related to salvation. Then compare those passages to the grand narrative of scripture about the beginning (God creating Man on Earth to perform a purpose) and end (God arriving on Earth to dwell with Man) of God's eternal plan. Then passages about salvation make a LOT of sense. For example, Paul encourages the Ephesians to "work out your salvation..." He doesn't say "Work for your salvation," because salvation has already been given to them by the grace of God in Christ and through their faith in Him. But Paul (and Jesus) doesn't want God's people to receive salvation and be idle in it. God called out the church to be "a people zealous for good works."

Picture this: I could never afford to own my own personal jet. I would need to rely on the grace of a wealthy benefactor. I can never work enough to earn this private jet. So when a wealthy benefactor gives me this jet, I take it by my faith in his grace to give it to me.
But then I have the choice to fly it or let it rust in the hangar. If I let it rust in the hangar instead of "working out" my jet, what is the point of this great gift? I'm squandering it! My benefactor not only gave me the jet, he paid for a full pilot's certification course, and I just chose not to attend. Salvation isn't just the private jet; it's the whole package of the jet, the flying lessons, and the chance to work together with my benefactor to accomplish his plan (he wanted a pilot to help him fly supplies to other countries). If I reject the whole opportunity of working together with him, am I not just rejecting the whole point of salvation? What even is the use of the private jet?
As an "evangelical" pilot, I might insist that I don't "have to" fly the jet to earn it; it's given to me by grace. But I'd be missing the point. In truth, because of the gift of the jet, I "get to" fly it. Salvation is not just "the jet" it's the opportunity to fly!

So a big part of understanding salvation from an Anabaptist perspective has to do with reading the scriptures to understand God's plan for His creation, and, through the new birth, growing a desire to participate in that divine plan. This desire and ability to participate with God is not something we can achieve on our own. Jesus Christ shows us the way. He is the way. It is only by his life, death, and resurrection that we can walk the way of participation with God. The salvation (ability to participate with God) granted to us by Christ is not just for an eternity in heaven (or in the New Heaven/New Earth), but also for our benefit now, here in this life. Through the saving work of Christ, you get to participate in God's divine plan right now! Just like Adam in the garden! That's the glory of the Second Adam! Participation with God now! We are dead to sin and our genealogy in the first Adam. We are alive in Christ, and are born again in the Second Adam.

A really brief way of putting it:
The good news is not that we have to do good works to be saved. The good news is that we get to do good works because we are saved!

[Sudsy]

What is the Anabaptist view of salvation?

I was watching a video of a Conservative Mennonite who appears to be more or less a theologian and he said, "Salvation is not about just getting a ticket to heaven. Salvation is all about getting our lives straight so that God can use us to do his work in the world." Later he goes on to say, "We have to learn how to cooperate with what God is doing in the world." This all sounds very much like he thinks salvation depends on what we do. More or less a works based salvation. I get the impression that he thinks that it not only depends on what we believe but on what we do as well. My many years of studying the Bible leads me to believe that our salvation does not depend on what we do but on what Jesus Christ has done.

I certainly hope that I haven't misunderstood what he is saying. I'd like to post a link to that video but I don't know if it's allowed.

To the underlined my understanding - our salvation is certainly only possible by what Jesus has done to save us from the power and penalty of sin and when we truly receive this gift of eternal life, scripture says, we become new creations that are zealous of good works. Being saved is often referred to as being born again.

One can go through the motions of 'saying a sinners prayer' or joining a church and being very active in that church but those good works alone will not save us. Salvation is a gift of God that causes us to do good works. If we are not zealous to do good works, then our salvation is in question.

[Valerie]

It has always bothered me to hear evangelicals presented as just wanting fire insurance.

It also bothers me when I hear and a Baptist portrayed as it works based salvation.

Evangelicals emphasize the plan of Salvation (I remember that phrase bothered Wayne in Maine) as the "gift" of God:

For the wages of sin is death but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.Romans 6:23.

"For it is by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them" Ephesians 2:8-10

It is a reason I have seen anabaptist and evangelicals argue. It seems there's perhaps wrong assumptions from both sides.

Evangelicals do not want to make light of Christ sacrifice on the cross that he shut his blood for the remission of our sins. Without that there is no remission of sins. For the thief on the cross it was a mere belief and recognition of his own sinful nature and at that confession to Christ and belief in who he is he was saved in a moment. To him, that was salvation. Naturally in his predicament he did not have time to get baptized or bezelas for good works but he certainly was saved.

Good works are in the satisfaction journey until the Lord calls us home.

I do not see Evangelicals as placing little importance on good works, just putting the emphasis on the finished work of the Cross & not "of ourselves" for salvation. Rewards are for the works that are not burned up through the testing.

It is an Orthodox saying "I am saved, I am being saved, and I will be saved"

The Cross is the emphasis it seems for Evangelicals
The Sermon on the Mount it seems for Anabaptists

Just sharing what I've concluded by coming from Evangelical & seeking Anabaptist

Are they the same "Gospel"?