15. What Is Salvation?
Salvation cannot be restoration, nor can it be any alternative to God's original intentions.Salvation means wholeness, and wholeness cannot be anything other than God's original determination for each one of us as individuals, for the body of Christ as a whole, and for all of creation. Thus, without knowing Purpose, we cannot know salvation.
All Christians who are dead and are now waiting in heaven-only have not yet entered salvation. They are not whole until they are raised from the dead. This is the clear teaching of the New Testament.
Being dead has become "salvation" in the minds of Christians, however. How did this happen?
Lesson 15.1 The Other Ruling Verse investigates 2 Corinthians 5:6-8, a verse that Christianity has ripped out of context, altered it's meaning from Paul's gospel, and used it as it appears in the letter to rule over every other verse and concept in the Bible, falsely making being dead and living forever in heaven-only to be God's ultimate purpose for man.
Lesson 15.2 Gospel Salvation presents salvation as it really is based on God's purpose for man and on our construction as humans. Salvation is living inside of John 14:20 now and forever.
Lesson 15.3 Wholeness takes a look at the reality of the human soul from a scientific perspective and argues that salvation, including Paul's meaning in 2 Corinthians 5:6-8 and Romans 8:10-13, is being fully in tune, literally, with the singing and voice of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Lesson 15.4 The Ascent of Death then traces the path by which death replaced Jesus as savior and being dead became salvation in the minds of a frightened church who never had really heard Paul's gospel.