GOD, OFFERING SALVATION

A. REFLECTIONS ON HUMAN EXPERIENCES

I. Images of God

Activity:
Reflect on this Biblical passages
1. In the beginning of the Gospel according to John, the writer says:
“For the light was coming into the world, the true Light that
enlightens everyone.” (1:9)

Where does the writer suppose the Word was coming from?

2. In the beginning of the Gospel according to Luke, the writer says:

“Jesus led them almost as far as Bethany, then he lifted up his hands and
blessed them. And as He blessed them, He withdrew… (and was taken to heaven.
They worshipped him).” (24:50-51)

Where does the writer imagine heaven is? Is it in the sky?

We often supposed that each writer means what he says literally. People in the past
thought that the earth was flat and that heaven was in several spheres above the earth. God lived
in one of those spheres.
Do we mean it literally today when we say that the Word came down to us? Is heaven
really up there? Does God stay in heaven, and is God very remote from us?

2. Our Experiences of God

We must admit that the usual image of God is a God who is very remote from us. But, it
does not always match our personal experience of God. Many of us have experienced a God who
is, in one way or another, present to us in our daily lives. Our experience of God is not that God
is somewhere in heaven. Rather, it is more like the title given to Jesus in the Gospel according to
Matthew, in which we read:

“Now all this took place to fulfill the words spoken by the Lord through the
prophet: ‘The virgin will conceive and give birth to son and they will call him
Emmanuel, a name which means ‘God-is-with-us’.” (1:22-23)

Our experience of God are in the image God-is-with-us. Let us now look at our own
experiences of God who is with us, and share them with one another.
 B. FAITH AND REVELATION…

WE GROW IN OUR UNDERSTANDING OF GOD

The human person grows and develops, becoming more fully human. As we grow and
develop, our faith can also grow and develop. Our understanding of God and religion will grow
and develop, if we allow it to.

1. SOME IMAGES OF GOD DIE

We have known and/or believed in several different images of God. While some were
given to us in the past, we have created others out of our own experiences of God. Sometimes,
these different images compete within us.
It can happen that a strong image of God that we have had for a long time no longer fits
our experiences. When that happens, that image of God from the past can begin to crumble and
no longer speaks to us. Because the image was dominant in the past, we might even begin to have
doubts about God. We might say, “God no longer has meaning for me.” “God is not real
anymore.” But, although we feel that way, God does not cease to exist. It is the image of God that
is dying, and not God Her/Himself.
Our doubts may lead us to stop believing in God, or they may lead us to hang on
desperately to a dominant image of God from the past. But, doubts need not be terrible events in
our lives, as long as we try to stay open to our growth and development, even in matters of faith.
Some of us may still have received instruction in the traditional catechism, and received
an image of God as king or ruler and judge, who is “out there” in heaven. But, we can also begin
to understand that God is both present everywhere and “up in heaven”. As traditional Christian
theology puts it, God is both immanent* and transcendent*. As immanent, God is not somewhere
else, but is right here and everywhere. As transcendent, God cannot be identified with one
particular thing. And, even if we put all things together, they will not add up to God. God is more
than everything. Yet, everything is in God.
When we study our experiences of God, we gradually realize that God, who we were
taught as the sacred and the holy, is real. God is not just a concept or a belief but is an element of
an experience. The only way we can really know and understand God is through our experiences.

2. OUR UNDERSTANDING OF GOD CHANGES

As we grow in our faith, our images and understanding of God and religion may grow.
We can see this quite clearly in the Bible. The writers of the Jewish Scriptures were writing about
a God who was present to them and with them in their lives. As their history presented them
with new challenges, their images and understanding of God also changed.

a. The Israelites’ Changing Experience of God

As the Israelites developed into a people, their experience and understanding of God
developed. Their relationship with God was gradually transformed.
 Notice that God is not remote, but is very present to God’s people. For example, God does
not send Moses to save God’s people and then sits back to let Moses do all the work. Rather, God
is present with Moses for the sake of the people. God even travels with the people, and lets them
know that God is with them.

The childhood stage of the faith of Israel can be seen in the stories of the Patriarchs* and
the Exodus. The stories do not present historical description of what happened to the people.
Rather, they were meant to teach some of the mysteries that are related to God, nature, and
humanity. The language and imagery is of magic and the world is seen from the eyes of a child.
God, therefore, is viewed as a magician.
The older childhood phase of the faith of Israel have begun on Mount Sinai. Like children,
the people wanted to know exactly what they are allowed to do and not allowed to do. They
measured their worthiness before God in terms of how well they fulfilled the Law.
Therefore, they viewed God as a judge.
In the “teen-age” phase of the faith of Israel, the Law became more deeply established in
their life, as they grew in relationship in each other. They moved into a tribal structure and the
Law bound them together. They were united, but they did not know mercy. They viewed God as
tribal lord who was capricious and arbitrary.

Like young adults, Israel’s faith gradually developed an awareness towards others. The
prophets were very active in helping Israel get to this stage. Often, they challenged the people by
proclaiming that the heart of God’s covenant rested on their concern for the poor and the
oppressed, for Jew and non – Jew alike. So, at this stage, they saw God as a just, loving, and caring
God.
This was the beginning of their maturity in faith, which meant growing past magic,
legalism, and tribalism.

Later, the faith of Israel grew into “middle age.” The writings known as Wisdom
Literature reflect the midlife crisis of Israel. Their defeat by the Babylonians and their exile to
Babylon precipitated the crisis. The crisis itself was that because of what happened, they started
to question everything that they had always believed. They believed that God was present to
them in Temple. But, the Temple had been destroyed. God promised they would always have a
king who descended from David. But, there was no more king. The justice and mercy of God was
no longer clear. But because they had the humility to admit to themselves that they did not have
all the answers, they grew in wisdom and moved to a new level of relationship with their God.
God was viewed as a personal God. Surprisingly, as they grew into a deeper level of their
consciousness of God, they grew, at the same time, into a deeper level of self-consciousness and
social consciousness

b. We Can Grow In Our Understanding of God

Like the Israelites, we, too, can see the world with the eyes of a child and view God as a
magician. But, we cannot remain in this phase of personal or of faith development, where we
believe that the world is dramatically affected by the mighty actions of God and by the evil works
of Satan* and other demons.
As we grow in faith, we move towards a phase of a new kind of order and become more
preoccupied with religious right and wrong, in a rather legalistic way. Because of this, we can be
also preoccupied with God. There is little or no mercy here, until we grow again. Meantime, God
remains a judge.
We grow in faith when we grow past magic, legalism, and tribalism, It means developing
a social awareness such that we can be involved in issues of peace, social justice, racism, and
sexism. It means not only knowing facts, but being concerned and involved that we are to do
something about them. When this happens, we develop a faith that is healthy and wholesome
and we see God as just, loving, and caring.

3. AN UNDERSTANDING OF SALVATION

Our idea of salvation* follows our understanding of God. We received from the past the
idea that salvation means happiness in the after-life, in heaven, the God who is king and mighty.
In Jewish Scriptures, there is a different view of God. God is not “out there,” but is
involved in the history of the people. Therefore, for many of the Jews, there was no notion of
salvation as happiness in the after-life, in heaven. The notion of an after-life started only around
the time of the writing of the Book of Maccabees and writing of the Book of Daniel, which was
later than 103 BCE.

In the history of the Jewish people, we saw the Jewish experiences of God and have seen
their understanding of God develop. Let us retrace the steps of the history of the Jewish people.
This time, let us find out how their understanding of salvation developed.
At an early stage, God was seen as a Tribal Lord. As Tribal Lord, God was the giver of
land. Israel was a nomadic people, who were enslaved by the Egyptians. For them, salvation
meant to be set free and to go on an exodus towards “the Promised Land.” They were guided by
God, who entered into a covenant relationship with them.

Land is one of the most powerful symbols of salvation in the Bible. It refers to the basic
need of people. In our country, where lands have been taken away from many of our tribal sisters
and brothers and where there are still so many landless people, we understand why land is so
vital for human life, to have land means to have an identity as a people. It is to experience freedom
and peace, to live long, and to bequeath prosperity to one’s children and grandchildren.
To the Jewish people, land promised total well-being, freedom, prosperity, and long life.
But, as soon as the Jewish people possessed the land, the rich, rulers, and kings grabbed/horded
it. The Yahweh of the prophets could not allow this, Yahweh was a just God who protected the
well-being of the poor and powerless in society.
The call of the prophets was not heeded. The Jews lost their land and had to go through a
new exodus. It was a new exodus of exile and return, in order to restore justice and the life of
their families and their nation. God became a personal God who gave people salvation. Now,
salvation meant the wisdom and compassion needed to build up a society nurtured by God’s
love and care.

From this short history of Israel, we realize that salvation need not be seen only in terms
of an afterlife. Salvation expresses first of all total well-being (“ginhawa”) in our life now: love,
care, peace, justice, wholeness of life. In Jesus’ preaching, this idea of salvation did not change.
Jesus was a Jew, who grew in the awareness of the long tradition of Israel. For him, too,
surrounded as he was by poverty, oppression and injustice, land was most important. He sought
to restore justice, peace, equality love and compassion with Israel. Jesus expressed this in a master
symbol which is the focus of the synoptic gospels: the Kingdom of God*. The God of the covenant
would again rule over Israel. He is a God who care for his people and will recreate the poor, the
rabble, the impious, and the wicked into human being. People will be able to come home, to
themselves and to a community of equals, imbued by mutual care and love.
At this stage, we have to highlight the core of Jesus’ preaching. It is about a God of
unconditional love (cf. the parable of the Prodigal Son, Lk 15:11-32). For Jesus, salvation is
something that God does because God cares passionately about what happens in human
history. God desires that every one will live with God now and in the future. God cares about us
so that God chooses to live with us now.

Such a view tells us that salvation is not something that we obtain by what we do or what
we do not do. Salvation is something that God has done, is doing, and will continue to do in our
lives. What we are saying is that God is love. Because God is love, God accepts us unconditionally.
We are accepted by God just as we are, even though we may be weak and sinful. This seems to
be the central message of Jesus or Jesus’ message of salvation. He says, “God loves you just as
you are. You do not need to earn God’s favor to win God’s love. (enter biblical passage on the
Prodigal Son)

Some of us find this meaning of salvation difficult to accept or to understand. We cannot

seem to see that this is the way God is with us and is in us. This view seems to violate our common
sense notion that we cannot get anything for nothing. We often believe that God’s love and
salvation have strong requirements or demands. We see God’s love as conditional and is
conditioned by our behavior. The reward for good behavior, or leading a good life, is heaven.
Salvation is then viewed in terms of an afterlife.
But, when we accept that God loves and accepts us unconditionally now, then we can
change our sense of who we are and our sense of what life is about. Our primary image of our
self may become “trusted and loved by God,” rather than “sinner.” We can begin to discover
that the Christian life is about life lived in a loving relationship with God. Realizing this, we
may be able to allow the transforming power of our love relationship with God to work in our
lives.
Because the awareness of God’s loving unconditional acceptance of us, regardless of what
we do and have done, makes us humble, a profound healing can also take place within us. We
are healed of the many wounds that we have inflicted on ourselves or of those that others have
inflicted upon us. In these many ways, salvation brings about a growth in our humanness. As we
grow into God, we become more human…
For Christians, this basic attitude of trust receives a new depth when seen in the
perspective of a life that is sustained and nurtured by a loving and caring God. Before we even
think of developing faith through a variety of relationships, we become aware that we already
have received these relationships because the whole reality in which we move, grow and live is
already permeated by the loving presence of God. Life, creation, the self, the other, my country
and culture are gifts. Life is a grace to us, to our own lives and to the lives of all those we
encounter. We are challenged in a new way by our faith in God to live out the life that God wants
us to experience.
4. CONSEQUENCES OF THE CHRISTIAN VIEW OF GOD AND SALVATION ON
OUR RELATIONSHIPS

a. Relating With One’s Body, Nature and Cosmos

We cannot become fully human without befriending and caring for our bodies. Christian
education in the past may not have been very helpful in encouraging us to trust our bodies. We
were taught that the temptation of the flesh led to sin and depravity. The Christian view of God
which we just developed, does not present God as a fearful judge who rejected humans because
of ‘original sin”. We are original blessings. Adam and Eve who are the symbols of every man
and woman, are God’s masterpieces. Adam and Eve, somehow, failed to respond to God’s love.
Yes, God did not abandon them. The Bible tells us a story of a compassionate and patient God
who kept nurturing humans and finally entered into a covenant with them. It was a covenant
with humanity (Noah), before God entered into a particular covenant with Israel.
As God’s original blessing, human beings became God’s partners in taking care of the
earth. As partners with God, in the psalms and in Matthew (6:25 – 34), we can enjoy the birds in
the sky and the lilies in the field, and we do not have…“to worry about life … indeed our Father
knows that we need all these things.” Our faith in God transforms us into human beings who are at
home in creation, “knowing that the whole creation has been groaning in labor pains until now …but
that it will be set free from its bondage of decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of
God’ (Rom 8:19 – 22).

b. Relating With a Community, Society, Institution and Structure

As humans, we are social beings who are in solidarity with each other. In the context of
human solidarity, it is not only as individuals that we need to open ourselves to God and
salvation. It is impossible for any person to have a unique and personal relationship with God
without regard for the community and society s/he is part of.
The beneficiaries of salvation in the Biblical vision of God are not individuals, but the
community as a whole. To the question “What do you mean you say God?”, Israel answered, “He
who led us out of Egypt.” And how did the people respond to this God? The answer is in terms of
the concern for society, “He (Josiah) dispense justice to the weak and poor. Is this not true knowledge of
me?” (Jer 22:16)
Jesus continued to use the socio-political idiom of the Hebrew Bible and called God the
God of kingdom. This God who is Lord and King, exercises Lordship in a very particular way. He
is the greatest One and King because of the ineffable greatness of his compassion and love for the
poor. Jesus’ response to this’ response to this compassionate King and Lord was also political. He
stood up for the rights of the poor and the weak in his society. But, political power had him
executed as a rebel.
The God of the kingdom still calls us today to a commitment to develop just relationships
with one another in society. At the time of the Second Plenary Council of the Philippines, Bishop
Bacani stated that “of all areas of life in the Philippines, no area is in greater need of evangelization
than the area of politics. “We apparently have not allowed ourselves to be addressed by the God
of the exodus and of the kingdom. We are reigned, not by God, but by the gods of greed, power,
and prestige. Our faith response to God’s unconditional love will hopefully motivate us to seek
justice, equality and peace. At the same time it makes us into instruments of healing wounds of
injustice, poverty and suffering in our society.

C. PRAXIS…

WE CAN WITNESS TO THE GOOD NEWS

1. WHAT NEEDS TO BE TRANSFORMED?

There are six dimensions or relationships in the process of our becoming human that will
be changed, enriched, nurtured by our faith in the Christian God and Her/His offer of salvation.
In our proposals for acting/witnessing, we focus in only one of these dimensions, the socio –
political. There is a special urgency to radically change our relationships in this area. We already
quoted Bishop Bacani who stated, during the Second Plenary Council of the Philippines, that the
political is the domain most in need of evangelization. The bishop was in fact saying that the
Christianization of the Philippines in the past did not include the area of politics. On the socio –
political level, many Filipinos are still pagans. Many reacted in a defensive way to such a
statement. Why? They felt they had to protect the socio – political institutions because they are
Filipino. Yet, precisely because they are Filipino, we can transform the socio – political to make
them even better. We have a few words, then, about culture, in its relationship to the socio –
political, before we touch on the transformation of politics.

a. Our Culture
Culture is a human creation. It is created by society as a whole, not only by a few
individuals. Because culture is a human creation, it can change; it can be re-created. Recreating
a culture is often a long and slow process because many aspects of the culture are embedded in
the society.
A culture has beliefs, values, customs and institutions. They provide the society with
some degree of unity. A culture also gives some members of society a sense of identity, dignity,
security, and continuity. Just as we can acknowledge that any dimension of the human person
can help or hinder the person’s process of integration, depending upon how the dimension is
used, the same may be said of culture. How we use a perception, a cultural action, or an attitude
can help or hinder our integration into the culture. Furthermore, the way we use these
dimensions of a culture can help or hinder our attempts to transform that culture’s social and
political institutions.
Cultures never simply exist, they are not static but dynamic. A culture is not only open
to change. A culture is constantly and slowly changing, as the members of the society adapt to
their ever-changing environment. The manner in which culture changes depends upon how the
members use those ever-changing internal and external forces acting upon their society.

b. Cultural Attitudes and Transformation

The values in any culture are always ambiguous realities. They can be life-giving or death-
dealing depending on the context in which they function. Redirecting some of our cultural values
may be a very difficult task because values are mostly sanctioned by religion.
An example of this cultural values is family-centeredness. We said that generosity within
the family has often a reverse side which is a lack of concern for the common good. The care for
the family alone, at the expense of the wider community, has led to political dynasties, family
monopolies, nepotism, and so on. We will have to question several aspects of our family
centeredness, if we want to arrive at an effective program of nation building. The same painful
process of questioning our other Filipino values will have to happen, if we are to sincerely commit
ourselves to political transformation. Let us now look at the elements needed for such a
transformation.

2. FOUR ELEMENTS NEEDED IN WORKING FOR SOCIAL AND POLITICAL

TRANSFORMATION

Since the Second Vatican Council, the Catholic Church has intensified its efforts to
challenge Christians to be committed to socio-political transformation. The most quoted
statement can be found in the document Justice in the World of the Synod of Bishops (1971):
“Action on behalf of justice and participation in the transformation of the world fully appear to us
as a constitutive dimension of the preaching of the Gospel, or, in other words, of Church’s mission for the
redemption of the human race and its liberation from every oppressive situation.”
This document and the subsequent papal encyclicals point to four building blocks which
will lead to a transformation of society:

The first element is the common good. Every society needs as a foundation stone a concern
for what is good for all the members of society. This means that people, within a society, must be
willing to sacrifice their own personal and familial needs when those needs are detrimental to the
good of society as a whole.

The second element is justice that is maintained and established for all. This principle is
contrary to the “Robin Hood” attitude, in which someone robs from the rich to give to the poor.
We are challenged to realize that if we are to bring about peace, we can only do it by working, at
the same time, to establish justice for all people.

The third element is service. Those who work for society are performing a service to
society. This principle admits that those who work in social work and politics, as well as those
who seek to transform structures, are the servants of the people. Therefore, they are not to be self-
serving or family serving.

The last element is empowerment. We are not to seek power for ourselves. We can best
achieve our ends by working so that those who are most in need become empowered. We need
to help the powerless to find ways in which they can exercise power.