Twenty-first of Year C
September 2007
The theme today is salvation. Salvation means forgiveness, resurrection from death and eternal life.
In the Church today there are two contrasting views as to who will inherit Eternal Life and who will not. This is a question which has been asked from time immemorial.
Jesus himself was asked this question; 'Someone said to him, 'Sir, will there be only a few saved? '
He said to them, ‘try youe hardest to enter by the narrow door, because, I tell you, many will try to enter and will not succeed.'
And again, 'They were more astonished than ever, saying to one another, 'In that case, who can be saved?'
Jesus gazed at them and said, 'By human resources it is impossible, but not for God: because for God everything is possible.'
There are those who think that very few will inherit Eternal Life and those who think that only those who deliberately and persistently reject God will fail to enter Eternal Life. Then there are the majority who are somewhere in between. (There is also a body of literature gleaned from visions, apparitions and appearances of Our Lady and various 'saints' describing the fires of hell and purgatory and the multitudes who are being roasted there. This is of course to be regarded in the same way as the events we read of in 'Alice in Wonderland' or ‘Watership Down.')
As usual there are plenty of passages in the Bible to support both views. Opposing sides can quote passages from the Bible at each other until they are blue in the face and come no nearer to agreement. I have mentioned to you before that when we talk about God or the things of God normal logic and reasoning processes do not always hold valid. The same applies when we try to understand salvation as it is presented in the Bible. The Bible treats salvation in three contrasting, and to some extent contradictory, ways. Salvation is seen as an ongoing process.
- Salvation is grace; that is, it is a free gift from God which cannot be earned or won or merited by any human being.
- The human being must humbly believe in and accept this free gift of salvation and respond to it. The appropriate response is an all-pervading sense of thankfulness and gratitude to God.
- For human beings, in this life, salvation is always inchoative or unfinished. It demands growth and can be regarded as finally achieved only at death or what we call the Last Day.