What is a Salvation Issue?
By Jessica Maddox
There’s been a steady engagement in the Christian Reformed Church in the past couple of years around the matter of salvation issues. Some folks have been sharing their perspectives on the CRCNA Network and others have been writing for The Abide Project. Two questions I frequently hear and will seek to address are (1) “What is a salvation issue?” and (2) “Why are we talking about this so much?”
A salvation issue, simply, is a matter that has bearing on one’s salvation. Recently, when we talk about salvation issues in the CRC, the topics engaged have to do with human behavior–both habitual practices and the disposition of the heart. Specifically, the focus has been on behaviors related to human sexuality in general and homosexuality in particular. These are moral matters–matters of human behavior that may be deemed right or wrong, good or bad. All moral matters have consequence, but recent consideration of sexual sin, often proof texted by 1 Corinthians 6:9-10, has led some to draw the conclusion that a person’s sexual sin has bearing on one’s salvation. Sexual sin is being viewed as a salvation issue because, so the argument goes, if someone doesn’t repent of their sexual sin, they cannot be saved. To define what a salvation issue is in a way that acutely reflects our current context, we might say a salvation issue is a moral matter identified in Scripture as sin, which, if not repented of, prevents a person from receiving salvation.
It’s not new for the church to want to identify the essentials of the Christian faith. Our creeds and confessions were brought into being on a two-fold assumption that (1) some beliefs are more important than others and (2) getting on the same page about those beliefs is key to the vitality of the church. Certainly salvation issues are important and agreement on what constitutes a salvation issue really is key to the vitality of the church. But not everyone agrees that matters of human sexuality are salvation issues. This is why Better Together has been critiqued for its position that, while matters of human sexuality are important, consequential, and necessary to engage in gospel ministries, human sexuality ought not be elevated to a matter of eternal life and death. If beliefs about human sexuality are not a salvation deal-breaker, they need not be a fellowship deal-breaker. Better Together urges the church to hold together on essential matters of faith and guard against polarities and division over issues that do not determine our salvation.
Some have assumed Better Together’s reference to non-salvation issues has been the cause of conversation about salvation issues over the last few years. But the root can actually be traced to a brief but crucial statement made in the Human Sexuality Report, adopted by Synod 2022, which concluded that the confessional status of the church’s teaching on human sexuality “is warranted because these sins threaten a person’s salvation” (11). The Human Sexuality Report framed matters of human sexuality as being of superlative importance. The church’s teaching on human sexuality has not just become confessional; it has become a salvation issue.
With the stakes so high, a salvation issue is weighty, essential, high priority, worth taking a stand on, worth caring about, and worth getting right. These high stakes around how salvation issues are being talked about have also been deeply anxiety producing. All versions of works righteousness is. And an understanding of salvation that is conditional on repentance, where unrepentance has the causal power to prohibit the Holy Spirit from his regenerating work, is a salvation grounded in the human will, not the divine will. Such an understanding of salvation has never been a Reformed understanding of salvation.
We would do well to embrace a deeper and wider use of all our confessions as we continue to talk about salvation issues. Consider what it could mean for our conversation if we spent time together looking at the last couple of sections of Article 24 of the Belgic Confession, which state, “Moreover, although we do good works we do not base our salvation on them; for we cannot do any work that is not defiled by our flesh and also worthy of punishment. And even if we could point to one, memory of a single sin is enough for God to reject that work. So we would always be in doubt, tossed back and forth without any certainty, and our poor consciences would be tormented constantly if they did not rest on the merit of the suffering and death of our Savior.”
Again, what would it mean for our understanding of salvation issues if we listened for how Article 9 in Part I of the Canons harmonizes with the Belgic Confession when it states that God’s choice to love us while we were still sinners is made “not on the basis of foreseen faith, of the obedience of faith, of holiness, or of any other good quality and disposition, as though it were based on a prerequisite cause or condition in the person to be chosen, but rather for the purpose of faith, of the obedience of faith, and so on. Accordingly, election is the source of every saving good. Faith, holiness, and the other saving gifts, and at last eternal life itself, flow forth from election as its fruits and effects. As the apostle says, ‘He chose us’ (not because we were, but) ‘so that we should be holy and blameless before him in love.’”
God doesn’t love us from eternity because he peeks into the future to see if we first loved him. God doesn’t withhold his forgiveness and salvation until we get repentance right (or our idea of salvation issues right). The whole of our confessional theology reminds us that God’s actions and the disposition of his heart are ultimately more consequential to salvation issues than our own actions and heart disposition. God’s perfect love is the causal power of all the love, faith, repentance, and obedience that we imperfectly exhibit until that day when we will truly be made holy and blameless, just as he promised. Until then, let’s keep seeking to discern what matters most, doing the work of being formed and guided by all of our confessions. Together they center us in the truth that it’s God who holds us together in Christ. Through his work and not our own. Through his holiness, not ours. We will not all agree on everything, and it may get a little uncomfortable, but if we can agree that the one who holds us will never let go, we’ll be better together.
