18 January 2026

Gettin’ Saved: Saved How?

Romans 9:14-20, 10:8-13

We read from Paul’s letter to the Romans, chapter 9:14-20. 

14What then are we to say? Is there injustice on God’s part? By no means! 15For he says to Moses,

‘I will have mercy on whom I have mercy,
    and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.’

16So it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God who shows mercy. 17For the scripture says to Pharaoh, ‘I have raised you up for the very purpose of showing my power in you, so that my name may be proclaimed in all the earth.’ 18So then he has mercy on whomsoever he chooses, and he hardens the heart of whomsoever he chooses. 19You will say to me then, ‘Why then does he still find fault? For who can resist his will?’ 20But who indeed are you, a human being, to argue with God? Will what is molded say to the one who molds it, ‘Why have you made me like this?’

We’ve been thinking about “gettin’ saved,” and we talked last week about what exactly we believe we are saved from. Briefly, we were created to be in relationship with God – as scripture puts it, “in the image and likeness” of God – but ever since that creation, we’ve been muffing it. There seems to be something inherently wrong with us, something that prevents us from entering into that state of unity with God. One traditional term for our brokenness is “original sin.” I also mentioned last week that some people go way overboard on this whole original sin thing. Some theologians paint humans as so impossibly corrupt, so thoroughly depraved, that every last trace of that divine “image and likeness” has been obliterated. Some call this the doctrine of “Total Depravity.” We are evil in our bodies, in our desires, even in our minds. We’re so depraved we can’t even want to be reconciled to God. That’s how bad we are, according to this view. 

So all this might raise a question or two. First, how can such creatures, evil to the core, ever be saved? And the answer that is generally given is that God, in his infinite grace, takes the initiative. He chooses to implant in some people the desire for restoration, and those chosen people by the power of God are selected for salvation. But that raises questions, too, doesn’t it? Like, why? Why does God choose to save anyone if we’re totally bad? Isn’t that like opting to keep one part of a cancer? And second, how does God choose? Why this person and not that person? And the answer to this generally is: Only God knows that. You wouldn’t understand it anyway, being a loathsome sinner. Are you questioning God? 

This strain of theology is sometimes called “predestinarianism” – because only those who have been predestined to salvation by God are saved. It’s also sometimes called “Calvinism,” after its most famous proponent, John Calvin. Many of today’s Christian denominations began with followers of Calvin, and there continue to be resurgences of Calvinist teaching every few years. It is a long Christian tradition. Having said that, I do have a few quibbles with it. For instance, I find it interesting that all Calvinist theologians are male. There are a lot of female theologians today, but I know of not one who embraces this doctrine, and that seems strange to me. If this is divine universal truth, why is it apparently inaccessible to that half of humanity? Why do only men get it? I suppose you could argue that the male mind is simply more attuned to God, and most of the Calvinists I know would have no problem with that, but that hasn’t been my experience. Another quibble is that it seems to me that even Calvinists pursue their doctrine … selectively. That is, the doctrine says that God chooses some for heaven and rejects others, for reasons that none of us can discern. And yet, again, all the Calvinists I know are pretty darn sure that they’re among the chosen. And also all their families. I’m glad for them, of course, but that still seems inconsistent to me.

But what can we do? It’s not like Calvin invented predestinarianism. It’s right there in the passage we read from Romans 9. Paul says, God has mercy on whomsoever he chooses, and he hardens the heart of whomsoever he chooses. And if you protest that that seems unfair to you, if you wonder, “How is it fair to send people to hell who have no choice about whether to follow God?” Paul replies, Who indeed are you, a human being, to argue with God? Calvin would be so proud. So there it is. We are saved – if we are – by the divine whim of God. End of story.

We read now from Romans, chapter 10, verses 8-13.

8But what does it say?

‘The word is near you,
    on your lips and in your heart’

(that is, the word of faith that we proclaim); 9because if you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. 10For one believes with the heart and so is justified, and one confesses with the mouth and so is saved. 11The scripture says, ‘No one who believes in him will be put to shame.’ 12For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; the same Lord is Lord of all and is generous to all who call on him. 13For, ‘Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.’ 

And then there’s this passage. You could be forgiven if you are experiencing some cognitive dissonance just now. This reading from Romans 10 looks like the exact opposite of the one we just read from Romans 9. Here salvation is the result of our faith, and anyone who has that faith will be saved. There’s nothing in this passage about how only a few are able to believe, or how only the ones that God has preselected can have that faith. In fact, the verses that follow these are all about how important it is for us to tell everyone about God’s grace, because how are they supposed to believe if they never hear, and how will they hear if nobody tells them? In chapter 9, salvation has nothing to do with us; in chapter 10 it has everything to do with us. What are we supposed to do with this?

Let me start by going out on a limb here and saying this: The apostle Paul was not an idiot. He knew perfectly well that these two passages did not play well together, because he’s the one who put them right next to each other. Somehow we need to read each passage in light of the other. But how are we supposed to do that? They are contradictory!

You know where else we see this contradiction? Rom-coms. Romantic comedies. Love stories. Think about the old rom-com Sleepless in Seattle. (And yes, it hurts me to call “old” a movie that I remember when it was first released. But I can’t help it; it’s old. Tom Hanks looks like a baby.) In that movie, Meg Ryan hears Tom Hanks on a radio talk show and feels an immediate, unexplainable attraction. So, even though she’s just gotten engaged to someone else, she reaches out. Complications ensue. Many complications, and various other people get involved, and all of them have to make many choices before the two get together, but when they do, when they touch hands for the first time, it’s “magic.” And we, the audience, know not only that they have both worked hard to get there and that they were meant for each other. They are brought together both by their choices and predestination. That’s contradictory. But in this case, it doesn’t bother us.

You see, one of our problems in making sense of this contradiction in Paul is that we have been taught to think of God’s salvation as a thing that we acquire. Now an acquisition can be something that you work for, or it can be a gift, but not both. If it was given to you, you didn’t have to work for it; if you earned it by your labor, it isn’t a gift. But what if we picture salvation not as an acquisition, but as a relationship? Relationships are more complicated, maybe because both people have to feel the same way. We earn the relationship and is a gift. Yes, we choose them, and yes we have to work for them, but a loving relationship, there is something transcendent, something that feels beyond our efforts. We not only choose the other, but we gratefully accept the other’s choice of us, and the realization that our choices coincide simply feels miraculous. What if we thought of salvation like that? What if salvation is both our choosing to seek God and our discovery that God was seeking us all along?

I want to work through one more passage of scripture, a story from the Gospel of Mark. It’s a healing story, the healing of blind Bartimaeus, but every time I read it I am convinced that Mark is doing more than just recounting a miracle. I have a huge respect for Mark’s narrative artistry, and I think he’s using this story to represent how we can be reconciled to Christ. Here’s the passage, Mark 10, verses 46-52:

46They came to Jericho. As he and his disciples and a large crowd were leaving Jericho, Bartimaeus son of Timaeus, a blind beggar, was sitting by the roadside. 47When he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to shout out and say, ‘Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!’ 48Many sternly ordered him to be quiet, but he cried out even more loudly, ‘Son of David, have mercy on me!’ 49Jesus stood still and said, ‘Call him here.’ And they called the blind man, saying to him, ‘Take heart; get up, he is calling you.’ 50So throwing off his cloak, he sprang up and came to Jesus. 51Then Jesus said to him, ‘What do you want me to do for you?’ The blind man said to him, ‘My teacher, let me see again.’ 52Jesus said to him, ‘Go; your faith has made you well.’ Immediately he regained his sight and followed him on the way.

In this story, through which Bartimaeus becomes a follower of Jesus, who calls to whom? Well, both. First, Bartimaeus cries out for Jesus, and then there are complications, but Jesus sends his followers to call Bartimaeus to him. Throwing off his old clothes, he goes to Jesus, where Jesus asks, “What do you want?” That might seem obvious, but Jesus wants to hear it from him. “I want to see.” And Jesus says to him, “Go, your faith has made you well.” Except that’s not really what it says. The Greek text literally says: “Go, your faith has saved you.”

As I’ve said both last week and this week, the fundamental problem that we need saving from is that we are estranged from the relationship with God that we were created for. So we should think of the restoration of that relationship – salvation – in relationship terms. We are not saved by a divine decree, any more than a broken marriage is restored by the husband saying, “Come back, woman.” Relationships aren’t like that. They’re more like a dance, with each one stepping out in trust until their steps match. God is calling to us – all of us, not just an elect few – but we need to call to God as well. I’ll talk more about how we do that next week.