Ritröð Guðfræðistofnunar - 01.01.2007, Side 42

Such sacralizing claims are ruled out by the Lutheran vision. We are obvi-
ously not capable of our own salvation. The Lutheran vision, however, aims
at cutting off such claims for even more profound reasons than their lack of
empirical validity. It does so for the sake of the Gospel, for its radicality and
universality. The radicality of the Gospel insists that salvation is a pure gift;
we do not earn it. If we do not recognize that, we dishonor God who gave his
Son in a unique and decisive saving act. When we claim a part in the drama
of salvation, we at the same time insist that God’s action in Christ is not good
enough. Something else, presumably our virtuous action, must be added.
Furthermore, the universality of the Gospel is compromised if we fail to
make a sharp distinction between God’s saving act in Christ and all human
efforts at improving the world. In any overt or covert claim for human effort
as a constitutive part in our own salvation there are always those who are on
the right side of the struggle and those on the wrong side. Some are saved and
some are damned, not because of their faith or lack of faith in God’s work
in Christ, but because they either are or are not participants in the group or
process that claims to be bringing redemption or transformation. Their salva-
tion is dependent on which side of earthly fault lines they find themselves.
The picture is clear; the claims of the man-god always exclude. However,
the Gospel does not. All humans, regardless of their location among the world’s
fault lines, are equidistant and equally near the grace of God in Christ.
The NewTestament Gospel of the suffering God who abjured all worldly
power and all worldly group identifications simply rules out those schemes
that compromise the radicality and universality of the Gospel. The cross of
Christ freed the Gospel from enmeshment in all human efforts to save the
world. No one was with Christ on the cross to die for our sins. Or viewed dif-
ferently, everyone was with Christ on the cross, but only as passive inhabitants
of his righteous and suffering person.
When we are freed from the need to look for salvation in human schemes,
our eyes should be clearer to make the very important distinctions among the
relatively good and the relatively bad in the realm of human action. Liberated
from the worry about our salvation, we can turn un-obsessively to the human
task of building a better world, not by prideful claims of transformation, but
by determined yet humble attempts to take small steps for the better.