Rising from the rubble, hair disheveled, face splattered with dirt and blood, our protagonist takes the hand of the superhero in tights, with a look of relief and peace. He is saved. The vicious creatures from another planet have been destroyed (or at least shuffled off our planet, back to their own, ready for a future sequel), and the world is at rest once more.
This familiar scene has played out countless times in our cinemas for decades. It is the salvation scene right before the credits roll. I’m convinced there is an ache in the heart of all mankind which longs for such moments, a deep desire for deliverance. And even as the plethora of superhero flicks point to this longing, they don’t actually deliver the salvation for which we hunger. After the aliens are gone, after the bad guys have been vanquished, the silver screen heroes haven’t really saved us at all. After FEMA has cleaned up the mess, the ruin within still remains.
Echoing deeper realities, these stories are indicators of the need we feel within. They resonate with us because we know we must be saved. But the enemies in these tales are always outside of us, and therefore the salvation is too. How vastly different is this deliverance from that offered us in the gospel. While we know these are fantasies, mere yarns of entertaining distraction, still, these stories of physical deliverance can subtly divert our attention away from the true nature of our need, and thus the certain kind of hope we have in Christ.
I call them ho-hum heresies because they certainly don’t rise to the level of Arianism, or Pelagianism. No church council will ever debate their tenets or issue edicts against them. They are the everyday doctrines that seep into our subconscious and lead us to a different sort of savior. The little voices that whisper into our ears, seeking to convince us that our profound, eternal desires can be satisfied by anything temporal. Even as the simple blessings of God – food, clothing, health and wealth – are given to us so freely, this other narrative teaches us that having more of them is the key to our happiness. More outer things will satisfy our inner needs. But no seen savior will every truly save us.
“We were saved in this hope”, the Apostle Paul wrote. What hope? That one day all the wreckage of Adam’s fall will be undone! Our aging bodies, our weary world, the divisions that plague individuals and nations alike, and the weight of sin we strive beneath. This is the salvation we crave. But hope that is seen is no longer hope. “For why does one still hope for what he sees?” (Rom. 8:24) We are redeemed by a sacrifice we didn’t witness, provided by a God we cannot see, securing a destiny in an eternal kingdom we cannot touch…at least for now. Our entire Christian life is one of hope. The sacred testimony is that a future reality will be so glorious that it will consume all the sorrow we suffered along the long and arduous way. Could this really be true? The Spirit and the Bride say “Yes!”
This may all sound like metaphysical hogwash to the trembling heart, so firmly planted in the physical world, but it is precisely the hope held out to us. Time and time again our Lord reminds us not to be preoccupied with the stuff of this world. Even as He gives us all things to enjoy, He means to stimulate our vision of the unseen by them, not obscure our sight. The moment our hope terminates on the tangible, it ceases to be. And like the wispy contrails of a plane that has passed, the solidity of that thing fades away too, along with our security. Or as Proverbs says, “suddenly it sprouts wings, flying like an eagle toward heaven.” (Prov. 23:5) Our hope must never rest on things that moth and rust can destroy, or thieves break in and steal.
This kind of hope makes our hearts feel reckless, untethered, and on the edge of a bottomless pit. But the opposite is true. “The things that are seen are temporary, the things which are not seen are eternal.” (2 Cor. 4:18) Oh, that we would leave the treasures and securities of Egypt behind, as Moses did, “as seeing Him who is invisible.” (Heb. 11:27) For truly “the Eternal God is our dwelling place, and underneath are the everlasting arms.” (Deut. 33:27)
We have been “begotten again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled and that does not fade away, reserved in heaven for us, who are kept by the power of God through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.” (1 Pet. 1:3-5) This is the hope we were saved in. Knowing this, let us gird ourselves, as our Savior did, on the night he was betrayed, and wash the dust of this fading world from one another’s feet (John 13:3-5), while we wait for the city which has foundations. (Heb. 11:10)
