Reflections on Salvation, #1: “The Kingdom of God is within you”

Jesus Christ Teaching on Mountain, by Sealino, CC licensing

Some of us make the mistake of thinking that salvation is all about where you end up at the end of this life. One of the consequences of this is that the question of salvation becomes treated by some as a matter for spirited and often bitter controversy: Whom does God love enough to allow into heaven? At whom is God angry enough to send to hell? Excessively focusing on eternal life as heaven leads many to think of life on earth as merely the time in which you follow the rules that get you entrance into heaven. The rules are then perceived as merely external and arbitrary.

But this is the wrong way of looking at it. Although salvation is made complete in heaven, it is, in fact, also a concrete reality in the present moment, for those in a state of grace. Salvation means something real today. It has content in the here and now. Though it is not usually directly discernible (for more than one reason), it has a concrete shape in the soul of the person in which it resides. In other words, there are certain mental and spiritual prerequisites for entry into heaven. But they are not prerequisites merely in the sense of being external requirements to be checked off of a list. They are prerequisites more in the sense of being constitutive elements of what salvation is.

It’s the difference between having scored a 150 on an IQ exam and simply BEING intelligent. The former is a sign of the latter, but the latter is what really counts.

To help us understand this more it is helpful to consider one of the most important ideas in the preaching of Jesus: The kingdom of God. What is the kingdom of God? It is wherever God’s rule is present. In the Gospels, Jesus preached that the kingdom of God is at hand. The time is approaching quickly when God’s rule, God’s order, will be here. We can think of this time as the age of the church, or as heaven, but especially as the new heavens and earth after the resurrection at the end of history. But Jesus also preached that the kingdom of God is within. God’s order is not only present on a larger scale but also on a smaller scale, within our souls. When God rules in our souls there is the order of divine virtue, and from that order flows peace and joy.

So then, there are certain concrete elements of the present state of salvation and these elements create proper order and harmony in the soul. Therefore, divine faith, for example, is not required for salvation as some kind of badge or ticket for entry, but as part of eternal life itself, at least as it is manifest on this side of the grave. The same is true of divine hope and charity/love, certain other virtues and spiritual gifts, and most importantly, the indwelling presence of God.

Our Lord teaches us as much when he says,

This is eternal life: to know you, the one true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.

If we know Him, even now, in this life, then we already possess eternal life.

As was indicated above, the state of salvation is not directly discernible, and in fact one can never have absolute certainty of one’s own or another’s salvation, apart from some divine revelation or canonization by the Church.

Why is salvation not directly discernible? One reason is, as our Lord says, that the kingdom of God begins as a small mustard seed and grows to become a large tree. Many (most?) of those who carry within themselves the gift of salvation have not yet brought the seed to growth and maturity. And indeed no one will reach perfect maturity on this side of the grave. As it is, we carry the gift of divine life in earthen vessels, and the vessels bear the signs of decay.

There’s another reason why salvation is not usually directly discernible. Because we only rarely have the eyes to see it, and only then if we are trained spiritually. If I tell you about things of the earth, says the Lord, and you do not believe me, how will you believe if I tell you things of heaven? The wind blows where it wills and no one knows where it has come from and where it is going, the same is true of those who are born of the Spirit.

To come back full circle: yes, there are prerequisites for getting into heaven. But these prerequisites are not arbitrary. They have to do with the nature of salvation itself. They have to do with what it is to be a human being — and what it is to be a child of God, to be like God. Therefore, “getting to heaven” should not be proposed exclusively or primarily as the meaning of salvation.