Christ’s death at the hands of the Gentiles (Matt.20:19; Lk.18:32) is, in the first place, a death for Israel or in the place of the nation. As the Son of man figure he pre-empts the suffering of the ‘saints’ who are ‘in him’ or who belong to him. Jesus’ words in Gethsemane, ‘Let this cup pass from me’ (Matt.26:39), are a reference to the Old Testament cup of divine judgment on the people (cf. Ps.75:8; Is.51:17, 22; Jer.49:12; Lam.2:13; Ezek.23:31-34; Hab.2:16). It is not a universal judgment for a universal state of sinfulness that he faces but judgment for the particular sin of Israel’s persistent rebellion against God. But the ‘cross’ is also the means by which the separation of Jews and Gentiles is overcome: the ‘law of commandments and ordinances’, which enforced the separation, has been abolished ‘in his flesh’ (Eph.2:11-22).
We might suggest, then, that ‘Jesus’ death for us’ is effective in two particular respects. First, it is the basis for the salvation of the people of God during the eschatological crisis: Israel will not be completely annihilated by the coming judgment because Jesus has died ‘as a ransom for many’ (Matt.20:28; Mk.10:45). The disciples in Judea will be saved by fleeing to the mountains (Matt.24:16-18; Mk.13:14). Peter is conscious of the historical urgency motivating the preaching of the gospel when he exhorts the crowds on the day of Pentecost, ‘Save yourselves from this crooked generation’ (Acts 2:40). It is in this context of catastrophic judgment on Israel that he asserts, ‘And it shall be that whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved’ (Acts 2:21). When later he tells the council in Jerusalem that ‘we believe that we shall be saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus’ (Acts 15:11), he has in view the impending judgment on the city and the fall-out from that event for the wider Roman world: it is not Jews alone who need to be saved from the coming wrath (Acts 11:12).
Those who do not ‘survive’ the ‘birthpangs’ of the new age, who die because they have chosen to follow the same path as Jesus, will be raised with him and share in his kingdom. The leading argument of Romans 5-8 is that those who have been justified by faith and therefore have peace with God (5:1), who can expect to be saved from the wrath of God (5:9), have a hope of sharing in the glory of God through the experience of suffering (5:2-5; 8:17, 18, 29-30). But prior to this historically limited eschatological hope, justification by faith provides the basis on which people become ‘descendants’ of Abraham (4:11-13; 9:8), members of a community drawn from all the nations, who will ‘inherit the world’ (4:13). Salvation and justification are essentially corporate categories: what matters is that there continues to be a justified people of God, not that individuals are approved for entry into heaven.
The second effect of Jesus’ death for us is that it brings about the reconstitution of Israel as a people of grace rather than of law, possessing the Spirit of God, including Gentiles. Paul’s critical statement in Ephesians 2:8-9 about salvation by grace through faith and ‘not because of works’ belongs to a larger argument about the reconciliation of Gentiles to God and their incorporation into a ‘holy temple in the Lord’, which is the ‘dwelling place of God in the Spirit’ (2:21-22). This argument needs to be taken seriously. Of course, by making themselves part of the redeemed community of Israel at a time of impending distress, Gentiles also associate themselves with the oppressed saints of the Most High and have the same hope of being glorified at the coming of the Son of man. But fundamentally, they are ‘saved’ not in order to get into heaven but in order to be part of a redeemed community, where the Spirit of God is active, which experiences the life of the age that will come after the crisis (cf. Acts 13:46), from which they had previously been excluded.
Salvation in the Old Testament is a very worldly notion. It describes God’s intervention to rescue the people from a difficult or dangerous situation and restore them to wholeness: salvation is health, safety, peace, military victory, deliverance; it is the continuing well-being of the people. Only in extreme instances does salvation require rescue beyond death in the form of resurrection. The eschatological crisis that marked the transition between the old Israel and the new brought salvation as resurrection to the fore because the continuation of the community required faithfulness and steadfastness to the point of death. But we should not lose sight of the fact that salvation is the response of God to a particular set of concrete circumstances.
Most of what is said about ‘salvation’ in the New Testament, therefore, must be interpreted in relation to the eschatological watershed of the coming of the kingdom of God (the destruction of Jerusalem, the defeat of Roman imperial power, the emergence of the church) and the experience of God through the Spirit in the context of the ‘new covenant’ community. Beyond this, however, at the point when death itself is overcome (1 Cor.15:26; Rev.20:14), all people will be judged according to how they have lived their lives: ‘the dead were judged by what was written in the books, by what they had done’ (Rev.20:12). This is the final and universal judgment.
This understanding has some important implications. It may help us to resolve the tension between the principle of salvation by grace and texts such as Romans 2:6, which states that God ‘will render to every man according to his works’. Paul goes on to argue in this passage (12-16) that Gentiles who do not have the law will be judged according to conscience – not condemned out of hand because they have not believed the gospel. It may offer, therefore, a better way of settling the argument about exclusivism, at least inasmuch as exclusion from the covenant community does not equate directly with exclusion from heaven. In any case, it certainly shifts the emphasis from getting to heaven to being an effective people of God now. The church has become far too complacent about its participation in the cultured olive tree of Israel (cf. Rom.11:17-24). The argument reinforces a sense of ethical and spiritual obligation, not least for Christians: salvation simply gets the people of God to the point where they can start doing ‘good works’.