Implications

Words. They're goofy. They mean different things to different people. Ask a climber what they have on their "rack" and you will get a completely different response than asking the same question to a family of five in a minivan in an area known for mountain biking, or a skier enroute to the mountain. There are others that I won't get into. But it's funny, because in simply saying that, your brain automatically searches for the information I haven't given you, and fills in the blanks you are so desperately trying to leave empty.

There is a certain phrase I hear fairly often, and it may just be my nit-picky mind drawing theological implications from phrases in common "Christianese." But it bothers me. And again, perhaps it's unfounded, but I feel it's worth pointing to for no other reason than to think about the implications of what we say.

I read a lot of books for my work. And one of the things I read fairly often in the current set of resources I've been assigned is "He accepted the Lord as his Savior."

So-and-so became a Christian, and that's awesome! The best thing that we could pray for that person.

My mind, though, makes a distinction. Do we accept Jesus? What I do know, based on Romans 4:24 - 5:1, which speaks from the context of Abram believing God and "it was counted to him as righteousness" (Romans 4:3), is that we are accepted because of Jesus.

And maybe that's what people mean. But when we phrase it like that, the words sound as if we were somehow the activating force to God's grace, rather than him being the initiator of his plan to rescue us from the darkness in which we once walked.

Again, my point is not so much to say whether or not a way of expressing an idea is inherently right or wrong as it is to draw awareness to the implications of how we express those ideas.

We are sinful, fallen people. We cannot do anything to rid ourselves of our fallen state. The Holy Spirit through Paul says in the book of Ephesians (Chap. 2 specifically) that all Christians were once dead in our trespasses and sins, and were by nature children of wrath. Yet God, being rich in love and mercy, didn't give us what we deserved, but entered into human history as a man, Jesus of Nazareth, the Messiah, to live the life we couldn't live, and died the death we should have died, in which he absorbed all the wrath and fury of a holy God that would take every believer an eternity to endure. Jesus then demonstrated his power by rising from the dead, which is where the aforementioned passage in Romans comes into play:

It will be counted to us who believe in him who raised from the dead Jesus our Lord, ²⁵ who was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification.

5 Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Because Jesus bore our sin on the cross, we are justified. The debt has been paid. In addition, Jesus didn't just pay for the sin we committed before we were saved, but also gives us the right-standing that he has with his Father, and eternal life to those who repent of their sin and believe that Jesus really has paid it all, and that he is the way, the truth, and the life.

So, again, do we "accept Christ as our Lord and Savior?"

Sure, that's what we see when people come to faith in Christ.

But what we are accepting is that Jesus is Lord, and the gift of eternal life that he paid for. And because we are clothed in his righteousness, we are accepted.