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Salvation is everywhere? Religions are the obvious places salvation is sold, particularly those of Abrahamic descent, but even Eastern systems of faith promise to save our life now or after we die. The Religious Industrial Complex saves us from Dante’s Hell, Greek Mythology’s Hades, or the living Hell of repeating life’s suffering over and over. Look closer. Every business promises to deliver our lives from some version of suffering whether in the microcosms of life. A new car saves us from car hell. Dentists save us from cavity hell. Investors save us from financial hell. GLP-1 peptides save us from fat Hell.

Despite so many promises for deliverance, few seem to understand true salvation. Many people ask: “Which “fire insurance policy do I pick? Is salvation just the mythology of all human history hoping things will get better one day. Is it just obedience to religion?

The salvation offered by the Christian religion is probably the most known, but despite countless promises from the Old Testament prophets, the captured words of John the Baptist, Jesus, and his disciples in the New Testament, salvation remains more obscured by religion than understood by it. So what has the Bible really been saying about salvation?

When we asked each denomination to define salvation according to the Bible and the scale of the problem. Which of these denominations was Jesus? Or his disciples? How does Hagar, a small town prostitute possess the same saving faith of Abraham (who wasn’t a Christian)? Where exactly does a single bible character “ask Jesus into his or her heart?” Who of those “saved” by John the Baptist or Jesus understood “substitutionary atonement?” Why is Jesus severe with the religious and friends of sinners? Any cursory reading of scripture reveals that that the Christian religion promotes a salvation quite unlike the gospel message of Isaiah, Jeremiah, John the Baptist, Jesus and Paul.

How is it possible that 2000 years of church history could be mistaken? Binaries.

The reason salvation is not understood is that salvation is viewed through a binary lens (ex: we are either saved or not). Because we assume a person is saved or unsaved, lost or found, going to heaven or hell, blind or seeing, in or out, known or unknown, we are forever chasing bible verses to substantiate our bias. One denomination insists salvation is as Paul explains “…apart from works.” Another insists on James’ framework of “faith apart from works is dead.”

The Bible opens up when we adopt a ternary (composed of three) understanding. You could say: True salvation is only understood through a ternary framework. What is my proof of this?

Consider the centerpiece of Human and Divine history, Jesus Christ. Was Jesus Divine or Human? A binary answer results in one of two heresies, Docetism and Ebionism. The ternary framework reconciles all scripture into a “Both” answer. While many denominations uphold Christ as ternary, can you think of a single one that teaches salvation in the same way?

Today I’ll riff on six biblically based considerations about salvation that the ternary framework opens us to.

1. Freedom from religion (all are equal in their inability to save) Christ alone saves us.
2. Christological continuum, everyone must move, wide and narrow.
3. 3 ongoing aspects of salvation, each piece described as the whole, process more like cell division than building a house. soils,
4. Partial believers: every one believes some, no one believes all. workers and justice.
5. Kingdom Here (begin to experience, aware/see, understanding) not evacuation. not deferment, following Christ’s teachings/ all parables
6. Gospel is both (More sinful, more loved / more saved, more unsaved) Everyone who sins is justified.

Be warned, fundamentalism hates the ternary framework. They call it neutrality. They call it “lukewarm.” They embrace statements like: “You are either for me or against me.” Be careful of such certainty and pride, because it is a clear indication that such people do not understand the Gospel. Ask them to employ this insistent binary to answer the question of Christ’s deity or humanity. If the answer “both” they are using the binary as a “power play”, wielding scripture against you to manipulate behavior (likely for their profit). A ternary doesn’t mean that there are no contrasting realities, it means that through the lens of love and scripture, there is more to the story than polemics.

The best place to start discovering and experiencing a ternary salvation, is with any loving relationship. Are your closest relationships all bad, or all good? What friendships exist that are perfect all the time? Do you have a pet that you love who still does the wrong thing? In love, we understand how salvation works.

Salvation is experienced as:

1. Awareness.
2. Healing/Deliverance.
3. Cleansing.
4. Divine Union.
5. Forgiveness.
6. Love. Charity. Grace.
7. Goodness. Generosity.
8. Peace.

The list goes on to include every aspect of human experience. Like I said at the beginning: Salvation is everywhere.