Can you do this?

 I'm reading someone else's nearly complete work with a critical eye. I would like comments on the following:

Define Witness salvation doctrine. What is the 'process' of salvation, and what if anything does God require in return for salvation?

            I am, as almost every reader of this blog knows, a very long-serving Witness. My activity is greatly diminished by health. But my faith is not. I may do better with this issue by telling you how I see divine salvation. And I believe this is what we teach as an organization, though I may use different terms.

 

            Salvation comes to all men through Jesus’ sacrifice. It is not the sole possession of a small band of Christians, but is meant to bring all men into peace with God. This is the import of I John 2:1-3:

 

My little children, I am writing you these things that you may not commit a sin. And yet, if anyone does commit a sin, we have a helper with the Father, Jesus Christ, a righteous one.  And he is a propitiatory sacrifice for our sins, yet not for ours only but also for the whole world’s.  And by this we have the knowledge that we have come to know him, namely, if we continue observing his commandments.  He that says: “I have come to know him,” and yet is not observing his commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in this person. But whoever does observe his word, truthfully in this person the love of God has been made perfect. By this we have the knowledge that we are in union with him. He that says he remains in union with him is under obligation himself also to go on walking just as that one walked.

 

            John does not teach universal salvation. Instead he suggests that for Jesus’ sacrifice to be effective in our individual cases, we must come to know the Father. [The grammar here, I believe, points to knowing the Father, though in John 17:3 we have Jesus saying: “This means everlasting life, their coming to know you, the only true God, and the one whom you sent, Jesus Christ.” This verse points to intimate knowledge of both.]

            1 John suggests that for Christ’s sacrifice to be of enduring efficacy we must observe God’s commandments. He points to no other – no man, no organization of men, no self-imposed beliefs. If one knows God, then one obeys God because he has an intimate relationship with him.

            Knowing God is not an instant revelation. The way Jesus explains it in John 17 is that it is similar to making a new friend. This is a path that leads to repentance, confession and changed life. Without defining each, let me focus on confession. In the account at Matthew 3:1-6 we find that repentance leads to confession: “In those days John the Baptist came preaching in the wilderness of Judea,  saying: ‘Repent, for the Kingdom of the heavens has drawn near.’  ... Then the people of Jerusalem and all Judea and all the country around the Jordan were going out to him, and they were baptized by him in the Jordan River, openly confessing their sins.”

            The word translated “confessing/confess” is ἐξομολογούμενοι. Moderate, even elementary familiarity with Koine Greek should give you its definition. It means to speak out in the same way as another, to fully agree. So confession of sins is made to God, has a public element (I used to live that way but no longer), and means that God’s thoughts, commandments, and concepts are adopted as our own, and our former beliefs are abandoned. This is not organizational conformity, and I will not debate that here. A discussion of the verse that says to obey those forging the way in the faith is not appropriate here and will only foment controversy.

            So salvation is not dependent on any work of ours. We can do nothing to obligate God. We are instead obligated to God. So confession and repentance simply mean that we accept Christ’s propitiatory [peacemaking] sacrifice as made for ourselves, and we assume the obligation to obey His commandments. Obedience is the natural result of faith.

            There are many ransom/atonement theories. When Agustus Strong wrote his massive Systematic Theology he presented his readers with a long, tiresome list. Most who define the act of atonement ignore its basis in the Mosaic pattern. Yet, Paul says that the one foreshadowed the other. If we believe what Paul wrote, then we see in the communion sacrifice under the law a pattern for us. The communion sacrifices were a meal shared with God and the sacrificing priest. To sit at God’s table, one must be his friend. To be his friend means to adopt the behaviors he commands and suggests. So acts of faith follow naturally from repentance and confession.

            Witnesses do not ask, “are you saved?” God saved everyone through his son’s sacrifice. It’s an irrelevant question, one designed to divide co-religionists from those who do not accept the questioner’s definition of salvation. Instead, a Witness may inquire about baptism because we see it as a symbol of one’s commitment to accept Christ’s sacrifice and live by God’s standards.

 

Have I mis-defined Witness doctrine?