Information About the Text
The author of the text about salvation as one of the main paradigms of Christianity is Thomas Humphries (2017), and his book is called “Who is Chosen?: Four Theories About Christian Salvation.” At the heart of the plot, there is the description of some of the Sacred Scripture’s events and the interpretation of certain theses concerning God’s essence and his participation in people’s lives. Humphries (2017) examines the history of the formation of the theological concept based on faith in Jesus Christ and mentions biblical excerpts from the Old and New Testament. The theme of salvation is key, and the reasoning is about who can count on God’s eternal grace.
Main Theses
Despite the belief that salvation is the grace that God sacrifices for the benefit of people, Humphries (2017) considers different approaches to interpreting who deserves such mercy and whether all of the inhabitants of the earth can count on it. As the author argues, “God clearly has a plan to save his people, but it is not clear whether his people includes some but not others” (Humphries, 2017, p. 2).
The doctrine of the Creator as the supreme guarantor of salvation is considered in the context of both the old teachings concerning the commandments received on Mount Sinai and the New Testament where humanity is promised eternal life in the heavenly kingdom. Also, the concepts of different Gospels are compared, for instance, the texts of St. Luke and St. John have different positions regarding an opportunity to count on the mercy of God. All these arguments concern one topic and do not go beyond the scope of the Sacred Scripture and its canons.
The history of the salvation idea’s development as the basic principle of biblical teaching is considered in detail, starting with the creation of the world and ending with the Ten Commandments given by God to Moses on Mount Sinai. Relationships among the progenitors of the human race are given in order to receive a more accurate picture of the history of the Christian thought’s birth and the canons describing the divine principle.
The author quotes the Old Testament and notes that “even Jesus admits that some, but not all, will belong to God under Jesus’ ‘blood of the covenant which will be shed on behalf of many for the forgiveness of sins’” (Humphries, 2017, p. 6). Such an approach indicates that only the elect will receive the right to salvation, and peoples’ paths and actions should be in accordance with the rules and regulations that are given by God.
The explanation of this position is given on the basis of some excerpts from the Sacred Scripture. As Humphries (2017) notes, this set of rules “seems to speak in different ways about the requirements for attaining salvation” (p. 7).
One of the primary issues that are referred to is an exegetical one. This question is a reflection on the topic of who can be saved by God’s mercy and whether salvation is available to mere mortals. Also, the author presents three main strategies for a potential solution to this problem and argues that interpretations may differ (Humphries, 2017). The key idea is that there are too different approaches to the substantiation of various opinions, and the ambiguity of judgments is an obstacle to the knowledge of the truth.
Reference
Humphries, T. L. (2017). Who is chosen?: Four theories about Christian salvation. Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock Publishers.