There has been significant dispute within Christianity over the centuries about the structure of salvation. I will severely oversimplify throughout this post, but I generally belong to the Reformed branch of Christianity. Reformed Christianity emphasized the power or sovereignty of God, the authority and usefulness of the Bible, and the centrality of God’s grace in Jesus Christ as a change or reformation of what was perceived by the Reformers to be the corruption and distraction of the Roman Catholic church from these ideas. I embrace something like historic Arminianism, which is a modified form of Calvinism. (Insider theology geeks will recognize that I am working in this post with the TULIP acronym, which you can read more about in an excellent article by Brian Abasciano and Martin Glynn.)

Why talk about the structure of salvation? Isn’t this a pretty theoretical and divisive topic? Here’s my thing. The basic frame of a grace-based perspective is a gracious God. The structure of salvation builds out that basic frame and matters because 1) it emphasizes a realistic view of our broken world and our broken hearts, 2) it centers the gracious character and action of God in salvation, and 3) it places proper emphasis on the importance of human response to God’s grace.

Here I have reduced the basics of God’s grace in salvation to five questions and corresponding answers:

  1. What is the basic problem facing humanity? God knew from before creation that sin would come into the world, impacting all of creation and fracturing humanity’s relationship with God.
  2. What did God do in response to sin? God chose from the beginning of time to send Jesus for the redemption of creation and the salvation of humanity.
  3. What did God do on the cross? God provided in Jesus for the redemption of all creation and the salvation of all people.
  4. What is God’s posture toward humanity? God offers salvation in Jesus to all people and works in big and small ways through the Holy Spirit to draw all people to the truth and to himself.
  5. What is the eternal status of believers? God secures the salvation of all who are in Christ, although believers can consciously stubbornly reject the Holy Spirit and forsake their faith and lose their salvation.

The primary points here are God’s knowledge and action, and the genuine choice facing humanity. If you find this post to be too much right now, that’s ok. It’s a good reference point when you are ready to explore the structure of God’s grace in salvation.