I didn't have a lot of time left, but I wanted the students to at least have another category in mind when they think about salvation, a category that could collect all the positive things we talked about that salvation entailed. Salvation should be about sanctification, justice, social relationships, and breaking the power of sin in our lives. And most importantly, it should do all these things while not making God our problem. Gratitude, rather than fear, should be the emotional tone.
The category I gave the students was Passover. In the Old Testament the two main ways salvation was experienced that are carried over into the Christian imagination are the Day of Atonement and Passover. Penal substitutionary atonement mainly works with Day of Atonement images, the shedding of blood, the scapegoat, and the washing away of sins. Penal substitutionary atonement recasts theses images in a forensic metaphor.
But the other way to think about salvation from the Old Testament is Passover. In this image we're enslaved to the power of sin, a power that wrecks our world, our relationships, and our well-being. Salvation, in this view, is God, through the power of the Holy Spirit, entering our world, relationships, and lives to set us free. We, more and more, participate in God's work to repair the world. The framework of Passover gathers up a lot of the things that penal substitutionary atonement leaves out or distorts. And most importantly, Passover imagery doesn't make God your problem. God is acting, rather, as liberator. No wrath or hell, only gracious, faithful power and love that effects our salvation.
