Salvation by Allegiance Alone

PRACTICING ALLEGIANCE

The gospel was given as an unchanging, permanent proclamation by Jesus and the apostles to the church for the sake of the world. But at the same time we have our own cultural ideas about the gospel and salvation—ideas that have been informed by our familiarity with the original but also, for both better and worse, by subsequent church history and our own contemporary culture. The gospel can never be modified, but it can be clarified, and it must uniquely inform each generation. Our ability to successfully retrieve the gospel today depends on our adroitness in negotiating these ancient and modern horizons.

Accordingly, the bulk of this book has been purposed toward exposing ancient meanings and contrasting them with contemporary understandings. How were the gospel, “faith,” works, and salvation understood by the earliest Christians? And how did these categories interface with related topics such as justification, sanctification, baptism, the final judgment, and heaven? By pursuing a historically informed approach throughout this book, it is hoped that new light has been shed on that old but ever-fresh story.

The whole of this book intends to be practical for the church—not as a how-to manual but in casting vision—to help clarify central theological matters so that today’s church can more effectively achieve its mission. This final chapter seeks to tease out the implications of the salvation-by-allegiance-alone thesis by making a couple directed comments about specific applications for the church today. But I want to begin with an analogy that seeks to combine several facets of our study into one comprehensive image.

Comparisons can help us understand and remember complex information, but we also must recognize their limitations. For example, when God is compared to a lion (e.g., Job 10:16; Jer. 49:19; Hos. 5:14), we must bear in mind that there are ways in which God is very much like a lion (e.g., able to bring swift disaster) and other ways in which he is not at all like a lion. God is not yellowish-brown in color, nor does he have four velvety paws—with all due respect to C. S. Lewis! So please recognize that all metaphors limp, and this one may be so poorly contrived that it merely crawls. Nevertheless, with a little encouragement from the apostle Paul, who exhorts us to take up “the shield of ‘faith’” (Eph. 6:16), I invite you to consider the metaphor of a shield.

The Shield of Allegiance

As a portion of the full armor of God, we are instructed to take up “the shield of ‘faith’” so that we can “extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one” (Eph. 6:16). I want you to imagine pistis—what has traditionally been called “faith” but what I have argued is better comprehensively regarded as “allegiance” when discussing salvation—as a circular shield that can ably protect you from the schemes of the evil one, preserving you for eternal life. For the allegiance to be saving, each person must have their own unique allegiance shield. And all three surfaces of the shield—the inside, the edge, and the front—must be properly crafted in order for the shield to serve its purpose of securing eternal life. But how does one first acquire a shield of allegiance? As was discussed in chapter 5, ultimately it can only come from outside oneself, as a gift from God, when this gift is freely received.

For your shield to be effective, it must have a sturdy interior. In fact, for it to be a saving shield of allegiance, only one type of interior will suffice. Looking at the inside of your shield, the portion you hold close to your body, you find the eight stages of Jesus’s life story (the gospel) indelibly etched into the metal, signifying that you, as the owner of the shield, mentally agree with their truthfulness.

The Gospel: An Outline

Jesus the king

1. preexisted with the Father,

2. took on human flesh, fulfilling God’s promises to David,

3. died for sins in accordance with the Scriptures,

4. was buried,

5. was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures,

6. appeared to many,

7. is seated at the right hand of God as Lord, and

8. will come again as judge.

If you can affirm the truthfulness of the eight stages that comprise the gospel, then you can heft the shield, and the first component of saving allegiance is in place.

Then your eyes are drawn to the edge of the shield (the flat but circular surface that binds the inside of the shield to its outer face). Again, one and only one thing can appear on the edge for it to function ably as a saving-allegiance shield. You see the words “I profess that Jesus is Lord” embossed there, encircling the entire shield—that is, you see your own personal confession of loyalty. These are the words you spoke (exactly or in essence) when you first committed yourself to the service of Jesus as the true king of heaven and earth. It is this edge that holds the entire shield together, and fittingly so, for the confession of loyalty is the formal gateway to salvation—but it is inseparable from the whole shield of allegiance.1

Now, flipping the shield over, on the front side you see something strange. The metallic front of your shield is decorated with a marvelous engraving. It is a picture of your own image—wait!—it is a picture of Jesus the Christ. Stunningly, somehow the front of the shield is liquid metal, a moving picture—a picture of your own image in the process of being transformed into the superimposed image of Jesus the resurrected king. It a picture of your own current life story in process. You, through embodied fidelity to Jesus, are increasingly taking on his character qualities and participating in his proper stewardship over creation. You are becoming conformed to his image. Again, this enacted fidelity is not an optional extra but is a crucial portion of the allegiance shield. And on the front of the shield above this fluid image you notice a fixed banner announcing the royal household to which you belong. The color of the banner is crimson and white, and it reads “Child of God.”

After a lifetime of weary battles, your shield of allegiance (which is already your present possession) will have served its purpose. Many of your comrades will still be fighting the battle, but, having died while remaining in Jesus the Messiah, your time for waging war will have ended. Yet at some distant point in time, after the final battle, you will hear the blast of a resounding trumpet! Those who are dead in the Christ will be raised (1 Thess. 4:16–18). Suddenly your renewed, transformed body, identical to the transformed image on the shield, will leap from the dust of the earth and begin to walk about, fully embodied. Now changed so that you fully conform to the image of the king, you journey into the new creation, faintly recognizing the dim impressions from the old heaven and earth that have been drawn by God into the new. Already having begun to reign with the Christ and to share in his glory in your previous life, in your resurrected body you are now ready to reign over creation with him fully as a nondistorted image of God.

Each surface of the shield is necessary for a saving allegiance—mental affirmation of the truthfulness of the gospel, declaration of fealty to Jesus as the sovereign ruler, and embodied loyalty to Jesus as the king. The goal of salvation is resurrection life: to join with Jesus the king and the rest of God’s people in ruling the new creation; to become a true idol of God now conformed to the image of the Christ Jesus.

Toward a Better Gospel Invitation

We have been commissioned to share the good news about Jesus the Christ far and wide, to extend God’s saving offer of kingdom citizenship. How can we do it more effectively? There are countless ways to present the gospel—casual conversations, formal sermons, classroom teaching, books, tracts, songs, street performances, protests, dances, plays, revivals, prayer meetings, mission trips. The list could go on. Not all methods are equally effective. Nor is there an ideal, archetypical technique for sharing the gospel—as if finding the right program or formula is the key to unlocking the mysterious human heart. The New Testament itself implicitly warns against a one-size-fits-all solution, as it evidences a diversity in style, genre, approach, and technique. So the best way to present the gospel will largely depend on the Spirit’s leading with respect to the specific people, contexts, and situations.

But in every case, for it to be a gospel invitation, it must be the actual gospel that is presented in proper relationship to larger ideas of “faith,” works, and salvation, not a pale approximation. So while we can’t specify the best method or program, we can discern appropriate content and safeguard against common missteps. Drawing together many of the leading themes of this book, the remarks that follow are offered in the hope that they can contribute to a more accurate and effective gospel proclamation.

The Gospel Foregrounds Jesus as King

This point should be regarded as absolutely nonnegotiable: a true gospel invitation must summon the hearer toward a confession of allegiance to Jesus as the king or cosmic Lord. Although none of the eight elements that make up the full gospel can be excluded as nonessential (see the next subsection), one carries extra weight: Jesus is seated at the right hand of God as Lord. Why? First, this element shows that saving pistis is not primarily faith in forgiveness of sins or trust in God’s promise to make us righteous (although it involves those things too), but is above all allegiance to Jesus as the Christ, the one who shares in God’s very throne. Jesus as the universal Lord is the primary object toward which our saving “faith”—that is, our saving allegiance—is directed. We must stop asking others to invite Jesus into their hearts and start asking them to swear allegiance to Jesus the king. Second, all the other elements that make up the gospel refer to past or future events in Jesus’s career, whereas the kingdom of God has been launched and Jesus is presently ruling the entire cosmos. Accordingly, the presence of the king and his kingdom fundamentally determines all current and future reality. The present-tense moment of choice in a gospel invitation should always be understood to be a response to the present-tense reality of Jesus’s kingly rule.

Most of the confusion about the gospel in our contemporary church culture stems from a failure to see that “Jesus is the king” is the high point of the good news. In a “salvation culture” it may be eagerly acknowledged that “Jesus is Lord,” but Jesus’s cross is what saves us, not his resurrection or lordship, so that lordship can be freely ignored without risking salvation. This is a dangerous error. A “gospel culture,” on the other hand, recognizes that “Jesus is king” is integral to the good news itself, affirming that we indeed are saved by Jesus’s sacrifice and resurrection, but these are only personally effective when allegiance to Jesus as king forges a union with him.

Jesus’s Story, Not a Procedure

If we find ourselves in a salvation culture rather than a gospel culture in the church today, it is also because we have failed to give the gospel its due as a grand, sweeping cosmic drama that encompasses Jesus’s entire career. Instead the gospel is treated as a step-by-step process focused on saving the individual hearer. In this process, the hearer is gradually made aware of her or his sinfulness and need for a savior, and God’s provision through “faith” in Jesus’s death for sins. While this process captures portions of the truth, it introduces serious distortions, so it is absolutely imperative that we recognize that this is not the gospel. Any authentic gospel invitation must recount (or otherwise presuppose or imply) its eight constituent parts noted above. These are the nonnegotiable elements that together make up the full gospel.

Can the Gospel Be Reduced?

These eight elements that constitute the whole gospel can remain condensed or be expanded in great detail, but any gospel invitation that leaves out a portion of the gospel can put the hearer at risk of misunderstanding or of an insufficient response—for the hearer has not received or responded to the complete gospel. Above all, because the error is so common, it must be emphasized that the gospel cannot be accurately reduced to a forgiveness transaction, as in the slogans “I am trusting in Jesus’s righteousness alone” or “Believe that Jesus died for your sins and you will be saved.” For forgiveness of sins is just one element in the gospel, and these slogans do not aim saving pistis at the climax of the gospel.

This does not mean that all eight elements of the gospel must be slavishly rehearsed in any single gospel presentation. That is, the risk of ill effects because of selective omission of some of the elements is minimal in some contexts. For example, if a person is proclaiming the gospel in a church setting, Jesus’s preexistence with God and arrival in the Davidic line are probably already known and accepted facts, so they need not always be spelled out. Or they might be evoked by mentioning a gospel-related fact, such as Jesus’s virgin birth. Similarly, it is obviously not necessary to mention Jesus’s burial every single time the gospel is presented, for it is implicit in Jesus’s death and resurrection. So the eight elements need not be doggedly reproduced for every gospel invitation. Still, there are several reasons that a fuller narrative should be preferred.

Retaining the Entire Gospel Story

Although omission of certain elements will sometimes be sensible, nevertheless gospel invitations should err on the side of completeness so that the church can recover the storied dimension of the gospel. For when we proclaim the entirety, it implicitly positions the reader to see that the proper response to the story is not just “faith” in the sense of belief or trust, but is allegiance to the enthroned king. There are three further reasons that the complete narrative is preferable.

First, the full gospel keeps the focus squarely on Jesus rather than on the self, compelling the self to be swept up into the saving story of Jesus, rather than allowing the self to remain at the center. The gospel proper is not a salvation procedure focused on the individual. It is the universe-wide story of Jesus’s entire revealed life—from preexistence to anticipated return—a story that unveils God’s saving power for the whole created order. It is a salvation story into which the individual can be whisked up when he or she joins the allegiant community. Gospel culture facilitates total integration of the forgiven self into the cosmic Jesus story; salvation culture encourages the self to stanch the flowing sin-wounds by applying a forgiven-so-I-can-go-to-heaven tourniquet, but it does little to remove the self from the center.3

Second, hearing a good story is more compelling than analyzing a list of propositions. A salvation procedure says: “Let me walk you through a few facts, and let’s see if I can get you to agree with them, and if so, then I challenge you to take action.” When an audience is marched half-willingly through a salvation procedure, they can perhaps be excused for feeling that a slick salesman is trying to hoodwink them into buying a product. A good story immerses—and the gospel is the greatest of all stories. It allows the hearer to enter into another time, place, and space to recognize his or her own face among the hostile crowds wrongly putting Jesus to death. The hearer feels the plot tension rise to a climax in the crucifixion, and then is flooded with glad relief when it resolves in the resurrection and enthronement.

When the full gospel is presented, the call to action is organically embedded in the story. Jesus the enthroned king has summoned everyone, including you and me, to turn away from all other allegiances and to give him exclusive loyalty. If we declare allegiance to him, he will send his Spirit so that we will be united with him—forgiven and liberated from sin—and can subsequently maintain allegiance (however imperfectly). When a gospel invitation retains its natural storied shape, the hearer does not feel like he or she has been manipulated into a halfhearted agreement with random factual propositions; the call to action emerges organically from the story into which the hearer has been drawn. Jesus has become the king by offering himself so that his enemies might receive forgiveness: will you repent from hostilities and pledge him your loyalty, receiving forgiveness and the gift of resurrection life?

Third, story is foundational to worldview construction and maintenance since (arguably) all comprehensive explanations of existence ultimately take a storied shape. True repentance that accompanies salvation entails a certain amount of worldview reconstruction, but for that reconstruction to transpire in harmony with reason, it must rely on a foundational master story or metanarrative. The gospel story of Jesus integrates and serves as the climax to the larger Christian metanarrative: the story of God’s creation, the fall, the election of Israel, the gospel, the establishment of the missional church, and the future renewal of creation.4 When we issue an invitation, preserving the gospel as the complete story of Jesus’s career and as the capstone to the Christian metanarrative helps the repentant sinner to undertake a gospel-centered rather than salvation-centered worldview reconstruction. Remembering that pistis is not directly equivalent to the English word faith also helps us avoid the false idea that Christian salvation is beyond, or contrary to, evidence or reason. Since Jesus’s kingship is the fitting capstone to the whole biblical story, is the fulfillment of scriptural prophecy, and accords with our experience, allegiance to Jesus as the cosmic king is based on evidence and is reasonable.

God’s Holistic Transformative Power

A better gospel invitation will maintain an emphasis on personal forgiveness of sins and eternal life as an effect of receiving the good news but will not emphasize heaven. Heaven is best regarded as a temporary abode where we await the real goal, God’s new creation (which is really a radical restoration of the present creation). Rather than focusing on heaven as the place where the disembodied soul experiences bliss after death, we should speak of the aim of salvation in holistic terms.

In the gospel, God’s power to make things right is revealed, and the effects are personal, social, and cosmic. Human salvation is directed toward God’s intention to restore individuals, communities, and the world as the kingdom of God continues to break into history. When we give allegiance, we become new creatures set free from the enslaving power of sin. As we worship the Son of God, who is the authentic, original image of God, our own distorted Adamic image is transformed, so that we are personally renewed. As we are transformed into the image of Jesus the Christ, we bring God’s wise service, stewardship, and rule to one another and to the remainder of creation. Paul in fact declares that the whole creation waits in eager expectation for the full revelation of the sons (and daughters) of God (Rom. 8:19). That is, the frustrated creation is groaning as it yearns for the sons and daughters of God (refreshed in their glorious visage so that they are fully authentic image-bearers) to take up their God-intended role as stewards.

When allegiance is given to Jesus the king, God’s making all things right, his holistic salvation, moves forward, for we increasingly are able to mediate God’s presence to others and to the rest of creation. It begins as individuals are united to Jesus and to one another in the church, and then it spills out to the world. Someday the whole creation will attain to its full measure of life-sustaining fruitfulness. The citizens of the new Jerusalem will gaze directly at the face of Jesus the king, the Lamb of God. And the final transformation into the image of Jesus the Messiah will be complete, so that “the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the LORD as the waters cover the sea” (Hab. 2:14).

False Assurance, Perseverance, and Works

A better gospel presentation will not give total assurance of the security of final salvation on the basis of the acceptance of the gospel invitation. It may be pastorally pleasant to say, “If you prayed this prayer with me, and you sincerely asked Jesus into your heart, then you can have complete confidence that you are now eternally saved and on the road to heaven.” This sort of comfort is precisely what the audience loves to hear, making it tempting to give it, but unfortunately it is a false assurance. To suggest otherwise is dangerous. Those who remain “in the Christ” do have perfect assurance of final salvation in and through him, but we cannot have perfect assurance that any single person without doubt is “in the Christ.”

That this is false assurance should be recognized even by those who hold to “once saved, always saved” or “eternally secure” theological convictions. For since a person can be self-deceived about the sincerity of “faith,” and since even an unregenerate person produces some good works, a person can never have complete assurance that he or she is “in the Christ,” only overwhelming confidence. And if an individual’s inability to attain perfect assurance must be affirmed even by those who hold to the “once saved, always saved” conviction, how much more is it true for those who are unpersuaded by that position? Christian theologians may disagree about whether it is possible for an individual to start along the path of salvation but then depart permanently from the path, but there is virtually no disagreement regarding the need for all who start along the path to persevere in order to attain ultimate salvation (see “Incorporated Righteousness” in chap. 8). So a better gospel presentation will emphasize that allegiance (pistis), once rendered, must persevere through God’s assistance for it to result in final salvation.

The role of works in final salvation is a closely related matter. Although it is a finer theological point that is probably more suitable for leaders to ponder than to be directly featured as part of a gospel invitation to non-Christians, those presenting the gospel should be equipped to handle questions about works in final salvation. Since at the final judgment we will be assessed for eternal life at least in part on the basis of our works, a better gospel invitation will not polemicize in an unqualified fashion about “faith, not works,” but will leave room for good works (not good works produced on our own through rule-keeping, but good works embodied in allegiant union with Jesus) in our final justification. For such good works are indicative of enacted and maintained pistis. Our own past, present, and future verdict of “righteous” depends entirely on our past, present, and future union with the Christ, so that by pistis we share his righteousness through the good-works-producing Holy Spirit. For final salvation, declared allegiance must be embodied and maintained as the Holy Spirit enables us to perform good works pleasing to God.

In sum, we have perfect assurance in the Christ, so we do not want to discourage the truly allegiant so that they lack firm assurance. But since at the same time, because we cannot be absolutely certain that any person is in fact “in the Christ,” we should not offer total instantaneous assurance of final salvation when presenting the gospel. Instantaneous assurance compromises the allegiance-demanding gospel and spiritually endangers anyone who blithely accepts it.

Public Allegiance

Finally, a better gospel invitation will not allow the definitive decision to give allegiance to Jesus as king to remain a private matter. All such decisions must originate with a personal conviction in the mind/heart/will, and it is perfectly acceptable to give ample space for private reflection as part of a gospel proclamation. But it should not be suggested as part of a gospel invitation that privately agreeing or praying a certain prayer or “trusting in your heart” has a saving effect on its own. Perhaps a private declaration of allegiance in the heart is saving, perhaps not. But in any case when Scripture describes what is necessary for salvation, it does not speak of a private conviction as saving unless it is acknowledged to others.5 For us to ratify our saving union with Jesus, God instructs us to declare our allegiance in the presence of others through baptism. So any gospel invitation should provide an obvious mechanism so that anyone who has responded can immediately bear witness to another. Meanwhile, the invitation should also encourage anyone who has responded to certify the change of allegiance publicly through baptism or rededication as soon as is feasible.

So what does a better gospel invitation look like? When sharing God’s saving message, we must stop asking others to invite Jesus into their hearts and start asking them to swear public allegiance to Jesus the king. We must also urge that there is only one path to final salvation, the path of discipleship.

Discipleship Is Salvation

Dallas Willard describes a typical view of “faith” and salvation that he encountered many times among professing Christians, including pastors. He calls it “bar-code faith.”

Think of the bar codes now used on goods in most stores. The scanner responds only to the bar code. It makes no difference what is in the bottle or package that bears it, or whether the sticker is on the “right” one or not. The calculator responds through its electronic eye to the bar code and totally disregards everything else. If the ice cream sticker is on the dog food, the dog food is ice cream, so far as the scanner knows or cares.6

Willard explains that much popular Christian theology regards “belief” (or the like) as the bar code and God as the scanner. As soon as a Christian has “faith” in Jesus, then they receive the bar code. When they are scanned, then, they are considered “righteous” and are deemed “saved” by God because, and only because, the bar code has been successfully attached to them. It doesn’t matter whether they are good or bad, truly righteous on the inside or utterly depraved through and through. All that matters is that they have the “righteous” or “forgiven-in-Jesus” bar code.

Willard is rightly very critical of this bar-code faith and its accompanying vision of salvation. God is not a robotic scanner. We intuitively know that it is absurd to treat him as such, especially with regard to something as important as salvation. But why, precisely, is this bar-code faith deficient? Willard is not able to say directly; he is only able to point out that the scheme of salvation to which it refers is too narrow. The saving purview of the gospel is wider than mere “sin management.” Salvation involves total transformation into Christlikeness through an obedient discipleship. Yet we still know that “faith” in Jesus is required for forgiveness. So are we saved by “faith,” obedient discipleship, or both? Clearly for Willard it’s both, but he hasn’t really explained how these two categories touch.

By this point the solution for how they touch should be evident. Although contemporary Christian culture tends to separate personal salvation and discipleship, allegiance is where they finally meet—and they don’t just meet, they embrace. For when we discover that saving “faith” means above all allegiance to Jesus the king, the intimacy between discipleship and salvation is easy to recognize. A person is not first “saved” by “faith” in Jesus’s death for sins and then, once that is secured, plugged into a discipleship program as an optional extra in hope that he or she might “grow.” On the contrary, a person is first saved when she or he becomes a disciple by declaring allegiance to Jesus the king—that is, when a person agrees to submit obediently to Jesus’s wise and sovereign rule so as to take up his way of life. If subsequently a person entirely ceases to maintain allegiance, that individual has left the road of discipleship, the one and only road to final salvation. We are only and ever (past, present, and future) saved by discipleship to Jesus, for to be a disciple is to have declared and enacted pistis unto Jesus the king. Yet if discipleship and salvation coalesce in allegiance, then what does this mean practically for how a disciple should live as she or he walks the path toward final salvation? Should discipleship primarily involve imitating the Messiah? Is it about a personal relationship with Jesus?

A Subject-to-King Relationship with Jesus

When I was an undergraduate, the Christian world was swept by a tidal wave of feverous what-would-Jesus-do enthusiasm. One day hardly anyone was talking about what Jesus might or might not do, and then suddenly, seemingly almost overnight, WWJD T-shirts, bracelets, necklaces, and bumper stickers could be spotted everywhere. In fact, if a person was not sporting some visible WWJD bling, then commitment to the cause could be questioned. The basic sentiment was noble, I suppose, even if it could (and did) devolve into all manner of silliness—if Jesus were in my place right now, would he go to the big dance after the game? Of course he would; only John the Baptist would stay at home and miss something this cool! But would he wear khakis or blue jeans? Would he invite Jessica or Samantha? . . . hmm. In those stirring times, a good Christian, so it seemed, could not make any decision without running through the what-would-Jesus-do gauntlet.

When “be like Jesus” enthusiasm begins to bubble over in unhelpful directions, how can salvation by allegiance alone help us practically? The centrality of the allegiance metaphor reminds us that Jesus is first and foremost the king to whom we have sworn loyalty; we are his subjects. His role is to rule; our part is to obey so that we become fitting servant-rulers too by willingly submitting to and then enacting his kingdom principles: openhanded love, radical forgiveness, spreading the good news, generosity to the poor, trust for daily provisions, and purity of heart. Similarly, when we begin to feel that Jesus is above all a best friend (or worse, a boyfriend), or at least that we would like him to be, it is probably time to remind ourselves that although Jesus is truly a friend and brother, he is the king, the enthroned Son of God, and what secures us to him is above all our allegiance to him as such. In other words, it is important to have a personal relationship with Jesus (Jesus knows his sheep, calling each by name, and his sheep know his voice; see John 10), but we dare not forget when personally relating to Jesus that he is the mighty Christ.

When Imitation Is Allegiance

All this being said, nevertheless the imitatio Christi tradition is strong—rooted in both Scripture and classic spirituality—and as such it certainly should be warmly embraced if aimed in the right direction.7 Unfortunately the biblical statements that best inform us what Jesus would do are probably not going to help us decide whether to go to the big dance. Instead they announce that we should seek to follow Jesus’s entire life pattern of death to self. For example, Paul states:

Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in the Messiah Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not consider equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, entering human existence in the likeness of humankind. And being found in human form, he humbled himself, becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God highly exalted him and granted him the name that is above every name. (Phil. 2:5–9)

What would Jesus do? For the sake of others he would leave his lofty station in heavenly glory alongside the Father, take on the humble posture of a human, and do so even to the point of an embarrassing and excruciating death on a cross. In so doing he would trust that God would see the action and exalt him at the proper time. Those who have embraced the gospel of Jesus the king are following this pattern of self-emptying today.

For over ten years, a pastor-friend with a young family has resisted the lure of a higher salary and prestige in the pastorate (even though he is extraordinarily capable), choosing to serve at poor churches in low-income, inner-city, racially tense environments rather than “moving up” to a comfortable suburban megachurch. In so doing he and his family have accepted considerable hardship, but are quietly yet powerfully living out the story of the crucified Messiah.

Another friend has temporarily left a stable career in education, foregoing a salary for several years in order to teach children of medical missionaries. Her fidelity to the Lord Jesus means using the gifts of her college degree and prior teaching experience to move downward in service to others.

A different friend works a full-time job in finance and is a lay pastor (including preaching at least once a month). He and his wife have four young children. Yet in the midst of this busyness, he and his wife delight in God’s Word. I am sure they deserve an extra hour of sleep or relaxation. Yet, because the Word of God truly is their daily bread—life-giving for themselves and for others through them—they spend an hour reading the Bible together each morning before work.

Meanwhile, a family in our church has recently taken in foster children in obedience to Jesus’s instructions to provide special care to the poor and those in social distress. Pistis includes embodying the gospel, following the Christ pattern.

In Philippians 2:5–9, Paul encourages the church to live out the gospel pattern of self-emptying in imitation of Jesus the king. In a related gospel statement, Paul exhorts the Corinthians to give willingly and self-sacrificially:

I say this not as a command, but to prove by the earnestness of others that your love also is genuine. For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus, the Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you by his poverty might become rich. (2 Cor. 8:8–9)

What would Jesus do? Although he was rich, he would become poor for us; that is, he would live out the narrative that is the gospel. He invites us to follow this same pattern. As Michael Gorman so eloquently puts it, to be allegiant to Jesus means “becoming the gospel” for the sake of others, to live out the pattern established by the Christ’s career and so to be joined fully to his life.8

The gospel is holistic. That is, we must be careful not to overspiritualize the gospel, as pistis involves active allegiance to Jesus the king. Remembering Jesus’s words that “No one is able to serve two masters. . . . You are not able to serve God and money” (Matt. 6:24), a Christian I know carries out his loyalty to Jesus the king each year by giving all of his checking and savings accounts to charity. He and his family start over from zero each year.

Jesus took up his cross as a settled disposition of God-will rather than self-will. His disciples must learn, by God’s grace and habitual practice, to do the same. Our final salvation depends on it, for this is what it means to be allegiant to Jesus as Lord. Jesus urges the crowds and his disciples, saying,

If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel’s will save it. For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his life? (Mark 8:34–36)

Continuing, Jesus announces that he as the Son of Man will be ashamed of anyone who is ashamed of him, the crucified one, when he comes in the glory of his Father. Jesus’s disciples must take up the cross not as an optional extra but because allegiance to Jesus and his gospel means that acquiring his death-to-self disposition is the only way in the end to find that you have a self that belongs in his eternal kingdom. Putting allegiance into practice in the church today will involve following Jesus’s pattern of dying to the old self and its self-serving allegiances and reorganizing a new life in accordance with Jesus’s principles. Those interested in learning more about this spiritual transformation, this “renovation of the heart” (as Dallas Willard terms it), will find that many Christian writers, ancient and modern, can lend sound advice.9

Discipleship and salvation are not separable categories. Why is this of practical import for the church? The church must not think of evangelism or mission (traditionally, “getting people saved”) and discipleship (traditionally, “growing people in Christ”) as separate or even separable tasks—and church programming needs to be reconfigured accordingly.10 Evangelism programs are only accurate and compelling when they are not merely an invitation to forgiveness but an invitation to full-orbed discipleship. Programs for discipleship are only accurate and compelling when discipleship is understood to be absolutely required for the allegiant outworking of salvation.

The invitation to begin the journey of salvation can never be anything less than a call to discipleship, for nothing less will result in final salvation. And final salvation is not possible apart from the path of genuine discipleship, the path of increasingly becoming conformed to the image of Jesus the king, who died in our place on the cross so that we might be forgiven and released from the stranglehold of sin. A gospel-centered allegiance is where discipleship and salvation meet in the church—and when they meet, they kiss.

From Apostles’ Creed to Pledge

The introduction to this book suggested that the sensibilities of allegiance might prove helpful in rethinking matters pertaining to salvation. I have a final suggestion for how the church might become more allegiant. The suggestion is simple and, at least to my mind, highly practical. Each week children in the United States place their right hands over their hearts, face the flag, and pledge allegiance. Other countries have similar allegiance ceremonies—and all of us who participated in such ceremonies as children (or who still do as adults) can attest to their power for creating and maintaining loyalty. The Apostles’ Creed needs to be mobilized so that it functions like a flag pledge—to become the Christian pledge of allegiance for the universal church.

The Apostles’ Creed is not merely a convenient summary of Christian beliefs. It is a concise presentation of the allegiance-demanding gospel.11 In this study we discovered that the gospel in earliest Christianity was an eight-part story that encompasses Jesus’s entire life, from his preexistence with the Father until his return in glory. Although it may be necessary to review chapter 2 to see why fully, notice that all of these elements (except #6, which is assumed) are in fact present in the Apostles’ Creed:

The Apostles’ Creed	The Eight-Part Gospel
I believe in God,	Jesus the king:
the Father almighty,
Creator of heaven and earth,
and in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord,
who was conceived by the Holy Spirit,	(1) preexisted with the Father,
born of the Virgin Mary,	(2) took on human flesh, fulfilling God’s promises to David,
suffered under Pontius Pilate,
was crucified, died and was buried;	(3) died for sins in accordance with the Scriptures,
he descended into hell;	(4) was buried,
on the third day he rose again from the dead;	(5) was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures,
he ascended into heaven,	(6) appeared to many,
and is seated at the right hand of God the Father almighty;	(7) is seated at the right hand of God as Lord, and
from there he will come to judge the living and the dead.	(8) will come again as judge.
I believe in the Holy Spirit,
the holy catholic Church,
the communion of saints,
the forgiveness of sins,
the resurrection of the body,
and life everlasting. Amen.*
* This is the version used by the Roman Catholic Church (revised 2011).

When a person says the Apostles’ Creed, he or she is restating the gospel of the earliest church in outline form—the story of how Jesus came to be the cosmic Lord. As such, the Apostles’ Creed could easily be used by churches as a trinitarian pledge of allegiance to Jesus the king. Instructions could be given, for instance, to focus the eyes above the cross (or to focus the eyes of the heart if no cross is visible) when saying the Apostles’ Creed, intended as a pledge.

The cross is the place of Jesus’s death and victory over sin, the instrument by which he was “lifted up” in glory to the right hand of God. Jesus is now enthroned at the right hand of the Father, so looking above the cross would serve as a reminder of how Jesus’s actions on the cross resulted in his present status as exalted high priest and as king of heaven and earth. And as king, Jesus, together with God the Father, has sent the union-securing Spirit to indwell the church. This pledge could be done in liturgical and nonliturgical churches with minimum effort. The results, however, could be marvelously transformative for the worldwide church.

In liturgical traditions where the Apostles’ Creed (or the closely related Nicene Creed) are already said as part of the standard worship service, leaders or celebrants could simply assist the congregation in recognizing that the creed is not a mere statement of common belief but is the allegiance-demanding good news. Invite the congregation weekly to view the creed as a pledge of loyalty. Before the creed is affirmed together, each week the celebrant could say something like “The Apostles’ Creed tells us that Jesus rules at the right hand of God as king. Now we will affirm the gospel together as we declare our allegiance to Jesus as the king” or “Now let us pledge allegiance to Jesus the king, who is currently ruling at the right hand of God. This is the good news of our Lord Jesus, the Christ.” Or if the liturgy is extremely fixed so that interpretative words cannot be added immediately before or after the creed is affirmed, a homilist could begin each sermon by reminding the congregation that the creed is the gospel; when the congregation affirms it, a declaration of loyal obedience to Jesus the king is intended. Over time the congregation would come to see the primary significance of the creed accordingly.

In nonliturgical traditions there might be more resistance among congregants to using the Apostles’ Creed as a pledge in the worship service. Pastors, worship leaders, and others who belong to such traditions should nevertheless do it anyway. The Apostles’ Creed is one of the earliest articulations of the gospel, expressed in a minimally expanded form. As such, it contains an implicit demand for all those who would affirm it to express loyalty to Jesus the king. If the congregation can come to see the value of the Apostles’ Creed as the Apostles’ Pledge of Allegiance, it may in fact prove to be a gateway to further liturgical riches.12

images

It is a well-known Christian truism that a person must have faith or believe in Jesus to be saved. I have been arguing that this truism is in fact a dangerous half-truth. With its anti-evidential, anti-rational, and “leap” connotations, the English word faith is of limited value when discussing eternal salvation in our present cultural climate. Meanwhile belief is also inadequate, because in contemporary idiom it suggests that we are saved merely by having the right facts squeezed into our brains. It primarily means “acknowledging as real or true” but does not sufficiently capture the connotation of enacted loyalty. But at the same time we must acknowledge that this half-truth does indeed contain genuine truth that must not be cast aside. We must find a vocabulary and grammar that extends beyond faith and belief, augmenting or replacing these terms when necessary, so that we emphasize active loyalty to Jesus the king.

The gospel is the transformative story about the career of Jesus—namely, how he became Jesus the Christ, that is, Jesus the king, Lord of heaven and earth. Jesus became the king through his willing participation in the saving events of the gospel, especially his trusting allegiance to God the Father in undertaking crucifixion unto death. That allegiance was vindicated when Jesus was raised to new life and enthroned at God the Father’s right hand. In this sequence of action, God demonstrated fidelity to his Son, his people, the world, and indeed all creation. Jesus’s enthronement is not something extra beyond the gospel, but its climax. To respond to the gospel above all means to publicly acknowledge allegiance to Jesus the universal king. On both the divine and the human side, the salvation story overflows with allegiance.

So, in the final analysis, salvation is by allegiance alone. That is, God requires nothing more or nothing less than allegiance to Jesus as king for initial, current, and final salvation. As such, while continuing to affirm the absolute centrality of the cross, the atonement, and the resurrection, the church must move away from a salvation culture that spins around the axis of “faith alone” in the sufficiency of Jesus’s sacrifice. It must move toward a gospel culture that centers upon “allegiance alone” to Jesus the enthroned king. With the Apostles’ Creed as a pledge of allegiance, the rallying cry of the victorious church can become “We give allegiance to Jesus the king.” For as the creed reminds us, Jesus the Christ is “our Lord” and he “is seated at the right hand of God,” and as such he both merits and demands our unreserved loyalty.

FOR FURTHER THOUGHT

1. Consider what three things are essential to allegiance. How are these various aspects interrelated? In light of this, can you think of your own analogy that helps explain what is necessary for saving allegiance?

2. In comparing allegiance to a shield, a military analogy has been invoked. There are possible risks and rewards for the church in combining such images. Do you think it is prudent for national flags (e.g., the American flag) to be hung in a church? Do you think patriotic hymns have a place in the church? Where should the boundaries be, and why?

3. If you were writing a tract that extended a gospel invitation to the reader, how would you begin? What would you emphasize the most? Why?

4. Why is allegiance where discipleship and salvation kiss?

5. How does allegiance inform what a personal relationship with Jesus should look like? How does it inform what it means to imitate Jesus?

6. What’s the difference between a creed and a pledge? Why might the Apostles’ Creed also be suitable as a pledge?

7. Give at least three specific, practical suggestions that might help you personally become more allegiant to Jesus the king during this forthcoming week, month, or year.

8. Give at least two specific, practical suggestions that might help your local church (or another congregation that you know about) shift from a salvation culture to an allegiance culture during this forthcoming week, month, or year.