In Mixtec the word used for “salvation” is a word that basically means “rescue.”  Before the Gospel came, it was commonly used when someone was rescued from danger, like drowning.

As a Christian, I am thankful that I have been “saved”, rescued from the deserved penalty for my sins as a result of what Jesus did on the cross, and to eternal life. One summer a number of years ago, I learned what is was like to be rescued from drowning.

During the summer of 1999 we were at my wife Judith’s mom and dad’s home on Ocracoke Island, North Carolina. Going to the beach was our main reason for being there.  However, because of rip tides, swimming was not allowed most days at the life guarded beach. We usually went to this beach because of the children.

When we went to the beach on that July 5th, the “No Swimming” signs had been taken down.  We were planning to leave the next day and I decided to take a last swim. Seven days before, I had swum out rather far and found a sand bank, where the water was only up to my knees.

This time, however, I couldn’t find it. I swam around for quite a while, but never did locate it because of the constant shifting of the sand on the ocean floor. I finally decided to swim back to shore, already a bit tired. It seemed the more I swam, the farther I got from the shore. Something in my mind sensed I was in danger and I began hyperventilating, though I didn’t feel that much fear. I tried to float on my back for a while so I could rest and slow down my breathing, but the waves kept washing over me and filling my mouth with saltwater. I again tried to swim towards shore, but began to get more desperate as I never got any closer and I was now completely exhausted and gasping for air.  The harder I swan, the farther from shore I seemed to be getting.

I finally waved for the lifeguard, but since I could hardly see him, I couldn’t tell if he saw me or not. I realized I no longer had the strength to tread water much longer, and went under several times. Forcing myself to stay above water, I began thinking about my family, and how, if I drowned, Judith would be a widow (Should I hope she never marries again?) and my kids would have no father. I prayed to the Lord, saying, “God, I’m in Your hands. If You want to take me, here I am.”

The Lifeguard

Just as I felt I was going down under the water for the last time, the lifeguard arrived and pulled me to safety. He told me I had been caught in a rip tide. My dad was there and had seen me wave. He raced to the shore, but the lifeguard beat him to it.

Getting to shore, I thanked the Lord for saving me, and giving me more time to be here on earth. I am thankful to the LORD for rescuing me once again.  The first time He saved me, I gained eternal life.  Because of not drowning, I could continue life and by His help keep serving Him and the Mixtec people. I was also thankful that Judith had insisted that, because of the children, we only swim at a beach with a lifeguard.

Salvation implies one of two things (or sometimes both); that we are saved from something or for something. In the ocean, I was saved from drowning and death, and to life. In the Mixtec translation of the Scriptures, the word salvation (dakaki meaning rescue) is many times made complete by adding saved/rescued “from our sins” or “from the path of evil and wrongdoing,” or the more explicit meaning, saved “from the just punishment we deserve for sinning”.  In other contexts, being saved from hell is the focus.  But in Scripture, many times the idea of being saved focuses on the positive effect. We are saved for good works. We are saved so we can have eternal life. We are saved for God’s glory. It is His good will and pleasure to do it.

In Mixtec, and even in most languages, such as English, if you think about it, just saying “I’ve been saved” has very little meaning unless you are already “versed” in Christian lingo and beliefs. “I’m saved” implies many of the things just mentioned, and more. There is the major implied information that Jesus is the One who saved me. Even then, you need further implied information that God is holy, we are sinful and we cannot enter into His presence unless we too are holy.  Therefore Jesus came into the world 2000 years ago, lived a perfect life, died in our place (here it helps to know about the Old Testament sacrificial system) and because I accept what Jesus did, have repented of my sins and am born anew; I am saved.  Saved from the punishment I deserve from a holy God, saved from a life of sin, and saved to serve Him and receive eternal life.

Since the Mixtec people usually do not have all this background information, plus the fact that the grammar of the language itself requires saying what you were either saved from or to, it is necessary to say something, and it depends on the context of the verse in question.

It is the same for something like faith. In Mixtec you cannot just say, “I have faith.” I suppose you “can” but the idea is incomplete. Faith in what?  So I suppose you “can” say, “I am saved” in Mixtec but the idea is incomplete. Saved/rescued from what or for what, or to what.

So when we think about salvation (or faith or other such concepts), and especially when we are sharing with others about it, it is good to not just use the Christian “lingo” but to really share what God has saved us, rescued us from, and what He has saved, rescued us to. It will help the people we are sharing with understand better and it will help us understand things better too.

That is one of the cool things about working in Bible translation. You really have to think about these things and really get a handle on them in order to help others translate them in a natural, understandable and impactful way in their language.

The account of my almost drowning is a slightly edited version of the telling found in my book, The Just Friends Syndrome, pages 217-218.

 

Romans 7:7-24 has been interpreted in a number of different ways over the centuries. Some have seen Paul’s treatise on his struggles with sin, wanting to do good but then doing what is bad too much, as 1) the normal Christian life, b) describing a back-slidden Christian, or 3) someone who is not a Christian. The struggle to understand what he means is compounded by his use of “I” and the present tense. So is Paul describing the norm for his life after he became a Christian?  Is he describing his day to day struggles? Or was this just how he felt when he did sin? Or is it how he felt before he became a Christian?  And whichever it is, how do we apply it to our own lives today?

I believe a key to understanding this section begins with looking at how he begins talking about it. Romans 7:7-8 says: “What shall we say, then? Is the law sin? Certainly not! Indeed I would not have known what sin was except through the law. For I would not have known what coveting really was if the law had not said, “Do not covet.” But sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, produced in me every kind of covetous desire. For apart from law, sin is dead.”

To follow what Paul is driving at here, it is important to have a correct view of the law. We know that the law is good, as Paul says in vs. 12: “So then, the law is holy, and the commandment is holy, righteous and good”  Then in vs. 14: “We know that the law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin.” The law is good, but we are sinful. The law was given by God in part to show us how holy He is and how sinful we are. This is the theme of the book of Galatians.  We need a savior because we simply cannot, with our own strength, obey the law as God wants.

So what happens when we do try and follow the law with our own strength? I believe this is what Paul is describing in Romans 7:7-24. It leads to real frustration when you have a person, like Paul, a Pharisee and the son of a Pharisee, who studied the law under the famed teacher Gamaliel, who in his heart wanted to do what the law said, but as a sinner simply could not even come close to its standard of holiness. Vs. 21-23 describe his frustration point blank: “So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members.”

The majority of the Jewish people did seem to try and follow the law, but they could not keep it. God already knew this would be the case, and that is why He set up the sacrificial system, which in itself was actually pointing to the need for a better sacrifice, a perfect sacrifice, who is Jesus. This is the message of the book of Hebrews.

Too many times when we think of the law we think of the Pharisees Jesus spoke about, who seemed to try and keep the law mostly for show, but as Jesus said, their hearts were far from God. I think they were the exception, for many, like Paul were good-hearted, including the Jewish people in Rome reading this letter. They wanted to do what God wanted, but they failed more than they succeeded.

To get more to the point, when Paul is using “me” and “I” throughout this passage, I believe that he is focusing on his Jewishness, and how he felt before his heart was transformed by Jesus. He was “religious”, he wanted to be a good Pharisee, a good Jew, he wanted to do what was right, but his own sinful nature got in the way, his “best” was just not good enough.  The Jewish people who did not yet have Jesus in their lives are on Paul’s heart. He knows his people, and he knows their frustration in trying to serve God, but failing miserably to live up to the impossibly high standard of the law. He therefore uses his own “before Jesus” experience to relate to their frustration.

But he has good news for the religious Jews. He comes to the end of the section, in vs. 24 and 25 and reveals the only way to change this path of frustration: “What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God–through Jesus Christ our Lord!”  Here is the real point. Paul could not live up to the law’s standard on his own. But Jesus bridges the gap. He becomes Paul’s perfection and transformed his life, as he expands on in chapter 8.

Paul continues his great conclusion of how the Jews, and all people, are to become right before God. It is not the ability to obey the law perfectly, but the answer is in Jesus. 8:1-2 says: “Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death.”  Trying to keep the law perfectly is impossible, so if that is your only way to God, you will fail and it will lead to death. But through Jesus, the condemnation of the law over us for not being able to keep it perfectly is wiped out. We are made clean through the blood of Jesus, the perfect sacrifice.

Paul is saying to the Jews, and to all religious people: “I know how you feel. I felt it for most of my life. I loved God, I wanted to do His will, but I just couldn’t do it on my own. But through His power I am no longer under condemnation. I have experienced the transforming work of Jesus, the Holy Spirit is living within me. I am now sinless before God because of the sacrifice of Jesus and now have the power to live a life pleasing to Him.” As 8:5 says: “Those who live according to the sinful nature have their minds set on what that nature desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires.” The law is good, but it does not change our heart. Jesus, and the Holy Spirit living within us, is what changes us through and through.

So in conclusion, the way we can apply this is to know that no matter how “religious” we are, if we have not given our lives to Jesus, we will find ourselves living a psychotic, bi-polar life which Paul describes in chapter 7; wanting to do good but simply unable to do it with any consistency. We do not need to be more “religious”, we need the transforming power of Jesus in our lives and in our hearts.

You may be a Christian and sometimes feel the same way. The Bible deals with this as well, and so we can apply, in regards to this part of Scripture, chapter 8 to our lives when we are failing even though we are a Christian. Chapter 8 says that through the power of the Spirit we can overcome sin. The Bible talks a lot about how to redirect our lives, and I’m sure we have heard lot of sermons on the importance of daily personal devotions, prayer, counsel of fellow Christians, regular fellowship, filling our minds with Godly things in the middle of all the “trash” we are bombarded with in this world, etc. It is a daily battle, but the most important thing is to not to try and fight it on our own. Let us surrender our lives to Jesus and let His Spirit direct us. Without this, we have no chance.