Andrew Meredith’s Reviews > Delivered from the Elements of the World: Atonement, Justification, Mission > Status Update

"Jesus died to form a people, the church, his body and bride. He died to preserve his new temple movement; his death was a day of atonement where he bore the liabilities and punishments of Israel to give them a new past and a new future. His own sacrifice was part of his ordination, and he rose again to preside as an immortal high priest qualified not by flesh but by the power of indestructible resurrection life (see Eph 2:11-22; Heb 7:1-28). Jesus brought forgiveness because his death founded a forgiven people-temple where forgiveness continues to be freely offered: a temple where the single bath of baptism purifies and consecrates; where confession of sins without sacrifice cleanses from all unrighteousness; where the word of absolution is spoken with all the authority of the Son of God; where Jews and Gentiles, male and female, slave and free are invited to Share a common sacrificial meal, eating Jesus' body and drinking his blood for the remission of sins. Salvation breaks into the world because God removes the veil, takes his gifts of word, bread and rod out of the treasure chest of the ark and hands them over to everyone everywhere who will receive them. Forgiveness comes to historical reality because by his death and resurrection Jesus establishes these simpler, fewer and above all more ef fective rites to unite us to God and one another."

Of the many implications to draw from this, one is certainly the necessity of the Church, without which there is no salvation. Despite its failures and imperfections, the Church (including your everyday, seemingly unremarkable local church) is the inbreaking of the eschatological community of the redeemed into the present age. It IS salvation.