Tom Greggs - The Breadth of Salvation: Rediscovering the Fullness of Gods Saving Work

T here is an old proverb from the Indian subcontinent which (in various forms) tells a story of six blind men who cannot comprehend what an elephant is. They are taken to an elephant in order that they might use their sense of touch to discover what it is. The first is led to the elephants trunk, and, placing his hand on it, he recoils violently. An elephant is a type of snake! he cries. The second is led to the elephants tusk. Once he places his hand on it, he jumps away. An elephant has the largest and sharpest teeth in the world, and must devour humans! The third blind man is led to the tail and, placing his hand on it, says to the others, I do not know what you are talking about. An elephant is clearly just like a cowso what is there to be afraid of? The fourth and fifth are led to the side and leg of the elephant, respectively. The fourth, touching the hard and slightly muddy side of the elephant, declares that an elephant is like a wall, and the fifth, touching its leg, is convinced it is a tree. Finally, the sixth blind man, a brave and patient soul, is taken to the side of the elephant and, placing his hand on it, gently works his way around the majestic creature. Only when you put all of these parts together, he remarks to his companions, will you ever understand the whole. This creature is neither snake, nor man-eater, nor cow, nor indeed a wall or tree. This creature is an elephant, and it is beautiful and unlike anything else I have ever known. Now I know what an elephant is.

When we see only in part, we find it hard to comprehend the whole. We jump to conclusions based on our limited exposure. And when we are not patient to see the whole, we sometimes get things dreadfully and disproportionately wrong. For a long time, in the puzzles section on a Saturday morning, the newspaper I read in the UK used to enlarge a small section of a photograph, and the challenge was to guess what the whole of the object was. It was much harder than one might imagine. Seeing only a part of something out of proportion distorts our imagined sense of what that object is. We fail to see it properly because of the limits placed on our exposure to the whole. We cannot grasp, from the part we see, what the whole is. And our minds confuse the part we see for the whole, limiting that whole to our limited experience.

As Christians, we do this with regard to salvation all the time. We all too often hold too narrow a view of all that Gods salvific grace has done for us. We all too often limit the sphere of Gods saving act. Our theological imaginations cannot comprehend the majestic mercy of the Lord and all that the Lord has done for us. Our minds cannot grasp what our God has done for us and for the creation God loves. And rather than behold and recognize the overwhelming and blinding light of Gods saving worka light that beats back our gazewe look so often instead at just one area of the darkness which the light has illuminated, confusing that area of illumination with the light itself.