Is This an Issue of Salvation? Why That Question Misses the Point

by Dr. Peter A. Kerr

Among many well-meaning Christians—especially within Reformed circles—there is a familiar reflex whenever a theological proposal is introduced: “But is this an issue of salvation?” The question sounds humble. It sounds protective. It sounds like a desire to keep the gospel pure and uncluttered. Yet it is often the wrong angle entirely.

Scripture does not teach us to ask first what God must do for us in order to save us. It teaches us to ask what kind of God we are responding to—and whether our response aligns with who He truly is (Matt. 22:37–38). Theology is never a neutral accessory to faith. It shapes expectation, devotion, obedience, prayer, endurance, and ultimately trust.

The biblical concern is not merely whether a belief crosses a minimal salvific threshold, but whether it is true enough to sustain faith without breeding doubt, distortion, or sin. Christians who are led by the Spirit may see things differently, but they should not see things oppositely. Toleration allows disagreement with error, whereas love calls for unity under truth.

Why Scripture takes doctrine seriously

The New Testament is unambiguous about the moral and spiritual weight of theology. Paul does not tell Timothy to focus only on essentials narrowly defined. He warns him that false teaching corrodes life itself: “Pay close attention to yourself and to your teaching; persevere in these things; for as you do this you will ensure salvation both for yourself and for those who hear you” (1 Timothy 4:16, NAS).

Salvation here is not treated as a checkbox completed once and left untouched. It is something safeguarded, nourished, and protected through careful attention to how one lives and what one teaches. James presses the same point from another angle: “But prove yourselves doers of the word, and not just hearers who deceive themselves” (James 1:22, NAS). Bad theology is not merely mistaken thought. It is self-deception that eventually expresses itself in life.

The first sin was theological

The first human sin was not eating a piece of fruit. The first sin was doubting God’s word (Gen. 3:1–6). No one would eat fruit God said would cause them to “surely die” unless they had already begun to doubt His truthfulness, His goodness, or His reliability. Disobedience followed disbelief. Sin followed distorted theology. This pattern has never changed.

If your understanding of God teaches you to expect things God never promised, you will eventually conclude that God has failed you. When expectations collapse, doubt takes root. When doubt matures, sin follows.

William Temple captured this danger with unsettling clarity: “If your concept of God is radically false, then the more devout you are, the worse it will be for you.” Devotion amplifies whatever image of God you hold. If that image is distorted, greater devotion does not protect you—it accelerates disillusionment.

A pastoral illustration of theological harm

Consider a woman—call her Joan—who loved God sincerely but absorbed poor theology from charismatic leaders who taught that God always wills physical healing. While it is true that God can heal and often does (Matt. 8:2–3), Scripture plainly teaches He does not always do so. Paul prayed three times for his “thorn in the flesh” to be removed, and God refused (2 Cor. 12:7–9). Aging itself is a slow disease that God has not chosen to reverse (Gen. 6:3). Scripture never promises perpetual health in this age.

When Joan developed the ailments that often accompany old age, she prayed fervently for healing. It did not come. The problem was not her faith; it was her theology. Because God did not behave as she had been taught to expect, she concluded something must be wrong with her—or worse, with God.

She chased miracle workers, funded spiritual charlatans, and interpreted every disappointment as personal failure. Eventually, though never said aloud, the question arose: Does God love me at all? Does God even exist? Bad theology did not merely disappoint her. It put her on a path toward doubt and despair.

Orthodoxy and orthopraxy belong together

Scripture never separates right belief from right living. Orthodoxy naturally leads to orthopraxy, and just as truly—though less often recognized—orthopraxy leads back to orthodoxy (John 7:17). When we do the will of God, we receive wisdom about God. Jesus Himself taught that obedience opens understanding. Truth is not merely learned; it is inhabited.

Christians who say they are not interested in Scripture are often not practicing Scripture. Hunger for God’s word grows where God’s word is obeyed. When believers sit week after week hearing truth but never embodying it, they remain spiritually overfed and underdeveloped—satisfied with milk, resistant to growth, confused by their own stagnation (Heb. 5:12–14). Faith is not merely hearing. It is responding.

Why “Is this salvific?” is the wrong test

The question Scripture presses upon us is not, “Is this belief necessary to be saved?” but “what is my response to God” or possibly “Is this belief faithful enough to sustain trust, obedience, and hope?” (Gal. 5:6). Here LUMEN offers a quiet but important reframing: holiness is not severity God demands, but fullness God is. To see God falsely is not merely to misunderstand doctrine—it is to misalign one’s life with reality itself. As Rev. Charles Finney observed: “If the presence of God is in the church, the church will draw the world in. If the presence of God is not in the church, the world will draw the church out.” Presence is not preserved by theological minimalism. It is preserved by truth rightly lived.

LUMEN does not claim to be a prerequisite for salvation. People are saved by Christ long before they can articulate coherent theology (Luke 23:42–43). Yet it would be a mistake to conclude that theology beyond that point is optional.

LUMEN aims to clarify who God is so that believers are less likely to form false expectations, less likely to doubt when suffering comes, less likely to confuse God’s patience for absence or His restraint for indifference. It helps believers respond rightly to God rather than attempt to manage Him. As C.S. Lewis wrote in Mere Christianity, “Every­one reads, every­one hears things dis­cussed. Con­se­quently, if you do not lis­ten to The­ol­ogy, that will not mean that you have no ideas about God. It will mean that you have a lot of wrong ones — bad, mud­dled, out-of-date ideas.” In that sense, good theology must be sought because it greatly aids the soul in remaining faithful within salvation.

Truth, reason, faith, and responsibility

Scripture affirms God has made Himself knowable: “For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen” (Rom. 1:20, NAS). Faith is not irrational; it is unavoidable. Everything we believe rests on trust in something. Christianity does not ask for blind faith; it asks for faithful judgment (Acts 17:23).

The real question is not whether LUMEN is strictly necessary to be saved. The real question is whether your understanding of God is correct. Jesus taught us to judge teaching by its fruit (Matt. 7:17–20). Does it makes obedience easier or harder, trust deeper or more fragile, prayer more honest or more anxious, suffering more intelligible or more corrosive? Theology that consistently yields peace, endurance, love, humility, and faithful obedience deserves careful consideration.

Dedicate yourself, then, not to theological minimalism, nor self-centric religion, but to loving God enough to seek Him as He truly is. Ask whether your beliefs help you become a doer of the word, not merely a hearer. Align your life with truth, and truth will clarify itself in your life. LUMEN offers itself in that spirit—not as a gatekeeper of salvation, but as a companion in faithful response to the God who has already revealed Himself most fully in Jesus Christ.

Here are the scripture references from the text, quoted from the New American Standard Bible (NASB) 1995, in the order they first appear (with subsequent mentions of the same reference noted but quoted only once for brevity):

Matthew 22:37–38 “And He said to him, ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the great and foremost commandment.”

1 Timothy 4:16 “Pay close attention to yourself and to your teaching; persevere in these things, for as you do this you will ensure salvation both for yourself and for those who hear you.”

James 1:22 “But prove yourselves doers of the word, and not merely hearers who delude themselves.”

Genesis 3:1–6 “Now the serpent was more crafty than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said to the woman, ‘Indeed, has God said, “You shall not eat from any tree of the garden”?’ The woman said to the serpent, ‘From the fruit of the trees of the garden we may eat; but from the fruit of the tree which is in the middle of the garden, God said, “You shall not eat from it or touch it, or you will die.”’ The serpent said to the woman, ‘You surely will not die! For God knows that in the day you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.’ When the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was desirable to make one wise, she took from its fruit and ate; and she gave also to her husband with her, and he ate.”

Matthew 8:2–3 “And a leper came to Him and bowed down before Him, and said, ‘Lord, if You are willing, You can make me clean.’ Jesus stretched out His hand and touched him, saying, ‘I am willing; be cleansed.’ And immediately his leprosy was cleansed.”

2 Corinthians 12:7–9 “Because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, for this reason, to keep me from exalting myself, there was given me a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to torment me—to keep me from exalting myself! Concerning this I implored the Lord three times that it might leave me. And He has said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.’ Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me.”

Genesis 6:3 “Then the Lord said, ‘My Spirit shall not strive with man forever, because he also is flesh; nevertheless his days shall be one hundred and twenty years.’”

John 7:17 “If anyone is willing to do His will, he will know of the teaching, whether it is of God or whether I speak from Myself.”

Hebrews 5:12–14 “For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you have need again for someone to teach you the elementary principles of the oracles of God, and you have come to need milk and not solid food. For everyone who partakes only of milk is not accustomed to the word of righteousness, for he is an infant. But solid food is for the mature, who because of practice have their senses trained to discern good and evil.”

Galatians 5:6 “For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision means anything, but faith working through love.”

Luke 23:42–43 “And he was saying, ‘Jesus, remember me when You come in Your kingdom!’ And He said to him, ‘Truly I say to you, today you shall be with Me in Paradise.’”

Romans 1:20 “For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse.”

Acts 17:23 “For while I was passing through and examining the objects of your worship, I also found an altar with this inscription, ‘TO AN UNKNOWN GOD.’ Therefore what you worship in ignorance, this I proclaim to you.”

Matthew 7:17–20 “So every good tree bears good fruit, but the bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot produce bad fruit, nor can a bad tree produce good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. So then, you will know them by their fruits.”