Paul has been invited to contribute a chapter to an upcoming book entitled, Moral Theology and the World of Walt Disney. His submission is on anthropological, hamartiological, and soteriological implications of Pinocchio. Here is an excerpt from the soteriology portion of his draft.
Disney’s Pinocchio brings about a salvation essentially in the one grand event of his death and resurrection after rescuing Geppetto. After proving his maturity, Pinocchio is rescued from his donkey-puppet body into the new body of a real boy. However, the Bible presents salvation in an entirely different manner which actually consists of three phases. These three phases are salvation from the penalty of sin (often called, “justification”), salvation from the power of sin (often called, “sanctification”), and salvation from the presence of sin (often called, “glorification”).
Justification is the first phase of salvation and it occurs in that moment when someone believes in Jesus alone for eternal life. The Blue Fairy requires Pinocchio to conform to the virtues of a real boy while he is still a puppet, but God does not expect a person to behave like a Christian when he is still dead in trespasses and sin. This is a point where Disney does not translate well theologically, as Vigen Guroian points out:
In the Disney animation, real boyhood is bestowed on Pinocchio as a reward for being good by the Blue Fairy with a touch of her magic wand; or, as the Blue Fairy herself says, because Pinocchio has proven himself “brave, truthful, and unselfish.” In Disney’s imagination this is magic. In theological terms this is works righteousness.1
Pinocchio’s works righteousness is entirely foreign to the Bible, which states, “Now to him who works, the wages are not counted as grace but as debt. But to him who does not work but believes on Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is accounted for righteousness” (Rom. 4:4–5). Justification has been called a past-tense salvation, because it is a salvation that has already happened, hence Paul’s words to the believers in Ephesus, “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast” (Eph. 2:8–9). The Ephesians’ salvation is something that happened in the past when they believed in Christ. This is justification and it is only the beginning of the Christian life.
Sanctification is the second phase of salvation and it is an ongoing process that involves the believer’s cooperation with the Holy Spirit. This is not to say that the believer must cooperate in order to keep his eternal life. If eternal life could be lost, then it would not be eternal. Jesus specifies that eternal life is a present possession from the moment of justification when He says, “Most assuredly, I say to you, he who hears My word and believes in Him who sent Me has everlasting life [current possession], and shall not come into judgment, but has passed from death into life [past justification]” (John 5:24). The believer has already passed from death into life, so he has no reason to fear a future punishment and has no need to pursue again his past-tense justification. Sanctification is the will of God in the life of the believer, as Paul tells the believers in Thessalonica:
For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you should abstain from sexual immorality; that each of you should know how to possess his own vessel in sanctification and honor, not in passion of lust, like the Gentiles who do not know God; that no one should take advantage of and defraud his brother in this matter, because the Lord is the avenger of all such, as we also forewarned you and testified. For God did not call us to uncleanness, but in holiness. Therefore he who rejects this does not reject man, but God, who has also given us His Holy Spirit. (1 Thess. 4:3–8)
This is not to say, however, that the believer’s current experience cannot still be characterized by sin. The Christians in Corinth are a glaring example as Paul rebukes them:
And I, brethren, could not speak to you as to spiritual people but as to carnal, as to babes in Christ. I fed you with milk and not with solid food; for until now you were not able to receive it, and even now you are still not able; for you are still carnal. For where there are envy, strife, and divisions among you, are you not carnal and behaving like mere men? For when one says, “I am of Paul,” and another, “I am of Apollos,” are you not carnal? (1 Cor 3:1–4)
The process of sanctification is one of growth. Whereas Pinocchio had to grow up to be born again, the Christian is only able to grow after he is born again; indeed, the entire “born again” imagery falls apart if the child must grow before he is even born. The completion of Pinocchio’s maturity was when he internalized the Blue Fairy’s virtues and actually ceased to listen to Jiminy’s warnings of danger in order to save Geppetto. Instead of pursuing a list of virtues, the Christian instead should abandon his fleshly desires while becoming increasingly conformed by the Spirit and virtues are the result:
Walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. For the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; and these are contrary to one another, so that you do not do the things that you wish… But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law. (Gal. 5: 16–17, 22–33)
The fruit of the Spirit is neither a requirement for justification, nor is it even a test to know if someone has been justified. Sanctification is a lifelong process that begins at the second birth and the believer will never entirely be free from the power of sin while he is in a sinful body.
Glorification is salvation from the presence of sin when the believer leaves his sinful body.2 When the believer dies, he becomes absent from the body and present with the Lord (2 Cor. 5:8). Pinocchio only received the body of a real boy, but the Christian will have a glorified body like Christ, as Paul tells the Phillippians:
For our citizenship is in heaven, from which we also eagerly wait for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body that it may be conformed to His glorious body, according to the working by which He is able even to subdue all things to Himself. (Phil. 3:20–21)
After the resurrection and before Jesus ascended to heaven, He had a glorified body that could suddenly appear in a room, but was still flesh and bones that could eat and drink (Luke 24:36–43). Such is the believer’s anticipation. Speaking of “the redemption of our body” (Rom. 8:23), Paul writes, “For we were saved in this hope, but hope that is seen is not hope; for why does one still hope for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we eagerly wait for it with perseverance” (Rom. 8:24–25).
There are several Bible passages which include all three phases of salvation in one context, but for brevity’s sake, only one will be brought out here:3
If then you were raised with Christ [at past justification], seek those things which are above [in current sanctification], where Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God. Set your mind on things above [in current sanctification], not on things on the earth. For you died [at past justification], and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is our life appears, then you also will appear with Him in glory [at future glorification]. (Col. 3:1–4)
Man’s natural condition is worse than Pinocchio’s, but God’s promise of eternal life through faith alone in Christ alone is infinitely greater than anything that the Blue Fairy could possibly offer.
- Vigen Guroian, Tending the Heart of Virtue: How Classic Stories Awaken a Child’s Moral Imagination (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998), 42.
- For those who enjoy theological vocabulary, this author holds to dispensational pretribulational premillennial eschatology. This means that this dispensation will end with the Church being raptured, which is another way that the believer may transfer to glorification.
- Others include Rom. 5:1–2; 13:10–11; Eph. 2:5–10; Phil. 3:7–11 1 Thess. 1:8–10; Titus 2:11–13; 1 John 2:28; 3:1–3.