Fundamental 6.
Salvation
Salvation:
What is it? Do we need it and if so why and where and how do we find it?
Salvation describes how each of us can be “saved” – saved from the penalty of our sin, and saved to eternal life in God.
We do not have to understand all the aspects of salvation before we can receive it. We may understand very little when we first trust Jesus Christ. And there are some things we will probably never understand until we see God face-to-face.
But “Salvation” really is simple enough for a child to understand and respond to. Jesus said it best when His disciples tried to shoo children away from Him.
Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. I tell you the truth, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it. (Luke 18:16-17)
God made understanding salvation simple so that everyone could receive it. No one is excluded. That’s the promise of salvation.
But with that promise comes a responsibility.
It can be summed up in the Apostle Paul’s straightforward words to the Philippian jailer: “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved” (Acts 16:31).
We are saved from our sins and death by believing in the person and work of Jesus Christ. (John 3:16) There’s nothing we can do to earn our salvation; it is God’s gracious gift to us (Ephesians 2:8,9). Once you believe by faith that God has saved you by His grace in Jesus, you are secure in Christ for eternity (John 10:28,29).
Salvation reunites man with God. Ever since the Garden of Eden, when man said he would rather make his own choices than follow God’s instructions, the relationship God intended to have with His creation (man) has been broken. Salvation restores that relationship.
Salvation also gives man a new nature—God’s nature.
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come…God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. (2 Corinthians 5:17,21)
Salvation is all about God because it puts God in us.
Here are some common synonyms for salvation that we all, at one time or another, have probably heard in church:
- Accepted Christ: A person has made a decision to become a Christian.
- Believer: One who believes that Christ is the only way of salvation.
- Born again: Emphasizes the new spiritual nature a person receives with salvation. Jesus used this term when Nicodemus asked how to be saved. Jesus’ answer: “You must be born again” (John 3:3)
- Child of God: By accepting Christ, a person is restored into God’s family.
- Christian: A follower of Christ; one who has accepted Christ as Lord of his or her life.
- Conversion: To convert means to change from one form to another—a decision to reject unbelief and follow Christ.
- Evangelical: A Christian who emphasizes and values the importance of personal salvation and wants to tell others about it.
- In Christ: Where a Christian has placed his or her faith, as opposed to some other plan, scheme, or religion.
- Saved: Being “saved” focuses on a Christian’s pardon from the penalty of sin.
Five Losing Ways to Save Your Life:
Let’s examine some false ideas about how a person can be saved.
1. We are Not Saved by Doing Good. Some people live by the mistaken belief that eternity in heaven versus eternity in hell is measured on a big scale. They think that at the end of life all the good they did and all the bad they did are weighed. If the good out weighs the bad, you go to heaven. If it doesn’t then you go to hell.
Good deeds are nice and might have a beneficial impact in society, but they are meaningless as far as salvation is concerned. As far as God is concerned, and compared to His righteousness, any good deed that we can do ourselves is worthless. God says,
All our righteous acts are like filthy rags (Isaiah 64:6).
Because we have a sin nature, we can do nothing on our own to earn favor in God’s eyes.
“Nature forms us; sin deforms us; school informs us; but only Christ can transform us.” – Croft Pentz
God does grade our lives, but It’s according to His standard of holiness. Based on that standard, we all “fail” because we have all done wrong. Romans 3:23 says:
For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.
God doesn’t grade on a curve. You don’t get to heaven simply because there are other people worse than you. Our own sin causes us to flunk God’s holiness test.
2. We are Not Saved by Being Religious. Sometimes people think that religious activities – going to church, teaching a Bible class, praying the rosary, preparing training material for Personal Evangelism – can earn them salvation. But living religiously doesn’t bring us salvation.
Many Jewish leaders in Jesus’ time taught that observing religious ritual would earn people good standing with God. But Jesus taught that a person’s relationship with God, not his observance of rituals, brings salvation.
He saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit. (Titus 3:5)
3. We are Not Saved by Being an American. In the past the United States has been referred to as a “Christian” nation. No nation owns God or Christianity in any special way. While in the times of the Old Testament God showed special favor to the Jews, salvation through Jesus Christ is available equally to all humankind.
Here there is no Greek or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all, and is in all (Colossians 3:11)
- We are Not Saved just because our Parents are Christians. While sin is inherited, salvation is not. Having Christian parents is a wonderful blessing and may expose us to the principles of salvation, but the decision to accept or reject Christ is an individual one. It is ours to make.
Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God –children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God. (John 1:12-13)
If you are a Christian, you are a child of God. Everyone who accepts Christ as Savior enters God’s spiritual family as a “child”. You can’t become a member of God’s family just by being born to Christian parents. God has lots of children but no grandchildren.
- We are Not Saved because we intellectually Understand and Agree that Jesus Christ is God and is the Means of Salvation. When the Bible talks about believing in Jesus, it means more than just intellectual understanding. Faith is more than brain knowledge. It requires an attitude of the heart, a commitment of the will.
You don’t become a Christian just because you look at the historical accounts of Christ and the proof of His deity and conclude, “Yeah, He’s God all right.”
Remember, even Satan and his demons know that Jesus is God and that He is the only means of salvation.
You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that—and shudder. (James 2:19)
One might paraphrase this verse to go something like this:
You believe in the truth of God and Jesus Christ. Big deal. Even Satan and the demons believe that. And they may even believe it more sincerely than we do, because they shudder when they consider it. But mere intellectual belief in the truth of God alone doesn’t add up to much for salvation.
We can’t be saved by anything that we do (being good, going to church, etc.). Likewise, we cannot be saved by anything we don’t do (not swearing, not killing, etc.). We cannot earn our salvation by our own effort
Understanding God’s Grace and Man’s Faith
Salvation comes only from God, offered to us by Him as a free gift.
1.God offers His grace freely to mankind. Grace means “unmerited favor.” When we speak of God’s grace, it means that God offers salvation to us even though we don’t deserve it. Salvation is made available to us at a great cost to God (the death of Jesus).
For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from ourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast (Ephesians 2:8-9)
But just like any gift, God’s gift to us is meaningless unless we receive it with all our heart, soul, will, and mind.
2. Man’s faith in God’s grace brings salvation. Man’s belief that Jesus Christ paid the penalty for our sin is all that is required on man’s part for salvation. Once when the apostle Paul was in jail the guard asked him what is necessary to be saved. Paul’s answer:
Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved (Acts 16:31).
Belief, or faith, that Jesus Christ is the means of our salvation is the prerequisite. We don’t have salvation without it. We don’t receive God’s free gift of grace without it.
Why Faith is More Than You Think
When the Bible talks about faith and belief, much more is meant than merely confidence in a certain circumstance (such as “I have faith in gravity,” or “I believe the sun will rise tomorrow”). The kind of faith that leads to salvation involves attitudes of our mind (belief), our spirit (trust), and our heart (adoration). Faith is the key.
- Faith STARTS with Belief. Some skeptics of Christianity are of the opinion that faith in Jesus Christ is only for the impressionable, the ignorant, the deluded, the irrational, or the naïve.
They say that faith requires the “willful” suspension of intelligence. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Ignoring facts or truth does not save us. Just the opposite.
Faith is central to the whole Christian experience: “Without faith it is impossible to please God because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him” (Heb
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Faith, in the New Testament always has as its background the person and work of Christ. He is the object of our faith, reliance or trust. “Whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16).
In and of itself, faith is meaningless. It always has an object to which it is directed and on which it rests. If the object of our faith is worthless, like a “Buddha”, we are victims of superstition no matter how sincerely we believe.
Faith requires belief (realization and appreciation) in the truth of the gospel—that Jesus is who He said He was, that the Bible is true, and that Christ is the way of salvation.
- Faith moves forward with trust. Trust means you have confidence in God that you give Him ownership of your life. You are certain that His plan for you is better than your plan. And you are willing to build your life on that trust.
- Faith results in worship. A sure sign of saving faith is the desire to worship God (to worship means to adore God, to give Him praise and reverent devotion).
Commitment and trust in Christ, beyond an academic belief about Christ is a key element of saving faith. Such commitment and trust involve the will as well as the mind and the emotions.
One does not believe simply because of one’s feelings—one decides to believe; a personal relationship is begun.
Salvation: The Incredible Truth
The beautiful truth of salvation can be summed up in one verse:
For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. (John 3:16)
- “For God so loved the world” – Even after humans rebelled against God in the Garden of Eden, God has longed to restore the relationship with His created beings. Because of our sin, we are unable to reach God on our own.
Without God’s help, we face death because of our sin.
- “That He gave his one and only Son” – God allowed His Son, Jesus Christ, to die a painful death on the cross to pay the price for our sins.
But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us (Romans 5:8)
- “That whoever believes in him” – We can accept or reject salvation. Accepting salvation requires a conscious step of faith on our part – we take possession personally and our lives are changed by its truth.
If you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. (Romans 10:9)
- “Shall not perish but have eternal life” – Without salvation we will spend eternity in hell. Salvation gives us new life—spiritually on this earth and eternally in heaven.
Count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus (Romans 6:11)
…but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord (Romans 6:23)
These elements comprise the basic plan of salvation, which God offers to everyone.
What is the benefit of Salvation?
In a word, new life. The story that began with failure in the Garden of Eden and led to Christ’s death on the cross now ends with the reality of new life for every believer.
New life now. Immediately at the moment of salvation, the new Christian’s life is changed in the following ways:
- Sins are forgiven (1 Peter 1:18-19)
- Relationship with God is restored. (Romans 3:24)
- Membership in God’s family begins (Ephesians 2:19)
- The presence and power of the Holy Spirit is received (Ephesians 1:13)
New life after death. Also, immediately at the moment of salvation, the Christian received benefits that will be fully realized after physical death:
- Saved from the punishment of sin (Romans 5:9)
- Assured a place in heaven with Christ. (Ephesians 2:6)
Once You’ve Got it, You Never Lose it:
Salvation is the prize no one can take away or lose. Once received, the gift of salvation is guaranteed forever. The Christian’s new nature is permanent too.
One may ask, “But what about subsequent sins, committed by the Christian after he or she accepts Christ as Savior? Do those sins disqualify the Christian from the benefits of salvation?”
Absolutely not! If a sin can cancel a believer’s salvation, then Christ’s sacrifice on the cross wasn’t sufficient to cover that sin. But the death on the cross was great enough to cover all sins of all people for all time.
Jesus said:
My sheep [Christians] hear my voice; I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one can snatch them out of my hand. (John 10:27-28)
No one – not even ourselves by our own wrongdoing – can take away what Christ has paid for with His blood and given to us.
This is the concept of eternal security – salvation is one and forever. Paul made this ringing declaration about eternal security:
For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels
nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8:38-39)
Is there only one-way to be saved?
These days everyone is looking for a loophole, a shortcut. But according to the Bible, there’s only one-way of salvation: faith in Jesus Christ. Jesus Himself said.
I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. (John 14:6)
Jesus’ Father is God. Without any ambiguity, Christ has declared that the way to God (salvation) that He offers is the only way to God.
What happens without Salvation?
- Remember that the Bible teaches that every human whether saved or unsaved, has a spirit and a soul, which will live for eternity (Ecclesiastes 3:11)
- Also, remember that the Bible states that the penalty for sin is death, but the gift of God is life (Romans 6:23). This reference to death is not speaking of physical death; it refers to spiritual death — separation from God’s presence.
- Hell was originally created as a place to punish Satan and the fallen angels, but all who have rejected God will join them. (Matthew 25:41)
Maybe some don’t want to be blunt about it, but the Bible says that without salvation, you will spend eternity in hell.
The Bible uses some unsettling language to give us a clue about the living conditions in hell: “torment,” “weeping,” “wailing,” “gnashing of teeth,” “no rest,” and “a lake of fire.” Not a place one would want to spend even a moment. Thank God…with salvation, we have a choice!
