Part 1 of 21 –
What
is Salvation?
I
find that many Christians really do not know what the salvation that is of God
actually includes. From what are believers saved? Of what does the
believer’s salvation consist?
In
these next few installments I have numbered three aspects of God salvation for
believers. The first aspect of salvation is immediate, including
several blessings described below. Later we will discuss a second aspect,
which is in process, and a third aspect that is yet to come.
1.
First and most vitally, our salvation is from perdition, from the judgment
that is due every man because “all have sinned…”
(Romans 3:23) and “the wages of sin is
death…” (Romans 6:23a).
This
first aspect is salvation from the eternal loss of our soul in God’s
judgment. “Verily, verily, I say unto you, He
that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath
everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation (judgment);
but is passed from death unto life.” (John
5:24) The loss of
our soul would otherwise occur at the “Great White Throne” judgment
of the lost dead who will be resurrected from their graves (Heb., Sheol;
Greek, Hades) to stand at the final judgment (Rev 20:5, 12-13). Rev
20:15 …whosoever was not found written in the book of life was
cast into the lake of fire.
The
judgment of all the lost of the ages occurs at the end of the 1,000 year
millennial reign of Christ on earth, just prior to the eternal
kingdom
of
God
on new (remade) earth. The Bible is clear that every person born of Adam’s
lineage is infected with Sin (noun, as a nature). Romans
5:12 Wherefore, as by one man (Adam) sin entered into the
world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon
all men, for that all have sinned: Thus,
all men are born and lost in sin and will come to eternal death
due to their own individual acts of sin. “…There
is none righteous, no, not one: (Romans 3:10) “The SOUL (Heb.
nepesh, human vitality) that sinneth, it SHALL DIE (Heb. mut,
be killed)…” (Ezekiel 18:20a)
Ultimately, all the
lost will die an eternal death, which obviously is the exact
opposite of “eternal life.” They will die a physical body
death when their human spirit leaves their body (James 2:26). Their
unregenerated human “spirit” shall then “return unto the Lord
who gave it.” (Eccl 12:7). With the loss of their
human spirit, their soul, which had been enlivened by their
human spirit, is then at once snuffed out. The loss of
the soul-life may be likened to a lamp without electricity (spirit) – the
light (soul) goes out.
This death sequence is
the opposite of the original sequence of the enlivening of the first man,
Adam. Adam was fully animated by the one inbreathing of the human spirit that
God breathed into Adam. Genesis 2:7 (AMP) Then the
Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils
the breath or
SPIRIT OF LIFE, and MAN BECAME A LIVING BEING (NEPESH,
SOUL). Zechariah 12:1 The burden of the word of the LORD
for Israel, saith the LORD, which ...FORMETH THE SPIRIT OF MAN WITHIN HIM. As
noted here, Adam first became enlivened in his human spirit;
therewith his soul and body also became alive.
Just
as David, all men have been conceived in sin (Psalm 51:5). All mankind since
Adam’s fall are possessed of a fallen Sin nature that is precisely located
within their body of flesh (Rom 7:17-23). As result of the fall of Adam, he
and all men since are under the dominion of “Sin” (Rom 6:14a). The fallen
evil sin-nature indwells every human person from birth. Thus, all
men are born into this world as slaves of “SIN.”
Rom 6:20 (AMP) For when you (Christians) were
(formerly) SLAVES OF SIN... All
men are hopelessly and eternally lost in sin unless God would intervene in
their lives, individually.
This
was the state of all mankind until God made a “way” (John 14:6
“(Jesus)…I am the way”) for men to be saved from judgment. Now God
works to intervene in the individual lives of men… to bring them to His
salvation that is in Christ Jesus. He works in men to draw them to
forgiveness, eternal life, and relationship with Him, via His Son Jesus, who “redeems
(ransoms) us from all sin” (Titus
2:14).
Cornelius R Stam wrote; “…God
has taken us before His bar of justice, pronouncing us guilty, but He also
stepped down, as it were, to pay the penalty for our sins Himself…then He
justly declares us righteous in Christ.”
Rom 3:24-26 Being
justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in
Christ Jesus: 25 Whom God
hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his
blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that
are past, through the forbearance of God; 26 To
declare, I say, at this time his righteousness: that he
might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus.
Our salvation is based upon Christ’s payment
of our just debt. Today believers are “justified freely by His grace
through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus” (Rom. 3:24). The word “freely,”
here, does not mean “without cost,” but “without cause.” The
same original word is translated “without a cause” in Jn 15:25,
where we find the words of Christ: “They hated Me (Jesus) without a
cause.” Men as sinners hated Jesus without a cause, yet God
justifies sinners without a cause. What had Christ done to earn the
hatred of men? Absolutely nothing! Jesus had been kind and He helped those in
distress. He had healed the sick. He had made the dumb to speak, the deaf to
hear, the blind to see, and the lame to leap for joy. Why, then, did they hate
Him: Jn 15:25 says they hated Jesus “without a cause,” without any
cause in Him. The cause of their hatred springs from their own evil hearts.
Adam and Eve became “as gods” of their own lives (Gen 3:5, 26);
therewith all men are “at enmity with God” (Rom 8:7).
What have we as sinners done to merit
justification before God? Nothing whatever! We as sinners have broken
God’s natural law daily (Rom 2:15); lying, cheating, stealing, deceiving,
omitting, gossiping, and committing hundreds of other sins. Yet, in love, God
gave His Son to die for us on
Calvary
“that He might be just and (at the same time) the Justifier of
him that believeth (trusts) in Jesus” (Rom. 3:26). God loves and
justifies believers “without a cause,” that is without any
cause in them or due to them. The only cause is to be found in God’s own
heart of love, for “… for GOD IS LOVE.” (1John 4:8b).
Those who trust in Christ alone, the One who
died for their sins, they are justified “without a cause,”
by God’s grace, through the “redemption” that is “in Christ
Jesus.” “God commendeth His love toward us in that while
we were yet sinners Christ died for us”
(
Rom.
5:8). “By this man (Jesus) is preached...the forgiveness
of sins, and by Him (by Christ) all that believe are
justified from all things, from which He could NOT BE
justified by the law of Moses” (Acts 13:38, 39).
God now freely offers
men forgiveness, justification and redemption “in Christ,” to
reconcile believers to Himself. Upon their believing, God immediately gives
each one His Son’s very “life” (Zoe, resurrected spirit of life).
Jesus’ resurrected eternal LIFE is the
one remedy for eternal DEATH.
John 3:16 (AMP)
For God so greatly loved and
dearly prized the world that He [even] gave up His only begotten (unique)
Son, so that whoever believes in (trusts in, clings to, relies on) Him shall
not perish (Gk. apollymi, be
destroyed fully) but have
(the) ETERNAL (the everlasting) LIFE (Gk., Zoe, Christ’s
“Spirit of life”).
