Home	Our Hope
Bible Study		June 21, 2015
Salvation

Introduction

What is salvation? Why do we need salvation? How do we know that we have salvation? When do we have salvation? These are questions that many Christians ask and need to understand.

On the surface the questions are easy to answer. God didn't make salvation complicated so that his people couldn't understand. Some of the words, however, that we use to describe salvation are words that aren't used much outside the church and so we may not understand them. Of course there are some people who try to make salvation into something it isn't.

In this lesson we will look at all of that.

Lesson

Not one of us has led a perfect life; everyone has sinned. God cannot accept sin to the point that it is destroyed if it comes into his presence. Therefore because of this sin we are separated from God.

The word salvation means "to be preserved or delivered from ruin, harm, or loss"¹. In the Christian sense the ruin, harm or loss is the eternal punishment that comes with the separation from God that results from our sins. In short, salvation is deliverance from the wrath (anger) of God. Instead of that punishment, those who have salvation will enjoy eternal life.

Whoever is trusting in the son, has the eternal life, and whoever disobeys the son shall not see the life, but the anger of God shall abide upon him. (John 3:36)

Salvation is and always has been a gift from God, an undeserved expression of grace by God toward mankind. There is nothing that we can do or give to obtain salvation. This gift is available and offered to everyone but it must be received, accepted. It can only be received by faith in God. Even this faith in God, however, is a gift from God. No part of our salvation results from who we are or what we have done.

For it is by his grace that we have been saved through faith, and this faith was not from you, but it is the gift of God, ⁹ not of works, lest anyone should boast. (Ephesians 2:8-9)

Although the gift of salvation is offered to all, most people reject it because they reject God.

We've seen that faith in God is the key to salvation, but what exactly does faith mean? Faith is many things. In this context faith means believing and trusting in God. It is much more than believing in your mind that God exists. It is believing in your heart that his words and promises are true. It is trusting him with your very life. The result of faith is obedience. If God's words are true and they contain instructions for, you would obey. Therefore we try to live the life that God desires us to live.

This is repentance. Some misunderstand repentance to mean regret or remorse for things that have been done but that isn't the complete picture. Repentance means to turn away from something. In Christianity we repent of the Godless life we once lived. Regret and remorse may accompany that.

Like faith, repentance isn't only in the mind. It is deeper, in the heart. It is an about-face of everything that you are to turn toward God and his ways.

"The answer is near your mouth and your heart." This is the word of the faith that we preach. ⁹ And if you will confess with your mouth Our Lord Yeshua, and you will believe in your heart that God has raised him from the dead, you shall have life. ¹⁰ For the heart that believes in him is made right, and the mouth that confesses him has life. (Romans 10:8-10)

Because of that faith in God we are said to have been justified. We don't use that word much outside the church so the meaning may not be clear. The best definition I've heard for it is a play on the word, justified - just as if I'd never done it. It means there will be no consequence for the wrong things you have done, as though you had never done those things. It means that we are righteous (without flaw) before God and are therefore acceptable to him.

Because we have been declared righteous, therefore, by faith, we shall have peace with God in Our Lord Yeshua The Messiah, ² for in him we have been brought close by faith to this grace in which we stand, and we boast in the hope of the glory of God. (Romans 5:1-2)

This justification would not have been possible without redemption. Redemption is "the action of regaining or gaining possession of something in exchange for payment, or clearing a debt"² Because of the sins that we had committed, a debt was owed that we had no way to pay. Therefore we would have been eternally lost, unacceptable to God and destined for his anger. But Jesus the Messiah, by the sacrifice of a perfect life, paid the debt for everyone who would receive his gift.

You, who had died by your sins and by the uncircumcision in your flesh, he has given you life with him and has forgiven us all our sins. ¹⁴ And he has blotted out by his authority the bill of our debts which was adverse to us and he took it from the midst and nailed it to his cross. (Colossians 2:13-14)

As we said before, salvation has always been by faith. It was that way in the Old Covenant and it was that way before the Old Covenant.

For what do the Scriptures say? "Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness." (Romans 4:3)

Just as Abraham believed God and it was accounted to him for righteousness (Galatians 3:6)

By faith, Abel offered to God a sacrifice much better than that of Cain, and because of it there is a testimony concerning him that he was righteous. ⁶ But without faith, no one can please God, for whoever is brought near to God must believe that he exists and that he is the rewarder of those who seek him. ⁷ By faith, Noah worshiped, […] and he became the heir of the righteousness which is in faith. (Hebrews 11:4,6-7)

Hebrews 11, in total, makes it clear that salvation has always been by faith, before the Old Covenant and during it. Jesus' redemptive sacrifice covers all who had faith in God, those who lived prior to his sacrifice and those who lived during and after.

The only difference between the faith of their time and of ours is what God had revealed to them about himself. In New Testament times God has revealed his son, the Messiah, to us, as God. Therefore, now believing God by faith also means believing the Messiah.

⁹ If you will confess with your mouth Our Lord Yeshua, and you will believe in your heart that God has raised him from the dead, you shall have life. (Romans 10:9)

In Old Testament times and earlier, it was not possible to believe that the Messiah was raised from the dead because this was not yet revealed to man. Therefore their salvation came by believing what God had revealed to man at the time.

It is not possible for us to live up to that perfect standard that God has set. Therefore there will be failures on our part. By God's grace, and with the debt for our sins already paid, forgiveness and a return to justification are immediately available to those who ask.

When does our salvation begin? The Bible speaks of salvation as a present state and as a future event. The wrath of God that we are saved from is still future however. Therefore we have to understand that salvation in the present is conditional on our continuing in the faith.

Even you from the first were aliens and enemies in your minds because of your evil works, and now he has given you peace, ²² by the body of his flesh and in his death, to establish you before him as Holy Ones without blemish and without an indictment, ²³ if you continue in your faith while your foundation is true, and you are not moved from the hope of the gospel which you heard, which has been preached in all creation under Heaven, that of which I, Paulus, have become a minister. (Colossians 1:21-23)

But … (then it got complicated)

This is where things often become complicated. More and more people and churches are teaching that salvation is obtained in the present and not conditional, that once you are "saved" you can never leave that state of being saved. This is often referred to as the Once-saved-always-saved doctrine.

In its worst form this doctrine is interpreted as saying you can live any kind of life you want, even a life of sin, and your future salvation from the wrath of God is assured. In lesser forms this doctrine expects that the faithful will make some effort to live a Godly life but it still says that, whatever one does, there are no consequences to salvation.

Even in its lesser form there is a real danger in this doctrine. It opens the door to becoming lazy in our walk of faith and dismissing ever increasing failures. Then we deceive ourselves into believing that we are still righteous and thinking that salvation is still ours when it is not.

We have already said that under grace we can be restored by asking for forgiveness. What if we do something that we know was wrong? What if we plan to do that same thing over and over?

²⁶ For if a man shall sin by his will after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there is no sacrifice to be offered afterward for sins, ²⁷ but that terrible judgment is ready and the zeal of fire which consumes the enemies. ²⁸ For if any violated the law of Moses, he would die without mercy by the mouth of two or three witnesses. ²⁹ How much more do you think he will receive capital punishment, he who has trampled upon the son of God and esteemed the blood of his covenant to be like that of every person, who also was made holy by it, and he has despised the Spirit of grace? ³⁰ For we know him who said, "Vengeance is mine, and I shall give payment." And again, "the Lord Yahweh will judge his people." ³¹ It is very terrible to fall into the hands of the living God. (Hebrews 10:26-31)

It's hard to deny the message in these verses, though some people do. It speaks of a man who has received the knowledge of the truth and is covered by Jesus' sacrifice. This would be a Christian man, which of course includes women. The verse describes this man as sinning intentionally (by his will) and says of him that there is no sacrifice to cover his sins.

The verses continue to say that this man has trampled on the son of God, treated the blood of Jesus as nothing special (like that of every person), and treated God's grace as contemptible. It goes on to ask, if a man who broke the law of Moses was punished with death, won't a worse fate be waiting for the man who has done this to God.

What can correct the horrible situation this man has gotten into - he can repent and ask for forgiveness, knowing that he will immediately be forgiven, restored, and justified before God.

Asking for forgiveness isn't just words of course like a child might say "Sorry" when told to by a parent when the child doesn't mean it or do it by choice. This asking for forgiveness is repentance from a remorseful submissive heart.

If we ask for forgiveness but we plan to do the same thing again later, then that comes from a heart that is not repentant. Lack of repentance and refusing to ask for forgiveness is rebellion against God. Such a person has made himself an enemy of God (v. 27)

It is important for Christians defending the truth to understand the various ways people try to get around these verses. Some will say that the verses are not talking about Christians but about people who were considering becoming Christians but turned away at the last minute. They will say that this is shown because these people only had a head knowledge of the truth.

A careful study of these verses, though, makes it clear that this man was covered by the blood of Jesus, made holy by that blood, and under God's grace when he intentionally sinned. If it was about a sinner, does it matter if a sinner sins intentionally or unintentionally? Does it matter how one more sin gets on a pile of sins? Also, in saying there is no sacrifice to be offered for his sins, what would this matter to a sinner. No sacrifice is available for any of his sins. So we can see that this attempt to diminish the truth of these verses to defend the Once-saved-always-saved doctrine does not fit.

Conclusion

From the time of the first sin by Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, God has had a plan to redeem a people for himself. That plan is salvation.

Words

¹ Google Search Dictionary

² Google Search Dictionary