Salvation

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As with every doctrine, the doctrine of salvation may be proven in many different ways. There is in the Scriptures a harmony of doctrine whereby one doctrine supports another, so that if there is contradiction, a man's interpretation may be shown to be false. On the other hand, Scripture may be used to prove a man's interpretation correct, provided that proper attention is paid to context and to harmony of doctrine. Indeed, there is no other method that can be reliably used to determine the verity of an interpretation besides the use of the Scriptures, and the harmony of every doctrine with every other doctrine. Almost any verse of Scripture can be shown to be contradictory to other verses if either or both are taken out of context, but where the context is considered, there is and can be no contradiction possible.

It seems strange today that there should be such diversity of opinion concerning so basic a doctrine as salvation. Not really diversity, for there are truly only two schools of thought, but sheer and utter confusion. The devil has done his work well in muddying these waters. It is certain that there was no confusion during the apostolic period. But the Apostle Paul said that apostasy would characterize the end of the Age, and it is not as strange as it seems that it is so today.

While there are many divergent views of this doctrine, the differences boil down to a single question: Must a man do anything in order to be saved, or is salvation a work that God alone does without the participation of man? There are those who, on the one hand, say that salvation is a free gift, and that it is impossible for a man to participate in or contribute to his own salvation. On the other hand, there are those who say that a man must do this or that in order to be saved, whether it is keeping the ten commandments or being baptized, or confessing his sins to a priest, or performing some sort of penance, or giving evidence of the gifts of the Spirit (such as speaking in tongues or some similar manifestation), or either gradually or immediately reforming himself into a sinless state. One should note immediately that amongst those who believe that a man cannot contribute anything to his own salvation, there is broad agreement on the manner of salvation, but among those who believe that a man must participate in his own salvation, the sort of thing that he must do varies considerably.

Let us examine first of all the state of mankind. If man is inherently sinful, then salvation becomes an immediate necessity. If he is inherently good, with only some being sinners, then salvation is only necessary for those who have sinned. If it were possible for one to live sinlessly, then would not God be unjust in saving those who sinned when they had the same opportunity to live righteously as those who did so live? If man could live sinlessly, then God would not need to provide salvation for the lost, for they could have lived righteously, and it would be unjust to those who had not sinned if He saved those who had. If a man could be good, but knew that God would save the sinner, what motivation would he then have to live righteously? But if no one could live righteously, then if any were to be saved, that salvation would depend upon God's grace. Provided that it were offered to all men, God would then be just in saving those who fulfilled whatever requirements were given. Therefore, if man is inherently righteous, salvation is not only unnecessary but also unjust; but if he is inherently sinful, then salvation becomes necessary and God is shown to be just in providing a salvation that is offered to all, as we shall see.

When Adam and Eve first ate the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in the Garden of Eden, they passed from sinless perfection to complete corruption, from immortality to mortality, from life to death. Their entire beings were corrupted, body and soul, so that their offspring could not be sinless. Indeed their blood had become sinful, so that their sinful nature was transmitted to their children. We know that this is the case because both Cain and Abel offered sacrifices for their sin. Indeed, every generation born from that time forward has been shown to be dependent upon blood sacrifice for the remission of their sins. God Himself set the standard remedy for sin in making the coats of skins that He fashioned for Adam and Eve. For those were not coats of fur, but of skin. Blood was shed. Neither could Adam and Eve shed their own blood in payment for their sins, for their blood was sinful. It had to be innocent blood. Thus the sinless animals were slain in their stead.

After Cain killed Abel, God gave Adam and Eve another son to replace Abel. His name was Seth, which means "appointed." Seth's was the bloodline through whom the Redeemer would arrive. Of all of Cain's descendants, and of all Seth's, only one line remained faithful in their sacrifices for sin, the line from which Noah was descended. Therefore, in the Flood, only Noah and his family were spared. And when the flood waters receded, Noah immediately built an altar and offered sacrifices. The first time that grace is mentioned in the Bible is where it is said, "...Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord." (Gen 6:8) Grace is something good that is undeserved. Salvation is by grace (see Eph 2:8). If we did anything to earn it, then it would be deserved, and it would not be by grace, but by works.

When God delivered the Jews from bondage in Egypt, the method of their deliverance again involved the shedding of substitutionary blood. None of the prior plagues had persuaded Pharoah to free the Jews, but when the first-born of all the land of Egypt were slain, he relented and let the Jews go. Even the first-born among the Jews would have been slain had they not killed an unblemished lamb and smeared its blood on their doorposts and lintels. When the death angel passed through the land, he passed over the homes of the Jews who had obediently covered their entrances with the innocent blood of spotless lambs.

When God led the Jews into the Wilderness and called Moses up onto Mount Sinai where He gave him the Law, He again reiterated the necessity of shedding innocent blood if the sins of the Jews were to be forgiven. A complete system of ritual bloodshed was instituted under the law. As long as the Jews had a tabernacle or a temple, blood sacrifice was necessary for the remission of their sins. Not a single Jew was ever saved by his own righteousness under the law of Moses, but by the shedding of blood on his behalf by the high priest on the Day of Atonement. As long as the high priest made the requisite offerings for the sins of the Jews, the Jews were saved. At that time, no Gentile could be saved without first becoming a Jew, so that he could be covered under the Jewish law. The blood of every man contained the sin nature that was passed down from Adam, and all were sinners. Consider the words of King David in the fourteenth Psalm:

Of all the men that ever were born, not one had lived sinlessly. All were sinners. How could anyone be sinless when he was himself a sinner? We are not sinners because we sin; we sin because we are sinners. Our very blood is sinful. That is why Jesus had to be born of a virgin. If He had had a human father, His blood would have been sinful and it would have done no more good to hang Him on the cross than it would to have hung a dog thereon. Jesus could not have died for anyone else's sin because He would have had to die for His own. But with blood that was divine, and sinless, He had no sin of His own to pay for, and could justly pay for the sins of another.

In a similar statement, the Apostle Paul expands on the verses quoted above. After Jesus had already come and died and was resurrected and ascended into heaven, long after the Church had been formed, Paul examined the state of man in his day. He wrote:

So, how many righteous people are there? Not one. No, not one. Not a single soul born to man is sinless, nor can he be. If entrance into heaven were attained through sinlessness, no one would ever go to heaven, for all have sinned. If one were to seek to get to heaven by being good, then he would have to be as good as God is. Anything less would make him a sinner, and God would not be just in allowing any unsaved sinner into heaven. Every sin must be judged if God is to be a just God. Since all men are sinners (see Rom 3:23), none can get into heaven by their righteousness. If any are to be saved, it must be by some other method than by keeping the ten commandments.

God had told Adam very clearly that in the day he ate of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil he would surely die. Therefore, on that day God would have been utterly righteous in slaying both Adam and his wife. However, He did not kill them. Rather, He killed substitutes in their place, the animals who died that they might have coats of skins. Paul showed plainly that the same principle was operative even after the cross. He said,

In chapter three he had given that scathing denunciation of the whole of mankind quoted above in verses 10-18. If the Bible had ended there, we would have no hope. Hear the verses that follow Paul's description of the righteousness of man:

There is no hope for anyone to get to heaven by keeping the ten commandments. It cannot be done. Indeed, the law was not even given so that a man might keep it and go to heaven. Nowhere is that notion found in the Scriptures. Paul states very clearly that the law was given so that every mouth may be stopped and the whole world become guilty. It was not given to save, but to condemn. The law of Moses was not given as a means for entrance into heaven, but as a means for exposing the sin that is in us all. Just as Adam and Eve had no knowledge of sin or evil until they partook of the tree in the Garden, so we would have no knowledge of sin without the law. The law of Moses is a great beacon illuminating our sins, so that we are without excuse. By it we are shown to be sinners, deserving of condemnation. How then can anyone be saved?

Ah, there is hope! The Bible does not end there. Paul goes on to show that sinners can be saved, but not through their own righteousness. In order to be saved, one must not depend upon his own righteousness, but must have applied to himself the very righteousness of God, which he cannot attain to on his on effort or merit. Hear what Paul says next:

There is a way for the sinner to have the righteousness of God charged to his account instead of his sins. That way is through faith in Jesus Christ. The one who believes in Jesus, the Christ, has his every sin forgiven and forgotten, and the righteousness of God is then and forevermore charged to that one's account. We are saved, not by our own righteousness, but by God's grace, through faith in the Blood that Jesus shed on the cross to pay for our sins.

Let us step aside for a moment and consider that "Christ" is not Jesus' last name. Christ is His title. It is the Office that He holds. He is the Messiah, the Redeemer; He is Jesus, the Christ. In order to understand this more clearly, let us go to the Gospel according to John, where Jesus is speaking to Nicodemus, a Pharisee and a ruler of the Jews.

Any ordinary man would have done some sort of "Aw, shucks" thing, or would have affirmed the words of this flatterer by agreeing with him. Jesus did neither. Rather, He said this enigmatic thing:

There followed some conversation in which Nicodemus sought to understand Jesus' words. He could not comprehend the new birth. Jesus explained it in a couple of ways but He summed it up by referring to a bit of Jewish history. Let us read the two verses and then discuss them for a moment.

When Moses led the Jews out of Egypt, through the Red Sea and into the wilderness, they wandered there for forty years before God allowed them to go into the land that He had promised Abraham. During that time, the Jews became very disgruntled. It was a desert land, and they could not grow crops for lack of water. It was during this period that God provided manna for the Jews to eat. The Jews, remembering that in Egypt they had garlic and onions and a varied diet, began to complain, muttering against Moses and against God, saying that it would have been better for them to have remained in Egypt as slaves than to be out in the desert wandering around like animals. They had no home, and their hearts were on earthly things rather than on heavenly things.

God heard their grumbling. He knew what great things He had in store for the Jews, and was offended by their lack of faith. After all, He had recently parted the waters of the Red Sea so that they could escape on dry land. He had delivered them when they could not deliver themselves. He sent a plague of snakes in among them. These serpents began striking the Jews and killing them. God instructed Moses to fashion a serpent out of bronze and affix it to a great pole, which Moses promptly did. When Moses lifted the pole with the serpent on it high into the air, the Jews who looked at that serpent and trusted God were not struck and killed. Those who did not were bitten and died. But the ones who trusted God had their temporal lives spared.

Jesus, in the passage quoted above was telling the Jews that, like that serpent, He would also be "lifted up" (crucified), and whoever looked upon His crucifixion and trusted Him to save them would receive eternal life. That is, when Jesus paid for their sins by dying in their place, if they accepted the sufficiency of His death in payment for their own sins, then they would receive, not the temporal life that the Jews in the wilderness received, but they would be born again, never to die. When one has been born again, though his flesh may die, he lives on. He passes from death to life, just as Adam had passed from life to death. We have the promise that, though our bodies may die, our spirits never so much as lose consciousness. We remain who we are, still personally alive, though outside our bodies, and can never die. And we have the promise that if our bodies die, we will yet be reunited with our bodies in the resurrection, and these bodies will be changed from mortal to immortal, never to face death again.

Salvation is provided for us in the sacrifice that Jesus made on the cross. He offered Himself, His own life, as payment for our sins. Paul tells us that because His death was sufficient payment, He was raised from the dead. His resurrection is the proof of the sufficiency of His sacrifice for us (Rom 4:25). Read these next three verses carefully:

Jesus Himself uttered those words. It does not seem possible that He could have stated it more simply than that. He who believes is not condemned. He who does not believe is condemned. My friend, it matters not how grievous your sin may be, nor the multitude of them. When Jesus died on the cross, He knew of every single sin that you ever have committed, or ever will commit. He knew you personally then. In fact, He knew you long before the foundation of the world. Since before the creation, God has known everything about you, even to the numbering of every hair that you have ever had on your head. When a hair falls from your head, an angel is careful to record it and report it by number to your Father in heaven, who already knows of it.

When Jesus was in the Garden of Gethsemane just before His arrest, and was praying, "Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not my will but yours be done," (Mt 36:29 - KJV), what do you supose was in that cup? Most people will tell you that it was the excruciating pain of the crucifixion. Some will say that it was the public shame of the sort of execution that faced Him, to die naked in public view like a common criminal. But it was neither of those. Oh no. What was in that cup were your sins and mine. Jesus was righteous. He had no sin. He was very holy indeed, holier than thou. Holier than me. He was God, and what He wanted to avoid was the taking of that sin into His righteous Person. Let us consider for a moment the omniscience of God.

God is God. If there is anything that He does not know, then He cannot be God, for He would imediately become vulnerable on account of His ignorance. But what does it mean to know everything? How many millions of atoms are contained in a single letter of this web site? Untold millions. And how many are there in the computer you are using right now? How many in your desk? How many in your house or office. In your city? In your state or country? How many atoms are there in the world? How many in the solar system? And how many in the universe? Yet, God must know of every atom that He ever created, and He must know them individually. Furthermore, since all of these atoms are in constant motion, He must know where every single one of them has ever been, where they are right now, and where they will ever be. And He must also know the relationship of every atom He has made to every other atom. Which atoms are in which molecules, and all of their electrons and protons, and how each spins around every atom. How many times, and when, and when they will decay. And God does not know these things sequentially. He has constant knowledge of everything. He knows it all continuously.

When we think of God's omniscience, we do not often consider it in its proper light. And then, we only consider it in reference to our universe. What of the heaven in which He dwells? You see, when Jesus was in that Garden praying about that cup, the cup did not contain some mixed "soup" of the sins of mankind, but it contained every single, individual sin that ever had been or ever would be committed. When He looked into that cup, Jesus saw every single sin you have committed or will commit. He looked at them individually. His love for you is so great that He was willing to take every one of those sins Himself and pay the penalty for them. Even sins that you have not yet committed, He saw and paid for in advance. How many of them were future when He died? All of them.

Paul says that there are sinners out there whose sins are not charged to their accounts. Are you numbered among them? You can be. It is very simple to be saved. All that is necessary is that you understand and believe that Jesus' death on the cross paid for your sins. If you believe only that, you are born again, and have that eternal life that Jesus promised so long ago. Then there is no condemnation. You never have to worry again about whether you are going to heaven. John said that he wrote the things that he wrote so that we could know that we have eternal life. You don't have to hope that God will overlook your sin. He could not do that if He wanted to, because it would make Him unjust. But He can offer you a free forgiveness on the basis of your faith in the sufficiency of Jesus' sacrifice. Hear what Paul said:

As one progresses through the Bible, he finds that this doctrine is expanded upon and substantiated. Never does the Bible anywhere teach that a man is saved by being good, or by being baptized, or by doing anything at all. Even the faith that we have is not our own faith, but God gives us the faith by which we believe the Gospel. If we had anything to do with it, then it would not be by grace that we are saved, but it would be by works. It is either free or it is not. If we earn our salvation by adding a single thing to what God has already done, then grace is rendered ineffective by our works. There are three references more, with which we shall conclude this discussion of salvation.

If you are unsure of your salvation, simply pray the following prayer, and you may know that God hears you:

I know that I am a sinner. Though I wish that I weren't, I know that I cannot stop sinning, for it is in me to sin since I am a sinner. But I know that you have provided for my salvation by paying the penalty for my sins through the blood that Jesus shed on the cross. I believe that His death satisfied your righteous judgment, and that without His death I would have no hope. But now I have not hope, but certainty that I am saved by your grace and not by my own works. Thank you for loving me enough to die and pay for my sins, and for giving me that new birth that assures my standing in your grace forever."

If you prayed that prayer and meant it, then you are certainly saved, and can never be lost again. You have no need to fear the judgment of God, for your sins have already been judged.

If you have questions regarding any of this, please call either David at (615) 799-1798, Bill at (478) 827-1921, or Tara at (478) 335-5443. We will be only too happy to assist you in any way we can.