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Note this is part 3 of a multipart series, Please start with Part 1. Part one has an outline you can use to follow along as we study the topic of salvation:
Why is it necessary?
Two forces are at work against sin in this world. It can seem to some that they are working in opposition to each other, however the relationship between the two is synergistic. One feeds on the other, creating a new reality where sin is nonexistent.
A. God's Holiness
The living God that Christians worship is personal, relational, and holy. By personal I mean that He exists with character traits that make Him intelligent, and He acts with a will. He is distinguished from and acts upon His environment[1]. By relational, I mean that He seeks fellowship with others, namely humans[2], who share certain traits with Him. God's Holiness is where the clearest distinction between God and humanity is made. God is necessarily different from people because He created them and everything else in this existence ex nihilo, and we cannot create in that fashion. Our creativity is bound to the material. We can have ideas and we can make many bold plans, but the physical world binds us. While we can mold the world around us, we can't create a new world. Our ideas may be our own, but their implementation requires input from a Creator. We borrow His stuff to make them real. His holiness is not limited to His ability, He's also substantively different than us. People are a combination of material and immaterial. God on the other hand is spirit. He's not tied to this existence to be complete. God is holy because He creates apart from His creation and because He is substantively different from His creation[3]. These are quantifiable attributes of the holiness of God. God is also of a different quality. Put briefly, God is holy because He does no wrong. There is nothing in His being to permit evil. God is not limited by His temporal circumstances so that He makes ignorant choices that result in evil, nor does He deliberately cause evil to come to pass. In contrast to man, God rises up to bring justice to the earth, to the terror of those who do wrong. Consider Isaiah:
Isa 33:1-14 Ah, you destroyer, who yourself have not been destroyed, you traitor, whom none has betrayed! When you have ceased to destroy, you will be destroyed; and when you have finished betraying, they will betray you. (2) O LORD, be gracious to us; we wait for you. Be our arm every morning, our salvation in the time of trouble. (3) At the tumultuous noise peoples flee; when you lift yourself up, nations are scattered, (4) and your spoil is gathered as the caterpillar gathers; as locusts leap, it is leapt upon. (5) The LORD is exalted, for he dwells on high; he will fill Zion with justice and righteousness, (6) and he will be the stability of your times, abundance of salvation, wisdom, and knowledge; the fear of the LORD is Zion's treasure. (7) Behold, their heroes cry in the streets; the envoys of peace weep bitterly. (8) The highways lie waste; the traveler ceases. Covenants are broken; cities are despised; there is no regard for man. (9) The land mourns and languishes; Lebanon is confounded and withers away; Sharon is like a desert, and Bashan and Carmel shake off their leaves. (10) “Now I will arise,” says the LORD, “now I will lift myself up; now I will be exalted. (11) You conceive chaff; you give birth to stubble; your breath is a fire that will consume you. (12) And the peoples will be as if burned to lime, like thorns cut down, that are burned in the fire.” (13) Hear, you who are far off, what I have done; and you who are near, acknowledge my might. (14) The sinners in Zion are afraid; trembling has seized the godless: “Who among us can dwell with the consuming fire? Who among us can dwell with everlasting burnings?”
“Who among us can dwell with the consuming fire?” This question defines the difference between us and God. What can we do in the face of such a one as the Lord? He is Holy, and in His holiness, He will not tolerate our sin.
B. God's Love
There are a few scriptures even the most skeptical of people on earth hope are true, one of which is 1 John 4:8 “Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.” They don’t necessarily want to believe any of the rest of this chapter, but they want to use this verse a bludgeon for attacking God’s holy righteous judgement of sin. “The argument was that if God is truly love, then God could not bear to lose any of God’s creation”[4] said one retired Unitarian Universalist preacher when talking about why he left the Presbyterian denomination. How then, can both be true? God is Holy, God is Love. In solving this problem let’s first look at what is being assumed. Just because God is Love does not mean that this is His preeminent characteristic. Rather, the “two basic sides of His Moral nature are His holiness and His love.”[5] These aspects are equal and complimentary. Because He is Holy and Loving, He has surely made a way for sinners to have their sins “washed away.”[6] God’s Love is what makes the verses after 1 John 4:8 so important:
1Jn 4:8-19 Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. (9) In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. (10) In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. (11) Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. (12) No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us. (13) By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit. (14) And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. (15) Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God. (16) So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. (17) By this is love perfected with us, so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment, because as he is so also are we in this world. (18) There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love. (19) We love because he first loved us.
In reading this passage several things become apparent to us:
1. God has made love know to us in his actions by sending His son to die for our sins.
2. Those abide in this love abide in God through His Spirit
3. These people who Love God and abide in Him have confidence on Judgement Day because God’s love perfected in them, has cast out all fear of judgement.
It seems to me that if God’s Love and God’s holiness are working in concert to bring people to salvation, we need to understand what that means. These people, who loved God, received testimony from the Apostles about what they needed to do to experience the Love of God.[7] It is important to go to scripture to find out what the Apostles taught concerning what the Loving, Holy God has done to assure us salvation.
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Quick link to Part 4:
How Does Salvation Happen? By The Grace of God!
[1] This is partially revealed to us in Exodus 3:14 “God said to Moses, “I AM WHO IAM.” And he said, “Say this to the people of Israel: ‘I AM has sent me to you.’”
[2] Ezekiel 34:11-24; John 4:23
[3] Isaiah 6:3 and Revelation 4:8 Reveal that God is constantly praised as Holy because he fills the earth with His Glory and He as the Almighty, is eternal (was, is, and is to come).
[4] https://www.mlive.com/living/kalamazoo/2010/09/a_place_to_belong_after_faith.html
[5] Jack Cottrell, The Collect Writings of Jack Cottrell (The Christian Restoration Association, Mason OH, 2018) 3:67. See also Romans 11:22.
[6] Acts 22:16.
[7] 1 John 1:1-4
