Why is Salvation Necessary? Salvation part 3

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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:

Brothers, What Shall We Do? 

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!

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[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

What is Salvation? Salvation Part 2

 

 

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Update:

Here's part 1:

Brother's What Shall We Do?

This includes an outline that will be handy for following along, I suggest opening it in a separate tab to follow along.

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We need to understand what exactly salvation means. Then we can determine what it means to be saved.  When we examine what it means to be saved, two things become apparent about how it relates to sin in our own lives. Furthermore, we can look at how sin affects the world.

A.    Salvation is the Forgiveness of Sin

Let’s begin by making sure we understand Sin the same way. For being such a short word, it is the source of never-ending debate and consternation. In talking about the righteous lives Christians begin to live when they follow Jesus, John the Apostle defines sin:

Beloved, we are God's children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is. And everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure. Everyone who makes a practice of sinning also practices lawlessness; sin is lawlessness. You know that he appeared in order to take away sins, and in him there is no sin. No one who abides in him keeps on sinning; no one who keeps on sinning has either seen him or known him. Little children, let no one deceive you. Whoever practices righteousness is righteous, as he is righteous.

(1Jn 3:2-7)

 

Sin is lawlessness. To understand sin means you need some sort of understanding of lawlessness. One of the things that the Greek/Roman culture share with Judeo/Christian culture is the idea that Law comes from something beyond the common man, and that all people who are citizens of the group to which the law applies are held under it. For the Jews of Jesus time, the law came from Moses on the mountain. To violate the law, was to go against what God had determined to be acceptable or not acceptable, it was to live as though God had not made known what He desired. This is foolishness.

To see how foolish it is, consider Adam and Eve. First, I need you to understand that we don’t want to get lost in the discussion of the historical accuracy of this account. I unapologetically offer to you that this is the facts of what happened, and I ask you to at least pretend with me that this is an accurate record of the first instance of Sin, and that through studying it we can understand what John means when he says “Sin is lawlessness.” If you wish to know why I think it’s important to consider this as fact, and some of the basic reasons I have for accepting it as such, I will be happy to discuss this with you, either in a group or individually. After we consider the law that’s given to men, let’s consider the persons involved in this act. Before man fell, he had but one law, recorded in Genesis 2:16-17: “And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.” A simple rule, open buffet on any fruit except what’s on this one tree! How man fell is recorded in the 3^rd chapter of Genesis, it would be good to read the whole chapter from start to finish, I won’t be quoting it verbatim, but I will occasionally reference a specific verse. The first person mentioned in Genesis 3 in NOT Adam or Eve, but is identified only as “the Serpent”. The Bible defines this “serpent” as the Devil. Read the last book of scripture about what the Devil does, and how he’s presented. He’s even called “that ancient serpent” (Revelation 12:9 and 20:2) He offers a question to Eve, and this question introduces lawlessness to mankind. The question does not attack the source of the law directly. It does not cause Eve to question God’s authority, but rather, what is attacked is the Word of God itself, especially the law that God had given Adam. The man and the woman disobeyed God’s law, became sinners, and began dabbling in lawlessness.

We see this in their actions immediately following their disobedience. They tried their best to give themselves clothes. They knew they needed to hide their shame. When God speaks again to Adam and Eve, he identifies the source of their shame, and He gives them a new law visible through the administration of divine punishment. God’s new law is this: “I will take care of your sin, I will make you a way”. He shows them this by providing them garments that will cover them completely and that will last. He says this in the nature of the curse He gives “the serpent”: “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.” (Genesis 3:15) This is the First Gospel Message. God identifies a continuing problem for the serpent. He will always be at odds with God’s people, to the point where a man identified as the woman’s offspring will crush him even while the serpent attempts to injure him. This comes true in the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus:

For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die— but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.

(Rom 5:6-11)

We were God’s enemies until Jesus died, and we are saved by His Life! The serpent bruised His heel, but Jesus has crushed the serpent’s head. Now we are no longer thrashing about in lawlessness, but rather, we have the law of love. Our new law says to practice righteousness in love because God is Love.

B.     Salvation is the Deliverance from depravity

Depravity is a big word for a very simple idea: When you start to do wrong, you’re only going to get worse, not better. God saves us not only from our past sins, but from the desire to walk in sin itself. An old hymn says it like this:

Rock of Ages, cleft for me,
Let me hide myself in Thee;
Let the water and the blood,
From Thy riven side which flowed,
Be of sin the double cure,
Save me from its guilt and power.

The “double cure” is what we’re after. It’s one thing to be forgiven of your sins, it’s another thing to be given power to resist the temptations of this world. That is exactly what happens when we are saved though. We acquire, in salvation through Jesus, a God Given ability to conquer sin in our lives. Despite Satan’s best efforts, we can now say no to him! Even when we do fall to temptation, we are not left without a deliverer. Because as we walk in the light of God’s word, and continue to confess our sins, we are washed of them continually. We are continually being made new (1 John 1:5-2:2)! There is so much more to be said about sanctification, but it goes beyond what I can post here. I know that there are many people who want to follow Jesus out there who are either keeping rules or living without them. Sanctification makes neither position tenable, nor does it allow for a middle ground. It is nothing less that the full abandonment of our person to the God who has made us to do good things. I want talk to you about what God is going to do with you, but we need to meet, with God’s word between us, so we can get the facts straight from the source.

C.     Salvation is renewal for the fallen world

God is revealed in creation (Romans 1:20) and people refuse to come to the knowledge of God through it. Often, this rejection is because of something called “natural evil”. Natural evil describes the phenomenon that people seem to suffer unjustly from things that happen in this world over which we have no control. Freak storms, floods, hurricanes, snow, ice, deserts, disease all seem to work together to undo the good things in our lives. This is a fair concern. There’s a whole branch of theology devoted to this question. It would be foolish to attempt an answer in this essay, but I do want to make two points that I hope can serve as a springboard into bigger questions and study.

First, I would like to acknowledge that the Bible does talk about creation in a manner that personifies it to illustrate what seems readily apparent to people who see this natural evil in the world: Something is wrong. Consider the following passage from Romans:

Rom 8:19-22  For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God.  (20)  For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope  (21)  that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God.  (22)  For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now.

 

In this passage, “creation” waits to be made new because it “hopes” that it too will be set free. This is an important acknowledgement because God wants us to know that He made this world “very good” (Genesis 1:31) and He knows that this doesn’t seem to be the case now. The thing that always troubles me about natural evil is that while it seems to come from an impersonal source, it seems so personally directed. It takes time to process this, and I understand. I want to help you process the longing for something more and different than the evil you may be experiencing. Let’s sit down together with the Word of God between us to lament, question, poke and hopefully change this problem.

Second, one aspect of God’s redemptive actions for mankind that has always been interesting to me is that God’s plan for creation doesn’t just involve the recreation of our individual person, but also that of all of creation.

2Pe 3:10-13  …the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a roar, and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved, and the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed.  (11)  Since all these things are thus to be dissolved, what sort of people ought you to be in lives of holiness and godliness,  (12)  waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be set on fire and dissolved, and the heavenly bodies will melt as they burn!  (13)  But according to his promise we are waiting for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells.

This passage paints a concerning picture, but it is good news indeed that this world is temporary! I hope and work for the day righteousness dwells where I am. I eagerly anticipate it. I hope to see this world burned away to reveal the next, because with this world will go natural evil, to the point that this is how life is described there:

Rev 21:3-5  And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God.  (4)  He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.”  (5)  And he who was seated on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.” Also he said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.”

When God made this world, and visited it, it was always in a temporary fashion. This world cannot contain Him, but the new one will, and we will see Him there because He will dwell with us. If you already believe in God, would you want to meet Him? This post is about what it takes to build a house on God’s street in the new creation coming.

I hope you see the need for salvation, both as individuals and as a part of this created universe. I hope you’re beginning to see the depth of the love the Creator has for each of us in the provision for salvation not just to us, but of the rest of creation. Mainly I hope that you’re beginning to see how the Bible describes this salvation, we are saved from our sins, we are saved from our depravity, and creation is saved as well. In the next section, we will see why salvation is necessary, and later we will look at how God accomplishes His work in salvation.

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On to Part 3:

Why is Salvation Necessary?

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