Salvation
Salvation is the restoration of humanity's communion with God and the redemption of all creation from the bondage of sin and death. God grants salvation not only for this life, but for eternity to every person who accepts Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. Salvation is a gift from God, made possible by grace, given because of faith in Jesus Christ, not earned through personal merit or good works.Epheser 2,4-10; 1. Korinther 1,9; Römer 8,21-23; 6,18.22-23)
Salvation - a rescue operation!
Salvation, redemption is a rescue operation. To approach the concept of salvation we need to know three things: what the problem was; what God did about it; and how we should respond to it.
What man is
When God made man, he created him "in his own image," and he called his creation "very good" (1Mo 1,26-27 (u. 31). Man was a wonderful creature: created from dust, but enlivened by the breath of God. (1Mo 2,7).
The "image of God" probably includes intelligence, creative power and authority over creation. And also the ability to enter into relationships and make moral decisions. In some ways we are like God Himself. It is because God has a very special purpose for us, His children.
The first book of Moses tells us that the first humans did something that God had forbidden them to do. (1Mo 3,1-13)Their disobedience showed that they did not trust God; and it was a violation of his trust in them. Through unbelief, they had clouded the relationship and had not lived up to what God wanted for them. As a result, they lost a part of their likeness to God. The outcome, God said, would be: struggle, pain, and death (verses 16-19). If they would not follow the Creator's instructions, they would simply have to go through the valley of tears.
Human beings are both noble and base. We can have high ideals and yet be barbaric. We are godlike and yet godless. We are no longer "in the spirit of the Creator." Although we have "corrupted" ourselves, God still considers us made in his image. (1Mo 9,6)The potential to become godlike is still there. That is why God wants to save us, why he wants to redeem us and restore the relationship he had with us.
God wants to give us eternal life, free of pain, a life on good terms with God and with each other. He wants our intelligence, creativity and power to be used for the better. He wants us to become like him, to be even better than the first humans. That is salvation.
The centerpiece of the plan
So we are in need of rescue. And God saved us - but in a way no one could have counted on. The Son of God became man, lived a sinless life, and we killed him. And that - says God - is the salvation we need. What irony! We are saved by a sacrifice. Our creator became flesh so that he could represent our sin punishment vicariously. God resurrected him, and through Jesus he promised to lead us also to the resurrection.
The death and resurrection of Jesus reflects the death and resurrection of all mankind and makes it possible in the first place. His death is what our failures and mistakes deserve, and as our Creator, he has made all our mistakes. Although he did not deserve death, in his stead he willingly took it upon himself.
Jesus Christ died for us, and for us he was also raised from the dead. (Röm 4,25)With him, our old self died, and with him, a new person is brought to life. (Röm 6,3-4)With a single sacrifice, he atoned for the sins of "the whole world". (1Joh 2,2)The payment has already been made; the question now is how we will benefit from it. Our participation in the plan comes through repentance and faith.
contrition
Jesus came to call people to repentance. (Lk 5,32)(Luther usually translates "repentance" as "penance"). Peter called for repentance and conversion to God in order to receive forgiveness.Apg 2,38; 3:19). Paul urged people to “repent and turn to God” (Apg 20,21(Elberfeld Bible). Repentance means turning away from sin, turning to God. Paul proclaimed to the Athenians that God overlooks idolatry practiced in ignorance, but now "he commands all people everywhere to repent." (Apg 17,30)In other words: They should refrain from idolatry.
Paul was worried that some of the Corinthian Christians might not repent of their sins of fornication. (2Kor 12,21)For these people, repentance meant the willingness to renounce fornication. According to Paul, a person should "perform acts of repentance," that is, prove the genuineness of their repentance through actions. (Apg 26,20)We change our attitudes and our behavior.
The “repentance of dead works” is a fundamental principle of our doctrine. (Hebr 6,1)This does not mean perfection from the beginning – the Christian is not perfect. (1Joh1,8)Regret doesn't mean we've already reached our goal, but rather that we're starting to move in the right direction.
We no longer live for ourselves, but for the Redeemer Christ. (2Kor 5,15; 1Kor 6,20)Paul tells us: “Just as you gave your members to the service of impurity and unrighteousness, leading to ever new unrighteousness, so give your members to the service of righteousness, that they may be sanctified.” (Röm 6,19).
Faith
Simply calling people to repent does not yet save them from their fallibility. People have been called to obedience for thousands of years, but are still in need of salvation. A second element is required and that is belief. The New Testament says far more about faith than it does about repentance (penance) - the words for faith are more than eight times more common.
Whoever believes in Jesus will be forgiven. (Apg 10,43)“Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you and your household will be saved!” (Apg 16,31The Gospel “is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes.” (Röm 1,16)Christians are called believers, not repentant ones. The defining characteristic is faith.
What does "believe" mean - the acceptance of certain facts? The Greek word can mean this kind of belief, but mostly it has the main sense "trust". When Paul calls us to believe in Christ, he does not primarily mean the factual. (Even the devil knows the facts about Jesus, but is still not saved.)
If we believe in Jesus Christ, we trust Him. We know he is loyal and trustworthy. We can count on him to take care of us, to give us what he promises. We can trust Him to save us from the worst problems of humanity. When we come to him for salvation, we acknowledge that we need help and that he can give it to us.
Faith by itself doesn't save us - it has to be faith in Him, not in anything else. We entrust ourselves to him and he saves us. When we trust Christ, we stop trusting ourselves. While we strive to behave well, we don't believe that our effort will save us ("striving" never made anyone perfect). On the other hand, we do not despair when our efforts fail. We trust that Jesus will bring us salvation, not that we will work for it ourselves. We rely on him, not on our own success or failure.
Faith is the driving force of repentance. If we trust Jesus as our Savior; when we realize that God loves us so much that he sent his Son to die for us; When we know that he wants the best for us, it gives us the willingness to live and be pleasing to him. We make a decision: we give up the meaningless and frustrating life that we have led and accept the God-given meaning of life, the God-given life direction and orientation.
Faith – that is the all-important inner change. Our faith does not "earn" anything for us, nor does it add anything to what Jesus "earned" for us. Faith is simply the willingness to respond, to respond, to what one has done. We are like slaves working in a clay pit, slaves to whom Christ proclaims, "I have redeemed you." We are free to remain in the clay pit or to trust Him and leave the clay pit. Redemption has taken place; it is our duty to accept them and act accordingly.
Grace
Salvation is a gift from God in the truest sense of the word: God bestows it upon us through his grace, through his generosity. We cannot earn it, no matter what we do. “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not from yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, so that no one may boast.” (Eph 2,8-9)Faith, too, is a gift from God. Even if we obey perfectly from this moment on, we deserve no reward. (Lk 17,10).
We are created for good works (Eph 2,10)But good works cannot save us. They follow the path to salvation, but they cannot bring it about. As Paul says: If salvation could be attained by keeping the law, then Christ would have died in vain. (Gal 2,21)Grace does not give us a license to sin, but it is bestowed upon us while we are still sinning. (Röm 6,15; 1Joh1,9)When we do good works, we must thank God, for he does them in us. (Gal 2,20; Phil 2,13).
God “has saved us and called us to a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his purpose and grace.” (2Tim1,9)God saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. (Tit 3,5).
Grace is the heart of the Gospel: We receive salvation as a gift from God, not through our works. The Gospel is “the word of his grace” (Apg 14,3; 20:24). We believe that we will be saved “by the grace of the Lord Jesus.” (Apg 15,11)We are “justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.” (Röm 3,24)Without the grace of God, we would be hopelessly at the mercy of sin and damnation.
Our salvation depends entirely on what Christ has done. He is the Savior, the one who saves us. We cannot boast of our obedience, because it is always imperfect. The only thing we can be proud of is what Christ has done. (2Kor 10,17-18) – and he did it for everyone, not just for us.
justification
Salvation is circumscribed in the Bible in many terms: ransom, redemption, forgiveness, reconciliation, childhood, justification, etc. The reason: people see their problematic in different light. If you feel dirty, Christ offers purification. He who feels enslaved offers redemption; He who feels guilty, he gives forgiveness.
He who feels alienated and set back offers reconciliation and friendship. He who appears worthless, he gives new, secure esteem. He who does not feel affiliated anywhere, he offers salvation as a child and inheritance. Anyone who feels aimless gives him meaning and purpose. He offers peace to the weary. He gives peace to the timid. All this is salvation, and more.
Let's take a closer look at one single term: justification. The Greek word comes from the legal field. The defendant is pronounced "not guilty". He is exonerated, rehabilitated, acquitted. When God justifies us, He declares that our sins are no longer imputable to us. The debt account has been paid off.
If we accept that Jesus died for us, if we acknowledge that we need a Savior, if we acknowledge that our sin deserves punishment and that Jesus bore the punishment of sin for us, then we have faith and God assures us that we are forgiven.
No one can be justified – declared righteous – by "works of the law". (Röm 3,20)Because the law does not save. It is merely a standard we cannot live up to; no one can live up to this standard (v. 23). God justifies those “who have faith in Jesus” (v. 26). A person is justified “apart from the works of the law, but by faith alone” (v. 28).
To illustrate the principle of "justification by faith," Paul cites Abraham: "Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness" (Röm 4,3, a quote from 1Mo 15,6). Because Abraham trusted in God, God counted him righteous. Long before the code of law was drawn up, this was evidence that justification is a gift from God received by faith, not earned by keeping the law.
Justification is more than forgiveness, more than simply erasing one's debts. Justification means: We are now considered righteous; we stand as someone who has done something right. Our righteousness does not come from our own works, but from Christ. (1Kor 1,30)Through obedience to Christ, Paul writes, the believer is justified. (Röm 5,19).
Even the “ungodly” will have his “faith credited to righteousness” (Röm 4,5)A sinner who trusts in God stands righteous in God's eyes (and will therefore be accepted at the Last Judgment). Those who trust in God will no longer want to be godless, but this is a consequence, not a cause, of salvation. Paul knows and repeatedly emphasizes that "a person is not justified by works of the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ." (Gal 2,16).
A new Start
Some people believe in an instant. Something clicks in their brains, a light goes on, and they profess Jesus as their Savior. Others come to faith in a more gradual way; they slowly realize that to attain salvation they no longer rely on themselves, but on Christ.
Either way, the Bible describes it as a new birth. If we have faith in Christ, we are born again as children of God. (Joh 1,12-13; Gal 3,26; 1Joh5,1)The Holy Spirit begins to live within us. (Joh 14,17), and God sets a new cycle of creation in motion within us. (2Kor 5,17; Gal 6,15)The old self dies, a new person begins to emerge. (Eph 4,22-24) God transforms us.
In Jesus Christ - and in us, if we believe in him - God annuls the consequences of the sin of humanity. With the work of the Holy Spirit in us, a new humanity is forming. How that happens, the Bible does not tell us in detail; it just tells us it's happening. The process begins in this life and will be completed in the next.
The goal is for us to become more like Jesus Christ. He is the perfect image of God. (2Kor 4,4; Kol 1,15; Hebr 1,3), and we must be transformed into his image (2Kor 3,18; Gal4,19; Eph 4,13; Kol 3,10)We are to become like him in spirit – in love, joy, peace, humility, and other attributes of God. The Holy Spirit works this in us. He renews the image of God.
Salvation is also described as reconciliation – the restoration of our relationship with God. (Röm 5,10-11; 2Kor 5,18-21; Eph 2,16; Kol 1,20-22)We no longer resist or ignore God—we love Him. From enemies, we become friends. Yes, more than friends—God says He adopts us as His children. (Röm 8,15; Eph 1,5)We belong to his family, with rights, responsibilities, and a magnificent legacy. (Röm 8,16-17; Gal 3,29; Eph 1,18; Kol 1,12).
In the end, there will be no more pain or suffering. (Offb 21,4)This means that no one will make mistakes anymore. Sin will be no more, and death will be no more. (1Kor 15,26)This goal may seem far away when we consider our current state, but the journey begins with a single step—the step of accepting Jesus Christ as our Savior. Christ will complete the work he has begun in us. (Phil 1,6).
And then we will become even more like Christ. (1Kor 15,49; 1Joh 3,2)We will be immortal, incorruptible, glorious, and sinless. Our spirit-body will possess supernatural powers. We will have a vitality, intelligence, creativity, strength, and love that we cannot even imagine now. The image of God, once stained by sin, will shine with greater brilliance than ever before.
Michael Morrison
