What is Salvation?
Salvation is being saved from something. When speaking of spiritual or eternal salvation we refer to being saved from life apart from God in hell. There are three factors involved in salvation discussed in this paper, the situation, the sentencing and the solution.
Situation The Situation of man, requiring salvation
When God created Adam, He created him as a perfect man. For a time, Adam lived in a perfect place called the Garden of Eden. There was no death, no sickness, and no problems. It was literally paradise on earth. However, in Genesis 3, when the serpent tempted Eve and she and her husband Adam ate of the fruit which God had commanded them not to eat, the Bible says that at that point, “sin entered into the world.” A result of that sin has been disastrous to the entire world and all of mankind. Death is a result of that sin.
The Bible teaches that sin has passed down from Adam to all of his offspring. Man is born with a sinful nature. This can be clearly seen when looking at children. You do not have to teach a child to lie, they do it naturally. You actually have to teach a child to go against his nature and to do good things. Romans 3:23 confirms this observation for us by telling us, “For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.” And again in Romans 5:12 we are told that death passed upon all men, “for that all have sinned.” All of mankind finds themselves in the same predicament as Adam. All of mankind is found to be guilty of having transgressed God’s laws.
Sentencing The justice of God demands a Sentence for man’s sin
There are many attributes of God that are given to us in the Bible. He is true. He is eternal. He is good. He is love. He is holy. If only one of the attributes of God is focused on to the neglect of others, then the result will be a skewed image of the real God. If only His love and mercy are to be considered, then people we think that everybody goes to Heaven when they die. But when God’s holiness and justice are considered, then the idea of everybody going to Heaven becomes unrealistic. God is holy and simply cannot have fellowship with man as sinners.
God created man for His pleasure (Revelation 4:11), and He has the right to command things from men. However as already noted, man has failed to keep God’s laws. His justice requires that sin be paid for. His eternal hatred of wickedness does not allow for sin to go unpunished. When sin is considered to be an offense against an eternal God, the only punishment is an eternal punishment.
The Bible speaks of a place of torment – a place of burning fire. This Hell was created for the devil and his angels, but is said to be the final destination for sinners. Romans 6:23: “For the wages of sin is death.” Revelation 21:8: “But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death.” God’s punishment for sin, of which all of mankind is guilty, is eternal death in the lake of fire.
Solution God in His grace has given man a Solution
God’s justice demands the appropriate punishment for sin. Because of man’s sin, he deserves to spend eternity in Hell. Regardless of how much God in His love and His mercy would want to forgive man and let him into Heaven, His justice does not allow that. So, God established a plan, before He even created the world that would allow His justice to be met and at the same time provide a way for lost man to receive forgiveness of his sin and obtain eternal life.
Over time, man has tried to establish his own ways to get into Heaven. The most common way is by performing some type of good work. Many believe that if their good outweighs their bad, then God will let them get into Heaven. There are problems with this though. First of all, man is exceedingly sinful. So much so, that God says that even his righteousnesses are as filthy rags (Isaiah 64:6). That is, all of the apparently good things that a man does are not done for the pleasure of God, and therefore are truly not good. So, man does not do enough good, and the good that he does is not really good at all. The fact of the matter is that God is willing to judge man according to his own works, but every person that He judges in that manner will be found guilty and suffer the punishment.
But because God loved the world, He chose to not leave them in the situation that they find themselves. The most popular verse (at least reference) in the Bible is John 3:16: “For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son…” God would have been just if He had just left us to our own sinful selves, but because He loved us, He made a way for us to be able to obtain salvation. The verse continues, “that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” We find that for a man to receive forgiveness of his sin, to be saved, he has to believe in what Jesus Christ, the Son of God, God manifest in the flesh, did for him on the cross of Calvary.
Jesus Christ was the substitute for the world. He took man’s sins on upon His own self. The Bible says that Jesus literally became sin for us. When man turns from his own sinful ways and puts his faith in Jesus Christ, then the Bible says God will grant Him forgiveness of sins and eternal life. The righteousness of Jesus Christ applied to a sinner’s account is the only way that God can be just and at the same time justify a guilty sinner (Romans 3:26).
What is Salvation