Doug came to bring us a message on salvation this week. The technical term for the theology of salvation is soteriology.
Salvation can be summed up quite simply like so:
9If you openly declare that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.
(Romans 10:9)
Jesus is Lord! A controversial statement today, just as it was back then. Jesus had the appearance of being nothing more than a mere carpenter, one of several siblings of ordinary people. He began His ministry aged 30 and was crucified aged 33.
Once He was buried, His followers began to return to their old lives, but three days later, Jesus reappeared and spoke to them about who He really is. In the first century, Jews were looking forward to a Messiah who would defeat the Romans and claim lordship over them, but Jesus’ Lordship is bigger than that. He is Lord of all past, present and future.
39One of the criminals hanging beside him scoffed, “So you’re the Messiah, are you? Prove it by saving yourself—and us, too, while you’re at it!”
(Luke 23:39)
One of the criminals hanging beside Jesus mocked Him, but the other criminal believed Jesus’ claims about Himself.
40But the other criminal protested, “Don’t you fear God even when you have been sentenced to die? 41We deserve to die for our crimes, but this man hasn’t done anything wrong.” 42Then he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your Kingdom.”
43And Jesus replied, “I assure you, today you will be with me in paradise.”
(Luke 23:40-43)
Crucially, Jesus confirmed that the believing criminal would be part of the Kingdom of God.
Faith is key.
We see in the book of Acts that the Apostles spread the Gospel far and wide across the Mediterranean and people were saved.
30Then he brought them out and asked, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?”
31They replied, “Believe in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved, along with everyone in your household.”
(Acts 16:30-31)
Let’s dive into the theology of all this! As Romans 5:1 states, we are justified (declared righteous) by God, having peace with Him, through the blood of Jesus.
Before someone is a Christian, they are under the wrath of God according to Romans 1. If someone dies in this state, they inherit eternity in Hell. There are no works that anyone can do to become righteous, because all humans have inherited a sinful nature from Adam, separating everybody from God from birth. People are naturally what the Bible calls “in Adam”.
So often, people ask themselves how they can be right with God. Many fall into false religious systems that include good works to try and earn the favour of God. The Bible tells us that good works cannot earn salvation, they are like filthy rags. God’s standard is perfection, and nobody can reach it. Nobody but Jesus. To try and live a life working to God’s standard of perfection would be like trying to climb a ladder to the moon. We can only be declared righteous before God if God can look at us as though we have lived the perfect life of Jesus.
There will be many people who will stand before God having done amazing works such as feeding the hungry and looking after the poor, but without faith in Jesus, it’s worthless. There will even be people who did these good works in the name of Jesus, but without saving faith, a trust in Jesus’ perfect work on the cross that leads to a deep relationship, a person is lost to a Christless eternity.
22On judgment day many will say to me, ‘Lord! Lord! We prophesied in your name and cast out demons in your name and performed many miracles in your name.’ 23But I will reply, ‘I never knew you. Get away from me, you who break God’s laws.’
(Matthew 7:22-23)
So that’s the bad news. Now for the good news!
When someone believes in Jesus as Lord and Saviour, they become a Christian and they are declared righteous by the grace of God. They are now no longer “in Adam” but are “in Christ". When someone becomes a Christian, they are no longer under the wrath of God, but they now have peace with God and inherit eternity in Heaven.
Isn’t it amazing that God expresses so much grace and grants eternal forgiveness to people who don’t deserve it. Salvation comes from the Father’s love. The Father gave His Son, Jesus Christ, to come to this earth, live a sinless life (because we could never do so) and then die a sinner’s death (a death that we deserve, but that Jesus didn’t), so that we could have eternal life. God is both perfect love and perfect justice.
If a judge in a court of law decided to declare a guilty man innocent, while there was enough evidence to convict him of a severe crime, people would cry out that an injustice had taken place. In a similar way, it would be an injustice for God to declare us guilty people innocent when we have spent our lives sinning against Him…unless our sin was punished. If our sin goes unpunished, we cannot say that justice has taken place, and so the God of the Bible is the only God who can offer forgiveness while maintaining perfect justice. In other words, to meet God’s justice, a person’s sin must be paid for either by Christ on the cross, or by the guilty person in Hell for all eternity.
If you don’t fully grasp salvation, it’s worth considering the most famous Bible verse in church history:
16“For this is how God loved the world: He gaveg his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.
(John 3:16)
Believe in Jesus today and come to know the amazing love of God on a deep and personal level.