Salvation Defined

Before we get into the nitty-gritty of salvation and what that means, we want to start with an overview statement.

We often think of salvation as meaning “when I die, I get to go to heaven”.

While this statement is true, it is just a far from complete expression of the word is understood in the Bible. Salvation has been and is a part of God’s work from the very beginning. We could say that the entire Bible is about our salvation and God’s plan for bringing it about.

From the fall of Adam it has been God’s primary concern to bring humanity back into a right relationship with Him. This is what salvation entails. The entire work of being restored to a right relationship with God is what we mean when we refer to salvation. Everything that God planned and everything that He is doing with humanity is wrapped up in this salvation.

So, salvation includes all of the following: regeneration, justification, sanctification and glorification.

These categories are defined in The Baptist Faith and Message document that defines the beliefs of our church:

A. Regeneration, or the new birth, is a work of God’s grace whereby believers become new creatures in Christ Jesus. It is a change of heart wrought by the Holy Spirit through conviction of sin, to which the sinner responds in repentance toward God and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Repentance and faith are inseparable experiences of grace. Repentance is a genuine turning from sin toward God. Faith is the acceptance of Jesus Christ and commitment of the entire personality to Him as Lord and Saviour.
B. Justification is God’s gracious and full acquittal upon principles of His righteousness of all sinners who repent and believe in Christ. Justification brings the believer unto a relationship of peace and favor with God.
C. Sanctification is the experience, beginning in regeneration, by which the believer is set apart to God’s purposes, and is enabled to progress toward moral and spiritual maturity through the presence and power of the Holy Spirit dwelling in him. Growth in grace should continue throughout the regenerate person’s life.
D. Glorification is the culmination of salvation and is the final blessed and abiding state of the redeemed.

If we want to define salvation is one sentence, the study guide to the above statement gives this: “Salvation: The process by which God redeems His creation through the life, death, and resurrection of His Son Jesus Christ.”

To truly understand this salvation, we first need to recognize our need for it. This is one of the great issues in our culture today. People do not believe that they are in need of this salvation. Our culture has removed the concept of sin from its vocabulary. We are truly in the age that the Karl Menninger book of 50 years ago is applicable: “Whatever Became of Sin?”. Menninger was a Christian psychologist who recognized early that our culture was rapidly going toward a denial that we are sinners. Psychology has replaced sin with terms that imply that we do nothing wrong, we simply have behaviors that we need to work on. In fact, as I observe the psychological world today we have gone even further into the realm that psychology doesn’t work to correct behavior at all – instead they work to help people accept who they are – whoever and whatever they have become.

This is one of those places where Christianity is counter-cultural. We know we are sinners. We not only know it, we believe that if we don’t acknowledge our sin and recognize that we should turn from that sin we cannot be right with God.

We agree with and are convicted by the truth that Paul quotes in Romans 3:10-12:

There is no one righteous, not even one. There is no one who understands; there is no one who seeks God. All have turned away; all alike have become worthless. There is no one who does what is good, not even one.

To understand what is meant by sin, this video from The Bible Project is helpful:

The consequence of being a sinner is that we cannot be right with God. Not only that. Paul tells us that the wages of sin is death (Romans 6:23). When we cannot be right with God, we cannot live in His presence. His eternal purpose for us is that we would live with Him in relationship. As we did in the garden of Eden, God’s desire was to return us to that same way of life – eternally. But not being made right with God means that life cannot happen – and therefore we have lost that life. In a very real sense, we are already dead.

When Peter preaches the first sermon of the church, and the people ask what they should do in response to his message, he answers them with “And Peter said to them, “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.” (Acts 2:38). Note the first action required. They are to repent.

Repentance has two components to it. First, it is having what we call “godly sorrow” for our sinfulness. That is, we grieve over the fact of our sin. We do not consider our sinfulness lightly. We recognize that our sin is the reason Jesus had to die the cruel death he died on the cross. We recognize that our sin grieves God, and therefore we are grieved by that truth. There used to be a day when as a child we felt bad when we did something wrong. Not only were we concerned that our parents might “kill us” for what we had done, but we felt the guilt of our actions. Many children today have lost this sense. But as believers it is exactly how we should respond to our sin.

Second, repentance means that we turn away – or turn around from the way that led us into sin and choose instead to walk the way of God, or the path of righteousness. This is what the word metanoia actually means. It is to change ones mind about something. As people who do not live by the Holy Spirit our mind is on that which seems right to us. When guided by the Holy Spirit our mind is guided by what is right to God.

If you are following this, then you are seeing that repentance is not simply saying I am sorry. It is an actual act on our part that leads us away from the path that caused us to sin.

The problem with the idea of repentance, is that – try as we might – we are not able to turn away from this sin on our own. As Paul writes in Romans 7:

For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. — Romans 7:18-20

Fortunately, a few verses later Paul tells us the solution: “Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!” (7:24-25).

While we are called to grieve our sin and repent of it, we will never come to this point without the atoning work of Jesus. There are a number of verses that tell us what Jesus accomplished.

“The Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life—a ransom for many.”— Mark 10:45
“The Son of Man has come to seek and to save the lost.”— Luke 19:10
“Here is the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!”— John 1:29

The way that Jesus accomplished this work is by taking the consequence of our sin upon himself. The simple way of saying this is that he died in our place. It is His death that “atones” for our failure. By atonement we mean the reconciliation between God and humanity, so that we are able to be right with God, and return to that state where we can live in His presence (a return to the garden of Eden). Atonement is more of a King James word that is usually translated in more modern versions as “reconciliation.” Thus, the one verse that speaks of atonement is translated in the ESV this way: “More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation. (Romans 5:11)”

Many things happen because of this atonement or reconciliation. These will be discussed in the next lesson. The key element to take away from what we have said thus far is that this work is the doing a Jesus Christ. It is His substitutionary work that makes our reconciliation with God possible. It is a great gift that has been given to us. Christ did for us what we could not and cannot do for ourselves. This is a key and essential part of the doctrine of salvation.