01.05. Chapter 3 Salvation
Chapter 3 Salvation Why people need salvation From the beginning, people have been aware that sin has its consequences, and they have looked for ways of escaping those consequences. The many religions and philosophies in the world are evidence of that. Men and women want to be saved from the suffering and punishment that evil brings, whether in this life or the next. In other words, they want salvation.
Some will say that education will correct sin, others that better social conditions or a healthier environment will eliminate wrongdoing. There are many countries where citizens have already received the benefits of improved living standards, but they themselves have not changed for the better. In fact, they seem at times to have become worse. Quarrelling, dishonesty, lying, hate and other evils are just as common as they ever were.
Human nature is sinful, and outward improvements will not change that nature. A leopard cannot change its spots. A pig may be washed and dressed in beautiful clothes, but it will go and lie in the mud as before. The problem of human sin is so deep that no reforms can correct it. Not even keeping religious rules or carrying out religious ceremonies will remove the disease of sin from the human heart. In short, the human position is hopeless. People are cut off from God and can do nothing that will bring them back to God. Their sinful nature has caused them to do things that have placed them under God’s judgment; but, try as they may, they cannot get rid of that sinful nature.
What people need is someone to help them. They need someone who can save them, because they cannot save themselves. They are like a drowning person who cannot swim. They do not need someone to tell them how to swim, but someone to jump into the water to save them. And that, so to speak, is what God has done.
God’s love
Love is so much a characteristic of God that the Bible can say that God is love (1 John 4:16). God wants to help sinners and save them from the penalty of their sin, but he must do so justly. Love that is pure does not ignore wrongdoing, but acts honourably, even in the most unpleasant affairs. God may want to forgive sinners, but he cannot ignore their sin. He cannot treat sin as if it does not matter. Being the supreme judge, God has the right to punish or forgive sin as he sees fit, but being a God of love he will do only what is honourable, just and pure.
Suppose, for example, that a judge has before him a criminal who has been found guilty, and perhaps even confessed to his crime. The judge places a heavy fine on the man, assuring him that if he does not pay he will be sent to jail. The man may tell the judge he has no money to pay the fine, yet plead also that he not be sent to jail. The judge, feeling sorry for the man and declaring himself a loving person, therefore forgives him. He tells the guilty criminal that he need not pay the fine or go to jail. He can go free.
What the judge understands by love is not love at all. It is an irrational emotion that is easily influenced by pity, regardless of what is right and just. It is not strong, but weak. God’s love is not like that.
Suppose, however, that the judge has a love that is genuine. He places the same heavy fine on the guilty man and insists that it be paid. He feels sorry for the man, but he knows that genuine love always does what is right, even when it is costly to do so. The judge therefore goes to the man privately and, out of his own personal funds, gives the man the money to pay the fine. The judge has laid down the penalty, but he has also paid the penalty on the man’s behalf. This is only an illustration, but it pictures what God has done for guilty sinners.
What God has done Being a God of love, God wants to help guilty sinners. But because he is a God of love, he will do only what is pure and honourable, even though it may be costly to him.
All people have broken God’s law and fallen under his judgment. They have been found guilty and the penalty is death. God, however, has given them a way of salvation, a way to be saved from the consequences of their sin. He himself became a human being in the person of Jesus Christ, and lived in this world with all its temptations and difficulties. Through it all he lived the perfect life, never breaking God’s law and therefore never falling under God’s judgment. Yet he willingly paid sin’s penalty on behalf of the guilty. He died in their place so that they might go free. ‘When we were still helpless, Christ died for the wicked’ (Romans 5:6).
God is the judge and the one who has been sinned against, yet he is also the one who bears the penalty of sin. In his love he forgives sinners, but only at great cost to himself. God is the source and the means of people’s salvation.
Normally, people love only those who are attractive to them, but God loves those who are unattractive, even those who have rebelled against him and broken his law. ‘God has shown us how much he loves us – it was while we were sinners that Christ died for us’ (Romans 5:8). In this God demonstrates what the Bible calls his grace – that characteristic which causes him to give his favour freely to those who do not deserve it.
More than pardon The story of the judge who pays the penalty on behalf of the guilty is only an illustration. It pictures one aspect of God’s help for sinners, but it does not picture everything. God does far more for people than can be contained in any single illustration. When Jesus takes the place of sinners, he does so totally. God, in his amazing grace, accepts the repentant sinner as he accepts Jesus. Jesus is in a right relationship with God, and therefore through him the sinner also comes into a right relationship with God. God does more than merely forgive people’s sin. He declares that they are now legally in the right, because Jesus Christ is in the right.
‘All this is done by God, who through Christ changed us from enemies into his friends.’ ‘Christ was without sin, but for our sake God made him share our sin in order that in union with him we might share the righteousness of God’ (2 Corinthians 5:18; 2 Corinthians 5:21). God declares people righteous (or, as the Bible says, he justifies them) because of what Jesus Christ has done, not because of anything they have done.
New life
Although Jesus’ death is central in God’s plan of salvation, that death is linked inseparably with his resurrection. Jesus was unique and his death for sin was unique. Ordinary people do not come back to life three days after they have died, for death is one of the consequences of their sin. But Jesus did come back to life. His death was not a consequence of his sin, for he had no sin. He died for the sin of others, and his resurrection showed that neither sin nor death had any power over him. They had not conquered him; he had conquered them.
Jesus’ resurrection demonstrated God’s supreme power and his complete satisfaction with all Jesus had done. Sin had been dealt with decisively and people now had new hope. This was seen clearly in the changed lives of Jesus’ followers. Before his death they were downhearted, fearful and confused, but now they went everywhere preaching the good news of salvation with boldness and certainty. The Christian church was born out of the great historical events of Jesus’ death and resurrection, and nothing has been able to stop its progress. The reason for this is that Christianity is motivated by a living power within it. The resurrection of Jesus was not simply the resuscitation of a corpse, but the entrance into a new kind of life, one that death can no longer affect. ‘Christ has been raised from death and will never die again – death will no longer rule over him’ (Romans 6:9).
Jesus is still alive and always will be. He is no longer physically present in the world (though he has said that one day he will return), but he lives in the lives of his people. Just as repentant sinners are united with Jesus in his death for sin, so they are united with him in his victorious life. The Christians’ saviour is not dead, but living. But he will be saviour only to those who want him to be.