OUR SO GREAT SALVATION

What is salvation?  What does it entail?  From what are we rescued and to what are we delivered and how are we delivered?

These are the questions we as evangelical Christians should know in order to properly answer the questions, the doubts and the disputes from the unbelievers to whom we witness.

Every message preached from a Christian pulpit, every bible study given in a Christian assembly should be aimed at equipping the saints for the work of the ministry; the ministry of reconciliation as we find it so commanded of us in 2Corinthians 5:17-21.

“Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.

   And all things are of God, who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ, and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation;

   To wit, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them; and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation.

   Now then we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you (the unbeliever) by us: we pray you in Christ's stead, be ye reconciled to God.

And the foundation of our gospel must be the very next verse:

  For he (God) hath made him (Christ) to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.”

In Genesis we are shown the fall of mankind and the subsequent separation and loss of the intimate and personal fellowship mankind originally had with the God who created them. 

In Genesis 1:26 we are told that man was created in the image of God and it is clear that a fellowship existed between them and God, for God talked with them and even walked in the garden with them.  This is intimated by the fact that after they sinned they hid themselves from his presence as he walked in the garden seeking them.

In what way are we “made in the image of God”?  In John 4:24 Jesus said that God is a Spirit and yet we are very much material creatures made out of the dust of the earth.

Adam before the fall was a triune being, body, soul and spirit.  The soul being the mainspring of life, for it is the centre of intelligent comprehension, the spirit being the source of spiritual understanding and therefore the means of worshipping God, and the body allows the acting out of both intelligent comprehension and spiritual understanding, in fellowship and in worship. 

Genesis clearly teaches a plurality in God’s being, a plurality that is progressively revealed in Scripture to be a trinity within the Godhead…

In Genesis 1:1 God [Elohiym] is revealed as the creator.  As early as the first verse of the Bible we see the plurality within God’s being.  Elohiym is the plural of Elowahh, which is from El the primary word for God.

In Genesis 1:2 we see the Spirit of Elohiym first mentioned: “and the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters”

Then in Genesis 3:8 we see Jehovah Elohiym, the LORD God, walking in the garden.  Does a Spirit walk or are we to take the Scriptures literally and accept this as the first mention of a physical manifestation of God, a theophany?  The Angel of Jehovah, the burning bush, the cloud and the pillar of fire that led the children of Israel in the wilderness, the man who wrestled with Jacob, these were all theophanies. Physical manifestations of the God that no man has ever seen or could ever see, John 1:18.

Then we have the words of God Himself in Gen. 1:26  “…And God [Elohiym] said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness…”

Both the singularity and the plurality of God are revealed in Genesis 11:6-8 where the LORD [singular] looks down on the people and the tower they were building and says:  “…Go to, let us [plural] go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another's speech.

   So the LORD [singular] scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth: and they left off to build the city…”

In Isaiah 48:16, we have one of the clearest O.T. passages revealing the triune God,  “…Come ye near unto me, hear ye this; I have not spoken in secret from the beginning; from the time that it was, there am I: and now the Lord GOD, and his Spirit, hath sent me…”

We know from many passages in the N.T. that this one who is from the beginning is none other than the pre-incarnate Christ. 

John 1:1-36, “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the word was God…and the Word became flesh and dwelt amongst us and we beheld His glory…full of grace and truth…”; 

Colossians 1:12-18 “Who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature: For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him: And he is before all things, and by him all things consist.

And it is clear from Jesus’ own words in Luke 4:16-21 that He knew himself to be the one sent.

 “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the broken-hearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised,To preach the acceptable year of the Lord”.

And he closed the book, and he gave it again to the minister, and sat down. And the eyes of all them that were in the synagogue were fastened on him.   And he began to say unto them, “This day is this Scripture fulfilled in your ears.”

It is unmistakably clear from Scripture, that God, who is one in essential being, is three in personality, or three persons in one being.  We know them as Father Son and Holy Spirit.

Adam, who was created a triune being in the image of God, had the capacity for eternal fellowship and worship prior to the fall; eternal because he had access to the tree of life, fellowship because there was no sin, and worship because of the spirit within him.

Now, we make an assumption when we say Adam was body, soul and spirit, but it is an assumption based upon revealed truth.  Turn to Genesis 2:16-17…

“And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.”

“For in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shall surely die”.   Adam would die during the day in which he ate of the forbidden fruit.  Did he surely die?  God said he would.

Let’s look further at these words “surely die”.   They are both translated from the Hebrew word mooth meaning to die, but the first use is in the infinitive mood, which is equivalent to the English word-ending “ing” or “dying” and the second use is in the imperfect mood “an incomplete action” therefore rendered “die”.

Now lets look at this phrase with these things in mind.   “…for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt dying die.” or “dying thou shall die”.

What was the death Adam suffered on the very day of his sin?  His soul did not leave his body for another nine hundred years, yet he died a death on that day.

On that day God separated himself from mankind by driving Adam and his wife from the garden and from the tree of life.  From that moment on mankind was spiritually dead with the inevitable physical death awaiting them.  Mankind needed to be born again, mankind needed spiritual rebirth:

“There was a man of the Pharisees, named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews: The same came to Jesus by night, and said unto him, Rabbi, we know that thou art a teacher come from God: for no man can do these miracles that thou doest, except God be with him.  Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.

Jesus did not allow Nicodemus to complete what he was saying, but cut right through to the crux of the matter. “…Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God…”

Nicodemus saith unto him, How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter the second time into his mother's womb, and be born? Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.  That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.  Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again.”  (John 3:1-7)

Then in Ephesians 2:1-6, Paul writes,

“And you, who were dead in trespasses and sins; Wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience: Among whom also we all had our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others. But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us; Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ…”

You and I were spiritually dead, even while physically alive and only quickened or made alive by means of our union with Jesus Christ; accomplished by the Holy Spirit when he baptised us into Christ.  This doctrine of regeneration, the theological term for the new birth, is taught in the first sixteen verses of Romans 8.

“There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.

   For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death.

  For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, (or because of the flesh), God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh

  That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit….

  For they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh; but they that are after the Spirit the things of the Spirit.

  For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be.

  So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God.

  …But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his.

 And if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin; but the Spirit is life because of righteousness.

 But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you.

 Therefore, brethren, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live after the flesh.

 For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die: but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live.

 For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God.

 For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father.

The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God:”

 

Adam and his wife were the human race at the time of the fall, therefore what happened to them happened to the human race; what they did the human race did and we as members of that same human race have sinned (in Adam).  We as members of the human race are dead as Adam died and need restoration and regeneration as Adam needed restoration and regeneration. 

By his deliberate sin Adam gained knowledge of good and evil and became less than God made him.  He lost his sinless purity and fellowship with God; and he lost his spiritual relationship with God.  He lost the state of goodness in which he had been created and from that state of imperfection lost his ability to please God.

He received knowledge of good and evil, and received spiritual and inevitable physical death.  If Adam or any member of his race died physically in the state of spiritual separation from God, he would be separated from God forever.  This is damnation; this is what it is to be eternally lost.  This is why the human race needs to be saved.

“And you, who were dead in trespasses and sins;

Wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience:

Among whom also we all had our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others.

But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us,

Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ…”

(by grace ye are saved;)

And hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus:

That in the ages to come he might shew the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus.

For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:

Not of works, lest any man should boast.

For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.”

In this beautiful passage, we see our inheritance in Adam overcome and defeated.  That inheritance of spiritual death, of separation from our Creator was something we, in our imperfection, could not overcome.  Can imperfection add anything to perfection?  Can we imperfect men hold out to perfect God our works and have him accept them? Can perfection lower its standards without ceasing to be perfection?

Neither can God lower his standards.

But God “who is rich in mercy”, has by his Spirit entered us into a new position, a position in Christ Jesus.  A position gained through faith alone and not by the imperfect works of our flesh.  God is not compromised when we accept the work of his Son, for that was a perfect sacrifice made by a perfect man.

When we stand before him in the ages to come, we will display the extent of his grace by the very fact of being there.  We were lost and helpless yet there we will be, clothed in the robes of righteousness and possessing eternal life, both gifts of God’s grace.  

Did we deserve them?   Have we put God in debt to us by our works?  Our imperfect works are unacceptable; therefore our striving is all in vain.  But like the penitent, who beating his breast cried unto God saying, “…Lord have mercy on me a sinner.” we look to him for mercy and take by faith, that which he has done for us in grace. 

God is uncompromised because he accepts nothing from us, and he thereby remains just when he justifies us on the basis of faith, on the basis of simple, childlike trust.

In that we are made partakers of his divine nature we are his children, “flesh of his flesh, bone of his bone” or to put it in a more accurate form, “spirit of his Spirit”, and have been sanctified or set apart for his glory.  We have been sanctified, but we are to “…present our bodies as a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is our reasonable service” (Romans 12:1). 

In God’s heavenly accounts, we who were lost in sin have been set apart and he desires that we separate ourselves from the world, to live our lives by the cleansing power of the Word and the indwelling power of his Spirit, for his glory.

Amen.