Salvation means being saved. In this case, it means being saved from the state of rebellion against God and resultant sin from which I cannot save myself.
All it takes to be saved is to believe that Jesus died so I don’t have to. But there is more to it than that.
By now it is clear why we need salvation. Specific Sins and Temptation talk about the fact that we are in a state of rebellion. It is very clear that we lack the capability to put ourselves right with God, let alone to live righteously. Therefore, we are sentenced to death. By death, I mean the second death – eternal separation from God after we die here on Earth.
The end result is that we are doomed, individually and as a group. We are without excuse and without hope. This is why we needed someone to help us – someone who is not caught in the same situation. Someone who is in right relationship with God who could intercede for us, and also someone with enough credit/asset to pay our penalty without being destroyed in the process. In short, this is why we needed God to save us from God.
God exercised His justice according to His nature. In His mercy, He exercised it on His Son rather than us. If we accept that sacrifice under the terms by which He offers it, we can be covered by His blood and saved.
The Sin
Offending God gets you killed. Even the pagans know that. That same thread runs through nearly all religions, reflecting the (dim and imperfect) knowledge of God with which we are born.
Sin is rebellion against the will of God. In our broken state, we have a very hard time hearing and understanding when God tells us what His will is. He could in justice have left it at that, but He didn’t. Instead, He wrote rules to show us how to live according to His will. Those rules are the Law that we have to follow. If we follow those rules perfectly all of our lives, without making any mistakes at all, we will be saved. That includes thinking bad thoughts or getting self-righteous and proud.
Romans 2:12-13
all who sin under the law will be judged by the law. For it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous before God, but it is the doers of the law who will be declared righteous.
But no one can do this. Everybody slips up. Nobody is (or can be) perfect.
Romans 3:23
for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,
Psalm 14:2-3
The LORD looks down from heaven upon the sons of men to see if any understand, if any seek God. All have turned away, they have together become corrupt; there is no one who does good, not even one.
The Death Sentence
Since it is clear that we all sin and cannot stop sinning, we all deserve to die.
Romans 6:23
For the wages of sin is death
The Execution
Death covers sin. Throughout the Old Testament, God allowed our blood debt to be paid via animal sacrifice – one animal for one sin. This interim solution waited Jesus’ coming, so that He could provide a comprehensive sacrifice that would cover all sin. In order for this to work, Jesus had to be a man, so He could stand in our stead. He also had to be God, to satisfy the blood debt that no man could cover for himself, let alone all of humanity.
Romans 3:25-26
God presented Him as the atoning sacrifice through faith in His blood, in order to demonstrate His righteousness, because in His forbearance He had passed over the sins committed beforehand. He did this to demonstrate His righteousness at the present time, so as to be just and to justify the one who has faith in Jesus.
Jesus was executed in our place.
John 19:18
There they crucified Him, and with Him two others, one on each side, with Jesus in the middle.
2 Corinthians 5:21
God made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God.
Romans 5:8-10
But God proves His love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Therefore, since we have now been justified by His blood, how much more shall we be saved from wrath through Him! For if, when we were enemies of God, we were reconciled to Him through the death of His Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through His life!
He was cursed and forsaken by God.
Deuteronomy 21:23
If a man has committed a sin worthy of death, and he is executed, and you hang his body on a tree, you must not leave the body on the tree overnight, but you must be sure to bury him that day, because anyone who is hung on a tree is under God’s curse
Mark 15:34
At the ninth hour, Jesus cried out in a loud voice, “Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?” which means, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?”
This doesn’t make sense to us – how can God be cursed and forsaken by God? Many people have tried to explain this, but all have failed. I doubt it can be explained, given our limited (almost nonexistent) understanding of the nature of God.
He proclaimed His victory to the captive souls in the abyss.
1 Peter 3:18-20
For Christ also suffered for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God. He was put to death in the body but made alive in the Spirit, in whom He also went and preached to the spirits in prison who disobeyed long ago when God waited patiently in the days of Noah while the ark was being built.
This is not, as popularly believed, Jesus preaching the good news and saving those who died before His death and resurrection. This is Jesus announcing His victory to the Sons of God made captive in Genesis (See Jude 1:6). The little we know about the salvation of those who died before Him is addressed in Chapter 14 – What happens after we die.
He returned to earth to prove that He did it.
John 20:19-20
It was the first day of the week, and that very evening, while the disciples were together with the doors locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them. “Peace be with you!” He said to them. After He had said this, He showed them His hands and His side. The disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord.
He stayed for 40 days, showing Himself to thousands of people. Then He returned to the Father.
Acts 1:9-11
After He had said this, they watched as He was taken up, and a cloud hid Him from their sight. They were looking intently into the sky as He was going, when suddenly two men dressed in white stood beside them. “Men of Galilee,” they said, “why do you stand here looking into the sky? This same Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come back in the same way you have seen Him go into heaven.”
The Salvation
Through His death, we can be forgiven our sins.
To say that we are forgiven is sort of a shortcut. God doesn’t literally forgive our sin – He transfers the blood debt to Jesus, who paid it. We are effectively forgiven. This is important because God cannot tolerate sin or rebellion – His justice is absolute and must be executed. Some people who don’t understand this wonder why Jesus had to die if God was prepared to forgive us anyway. We are forgiven in the sense that He no longer holds that debt to our account.
2 Corinthians 5:19
God was reconciling the world to Himself in Christ, not counting men’s trespasses against them.
So it is a shortcut but still completely accurate to say that God forgives us our sin for the sake of His Son.
It is very easy to look at this as a transaction. It is not. Jesus saved you because He loves you. Completely. He will not abandon you, or look harshly on you when you fail. He will help you get up and try again. This is about love – a love so complete and unconditional it is outside anything we can imagine.
What it Takes to Make That Salvation Mine
I have to ask Jesus to be my Lord. I have to ask Him to accept that blood debt as His own and thank Him for His willingness to pay it. He will do that, provided I am sincere. I have to try to stop sinning. I have to do my best to live the way He wants me to live.
Romans 10:9-10
If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you profess your faith and are saved.
There is nothing I can do to influence this process. I can’t help. Nothing I do or say is in any way important enough to save me from the effect of my rebellion. In other words, I cannot be saved by the things that I do. Simply following God’s rules without submitting to Him, which many self-righteous people do, won’t work.
It is also key to this point that I will only be forgiven my debt if I forgive others theirs. That’s part of the submission and change that I have to make.
Matthew 6:14-15
For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive yours.
In the end, I am trying to stop being a rebel and come in from the cold. That means returning to the status of subject rather than trying to be my own king. The subject doesn’t make the rules – the king makes the rules. The subject’s duty is to obey. God will help.
It should be noted that this is impossible. Nobody can follow Jesus in this way any more than they could perfectly follow the Law. What Jesus is asking for us to do is to try. When we notice that we have let things lapse, He wants us to apologize and try again. You might think that it is the effort He is looking for, but even this is beyond us. We need to try to live for Him and not get upset when we can’t.
As long as we continue to look to Him for help, He will help us continue to look. It is a self-reinforcing cycle. He no longer demands perfection. Perfection is a goal He wants us to try for, but not a standard he expects us to meet.
Repentance
Repentance means changing. It means changing your thoughts and changing your behavior. If I claim to be trying to turn my back on sin and return to God, but don’t actually turn my back on sin and return to God, then I am lying to myself and to God. I am claiming a forgiveness and inheritance that is not rightfully mine. It is a slow, gritty process of continuously beating back the sin nature within myself, striving to follow Him and His will.
The first change is the commitment. I commit to following Him. This helps with temptation – it is easier to enforce a decision that has already been made than to try to deal with each situation on its own merits.
The next change is my thinking. I have to ‘change the channel’ in my thoughts every time I notice that I am thinking about things that aren’t right.
The next change is my behavior. I need to avoid situations that might lead me into sin and stop doing the sinful things themselves.
When I fail at each of these changes, I have to humbly ask God’s forgiveness and try again.
None of this is quick or easy. It is ugly, slow, frustrating and takes a lot of time. It is, however, the only way to get right with God.
The book of Romans lays this out pretty clearly. If you are truly dead to sin, or legitimately trying to be dead to sin, it will show in your behavior. Eventually.
I can slow this process down by getting wrapped up in my failures. It is like a child learning to walk. If he sits and cries because he can’t do it, he prevents himself from getting up and trying again. Simply apologize to God, get back up and continue to try to live the way He wants you to live.
I can lose my salvation
You can’t lose your salvation in the sense that it can be taken away from you, but you can surrender it by turning your back on God or by continuing to sin even though you know it is the wrong thing to do. This doesn’t have to be a conscious decision. Simply losing focus and drifting away is sufficient.
Hebrews 10:26-27
If we deliberately go on sinning after we have received the knowledge of the truth, no further sacrifice for sins remains, but only a fearful expectation of judgment and of raging fire that will consume all adversaries.
Matthew 19:23
Then Jesus said to his disciples, “Truly I tell you, it is hard for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of heaven.
The rich in particular tend to rely on themselves and their wealth to see them through. They have little use for God until there is a problem. They never trust Him, nor try to do what He says, nor repent and seek forgiveness for their sins. This makes it very hard for them to submit to His will in the way it is necessary for them to in order for them to be saved. The rich and powerful tend to be arrogant and tend to want to run their own lives. It is very hard for them to let go and be humble. Those that do provide great blessing for the world around them.
1 Corinthians 6:9-10
Or do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor men who have sex with men nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.
The idol that they serve may be anything that takes the place of God. This may be sex, feeling good (heady experiences or drugs), themselves, politics etc. The Bible is also very clear on the issue of unrepentant sin. There is a lot of feeling today that God will accept people who keep living in sin without even trying to repent because that is how He made them to be. He will not. Please see Specific sins.
I Corinthians 10:23
“I have the right to do anything,” you say—but not everything is beneficial. “I have the right to do anything”—but not everything is constructive.
Sin is poisonous to faith. It slowly strangles the part of you that He is trying to build – the holy part. It also builds a wall between you and God. He will honor that wall and not push in uninvited, but He will continue to knock on the door and remind you that He wants to help.
Remember that God is raising children, not simply ordering slaves around. He wants us to learn to do the right thing because it is right. He will forgive us, but only under the terms He has established – and they are very, very generous. Otherwise, He will hold us accountable to the rules He has set forth.
It’s very easy to fall into the trap of thinking that we have to do something to help, or that if we fail to do something He will stop. This is wrong. We can’t help. We can’t force Him away by action or inaction if we are looking to Him. If our successes are few and far between, He will help us succeed more often. If our failures are frequent and catastrophic, He will help us get back up and try again, a little better each time.
Original Sin
Original sin is the state of brokenness and rebellion we inherit when we are born. Original sin is taken care of in baptism. Please see The Sacraments. When we are baptized we are made perfect in God’s sight.
When you sin after baptism, you have to confess your sin to God and ask His forgiveness for that sin. This is different than just asking general forgiveness in the Lord’s Prayer. You are also supposed to ask the forgiveness of the person against whom you sinned (if applicable).
Forgiveness vs Excuse
Salvation involves forgiveness. We tend to think in terms of excuse. “Forgive me” is a completely different request than “excuse me”.
An excuse is a defense. “It wasn’t my fault because…” or “I wasn’t responsible because…” We tend to excuse ourselves. Forgiveness is accepting responsibility for your actions. “I’m sorry I did (whatever). Please forgive me, and make it right between us.” When we deal with other people, we tend to demand accountability, then forgive. Seldom do we accept excuses. When we deal with ourselves, we tend to offer excuses then accept them. Seldom do we demand accountability of ourselves.
We should be quick to excuse others and slow to excuse ourselves.
Don’t offer excuses to God. He will determine how much of our behavior is excused from responsibility and for how much we need to be forgiven. If we get into the habit of excusing ourselves before God, we aren’t really dealing with our sins, just shuffling them around (or under the rug). When we acknowledge our sins and ask forgiveness, making honest efforts to change our ways, He helps us to stop sinning. When we excuse our sins, we don’t deal with the behavior and keep doing the same things over and over.
Romans 1:20
For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities–his eternal power and divine nature–have been clearly seen, being understood from His workmanship (lit: the things that He has made), so that they are without excuse.
What does it mean to forgive something or someone? Forgive other people like God forgave us – forgive them for the sake of Jesus, who died for you. Jesus didn’t wait to be asked to sacrifice Himself for us. He provided the forgiveness then waited for us to receive it. Be lavish with your forgiveness (seventy times seven). Consider their sin against you covered, and completely restore the other person. No lingering resentment, so lingering anger, and no feeling of superiority for having forgiven them – just like you were forgiven. Obviously, this is impossible. Do your best – your best before a God who sees everything. He will judge you on your attempts, not your successes.
It isn’t just the act that must be considered sin. Someone can sin against me intentionally or unintentionally. I have to forgive both the act and the intent. If someone steps on my foot by accident, he has offended me, and I have to forgive him. If someone steps on my foot intentionally, I have to forgive both the act and the intent. I can sin against God by accident, completely unintentionally. I can even be completely unaware that I have done it. This is why we have to ask God to forgive us for any sins we may have committed by action or omission.
Jesus saved us by His substitutionary sacrifice. He reconciled us with God. He promises us forgiveness provided we conform our will to His and forgive others as we have been forgiven. He promises to help us with this impossible task. He promises to look favorably on our efforts and make up the difference.
Through Jesus and His sacrifice on our behalf, God sees us as perfect. When we claim His death as our own, all of our sin is wiped away – we start over. He immediately starts working on perfecting us from the inside. He works slowly, helping us rather than doing it to us. When we fail, He forgives us – completely. Even if we fail to ask forgiveness for each sin. He just wants us to try to follow Him.