Editor’s note: This post is part of a series featuring outstanding excerpts from student papers at the BibleMesh Institute, which offers affordable online training for local churches, schools, and ministries. The author’s name has been withheld for privacy and security purposes. He is preparing to serve as a missionary overseas.
Salvation is an act that extends across time since it began in eternity past, was accomplished through the atonement of Jesus Christ in his death and resurrection, is applied in the lives of individual believers in the present, and leads to the final future state of all believers in Christ.
The eternal, infinite God had determined before time began to save his people. This much is clear in the Scriptures. “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved” (Eph 1:3-6). Paul writes that God determined before the world was created to give Christ’s righteousness to those who believed. In another letter Paul writes, “[God] saved us and called us to a holy calling, not because of our works but because of his own purpose and grace, which he gave us in Christ Jesus before the ages began” (2 Tm 1:9). Here he reiterates that God has saved us by his grace, which he gave us in Christ, before the beginning of time. This doctrine of election brings comfort to believers who know that their salvation was initiated by God before they had a chance to succeed or fail to earn his affection. Salvation was initiated by God in eternity past.
The definitive work of salvation was accomplished by God in the historical event known as the atonement. In its simplest definition, the atonement is the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ (1 Cor 15:3-5), God’s perfect Son (Heb 4:15), as ordained by God (Is 53:10, Acts 2:23) in payment for the punishment deserved by sinful mankind (Mt 1:21, 1 Pt 2:24). In the Scriptures, God uses many terms to describe the atonement. In his systematic theology, Wayne Grudem explains that the primary terms God used to describe the atonement address four needs shared by mankind universally:
We deserve to die as a penalty for sin.
We deserve to bear God’s wrath against sin.
We are separated from God by our sins.
We are in bondage to sin and to the kingdom of Satan.[1]
In response to these needs, God gave up his Son, Jesus Christ, as a sacrifice and propitiation to provide reconciliation and redemption.[2] The author of Hebrews went to great lengths to communicate that Jesus fulfilled the sacrificial system God had set up in the Old Testament: “But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God…For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified” (Heb 10:12, 14). The term propitiation describes how Jesus absorbed God’s wrath against sin at the cross (1 Jn 4:10). Jesus took God’s wrath on himself so that we would no longer be under that wrath. God also describes Jesus as providing reconciliation by his death on the cross (2 Cor 5:18-19). Because of our sin, we were far from God. “But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ” (Eph 2:13). The final need that we have is that we are in bondage to sin and to the kingdom of Satan. God communicated through John that “the whole world lies in the power of the evil one” (1 Jn 5:19) and through Paul that we were united with Christ in his death “so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin” (Rom 6:6). John Stott said it well: “[Jesus Christ] has redeemed us, ransomed us, set us free from the awful condition of bondage to which the curse of the law had brought us.”[3]
Salvation is experienced in the lives of individual believers as God changes our hearts and we repent and believe in the gospel of Jesus Christ. As God calls us to himself, he also regenerates us by giving us new life through his Spirit (Ti 3:5). We then come to repent and believe in the gospel, or good news, of Jesus Christ. When Jesus began his public ministry he proclaimed, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel” (Mk 1:15). Repentance involves a turning away from sin and turning to Christ. When we come to Christ in repentance and faith, we are immediately justified and given right standing before God (Gal 2:16) as well as adopted and welcomed into the family of God (Rom 8:15). God then begins the work of sanctification in our lives by his Spirit, which involves his making us more and more into the image of his Son (2 Cor 3:18). Finally, we will experience eternal glorification, the resurrection of our bodies and giving of new, heavenly bodies (1 Cor 15:50-55) so that we will be with the Lord forever.
[1] Wayne Grudem, Systematic Theology: An Introduction to Biblical Doctrine (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1994), 579-580.
[2] Ibid, 580.
[3] John R.W. Stott, The Message of Galatians (Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 1986), 80.