What do you understand by salvation?

In connection with the above subject the question to consider in the first place is what is involved in salvation, or what it really consists in. What I understand by it is that the soul is delivered from that ruinous and destructive power under which it was held, and also from any evil to which it may be liable. The latter was exemplified in Noah and his house, and the former in the deliverance accorded to the children of Israel at the Red Sea. As to Noah and Israel, their salvation was temporal and did not necessarily involve new and eternal relationships with God as the salvation of our souls does, but to my mind the salvation that was accorded to them illustrates the two-fold character of the salvation which is ours in Christ Jesus. There may be other aspects of salvation, but they do not occur to me at this moment. I desire to look at the salvation under these two aspects.

But let us inquire what is included in the salvation which the grace of God brings? The answer is, Everything. Salvation is a precious box containing all I want for time and eternity. It includes salvation from the future consequence of sin and from its present power. To be a divinely-saved person — a person saved by the grace of God, saved by the blood of Christ as every believer is — involves entire deliverance from wrath, from hell, from Satan, from everything that could possibly be against me. A man whom God has saved is surely safe from all. There is nothing doubtful about God's salvation; it is all settled. There is no delay; it is all finished. We have neither to wait for it nor to add to it, but to receive it now and enjoy it forever. The mighty tide of grace rolls down from the very throne of God and bears upon its bosom a full salvation for me. I receive it as a free gift; I bow my head and worship, and go on my way rejoicing.

Salvation is a very large word. It comprehends forgiveness, and deliverance, and peace, and the knowledge that I am justified. It is not only the knowledge that the Lord died for me, that He put away my sins, but that when He died I died, and when He rose I rose. What a blessed thing to have Jesus as your Saviour, to belong to Him, to have God's salvation, and to know it! It was after the Lord had saved Israel that they sang: and were they not entitled to sing? And what is the burden of their song? "I will sing to the Lord, for he has triumphed gloriously: the horse and his rider has he thrown into the sea. The Lord is my strength and song, and he is become my salvation;" etc. (Ex. 15:1-2). It is all coupled with a person, the person of the Saviour. He who possesses Christ has God's salvation.

We use the term "salvation" in a broad sense as including the whole or any of the parts of the work of grace which meets the fallen condition of man. As we have just seen, this condition has three aspects: of guilt, of defilement, of death or helplessness. The work of grace which meets this will have, therefore, at least three forms. For guilt, there will be forgiveness; for defilement, cleansing; and for helplessness, new birth or life. The principle which we have several times stated will be helpful here. We can distinguish, but must not separate. The condition of man can be distinguished as having this threefold character, but one of these is never present without the other two. Thus, we cannot think of man being guilty, as having transgressed the commandments of God, without also being defiled and helpless. So, too, in the work of divine grace, we cannot think of pardon being extended, in the scriptural way, without its having been accompanied by quickening and cleansing. If this truth were always remembered we would be spared much confusion in endeavoring to divide asunder that which God has joined together.

The salvation, the glad tidings of which we have heard, is the deliverance or transfer of the person out of the old state and place in which we were in Adam into an entirely new place and relationship with God in Christ.

The great thought in salvation is that the soul is rescued from destruction and recovered for God. In Mark 16 it is put in contrast with judgment, and in 1 Corinthians with perishing, and with the latter it is usually contrasted in Scripture. In James 4:12 we have “One Lawgiver who is able to save and to destroy;” and in Luke 19:10 we have the Son of Man come to seek and to “save that which was lost;” and in 2 Corinthians 2:15 we have the apostles a sweet savour of Christ to God, “in them that are saved and in them that perish;” and in all these places the word in the original for “destroy,” “lost,” “perish” is the same. The thought therefore connected with salvation in Scripture is easily laid hold of. The idea being that the soul is rescued from destruction, and recovered to God in new relationships, life, power, and blessing. I have said it is complete in a moral and spiritual sense in quickening with Christ, and in association with Him beyond Jordan. When we have come to this in the apprehension of our souls we can put on the helmet of salvation, we are in the enjoyment of an accomplished salvation, and have it as armour for our heads in battle; and to this Peter would have the babes grow up.

T. Certainly it does. But this is not peculiar to salvation. Other blessings of the gospel are spoken of in the same way. John says that He who believes in the Son has life eternal, but Paul speaks as in the hope of it (Titus 1:2). The righteousness of God is upon the believer (Rom. 3:22), but in Philippians 3 he counts everything in which he could glory in the flesh as rubbish, that he might be found in Him, not having on his own righteousness, but the righteousness of God by faith. Every blessing of the gospel is ours now in the grace of God, and in the power of the Spirit, but for the completeness of all blessings we await the coming of Christ. It is so with salvation. In 2 Timothy 1 we read, “Who has saved us, and called us with an holy calling;” and in Titus 3, “According to His mercy He saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and the renewing of the Holy Ghost.” Present salvation is the deliverance of the soul from the judicial consequences of its sins, from the dominion of sin, from the fear of death, from the power of the devil, and being brought into right relations with God in Christ.

But salvation is also viewed in Scripture as a present thing, for we are spoken of as being already saved. In 2 Timothy 1:9, we read of “God who has saved us, and called us with an holy calling,” and in Titus 3:5, “according to His mercy He saved us,” and in Ephesians 2:5, “By grace ye are saved.” There is therefore a present aspect of salvation contemplated in Scripture, and this I take to be the emancipation of the soul from the oppression and bondage of every adverse and ruinous power, whether it be death, Satan, sin, the flesh, or the world. We find deliverance from death, and the Devil as the one who has the power of death, by faith in that which answers to the dividing of the Red Sea; and from the working of sin in the flesh, by that which answers to the brazen serpent; and from the world, by that which answers to the passage of the Jordan.

In speaking of salvation in this way we must not limit it to salvation from going to hell. It is salvation from every form of power that the enemy can bring against us. Those who are saved are those who are the subjects of the sovereign call of God, and who are connected, according to His purpose, with Zion, that is, with Christ risen.

It is salvation, a simple word in itself, but one of unparalleled importance to our hearts. Salvation has its negative and its positive side. The first comprises the destruction of the enemy, of his power and all its consequences. Grace, in the person of Christ, has taken our place in death under all this: "It is the grace of God that brings salvation." Thus, Satan's power, the world, sin, death, wrath, and judgment, are overcome and destroyed for faith in the cross of Christ.