What is Jesus' salvation?

Still, though there is this comprehensiveness of meaning about the word, we must not miss the fact that it always carries the thought of deliverance from peril; and inasmuch as sin lies at the root of every peril that threatens us, the New Testament very appropriately opens with salvation from sins. This salvation is not merely from the penalty of sins, but from the power of sins, and even from the love of them. The Gospel does not offer an exemption from sin's penalty while leaving us free to continue under the power of sin, or in the enjoyment of sin's temporary pleasures. Were it to do so, it would be no true salvation, for it would just encourage us to continue in sin: which God forbid!

The Son of God was named JESUS because He was to save His people from their sins, and this I take to be the consequences of their sins both present and future. I do not doubt the primary reference of this is to God’s earthly people, but it has also reference to those who would believe upon Him from among the Gentiles. Now, judgment and wrath are two great evils from which we need deliverance, for on account of our sins we are liable to both. In Romans 1:18 wrath is said to be revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who hold the truth in unrighteousness, and from this the Gospel is said to be the power of God to salvation, and in chapter 5:9, “Being now justified by His blood we shall be saved from wrath through Him,” and in 1 Thessalonians 5:9, “God has not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ”; and Peter informs those to whom he writes that the time had come when judgment must begin at the house of God, and if the righteous would scarcely be saved where would the ungodly and the sinner appear? (1 Peter 4:18). These passages of Scripture all present judgment and wrath as about to be inflicted and from which men need salvation. There are other Scriptures bearing upon the same aspect, but these will suffice.

You are under wrath and judgment. All the world is subject to the wrath and judgment of God because of their sins. But here is God's remedy. The Lord Jesus Christ came down from heaven to seek and to save what was lost, and He, not by His life, but by His death, has opened the way of escape for everyone that believes in Him. In the cross of Christ I see the blood provided which shelters from judgment; and in that same cross I see a way opened for me of deliverance from the power and thraldom of sin.

He has faced death. He has borne the judgment due to the sinner. That is why Jesus is the way of escape. God can righteously save the sinner who believes in His Son. God is “just, and the Justifier of him which believes in Jesus” (Rom. 3:26).

"For the Son of Man is come to seek, and to save, that which was lost." How does He save? He saves by His death; He saves by the work He accomplished for us on the cross. The only way we can be saved is through the death of the Saviour. Sin is on us; we have all sinned, and our sins must bring us into judgment. But what has taken place? The blessed Lord Jesus Christ has gone to the cross, and borne our sins, and the judgment of God, in respect of sin that He may bring us to God, through the work that He alone could accomplish. It is wonderful news, that the "Son of Man came to seek, and to save, that which was lost."

When the heart of Zacchaeus began to hunger for something better than gold, he climbed into a tree to see Jesus. It is more than likely that he could not then have given articulation to his deep longing, but Jesus knew it, and answered it in those words which must have filled the tax-gatherer with amazement, “Zacchaeus, make haste and come down, for today I must abide at thy house .” And when the Lord reached the threshold of that hitherto godless and joyless house, He said, “This day is salvation come to this house.” But why and how had salvation come there? It was because He, the Saviour, had come. Salvation is in Him, He is it; and in having Him we have salvation, and every other priceless blessing that God can give. He does not send salvation, He brings it; and where He is received there He abides, saying, “ I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee ” (Heb. 13:5). It is as though He said, “I have sought you so long, and love you so well, that never again will I allow you out of my company and care!” This is salvation—blessed, present, every day, and all-the-way salvation. It means to be protected, cared for, and upheld by the ever-present and infinitely tender Saviour, who has suffered for our sins, endured all our judgment, broken the dominion of the devil, and lives—yes, LIVES—as the Victor over death, for those who trust in Him.

Christ alone is the sinner's salvation. He alone meets all our need. "God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son." Clearly, then, the Son must be received, or we can never receive eternal life, for the life is in Him. The one question then is, Have I received the Son as my eternal life — my eternal all? When Christ is received by faith, all is received — life — righteousness — pardon — peace, and acceptance.

The great salvation of which believers in the Lord Jesus Christ are heirs, “at the first began to be spoken by the Lord” (Heb. 2:3), and as we go through the Gospels we learn much of what salvation means. In Luke 7:50 the Lord Jesus said to the poor repentant sinner, “Thy faith has saved thee, go in peace.” For her salvation was the forgiveness of sins, for the Lord had said to her, “Thy sins are forgiven” (verse 48). To the blind man of Luke 18 who cried to the Lord for mercy, the Lord Jesus said, “Receive thy sight: thy faith has saved thee” (verse 42). For this poor blind beggar salvation meant the gift of sight from the Son of God. No one who truly sought the Lord and His salvation were turned away, as Zacchaeus found, a salvation not for himself alone, but for his house, and the Lord could say, “For the Son of Man is come to seek and to save that which is lost” (Luke 19:9-10). To obtain this great salvation we must be in earnest, for when one said to the Lord, “Are there few that be saved,” He answered, “Strive to enter in at the strait gate,” for many who were mere professors of the Lord would be eternally excluded from the great salvation (Luke 13:23–30).

“I am the door: by Me, if any man enter in, he shall be saved.” That is the first thing—salvation. Was there any salvation in Judaism? That was a system of probation. Every single person that was tested failed, and every failure under the law must be fatal. “The soul that sins it shall DIE.” The meaning of probation is that you are under trial, whereas the meaning of salvation is that you have got a Saviour. This salvation carries with it the settlement of God’s wrath against sin, and our deliverance from it. When Christ came as the door God appeared not as Judge but as Saviour. And it also carries with it the thought of deliverance from all those untoward influences that surround us all through our life down here. There are temptations of the flesh, the world and the devil, and all the fearful power of the enemy arrayed against us. We want salvation from these things, and the Lord Jesus Christ is the One who can give it. Finally we need salvation in connection with our bodies, and the Lord Jesus Christ will not be content until He gives us that salvation. Our salvation is not complete until the word “redemption” is spelled out in full, and redemption is not spelt out in full until Christ comes to take us to be for ever with Himself. “Now is our salvation nearer than when we believed” (Rom. 13:11). Our salvation draws nigh, because the Redeemer is drawing nigh. The Lord is coming.

It was God's righteousness, not ours, for we were the sinners for whom He became substitute. Thus is God just in justifying the believer, who owns his sins and finds Him not sparing His own Son that we might be washed clean for His presence. Jesus is ready to judge the habitable world which cast Him out. The world and all in it inherit this load of guilt unremoved to this day. The only way to escape judgment is to repent and believe the gospel. This God enjoins on all men everywhere, as we saw. Is not this grace to every creature? But grace rejected seals your guilt. Jesus is coming, first to receive His own for His Father's house; secondly, to judge in righteousness the inhabited earth, not yet the dead but living man everywhere. He, knowing well how incredulous most would be, said, "when the Son of man cometh [i.e. for His second and judicial act], shall he find faith on the earth?"