What is salvation?
Salvation is a Person, Not a Package
J. T. Mawson addresses a widespread misconception head-on — that salvation is something received like a parcel in the post, while the Saviour Himself remains at a distance:
J. T. MawsonThere are some who look upon salvation as something they have received in the same way as they might receive a present by parcel post. It was good and kind of the Lord, and an evidence of His love to them, to send it to them. They had but to receive it, and had nothing to pay for it, for He paid the full price upon the cross, and now it is theirs. But though they have it, He, the Saviour, they imagine, like a friend who sends a present to them, remains at a great distance from them. This is an utterly false conception of the grace and ways of God, and accounts for much of the joylessness and retrogression of many converted people.
He points to the story of Zacchaeus, where the Lord said, "This day is salvation come to this house" — and the reason was that 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).
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.
A Word of Very Large Meaning
F. B. Hole explains that "salvation" is so broad it can encompass justification, redemption, and reconciliation all at once:
F. B. HoleWe now come to a word of very large meaning, so large indeed that it may be used in a sense that covers other gospel words such as justification, redemption, reconciliation. ... The Gospel which announces that mighty deliverance is, "the Gospel of our salvation."
Wherever salvation is mentioned, peril is implied — those to whom it is offered are in danger of perishing. He connects the different aspects of our need with different gospel words:
As guilty, we need forgiveness. As under condemnation, we need justification. As having lapsed into bondage, we need redemption. As enemies in our minds by wicked works, utterly alienated from God, we need reconciliation. As lost and perishing, it is salvation we need.
And he insists that this salvation reaches far deeper than escaping punishment:
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!
Three Tenses: Past, Present, and Future
F. B. Hole traces a three-fold progression in Scripture:
Past — already saved. Believers can speak of salvation as a completed fact:
"We ourselves also were sometimes foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving divers lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful, and hating one another. But … He saved us" (Titus 3:3-5).
Present — being saved daily. Christ lives in heaven as High Priest to minister this ongoing salvation:
We might sum up the matter as regards this daily and present salvation by saying it is ours as the result of Christ's High Priestly intercession, and of our having the Word of God, coupled with the possession of the Holy Spirit, whereby we may understand it and accept its instructions and its warnings.
Future — the hope of salvation. A final deliverance still lies ahead:
This future salvation altogether depends upon the crowning act of mercy which will reach us as the last delivering act of the Lord Jesus on our behalf. It will involve the raising of the dead saints, and the catching away of the living saints... Then all of us — both dead and living — are to be found forever with Christ in bodies of glory like to His own. This will be the final thing. Salvation as regards ourselves will be absolutely completed.
Morrish's Bible Dictionary confirms this same three-fold framework concisely: salvation refers (1) to deliverance from God's judgment through the blood of Christ, (2) to deliverance from enemies — for Christians, "sin, death, the world and the power of Satan... salvation in this sense is by the power of God," and (3) to the redemption of the body — "in this sense salvation is hoped for."
Salvation Distinguished from Forgiveness
J. N. Darby draws a sharp and important line between forgiveness and salvation. Forgiveness deals with what we have done; salvation deals with what we are:
J. N. DarbyPeople do not really believe that they are lost; they believe that they have sins; but that does not touch the question of being lost. Your sins make you guilty, but your state by nature is that you are lost.
Forgiveness applies to what I have done as the first man. ... When I speak of sins, I do not say I am saved; I say I am forgiven. People think that their guilt, as children of Adam, is cleared away, and so it is; but that is only forgiveness; it does not in itself take me out of the position that I am in.
For Darby, salvation is nothing less than being taken out of the first Adam and placed into the second Man — Christ risen and glorified:
What salvation has done is not the merely forgiving me my sins; forgiveness, cleansing, justifying, applies to my responsible and guilty condition in the first Adam; but salvation applies to my state in the second Man. It is a new creation.
The Lord give us clearly to see what salvation is: that it is the taking me out of the first Adam and putting me into the second Man. "He hath quickened us together with Christ, and hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus."
The Ground of Salvation: The Blood of Christ
Edward Dennett establishes the indispensable foundation on which this entire salvation rests — the death of Christ:
Edward DennettThe blood of Christ is the only way by which the guilt of sin can be removed. "Without shedding of blood is no remission" (Heb. 9:22). Herein lies the necessity for the death of Christ; the need, in fact, for the whole work of redemption.
He illustrates from the Passover night in Egypt:
The only ground (mark it well) of difference on this night between Israel and Egypt was THE BLOOD. It was not what Israel was in comparison with the Egyptians, but it was the blood that stayed the destroyer's hand — the blood on the outside of their houses; for the Lord had said, When I see the blood, I will pass over you.
Salvation, then, is far more than a ticket out of judgment. It is a Person — Christ Himself, who does not send salvation from a distance but brings it and remains. It is a deliverance from every peril — not only from the penalty of sin but from its power and even its attraction; from the wrath of God, from the world, from Satan. It is a change of position — being taken out of the old creation in Adam, lost and condemned, and placed into the new creation in Christ risen and glorified. It stretches across all of time — already accomplished at the cross, daily ministered through Christ's intercession and the Word and the Spirit, and to be completed when He comes again and the body itself is redeemed. And it rests on one unshakeable ground: the blood of Christ, God's righteousness maintained and declared in the death of His Son.