What is salvation according to Christianity?

Christianity has come finding man lost — justly lost by sin, and departed from God — has brought him salvation when he is in that state — has brought him life, eternal life. Christ is that life — a life holy in its nature, and which loves God and that which is good; he, it tells us, who receives Christ, receives this life. Such is the positive plain declaration of scripture; but that is not all. How can such poor, sinful, guilty, creatures have confidence to come to God; to walk at peace with Him, so as to come to His holy habitation hereafter, even if, quickened by Christ, they desire it? First, the Son of God has become a man, and lived amongst men to prove His love, and that He does not reject the vilest; He is the friend of publicans and sinners. God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them. Hence we see the very vilest (who could not venture near a decent person) come to Jesus — humbled surely, but received, and told to go in peace. Thus God was revealed amongst men, that sinners, such as we are, might trust Him. But to enter into His presence in heaven we must be cleansed — justified. The same blessed One gives Himself for us; has given Himself for the sins of all who come to God by Him; has borne their sins in His own body on the tree. Thereupon the Holy Ghost declares to us that they which believe are justified from all things; that the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses them from all sin, and that God will remember their sins and iniquities no more. Hence we are assured of being with Christ directly when we die — absent from the body and present with the Lord — and we are called upon to give thanks to the Father, who has made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light. So the poor thief, who talked of being remembered when the kingdom came, was assured that he should be that very day with Christ in paradise. And the Holy Ghost is given to those who believe as the seal of God upon them, and the earnest of their inheritance. And He is in them — a Spirit of adoption — crying Abba, Father. Death they know is a gain to them — resurrection the time of glory. They know that when He comes He will receive all that have believed in Him, and they will appear with Him in glory.

The personal character of present salvation should therefore be laid hold of by us. It is of the last importance to do so in these days of departure from the truth, and apostasy from the faith. To be saved, is to be saved! To be unsaved, is to be lost! The final issue is fast approaching! The coming of the Lord draweth nigh! The lights of the oil-less lamp-holders are going out! Those who “have not received the love of the truth that might be saved” (2 Thess. 2:10) will soon be carried away by the strong sweeping currents of error, “that they should believe what is false, that all might be judged who have not believed the truth, but have found pleasure in unrighteousness” (v. 12). God has no pleasure in this, but desires rather that “all men should be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth” (1 Tim. 2:4). The Son of God came not to judge the world, “but that the world through Him might be saved” (John 3:17 and 12:47). Upon the cross He bore the believer’s sin, and the judgment that those sins deserved; moreover, He was raised again from among the dead for their justification. On the basis of that work the believer is saved, for it is on account of this God righteously forgives sins, and the gospel brings “the knowledge of salvation … by the remission of their sins” (Luke 1:77). The first person outside of Judaism to be reached by the glad tidings was Cornelius. He heard words whereby he and all his house were saved (Acts 11:14). Those words pointed him to Christ, through whose Name everyone that believes on Him receives remission of sins (10:43). Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, for grace alone could meet the need of such; and while It is truly by the grace of God such are justified freely, through the great redemption which is in Christ Jesus, it is likewise true, we are “saved by grace” (Eph. 2:5, 8); not on the principle of works, so that none might boast. Grace is in Christ Jesus, and so is salvation (2 Tim. 2:1, 10). This latter is obtained there through faith, whether in regard to judgment, enemies, state, adverse influences, this present evil world or age. “Neither is there salvation in any other.”

The gospel then preached to this awakened sinner of the Gentiles was salvation by faith. The jailor's thought, like many others, was that salvation was by works; what must I do? But Paul and Silas assured him that he could be saved only in the way of faith. They presented the Lord Jesus Christ to him as the object of faith, and His finished work, and God's acceptance of it, as the ground of salvation, and warrant for perfect peace — "thou shalt be saved." This is very simple, and commends itself to the confidence of an anxious enquirer. The gospel really excludes all idea of creature-doing for salvation, because it testifies that Jesus, the Son of God, hath so completely finished the work of our redemption, so thoroughly purged our sins, that He sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high, the rightful Lord of heaven and earth, and that all who believe on Him have at once an eternal, interest in that blessed work. The Lord Jesus having magnified the law by bearing its curse, put away sin, abolished death, burst the bars of the grave, and triumphed over Satan, hell, and the grave, has entered into heaven itself with His own blood, having obtained eternal redemption for us; the resurrection and glorification of Christ being God's public testimony of His acceptance of the Saviour's all-sufficient work. What is then to be done for salvation? Nothing; it is done already, and we have the warrant of God's word to receive and enjoy it by faith — "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved." Faith reads the lessons of redeeming love in the death of the Son of God upon the cross; and those who can say, "We have known and believed the love that God hath to us" have peace; they see that God's love has brought salvation to them, even when sinners, in the cross of His Son, and knowing He is now risen from the dead, they approach God with confidence; they know that He declares them saved by grace, through faith. What, I would ask, can exceed this boundless love? What else could have really met us in our low estate? What could so redound to the glory of God? And who so thoroughly reject the gospel, display self-ignorance, and despise the unsearchable riches of Divine love, as those who talk of doing for salvation? "Where is boasting?" said the apostle. "It is excluded. By what law? Of works? Nay; but by the law of faith. Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law." (Rom. 3:27-28.) Blessed gospel for a sin-convicted, heavy-laden sinner!

"But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love wherewith He loved us even when we were dead in sins," — that is where God's love lays hold upon us, not when there has been something right in us, not when we have begun to waken up and respond to the love which greets us from Him, but simply out of His love itself. "He has quickened us with Christ," and "by grace it is that we are saved," he adds in parenthesis. grace surely. He has given us life when in that condition. There is no condition possible between death and life, no life which could be true life except by His gift for those so fallen, so that here His love met us, doing the whole work from the beginning, quickening us, as he says, with Christ. He looks at it all as part of that same work which brought Christ up from the dead. As to the point of time, of course, we are individually quickened and brought up, but as to the character of the quickening, it is this from its being part of that redemptive work which is the fruit of His intervention for us. It is a life which, in fact, is the life of Him with whom we are quickened. It is a life which makes Him to be the "Firstborn" among human brethren. Christ is looked at here, of course, as the Representative of His people, not, therefore, in the title which belongs to Himself personally, but in that which He had earned by the work to which He stooped. Thus it is all part of the same work. We are with Him in character by virtue of this quickening. Our condition is changed into the total opposite of what it was, and not only is our condition changed, our position is changed. He has "raised us up together." Quickening and resurrection are different things. Quickening is communication of life. Resurrection is the bringing of the life into the place of the living. Christ's resurrection has, in fact, given us this new place before God, as Romans has already taught us to say that we were justified by His resurrection. As His people, although justified now of course, when we become His people and not before, yet we look back to that resurrection of His which was the public sentence of God with regard to this. He has delivered us from every charge that could be made, from every question against us, by the resurrection of Christ. He has given us, therefore, a new and unassailable position in the One whom He has raised up. "He has raised us up together and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ." Notice the difference. He does not say with Christ" now any more. He is thinking simply of the representative character of Him who is seated in the heavenly places for us. We are actually quickened, we are actually raised up, we belong no more to the dead, whether as to the condition of our souls or as to the company in which we are. We are actually quickened and raised up, but we are not actually sitting down in the heavenlies. We are virtually and representatively sitting there in the One who is before God for us. Thus we reach, as has. been said before, the height of Christian position. The epistle to the Romans has involved this already, for "in Christ" means the same thing there as here, but it is here put in the fullest and strongest way, it is developed in such a way as to make it practically a new thing for us. We would not be entitled to infer such things except we had divine warrant for them, but here we have the warrant. God has made us to sit together in the heavenly places in Christ. Now comes the display of His glorious purpose as to this. It is "that He might show forth in the ages to come the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness towards us in Christ Jesus." We need not be surprised then that the place should be such a place of wonder! If God is going to show that which is indeed the fruit of Christ's work and the display of the full purposes of His heart, it will be surely true that the fullest blessing possible is necessitated for this. God is acting, as it were, though only grace could say so, on His own account; but then with regard to us it is grace and nothing but grace. He adds that all the way through here: "For ye are saved by grace, through faith"; and as if that were not enough, he adds, "and this not of yourselves:" that is, as surely is meant here, the faith itself is not of us. It is not of us, but it is God's gift. There is no principle of works, therefore, that any one may boast; nay, if you talk of works, we are His workmanship, and in such a way as He worked at the beginning in creation itself. We are His new creation, "His workmanship created in Christ Jesus." Here is what brings us, of course, into that scene of which the epistle to the Galatians has spoken to us. It is God's work in us that has accomplished this, and "He has created us unto good works," such works "as He has afore prepared that we should walk in them." He has given us a nature which will be fruitful in us after the manner that He desires.

And Naaman's wrath and indignation were stirred by Elisha's command. The great and mighty captain with his treasures expected a different reception from the prophet. He expected him at least to do what heathen priests with their enchantments did, to call on the name of the Lord his God and strike his hand over the place of leprosy. He rejects the remedy which grace had provided because it humbled him into dust and stripped him of his pride. It is just this the sinner needs. Naaman had to learn that he was nothing but a poor, lost leper. All his silver and gold could not purchase cleansing for him. He needed humiliation and the obedience of faith. And so he learned as his servants reasoned with him, and instead of returning in a rage to Damascus as the helpless leper, he obeyed the given command and dipped himself seven times in Jordan--"and his flesh came again like unto the flesh of a little child, and he was clean." Jordan is the type of death, as we saw in the study of Joshua. Our Lord was baptized by John in that river, for He had come to take the sinners' place in death. Naaman bathing in Jordan typifies death and resurrection in which there is cleansing and healing for the spiritual leper, but it is the death and resurrection of our blessed Lord. As we believe on Him who died for our sins according to Scripture, and was raised for our justification, we are born again and made clean. It is the one way of salvation, the only way, revealed in every portion of God's holy Word. "Saved by grace through faith (in Him who died for our sins), it is the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast."

Salvation is presented in the New Testament in a threefold way. (1) It is a PRESENT thing, in the sense of acceptance with God. The Christian is now "in Christ," and is consequently beyond condemnation, justified and reconciled. He stands in the divine favour now and for ever, and is loved as Christ is loved. So we read in Eph. 2:8. "By grace ye are saved through faith." In 2 Tim. 1:9 also: "God who has saved us." The Spirit's use of the present tense in these passages should dissipate every unbelieving doubt and fear. Doubts and fears are an insult to the love of God and a dishonour to the work of the Lord Jesus.

Christ came into the world to save sinners. He died for the ungodly. Prophets had repeatedly declared that "salvation is of the Lord," and had long spoken of Jehovah as "a just God and a Saviour." The gospel prominently sets this forth. He was called Jesus or Saviour, because He would "save His people from their sins;" and when the angel of the Lord announced His birth to the shepherds, he said, "Unto you is born this day, in the city of David, a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord." Jesus Himself taught His disciples that He came, "not to destroy men's lives, but to save them;" and when a sin-convicted woman received Him as such, He pronounced her "saved;" and when another joyfully received Him, He declared, "This day is salvation come to this house." Paul testified that the grace of God bringeth salvation, and He counted it "a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners." How blessed is the contemplation of the fact, that God still proclaims salvation for the chief of sinners, through the atoning death of Christ! Well may we sing — "Salvation! let the echo fly The spacious earth around; While all the armies of the sky Conspire to raise the sound. "Salvation! O thou bleeding Lamb, To thee the praise belongs; Salvation shall inspire our hearts, And dwell upon our tongues."

Into this Peter does not enter here; for he was addressing not the believing remnant of Christian Jews, but the proud and bitter enemies of both Christ and the Christian. But he does set forth, to Christ's honour, and in love even to those who had so guiltily cast Him out, the plain and exclusive assurance of salvation in Christ. 'In none other is there salvation, for neither is there another — a different — name under heaven that is given among men whereby we must be saved.' How blessed that, though God has set Him up at His own right hand in heaven, His name is given under heaven among men on earth, by which we must be saved if saved at all! It is here and now that we must be saved; for it is of grace and by faith. There is no other name — our own least of all; and no other way, for He is the way. Faith exalts the Saviour and the God Who gave Him, and leaves no room for works of righteousness of our doing, even were we capable of them, which in our unbelieving state we certainly were not. All is of grace; but grace reigning through righteousness to eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord. How awful that men should neglect so great a salvation — yea, though, on behalf of Christ, His servants beseech them to be reconciled to God!

"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."

Many religions and cults admit the problem of sin, but their answer is to seek salvation from sin through good works or by keeping rules and laws. The Christian's Bible teaches that Jesus Christ redeemed us from sin by dying on the cross. Nowhere is this more clearly stated than by the apostle Paul: "For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus" (Rom. 3:23,24).