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What is
salvation?
Salvation is being saved from the righteous judgment of God upon the
sinner.
A lot of people think that salvation means being saved
from yourself or the devil. But that is not accurate. All
who have sinned against God are under the judgment
of God. This judgment is known as damnation where God condemns to
eternal hell all those who have offended Him by breaking His Law.
This does not mean that God is unfair. It
shows that God is holy. God must punish the sinner. But, He
has provided a way of escape so that people will not face His righteous
judgment. This means that God is both holy and loving. He
must manifest each quality equally. So, being saved from the wrath of God is called
salvation.
Salvation is found in Jesus, and only in Jesus,
who is God in flesh (John 1:1,14), and who died for our sins and rose
from the dead. 1 Cor. 15:1-4 says...
"Now I make known to you,
brethren, the gospel which I preached to you, which also you
received, in which also you stand, 2 by which also you
are saved, if you hold fast the word which I preached to you, unless
you believed in vain. 3 For I delivered to you as of
first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins
according to the Scriptures, 4 and that He was buried,
and that He was raised on the third day according to the
Scriptures,"
This is how
salvation works: All of us have sinned against God and deserve
judgment. But Jesus never sinned (1 Pet. 2:22). He lived the Law
of God perfectly. In this He has a perfectly righteous standing
before God. When the corrupt Jewish leaders forced Rome's hand
into crucifying Jesus, God used this crucifixion as the means to place
the sins of the world upon Jesus (1 Pet. 2:24; 1 John 2:2). This is when Jesus
became sin on our behalf. 2 Cor. 5:21 says,
"He made Him who knew no sin to
be sin on our behalf, that we might become the righteousness of God
in Him."
The
crucifixion became the place where Jesus bore our sins in His body and
suffered in our place. "But He was pierced through for our
transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; The chastening for
our well-being fell upon Him, and by His scourging we are healed," (Isaiah 53:5). Remember, no sinner could please
God perfectly and no sinner could offer a perfect sacrifice to God.
Only God in flesh, Jesus, could do that.
So, since there is nothing we can do that is righteous
before God (Isaiah 64:6 says our righteous deeds
are filthy rags), then we cannot please an infinitely holy
and righteous God by anything we do. But, Jesus who is perfectly righteous before
God the Father, died in our place. What we could not do, He did.
If you want to escape the righteous judgment of God,
then you need to trust in the sacrifice of God. You need to be made
right before God, by God. This righteousness of Christ is given to
you if you accept him, trust in Him, and believe in what Jesus did.
This is why the Bible says that we are saved by grace through faith.
"For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of
yourselves, it is the gift of God," (Eph.
2:8).
When you trust in what Christ has done on the cross,
and in no works of your own (since they aren't good enough anyway), then
the righteousness of Christ is given to you -- even as your sins were
"given" to Jesus. Its like a trade. He gets your sin.
You get His righteousness.
Once you have trusted in what Christ has done, then you possess eternal
life and you will never face the judgment of God.
“My sheep hear My voice, and I know
them, and they follow Me; 28 and I give eternal life to
them, and they shall never perish; and no one shall snatch them out
of My hand," (John 10:27-28).
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