FROM DEATH TO LIFE

The Biblical Doctrine of Salvation

An Outline

INTRODUCTION: Why does man need to be saved?
What is wrong with man such that only God can correct it?

1. The Biblical doctrine of the Need for salvation.
   1. The Nature of sin: What is sin?
      1. The sin of idolatry: the choice and faith in a false god,
         a substitute for the true God.
      2. Man must have a god, an ultimate criterion of his choices.
      3. Which god is the true God?
         The true God is the personal God revealed in the Scriptures,
         who created all things, visible and invisible.
      4. The basic sin: idolatry is directly against the true God
         and leads to other sins.
      5. The bondage of sin. The false god is a slave master.
      6. The extent of sin. All men have sinned.
   2. The origin of sin: Why do all men sin?
      1. The historical origin of sin: the fall.
         1. The creation of man: the image of God.
         2. The temptation: knowledge of good and evil as a substitute for God.
         3. The fall: the idolatry of the knowledge of good and evil.
         4. The results of the fall: spiritual and physical death.
      2. The immediate personal origin of sin:
         the spiritual death transmitted from Adam;
         because of this spiritual death all have sinned.
         1. The nature of death:
            physical death is separation of man's spirit from his body,
            spiritual death is separation of man's spirit from God, and
            eternal death is the eternal separation of man from God.
         2. The relation of death to sin:
            sin because of spiritual death and
            eternal death because of sin.
   3. The consequences of sin.
      1. The Wrath of God: the opposition of God to sin (the basic sin is idolatry).
      2. The Law of God: the knowledge of sin.

2. The Misunderstanding of the Biblical doctrine of the Need for Salvation.
   1. Misunderstanding of the Law: legalism
      1. Absolutizes the law: idolatry of the law.
      2. Depersonalizes the law: absolute standard between man and God.
      3. Quantifies the law: the merit scheme.
      4. Externalizes the law: extensions added to law.
   2. Misunderstanding of God and man.
      1. God is an infinite moral rational being whose nature is justice.
      2. Man is moral rational animal.
   3. Misunderstanding of the nature of sin: the transgression of the law
      and the breaking the rules, falling short of the divine standard.
   4. Misunderstanding of the personal origin of sin:
      the sinful nature inherited from Adam: sin as intrinsic to human nature.

3. The Biblical doctrine of salvation.
   1. The God of Salvation.
      1. The Love and Grace of God.
         1. Love is doing good to the one who is loved.
         2. Grace is love in action to give what one needs.
      2. The righteousness of God: God acting to put right the wrong.
         The righteousness of God is synonym for salvation or deliverance of God.
      3. The judgment of God: God putting down the oppressor and
         lifting up the oppressed.
      4. The holiness of God: God is separated from His creation and from false gods.
   2. Salvation by the grace of God.
      1. Salvation from death to life: reconciliation.
         God in Christ has reconciled the world to Himself.
      2. Salvation from sin to righteousness: redemption.
         The death of Christ as a redemption delivers from the slavery of sin.
      3. Salvation from wrath to peace: propitiation.
         The death of Christ as a sacrafice turns away the wrath of God.
      4. Justification through faith: being set right with God through faith.
         By the death and resurrection of Christ God in His righteousness
         sets a person right with Himself through faith
         which is reckoned as righteousness: the righteousness of faith.
   3. The Biblical doctrine of the Christian life.
      1. The three tenses of salvation: the Christian
         1. has been saved (past tense),
         2. is being saved (present tense), and
         3. will be saved (future tense).
         The Christian life is the present tense of salvation.
      2. The Holy Spirit and the Christian:
         The indwelling and filling of the Holy Spirit.
      3. The Christian and sin: dead with Christ to sin.
      4. The Christian and the law: not under law (but under grace) and
         dead with Christ to and free from the law.
      5. The Christian life is Spirit-filled law-fulfilling by love.
   4. The Biblical doctrine of last things.
      1. The return of Christ and His millennial reign.
      2. The final judgment and the new heavens and new earth.
         1. Rewards as gifts of grace.
         2. Heaven as eternal life with God.

4. The Misunderstanding of the Biblical doctrine of Salvation.
   1. Misunderstanding of salvation: vicarious law-keeping and
      satisfaction of the demands of the law and of justice.
   2. Misunderstanding of justification:
      imputation of the merits of Christ.
   3. Misunderstanding of the Christian life:
      Spirit-empowered law-keeping.

CONCLUSION:

1. Man needs salvation because:
   1. He is spiritually dead and in the process of dying physically.
   2. He sins (basic sin of idolatry) because he is spiritually dead.
   3. He is under the wrath of God because of his sins (basic sin of idolatry).
2. Salvation is therefore:
   1. Basically, from death to life through the death and resurrection of Christ.
   2. Secondarily, from sin (trust in false god)
      to righteousness (trust in true God).
   3. Thirdly, from wrath to peace with God.
   4. Fourthly. from the Law (the letter) to the Spirit of God.
3. Legalism in Christian theology has misunderstood:
   1. The nature of sin as lawbreaking and
      falling short of divine standard.
   2. The nature of righteousness as earned merits.
   3. The immediate personal origin of sin as an inherited sinful nature
      making sin intrinsic to human nature.
   4. Death as necessary penalty of sin.
   5. Life as earned by meritorious works of the law.
   6. The law as the universal principle of the being of God,
      of man and of the world.
   7. The righteousness of God as justice:
      giving to each man what he has merited.
   8. Salvation as vicarious law-keeping and
      satisfaction of the demands of the law and of the justice of God.
   9. The Christian life as Spirit-empowered law-keeping.
4. The extent to which legalism has affected Christian theology and Christian practice is such that a total rethinking of all doctrines is now necessary. This reformation and renewal in Christian theology should accompany the move of the Spirit of God today in the charismatic movement.