The gospel of our salvation is the gospel of the grace of God (Acts 20:24).
And the grace of God is God's love in action.
"4 But God, who is rich in mercy,According to these verses, the grace of God is God's love in action.
out of the great love with which He loved us,
5 even when we were dead in our offenses,
made us alive together with Christ
(by grace you have been saved)."
(Eph. 2:4-5 ERS)
"God is love."
"He who does not love does not know God;Love is not just an attribute of God but is the very being of God; love is what God is in Himself. Before God ever created anything outside of Himself and thus created beings for Him to love outside of Himself, love existed in God. Since love is the choice of a person to do for another person that which is good for him, a person cannot love without another person to love. So love involves a relationship to another person. And since God has made Himself known as three persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, there is another person in God for Him to love. These three persons of the Godhead love each other (John 3:35; 5:20; 15:9-10; 17:23-26; 14:31). And God is love in Himself because these three love each other. God created beings outside of Himself to love not because He needed objects for His love (these already existed within Himself) but because of the abundance of His love that existed within Himself. Love is creative and this is true in the supreme sense of God Himself. Creation and salvation are the overflow of the love of this triune personal God of love.
for God is love." (I John 4:8)."So we know and believe the love that God has for us,
God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God,
and God abides in him." (I John 4:16).
This personal God of love is the source of salvation. "Salvation is of the Lord" (Jonah 2:9 KJV. See also Genesis 49:18; Exodus 14:13; I Sam. 2:1; I Chron. 16:23; II Chron. 20:17; Psa. 3:8; 9:14; 13:5; etc.). And this is so because God is a God of love (Psa. 13:5; 85:7; 86:13; 98:3; 119:41). God provided salvation because He is love.
"9 In this the love of God was made manifest among us,The love of God, then, is the source of our salvation. Because God loves us, He has acted to save us. And since the grace of God is God's love in action, salvation is by grace. The grace of God brings salvation (Titus 2:11 KJV). "(By grace are you saved)" ( Eph. 2:5).
that God sent His only Son into the world,
so that we might live through Him.
10 In this is love,
not that we loved God but that He loved us
and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins."
(I John 4:9-10 ERS)
What is salvation? Salvation is deliverance,
deliverance from something bad to something good.
Salvation is deliverance
from death to life,
from sin to righteousness, and
from wrath to peace.
Salvation is first of all deliverance from death to life. And then it is also deliverance from sin to righteousness and then from wrath to peace with God. In Eph. 2:5 salvation is presented as deliverance from death to life. When we were dead in offenses and sins, God has made us alive together with Christ. Christ died to save us from death.
If there is any one word that can characterize or describe our world it is the word "death." Death casts a pall of gloom over all of our lives. It is the end of all plans, the frustration of all hopes. Death has a finality about it that no human power can overcome. Man by his science and medicine tries to prevent it. But against its inevitable arrival no human power can prevail. It is appointed unto man once to die (Heb. 9:27). Death has power, and through the fear of death man is subject to lifelong bondage (Heb. 2:14-15). Death is not just an event which comes upon us and puts an end to life. Death is a power, a ruler. Death is a tyrant who does not ask man whether he will serve him, but claims everyone with absolute authority. We may choose to be or not be the slaves of sin; but there is no choice as to the reign of death. From birth we are subjects of King Death. Ever since Adam's horrible choice in the garden, death has reigned over man. The Apostle Paul says, "because of one man's trespass, death reigned through that one man" (Rom. 5:17). Sin came into the world through one man and death through sin, and so death spread to all men ( Rom. 5:12). Death is a sovereign who rules over all men. Such is the common lot of all men since Adam.
Death is more than just the end of life, the dissolution of the body, the cessation of physiological functions of this organism. Physical death is the separation of man's spirit from his body. In this state of physical death he awaits the judgment (Heb. 9:27). But death is more than the physical separation of man's spirit from his body. It is also the separation, alienation of man from God; this is spiritual death. It is the opposite of spiritual life which is fellowship and communion with God. Spiritual life is knowing God personally as a living reality ( John 17:3); spiritual death is the absence of this life. In this state man thinks that God doesn't exist, that God is dead. But it is not God that is dead; it is man himself that is dead.
Spiritual death not only affects the relation of man to God, but also the relation of man to his fellowman. Man is separated and alienated from his fellowman.
"14b He who does not love remains in death.Spiritual death is spiritual isolation from man as well as from God.
15 Anyone who hates his brother is a murderer,
and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him"
(I John 3:14b-15).
Spiritual death is the present reign of death over man. King Death separates man from God and from his fellowman. The reign of King Death is not only exercised in the inevitable physical death of man; King Death rules every moment of man's existence before the event of physical death. Spiritual death is the present reign of death which separates, alienates and isolates man from God. Just as man does not choose physical death, that is, whether he is going to die inevitably or not, he does not choose spiritual death. Man is born into this world already spiritually dead. He is automatically under the reign of death. He has no choice about it. According to Romans 5:12, we receive death from our first parents, Adam and Eve. When they sinned, they died spiritually as well as physically. God said, when he gave them the command not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, that in the day that they ate of it they would surely die (or literally, "dying, you will die", Gen. 2:17). Since they did not die physically on that day, they must have died spiritually on that day. And this is clearly what happened because they hid themselves from the presence of God (Gen. 3:8). Their fellowship or communion with God was broken and this is spiritual death. Later, after they were driven out of the garden away from the tree of life, lest they eat of it and live forever (Gen. 3:22-24), they eventually died physically (Gen. 5:5). And this death, both spiritual and physical, was passed onto the whole race of Adam's descendants, you and me.
Unless a man has been delivered from spiritual death, after physical death and the judgment, he will be eternally separated from God. This is eternal death, the "second death" (Rev. 20:14; 21:6-8; Matt. 7:21-23).
But God has done something about this reign of death over the human race. In His love for us, He sent His Son to enter into our death so that He might deliver us from the reign of death. On the cross, Jesus died not only physically but spiritually. "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" (Matt. 27:46) He was forsaken for us; He died for us. He tasted death for every man (Heb. 2:9). But God raised Him from the dead. That is why He died; Jesus died so that He might be raised from the dead. He entered into our death in order that as He was raised from the dead, we might be made alive with Him ( Eph. 2:5). Christ's death was our death, and His resurrection is our resurrection. We who have received Him are made alive with Him and in Him; we have passed from death into life (John 5:24); we have been raised from the dead spiritually (John 5:25). God has done for us what we could not do for ourselves; He has made us who were dead spiritually alive.
Jesus Christ acted as our representative, on our behalf and for our sakes. "For the love of Christ controls us, having concluded this, that one died for [huper, on the behalf of] all, therefore all died" (II Cor. 5:14 NAS), that is, in Christ, who represents all. Adam acting as a representative brought the old creation under the reign of death. But Christ acting as our representative brought a new creation in which those "who have received the abundance of grace and the gift of righteousness will reign in life." (Rom. 5:17).
"21 For since by man came death,Acting through our representative, God has reconciled us to Himself in and through Christ; that is, God has brought us into fellowship with Himself.
by man came also the resurrection of the dead.
22 For as in Adam all die,
even so in Christ shall all be made alive"
(I Cor. 15:21-22)."Wherefore if any man is in Christ, he is a new creature:
the old things are passed away; behold, they are become new." (II Cor. 5:17).Jesus said, "Because I live ye shall live also." (John 14:19).
"18 But all things are of God,Reconciliation is salvation from death to life.
who reconciled us to Himself through Christ...
19 to wit, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself."
(II Cor. 5:18, 19; see also Rom. 5:10-11; I Cor. 1:9; I John 1:2-3).
Salvation may be viewed in three different ways.
"Yet a little while, and the world will see me no more,Life is not a "thing," but it is a person -- Jesus.
but you will see me; because I live, you will live also."
(John 14:19).
"Jesus said to him [Thomas],And to know Him personally is to have eternal life.
'I am the way, and the truth, and the life;
no one comes to the Father, but by me.'" (John 14:6).
"This is eternal life,To know Him personally is to have Him. And "he that has the Son has life and he that has not the Son has not life" (I John 5:12). If you have God's Son, you are alive to God; you have eternal life; you have been raised from the dead, spiritually; you have entered into fellowship with God; you are reconciled to God; you are saved.
that they may know thee the only true God,
and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent." (John 17:3).
But salvation is not only deliverance from death to life but also from sin to righteousness. And salvation is from sin to righteousness because it is from death to life. All men have sinned because they are spiritually dead. This is what the Apostle Paul says in the last clause of Romans 5:12, which clause is incorrectly translated in our English translations. In the Greek, there is a relative pronoun which has not been translated. If it were translated, the whole clause in English would read, "because of which all sinned." In the Greek, it is clear that the antecedent of the relative pronoun "which" is the word "death" in the preceding clause. (The antecedent of a relative pronoun is the word to which the pronoun refers.) The last clause would then be equivalent to "because of death all sinned" and would mean that all men sinned because of death.
"Therefore, as through one man sin entered into the world,
and death through sin, and so death passed unto all men,
because of which all sinned: --" (Rom. 5:12 ERS)
But how is this possible? How can men sin because of death? Let me explain how this is possible by referring to another passage in the writings of the Apostle Paul, Galatians 4:8. In this passage, Paul is reminding the Galatian Christians of their condition before they became Christians.
"Formerly, when you did not know God,Not to "know God" personally as a living reality is to be spiritually dead. And a man is "in bondage to beings that are no gods" when he chooses them as his gods. He is in bondage to them because he does not personally know the only true God, that is, because he is spiritually dead.
you were in bondage to beings that by nature are no gods."
(Galatians 4:8)
Let me put it another way. Every man must have a god. Man, by the very structure of his freedom, must choose something to be the ultimate criterion of all his decisions. This is because every choice a man makes is made with reference to some criterion. That is, behind every decision as to what a man will do or think there is a reason, a criterion of decision. And the ultimate reason for any decision -- practical or theoretical -- must be given in terms of some particular criterion, an ultimate reference or orientation point in or beyond the self or person making the decision. This ultimate criterion is that person's god. In this sense every man must have a god. Every man, if he hasn't already, must choose something as his god. Now if he doesn't know the true God personally as a living reality, that is, if he is spiritually dead, and since he must have a god, he will choose a false god. He will choose some part or aspect of reality as his god, deifying it.
"They exchanged the truth about God for a lie andThe choice of a false god and consequent personal allegiance and devotion to it is what the Bible calls idolatry. An idol does not have to be an image of wood, stone or metal. It may be money, wealth, power, pleasure, education, the family, the state, democracy, reason, experience, science, the moral law, etc. An idol is a false god, and a false god may be anything that takes the place of the true God, anything a man chooses as his ultimate criterion of decision, exalting it as God in the place of the true God. It is any substitute or replacement for the true God in a man's life. Since a false god usurps the place of the true God in a man's life, idolatry is the basic sin. This sin is directly against God; it is a direct insult to the true God and an affront to His divine majesty. No more serious sin could be imagined than this one. Since it is the most serious sin, it is therefore the most basic. This is the main reason that idolatry is the first sin prohibited by the Ten Commandments. "Thou shalt have no other gods besides me" (Exodus 20:3). Idolatry is also the basic sin because this sin leads to other sins. It leads to other sins since a person's god, being his ultimate criterion of decision, ultimately controls the direction and character of a man's decisions. The wrong choice of a false god will lead to other wrong choices. That is, the idol that a man sets up in his heart (Ezek. 14:3-5) will affect the character and quality of his whole life. In other words, if in his heart a man clings to a false god, his actions and speech will show it. In this way also idolatry is the basic sin.
worshipped and served the creature rather than the creator." (Rom. 1:25).
Now we can understand how death leads to sin. If a man is spiritually dead, separated from God, and since he must choose a god, he will usually choose a false god. If a man does not know the true God, the true God will not be a living reality to him. And lacking this personal knowledge of the true God as a living reality, man does not have the adequate reason for choosing the true God as his ultimate criterion of decision. God Himself is the only adequate reason for choosing Him. He cannot be chosen for any other reason than Himself. For then He would not be God but rather that reason for which He is chosen would be god. Only a living encounter with the true and living God can produce the situation in which God Himself may be chosen. If God Himself is the only adequate condition for the choice of Himself, then apart from a personal revelation of God Himself, man will usually choose as his god that which seems like god to him from among the creation around him or from the creations of his own hands or mind. Man does not necessarily have to sin, but he usually will. Spiritual death is not the necessary cause but the basis or condition for his choice of a false god. (The Greek word translated "because" in the last clause of Romans 5:12 means "on the basis of" or "on the condition of".)
Man is not responsible for becoming spiritually dead because he did not choose this state. He inherited spiritual death from Adam just as he inherited physical death. But he is responsible for the god he chooses. The true God has not left man without a knowledge about himself.
"19For what can be known about God is manifest in them,This knowledge about God leaves man without excuse for his idolatry. But it does not save him because it is knowledge about the true God and not a personal knowledge of the true God. But even though a man is not responsible for becoming spiritually dead, he is responsible for remaining in the state of spiritual death when deliverance is offered to him in the person of Jesus Christ. If he refuses the gift of eternal life in Christ Jesus, he must reap the harvest and receive the wages of his decision, eternal death.
because God has shown it to them.
20Ever since the creation of the world
the invisible things of Him,
both His eternal power and divine nature,
have been clearly seen,
being understood by the things that are made,
so that they are without excuse." (Rom. 1:19-20 ERS).
"For the wages of sin is death,If a man refuses the gift of spiritual and eternal life in Christ Jesus and continues to put his trust in a false god, remaining in spiritual death, then after he dies physically, at the last judgment he will receive the result of his decision, eternal death, separation from God for eternity.
but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord." (Rom. 6:23).
Now we can understand why man needs to be saved. As we have seen, man is not responsible for the spiritual death nor for the physical death that he has received from Adam; they are not the result of a man's own personal sins. On the contrary, a man's personal sins are a result of spiritual death. That is why he needs to be saved. Man is dead spiritually and dying physically. He needs life; he needs to be made alive -- he needs to be raised from the dead. And if he receives life, if he is made alive to God, death which leads to sin will be removed. And if he receives life which leads to righteousness, man can be saved from sin to righteousness. Thus salvation must be understood to be primarily from death to life and secondarily from sin to righteousness.
Now this salvation (primarily from death to life and secondarily from sin to righteousness) is exactly what God accomplished through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, His Son. Jesus entered into our spiritual death in order that as He was raised from the dead, we might be made alive with and in Him ( Eph. 2:5). And by saving us from spiritual death, Christ saves us from sin. It is by taking away the spiritual death which leads to our sin that God takes away our sin. Jesus died for our sins -- literally -- to take them away (John 1:29). What the Old Testament sacrifices could not do (Heb. 10:1-4), the death of Christ has done. The blood of Jesus (His death) cleanses us from our sins (I John 1:7). We are delivered from sin itself, not just from its consequences. We were saved from our trust in false gods when we put our trust in Jesus Christ and the true God who sent him. Did we not "turn from idols to serve the living and true God"? (I Thess. 1:9) When we were spiritually dead we trusted in and served those things that were not God -- money, power, sex, education, popularity, pleasure, etc. But when we turned to the risen Christ, we entered into life, leaving behind those false gods. The risen Jesus Christ is now our Lord and our God (John 20:28).
The death and resurrection of Jesus was the means by which God removed death -- the barrier to knowing the true God personally and knowing His love. Now God can reveal Himself to us in the preaching of the gospel, making us spiritually alive to Himself when we receive Jesus Christ who is life (John 14:6; I John 5:12). To be spiritually alive is to know God, and to know God personally is to trust Him. For "God is love" ( I John 4:8, 16) and love begets trust. The trust in God that God's love invokes in us is righteousness (Rom. 4:5, 9); it relates us rightly to God. Just as trust in a false god is sin, so trust in the true God is righteousness (Rom. 4:3-5). And just as sin flows from death, so righteousness flows from life.
"Is the law then against the promises of God? Certainly not;Thus by taking away death, God takes away sin. By making us alive to Himself, God sets us right with Himself through faith. Life produces righteousness just as death produced sin.
for if a law had been given which could make alive,
then righteousness would indeed be by the law." (Gal. 3:21)
God not only acted in Jesus Christ to reconcile us to Himself, that is, to deliver us from death to life, but also to redeem us from sin.
"In Whom [Christ] we have our redemption through His blood,The redemption that is in Christ (Rom. 3:24) is deliverance from sin by the payment of a price which is called a ransom and is the blood of Christ, that is, His sacrifical death. This price is not the payment of a penalty, but is the means by which the redemption from the slavery of sin is accomplished. The death of Christ ("his blood") is the means by which men are set free from the slavery of sin.
the deliverance from our offenses,
according to the riches of His grace"
(Eph. 1:7 ERS; see also Col. 1:14).
"18 Knowing that you were not redeemed with perishable things,According to the English translation of Eph. 1:7 and Col. 1:14, redemption is equivalent to forgiveness of sins. But the basic meaning of the Greek word here translated "to forgive" is "to send off or away." Hence to redeem from sins is to send them away. That is, redemption is deliverance from sins and this redemption was accomplished by the death of Jesus. Jesus was "manifested in order to take away our sins" (I John 3:5). He is "the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world" (John 1:29).
like silver or gold, from your futile way of life
inherited from your forefathers;
19 but with the precious blood,
as of a lamb unblemish and spotless,
the blood of Christ."
(I Pet. 1:18-19 NAS; see also Heb. 9:14-15)
This redemption from sin was accomplished by the death of Jesus Christ because His death is also the means by which we were delivered from death, the cause of sin. Since spiritual death leads to sin ( Rom. 5:12d ERS), sin reigns in the sphere of death's reign (Rom. 5:21). And since Christ's death is the end of the reign of death for those who died with Christ, it is also the end of the reign of sin over them. They are no longer slaves of sin, serving false gods. Sin is a slave master (Rom. 6:16-18) and this slave master is the false god in which the sinner trusts. We were all slaves of sin once, serving our false gods when we were spiritually dead, alienated and separated from the true God, not knowing Him personally. But we were set free from this slavery to sin through the death of Christ. For when Christ died for us, He died to sin (Rom. 6:10a) as a slave master. Sin no longer has dominion or lordship over Him. For he who has died is freed from sin (Rom. 6:7). That is, when a slaves dies, he is no longer in slavery, death frees him from slavery. Since Christ died for all, then all have died (II Cor. 5:14). His death is our death. Since we have died with Him and He has died to sin, then we have died to sin. We are freed from the slavery of sin and are no longer enslaved to it (Rom. 6:6-7). But now Christ is alive, having been raised from the dead, and we are alive to God in Him. His resurrection is our resurrection. "But the life He lives He lives to God" (Rom. 6:10b). This is the life of righteousness. And so we who are now alive to God in Him are to live to righteousness. For just as death leads to sin, so life leads to righteousness.
"And He Himself bore our sins in His body on the cross,Having been redeemed from the slavery of sin through the death of Christ, we who are now alive in Him have become slaves of righteousness (Rom. 6:17-18).
that we might die to sin and live to righteousness;
for by His wounds you were healed." (I Pet. 2:24 NAS).