INTRODUCTION

Ever since the risen Jesus asked this question of the two disciples on the road to Emmaus, thoughtful Christians have been attempting to answer it. This question is an important one for all Christians. It is important not only because our Lord Himself raised it but also because He took the time to answer it.

This question of Jesus raises the central problem of Christian theology -- the problem of the atonement -- why "must" Jesus die for the salvation of men? This problem of the necessity of the atonement is the major problem of the Christian doctrine of salvation and is one aspect of the problem of the need for salvation -- why do men need to be saved? That is, what is wrong with man such that only God can correct it? The answer to this problem is given in the Biblical doctrine of sin and death; it explains why man must be saved. This doctrine and the Biblical doctrine of salvation is the subject of this book.

We shall see that the Biblical doctrine of salvation is basically a deliverance from death to life. 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 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 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 that God is dead; it is man himself that is dead.

Spiritual death not only affects the relationship of man to God, but also the relationship of man to his fellowmen. Because of spiritual death, man is separated and alienated from his fellowmen.

"He who does not love remains in death.
Anyone who hates his brother is a murderer,
and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him"
(I John 3:14-15).

Spiritual death is the present reign of death over man. King Death separates man from God. 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 to be born into to this world, so 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 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 man is delivered from spiritual death, then 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.

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 of this verse 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.

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,
you were in bondage to beings that by nature are no gods."

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 and worshipped
and served the creature rather than the creator" (Rom. 1:25).

The 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 before me" (Exodus 20:3 KJV). 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 choice of a wrong 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.

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 (Rom. 1:19-20). 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 results of his decision, eternal death.

"For the wages of sin is death,
but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord" (Rom. 6:23).

What is the effect of this view of death and sin on our understanding of the meaning of salvation? We have seen that spiritual death like physical death is not the result of a man's own personal sins. On the contrary, a man sins as 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 man can be saved from sin. Thus salvation must be understood to be from sin to righteousness because it is from death to life.

Now this salvation (from sin to righteousness because it is from death to life) is exactly what God has 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 reveals 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 (Gal. 3:21). 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.

Salvation is not just forgiveness; it is deliverance from death to life; it is the resurrection of the dead. A man may be forgiven but still be spiritually dead. Forgiveness of sins is not enough; man needs to be made alive to God because he is spiritually dead. And he is dead not because of his own sins but the sin of another, Adam. So the forgiveness of a man's sins does not take away spiritual death because the spiritual death was not caused by that man's sins. Removing his sins does not remove the spiritual death. But removing of spiritual death removes his sins. Salvation as resurrection from the dead means forgiveness of sins. To be alive to God means that sins are forgiven.

We shall now examine in greater detail this Biblical doctrine of salvation and its need. The Biblical doctrine of sin and death will be discussed first in Part I to show the need for salvation. It will be shown that man needs to be saved because he is dead and that he sins because he is dead. The discussion of sin will lead to a examination of the wrath of God and of the law of God.

This will lead in Part II to a discussion of legalism which is a distortion and misunderstanding of the law. In this discussion of legalism it will be shown how legalism has caused in Christian theology a misunderstanding and distortion of the Biblical doctrine of the need for salvation as well as of salvation and the Christian life.

Finally, in Part III this doctrine of the need for salvation will be validated by showing that a clear and non-legalistic understanding of the doctrine of sin and death leads to a fuller and clearer non-legalistic understanding of salvation and of the Christian life. That is, the Biblical doctrine of salvation will be examined in the light of the Biblical doctrine of the need for salvation. Then the Biblical doctrine of the Christian Life and of the Holy Spirit will be discussed.

ENDNOTES

[1] All quotations from the Scriptures are taken from the Revised Standard Version (RSV) of the Holy Bible (NT-1946, OT-1952) unless otherwise noted. The following symbols will be used to designate other translations.

KJV	King James Version, 1611
RV	English Revised Version, 1881-1885
ARV	American Revised Version, 1901
GNB	Good News Bible, 1976
NAS	New American Standard, 1971
NEB	New English Bible, 1961-1970
NIV	New International Version, 1978
ERS	My own translation from the Greek or Hebrew