God accomplishes this salvation through Jesus Christ by the Holy Spirit. Having raised Jesus from the dead and having exalted Him to His own right hand to be both Lord and Christ (Acts 2:33, 36; Eph. 2:20-22; Phil. 2:9-11), God has sent the Holy Spirit (Acts 2:33) to bring life to men (John 3:5-8) by revealing personally to them (John 15:26) Jesus as their Savior who died for them and as their Lord who was raised for them (Rom. 10:9-10; Titus 3:4-7; II Tim. 1:9-10). When a man responds to this revelation in the preaching of the Gospel by turning from his false gods (repentance) and turning to the true God (I Thess. 1:10), acknowledging Jesus as his Lord (faith), he is saved (Acts 2:38; 16:31). Apart from God and His grace revealing Jesus Christ by the Holy Spirit in the preaching of the Gospel, a man will not repent and believe (conversion) (John 6:44, 65; 16:7-11). Baptism is an outward sign of this inward work of God's grace (Rom. 6:3-4).
This decision of faith involves at least three elements.
"9 Because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is LordUnless one believes that Jesus is risen from the dead, Jesus cannot be his Lord. One must believe that Jesus is risen from the dead, in order to acknowledge and to confess Jesus as his Lord. Faith in general is not just belief that certain statements are true but is the commitment of one's self and the giving of one's allegiance to something or to someone as one's own personal ultimate criterion of all his decisions, intellectual and moral. Saving faith in Jesus Christ is the commitment of one's self to Jesus Christ as one's own personal ultimate criterion ("My Lord and my God," John 20:28). In that decision of faith, the living person, the resurrected Jesus Christ, not just what He taught, becomes our ultimate criterion of the true, the good, and the beautiful (John 14:6). As He is our living Lord, His will becomes the ultimate criterion of all our decisions, intellectual and moral. By the Holy Spirit, His will is personally communicated to us (John 14:15-17, 26; 15:26; 16:12-15; II Cor. 3:17-18; I John 2:26-27).
and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead,
you will be saved.
10 For one believes with his heart unto righteousness,
and he confesses with his mouth unto salvation."
(Rom. 10:9-10 ERS)
"I have been crucified with Christ;Baptism is the outward sign and symbol of this identification and participation with Christ in His death and resurrection (Rom. 6:3-4; Col. 2:12).
it is no longer I who live,
but Christ who lives in me;
and the life I now live in the flesh
I live by faith in the Son of God,
who loved me and gave Himself for me."
(Gal. 2:20; see also Rom. 6:5-11; Eph. 2:4-6; Col. 3:1-4)
"Truly, truly I say to you, he who hears my wordHaving in the decision of faith identified ourselves with the death and resurrection of Jesus and having acknowledged the resurrected living Jesus as Lord, we have also received spiritual life. For Jesus Christ is this life, and to have Him is to be spiritually alive to God.
and believes him who sent me has eternal life;
he does not come into judgment
but has passed from death to life."
(John 5:24; see also John 3:36; Rom. 5:17)
"11 And this is the testimony,This life is fellowship with God. When we received Jesus as our Lord and our Savior, fellowship with God is restored (I John 1:3) and we are reconciled to God (II Cor. 5:18). We are born again (John 3:3; Titus 3:5) and have become new creatures in Christ Jesus (II Cor. 5:17).
that God gave us eternal life,
and this life is in his Son.
12 He who has the Son has life;
he who has not the Son has not life."
(I John 5:11-12)
But this decision of faith is only the beginning of the Christian life. Being made alive in Christ we have become members of His body (I Cor. 12:12-13). Not only is our fellowship with God restored, but also our fellowship with our fellow man. The barrier is removed and we are no longer separated and alienated from one another (Eph. 2:19). We are no longer spiritually isolated from one another. All those who have acknowledged Jesus Christ as Lord and have received Him as their life, together form a new community or society, His body, of which He is the head (Col. 1:18). In His body we know the reality of God's love and are able to love one another because He first loved us (I John 4:11, 19) and has poured His love into our hearts through the Holy Spirit which He has given to us (Rom. 5:5). Since the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus (Rom. 8:2), when we received life in Christ, we also have received the Holy Spirit (Rom. 8:9).
The Christian life is a life of fellowship and communion with God the Father through Jesus Christ by the Holy Spirit (I Cor. 1:9; II Cor. 13:14; I John 1:3). Through Jesus Christ we have access in one Spirit to the Father (Eph. 2:18; Rom. 5:2; Heb. 10:19-22). God speaks to us through the written and spoken Word of God and we speak to Him in prayer. The Christian life is also a walk of faith. It not only begins in faith, but it continues in faith (Col. 2:6). The walk in the Spirit is the walk of faith (Gal. 2:20; 5:25). Faith in the Father who loves me; faith in Jesus Christ with whom I have died and have been raised to new life; faith in the Holy Spirit who dwells within me. The Christian life is also a life of being transformed into and conformed to the image of God (Rom. 8:29; II Cor. 3:18). The resurrected God-man, the Son of man, Jesus Christ, is the image of God (Col. 1:15; II Cor. 4:4). By the last Adam, the man from heaven, man is being restored to the image of God. In faith we have put on the new man which is being renewed according to the image of Him who created him (Col. 3:10; Eph. 4:23-24).
The Christian life is the present tense of salvation. We have been saved from death unto life, from sin unto righteousness, and from wrath unto peace. But this salvation is not yet complete. It has begun for those who are in Christ Jesus (Rom. 8:24), and it is still continuing (I Cor. 15:2; see also I Cor. 1:18 and II Cor. 2:15). But it is not yet finished. With hope we await its completion (Rom. 5:9; 8:25; Gal. 5:5). We are in between the times: the time of His first coming and the time of His second coming. Our spirits are now alive to God and to those in Christ, but our bodies are still dead (Rom. 8:10). Our bodies are still subject to the spiritual and physical death that came from Adam's sin. Only by the quickening power of the Holy Spirit of God who dwells within us can we now experience physical healing and control of the passions and desires of the flesh (Rom. 8:11-13). This salvation of the body from death is not now total or complete and will not be until Jesus returns. But neither is the salvation from sin to righteousness complete. The faith that we have in God who raised Jesus from the dead, this faith is "about to be reckoned" to us for righteousness, even as Abraham's faith was reckoned (Rom. 4:23-24). But our righteousness is not complete. Our faith is weak, and not all things we do are done according to trust and faith in the true God. We have many hangovers from our existence in death apart from Christ. This old man must be put off (Eph. 4:22-24; Col. 3:5-10) with its many evil practices. This can be done by the power of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus (Gal. 5:16-17, 24) as we walk in the Spirit by faith. The Christian can sin but he does not have to sin. The Christian is dead to the slavery of sin with Christ and alive to God in Christ (Rom. 6:1-10). He is to reckon it to be true and yield his members not to sin but to God as instruments of righteousness (Rom. 6:11-13). Temptations to sin still exist, but God has provided a way of escape (I Cor. 10:13).
In chapter 6 of his letter to the Romans, the Apostle Paul discusses the Christian's relationship to sin. This discussion was occasioned by the objection that was raised to Paul's teaching concerning the grace of God. In Rom. 5:20 Paul had said, "And the Law came in that the transgression might increase; but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more". Misunderstanding his statement, Paul's opponents asks (Rom. 6:1), "Are we to continue in sin that grace might increase?" Paul answers them (Rom. 6:2) with a denial and with his own question,
"May it never be! How shall we who died to sin still live in it?"This question introduces Paul's discussion of the Christian's relationship to sin. The Christian's relationship to sin is that the Christian has died to sin with Christ. And this is what Christian baptism pictures and symbolizes. The Christian has died to sin with Christ and baptism pictures this. And it also pictures burial with Christ and the believer's resurrection with Christ. His death is their death and His resurrection is their resurrection (Rom. 6:3-4). They have died to sin with Christ and they have been made alive to God with Christ (Rom. 6:5-10). They are to reckon or consider themselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus (Rom. 6:11). And they are to stop letting sin as a slave master have dominion over them, not presenting the member of their bodies to sin as instruments of unrighteousness, but as those alive from the dead to present their members to God as instruments of righteousness (Rom. 6:12-13). For sin as a slavemaster shall not have dominion over them, for they are not under law, but under grace.
"For sin shall not have dominion over you:This declaration leads to Paul's discussion of the relationship of the Christian to the law.
for you are not under law, but under grace." (Rom. 6:14)
But before he does that, Paul answers another objection to his teaching concerning the grace of God, "Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace?" (Rom. 6:15) Paul answers again with a denial and with his own question,
"15b May it never be!Then Paul thanks God that they (his readers) who were the slaves of sin, have obeyed from the heart the form of teaching to which they were committed (Rom. 6:17), his teaching of the grace of God. "and having been freed from sin, you have become slaves of righteousness." (Rom. 6:18 NAS) In the rest of chapter 6 Paul explains the slavery of sin and it consequences (the wages of sin is eternal death) and the slavery to God and its consequences, sanctification, and its end, eternal life (eternal life is the gift of God in Christ Jesus our Lord).
16 Do you not know that
when you present yourselves to someone as slave for obedience,
you are slaves of the one whom you obey,
either of sin resulting in death,
or of obedience resulting in righteousness?"
(Rom. 6:15b-16)