Bible Quick Notes
“Salvation”
An Easy Practical Guide to Biblical Doctrine
Salvation
Whenever we mention words like “salvation,” most people think of religion and church, never thinking about how it applies to our lives today. But we must be careful and not dismiss the word or its meaning because it doesn’t line up with the today’s jargon.
If we look up salvation in the dictionary, it talks about preservation and deliverance. We connect salvation with Christianity and the gospel message of Jesus Christ. (By the way, “gospel,” is another one of those religious words which means “good news,” and it’s the good news of what Jesus Christ did in bringing us salvation.)
If I could give a standard definition of salvation, it would be the deliverance from sin and its consequences, which is brought about through faith in Jesus Christ.
So, what is salvation? Salvation is being made right with God, because at our conception, we weren’t right with Him. You might say we were on God’s wrong side. And so, to make us right with God, Jesus Christ came to put us on God’s good side through His death upon the cross.
The work of salvation is a total God thing, bringing sinful humanity into the fullness of God’s glory, making them righteous through Jesus Christ. This is a work of God’s grace through our faith in Jesus.
The Apostle Paul, in his letter to the Ephesian Church, said, “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast.” (Ephesians 2:8-9)
Therefore, God’s salvation for sinful humanity is both a gift of God’s grace, and our responsibility to accept this gift by faith.
Most people today, however, believe the way a person gets right with God is by being a good person. But other than Jesus Christ, there are no good people. But here is where error rears its ugly head. We compare ourselves to others, which is never a good way to determine our goodness (2 Corinthians 10:12; Romans 3:10).
The error comes when we compare ourselves to the wrong person. We are all pretty good when we compare ourselves to those who are worse than we are, or the devil. But neither they nor the devil are the standard for goodness.
Instead, we need to compare our lives to the one who is goodness personified, Jesus Christ. Jesus is the only one who was and still is good, and it is through His life and death that by faith, God made us right with Him (2 Corinthians 5:21).
And so, how do we get on God’s good side? How can we attain the righteousness needed to stand in God’s presence? It is by grace through faith in Jesus Christ (Ephesians 2:8-9). It says in the Bible that those who are just, those who are right with God, shall live by faith (Romans 1:16-17).
Salvation Revealed in The Bible
The Kingdom of God is the connecting thread that ties the entire Bible together, and biblical teachings like redemption, justification, sanctification, judgment, grace, mercy, plus many more, are major themes found within this overall theme of God’s kingdom.
But within the Kingdom of God, we may describe salvation as the Kingdom’s overriding theme. It has within it a salvation that is both physical and spiritual, individual and national, as well as temporal and eternal.
The Hebrew word that best describes salvation is “yasha,” which means to deliver, save, rescue, and liberate. Within the Old Testament, we see it more in the physical realm than the spiritual. But the Lord is the one who brings salvation to His people through His servants.
Joseph is a good example, as the Lord raised him up to bring salvation and deliverance for His family through God’s gracious intervention. Joseph recognized it was the Lord’s blessing upon Him that brought salvation to his family and the Jewish people.
After the death of his father, Jacob, his brothers feared for their lives because they sold Jacob into slavery. But Joseph told them what they did was in God’s divine plan to save Abraham’s descendants, the Jewish people.
Joseph said, “But as for you, you meant evil against me; but God meant it for good, in order to bring it about as it is this day, to save many people alive.” (Genesis 50 20)
And God delivered the entire Jewish nation from their Egyptian bondage through Moses. Moses confirmed God’s direct intervention and deliverance, saying, “Do not be afraid. Stand still, and see the salvation of the Lord, which He will accomplish for you today.” (Exodus 14:13a)
And we see the same with Noah. Through Noah’s faithfulness, God saved both humanity and land animals. The Genesis account says, “And they went into the ark to Noah, two by two, of all flesh in which is the breath of life. So those that entered, male and female of all flesh, went in as God had commanded him; and the Lord shut him in.” (Genesis 7:15-16)
And while God chose within the Old Testament to use humans as agents of His salvation, it has been and always will be the Lord God who brings salvation as He opens a person’s heart.
In the New Testament, we see this in the book of Acts as God opened the heart of a woman named Lydia. It does not say she opened her heart, or that Paul opened her heart, but the Lord opened her heart.
“Now a certain woman named Lydia heard us. She was a seller of purple from the city of Thyatira, who worshiped God. The Lord opened her heart to heed the things spoken by Paul.” (Acts 16:14)
Paul wrote to the church in Rome, “It does not, therefore, depend on human desire or effort, but on God’s mercy.” (Romans 9:16)
The human heart is so misguided that it will not receive the gospel without divine help. We are told in Jeremiah 17:9 that the heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. And Jesus said, “This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless the Father has enabled them.” (John 6:65)
Only God receives the credit for opening hearts to the gospel. This concept also comes out in the writings of the Old Testament prophets.
Through the Prophet Hosea, the Lord said, “I will have mercy on the house of Judah, will save them by the Lord their God, and will not save them by bow, nor by sword or battle, by horses or horsemen.” (Hosea 1:7)
And in Isaiah 43:11, the Lord said, “I, I am the Lord, and besides me there is no savior.”
It is the idea of a savior that we find the Lord talking about the coming Messiah and the salvation He would bring. Isaiah prophesied concerning the coming Messiah in chapter 53, and how it would be through His death that He will achieve humanity’s salvation.
“Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed Him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement for our peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed … All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned, every one, to his own way; and the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all … For He was cut off from the land of the living; for the transgressions of My people He was stricken … Therefore, I will divide Him a portion with the great, and He shall divide the spoil with the strong, because He poured out His soul unto death, and He was numbered with the transgressors, and He bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.” (Isaiah 53:4-6; 8b; 12)
Isaiah also prophesied who the Messiah would be. He said, “Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign: Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a Son, and shall call His name Immanuel.” (Isaiah 7:14)
We see the Messiah being the Lord God in His name, “Immanuel,” which means, “God with us.” This is not without significance for humanity’s salvation, because as we have seen, only God saves, and there is no savior but the Lord.
So, it was that Mary, a virgin, gave birth to a child. The Lord called the child’s name, “Jesus,” which means salvation. And so, the child, Immanuel, God with us, came, and His name is Jesus, our salvation.
Of Jesus, the Apostle Peter said, “Nor is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.” (Acts 4:12)
How did Jesus bring salvation to humanity, making them right with God? It was through His death and resurrection.
The Kingdom of God advanced when Jesus came quoting from the prophet Isaiah, saying, “Today this Scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.” (Luke 4:21)
The prophecy came from Isaiah 61:1-2a. It says, “The Spirit of the Lord God is upon Me, because the Lord has anointed Me to preach good tidings to the poor; He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound; to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord.”
It was the prophecy of the coming Messiah who would usher in the Kingdom of God. But Jesus didn’t quote the whole prophecy. Instead, He stopped before the end where it says, “And the day of vengeance of our God,” Jesus proclaimed that the Messiah and God’s kingdom would come in two parts.
The first was when Jesus came, and where He would bring about the end of sin’s consequences, which is eternal death. Instead, He would bring in everlasting life through the forgiveness of sin.
Jesus said, “He who hears My word and believes in Him who sent Me has everlasting life, and shall not come into judgment, but has passed from death into life.” (John 5:24)
And so, a transition occurred with Jesus. A transition from the Law of Moses to the Gospel of Grace, moving us from sin and death that forever separates us from God to the forgiveness of sins and eternal life in God’s presence.
Paul said that salvation is now by grace through faith, and no longer through the works of the law.
“For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast.” (Ephesians 2:8-9)
Through Jesus, humanity went from death to life, which gives salvation its meaning. Salvation is when someone is dead to and free from sin. Jesus is then the author of salvation, and able to save to the uttermost those who come to God through Him, because He is alive and continues to make intercessions for us.
Therefore, the cross of Christ, or Jesus’s crucifixion, is central to salvation. Again, we see this in Isaiah’s prophecy of the Messiah being the suffering servant (Isaiah 53). How He was wounded for our transgressions and bruised for our iniquities. Also, how the Lord laid upon Him our sin and inequities, and because of this He was cut off from the land of the living, or died for our sins, as Isaiah ended, saying, “He poured out His soul unto death.”
And while the cross is central to the Gospel Message, it’s Jesus’s resurrection from the dead that sealed the deal. In Romans 10:9, it says, “If you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.”
So crucial is this last point that Paul says, “If Christ is not risen, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins!” (1 Corinthians 15:17)
While Jesus’s resurrection sealed the deal, the Lord takes it one step further to assure us of this reality. He gives to us the Holy Spirit as a guarantee.
Paul to the church in Ephesus said, “In Him you also trusted, after you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation; in whom also, having believed, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, to the praise of His glory.” (Ephesians 1:13-14)
So wonderful is God’s promise of salvation that it might tempt us to think it is too good to be true. So, God gives us the Holy Spirit as a guarantee that He would follow through and fulfill His promise of our inheritance in heaven for eternity.
It’s like when we sell a home. The buyer places a sum of money down as a deposit, guaranteeing that they will return with the rest of the promised price. That is what God did. He gives to us the Holy Spirit as a deposit, guaranteeing our salvation is real and that eternal life in heaven will be ours once this life on earth has ended.
The Process of Salvation
Confession
The Apostle Paul tells us why it is so important that we confess our sin. It’s because everyone sins and falls short of God’s holy and righteous standards for life.
“For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.” (Romans 3:23-24)
Paul is saying that God makes us right with Him, and justified through the payment made by Jesus’s death on the cross for our sin, which is what our salvation hinges upon. It was through God’s grace that we are made right with Him, and as a result, we have eternal life in heaven, even though we’ve done nothing to deserve it.
Therefore, the process of salvation begins with confession.
In 1 John 1:9, we’re told, “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”
However, the one way we see the genuineness of a person’s confession is when repentance accompanies it. We’ll talk more about this in salvation’s second step.
But for now, Paul makes this observation, saying, “For godly sorrow produces repentance leading to salvation, not to be regretted; but the sorrow of the world produces death.” (2 Corinthians 7:10)
The question becomes, what does it mean to confess? In the Greek language, the word means, “To say the same thing.” But to say the same thing as what? Confession is saying the same thing that God says about sin.
Confession that leads to salvation is therefore a godly sorrow that agrees with God about sin, and then turns from it, while worldly sorrow will try to rationalize it away, or saying sorry and not do anything about it.
It was such a confession that saw salvation come to the tax collector Zacchaeus, and his household. Zacchaeus said, “Look, Lord, I give half of my goods to the poor; and if I have taken anything from anyone by false accusation, I restore fourfold.” (Luke 19:8)
Zacchaeus confessed his sin and then righted the wrong as a sign of his repentance. To what Zacchaeus did, Jesus said, “Today salvation has come to this house.” (Luke 19:9)
In the Old Testament, Solomon stated our need to confess our sins, and not cover them over, or rationalize them away. He said, “He who covers his sins will not prosper, but whoever confesses and forsakes them will have mercy.” (Proverbs 28:13)
And when added to faith in Jesus, it brings salvation. Paul said, “If you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.” (Romans 10:9)
And so, confession of sins leads to the second step of the salvation process: repentance.
Repentance
Many are feeling the pain of being trapped in an unending cycle of sinning and confessing. For some, this is a daily occurrence. Day after day, they experience the haunting and persistent accusations of Satan, the accuser, and daily they cry tears of sorrow, only to do what they said they wouldn’t all over again.
This is something that the Apostle Paul knew well in his own life. He said, “I want to do what is good, but I don’t. I don’t want to do what is wrong, but I do it anyway.” (Romans 7:19 New Living Translation, or NLT)
The cry of our hearts is, “Lord, how do I change? I want to change. I need to change. I must change. But how do I change?” But can we change? Can we break this cycle that finds us in constant despair and discouragement?
The answer is yes. We can break the chains that bind us.
If we were to break down the definitions in both the Hebrew and Greek languages used in the Bible, to repent means to either turn or return. It entails a change of mind and heart in turning away from the world and its evil, and turning towards the Lord and what is good.
Repentance is then a key element in salvation. We cannot overstate its importance because we find its meaning throughout the Bible.
We see this theme in the Old Testament as the children of Israel are told to turn from their wicked ways and return to the Lord and live.
In the classic verse for revival, 2 Chronicles 7:14, the Lord said, “If My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land.”
The prophet Joel said, “So rend your heart, and not your garments; return to the Lord your God, For He is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness; and He relents from doing harm.” (Joel 2:13)
And we see God doesn’t want to harm His people, but their repentance is necessary. Through the prophet Ezekiel, the Lord said, “‘For I have no pleasure in the death of one who dies,’ says the Lord God. ‘Therefore, turn and live!’” (Ezekiel 13:32)
John the Baptist, the last Old Testament prophet, gave this same message, and thus tied the Old and New Testament together, saying, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand!” (Matthew 3:2)
It is this same message Jesus came preaching in Matthew 4:17, saying, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.” And after John the Baptist’s imprisonment, Jesus said, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand. Repent, and believe in the gospel.” (Mark 1:15)
And repentance was at the heart of the first sermon preached. The Apostle Peter said, “Repent therefore and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, so that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord.” (Acts 3:19)
Faith
In Ephesians 2:8-9, it says, “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast.”
In his letter to the Ephesian Church, Paul clarifies it is by grace that salvation is ours. But even in saying this, we need to be careful, because the Bible teaches Christians have a responsibility in this process. And that is to believe by faith in God’s grace.
Faith is the key that unlocks the door to heaven. Salvation is God’s gift of grace to all who will receive it by faith.
If I told you I had a gift for you, but you would have to come over to pick it up, this is where faith comes in. You must believe I was telling you the truth, and if you believed me, then you would come and get what I had promised.
This is what the Lord has done. He has this gift of salvation. All we need to do is to believe Him and receive it by faith.
“Having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom also we have access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God.” (Romans 5:1-2)
Conclusion
Salvation involves our mental acceptance that we have sinned and that we’re sinners. And while our sins have affected and hurt others, they have also hurt and wounded God. This should produce within us a deep heartfelt sorrow, and it should break our hearts over what we’ve done and what we’ve become.
This leads us to confession. But it cannot stop there. A definite course of action where we turn away from our sins and turn towards God, who forgives our sins and cleanses us from all unrighteousness.
Repentance is nothing short of God’s gracious gift of goodness towards us, as Paul says in his letter to the Roman Church. It is the kindness or goodness of God that leads us to repentance (Romans 2:4).
Finally, by faith, we are to believe in God’s gracious gift of salvation.
Peter Drucker, father of American management, said that when someone first explained grace to him, he realized he would never get a better deal.
God is just waiting because He wants to be both gracious and merciful. He will forgive us and give eternal life. So, what are we waiting for? We’re never going to get a better deal, or offer, than this.
Appendix A “Born Again”
Jesus makes it clear of what it takes to enter the Kingdom of God and for a person’s salvation.
“Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” (John 3:3)
Unless a person is born again. Unless a person has a new spiritual birth being quickened by the Holy Spirit, and Jesus Christ sits enthroned upon their hearts, partaking of His divine nature; salvation will elude them.
The original Greek phrase means “born from above,” signifying this new birth originates with God, not with man. It also involves being born of water and the Spirit. To enter the kingdom of heaven, we must deal with our sins through forgiveness, and the Holy Spirit must regenerate us.
Paul brings this out in his letter to Titus. He said that our salvation is not based upon our goodness or righteousness. Instead, it is “according to His mercy He saved us, through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out on us through Jesus Christ our Savior.” (Titus 3:5-6)
When we are born again through faith in Jesus Christ, a radical change happens. The Holy Spirit makes our spirit, which was once dead to God because of our sinful nature, alive, and now dwells within us.
Peter said, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His abundant mercy has begotten us again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.” (1 Peter 1:3)
Jesus, however, said that this new birth is one of both water and spirit. While there are different versions of what this means, let me give you what I see based upon the context of our verse and what John the Baptist said.
Jesus is saying we need a new birth, and that’s because every person has been born into this world with the sin nature, that is of the flesh.
John the Baptist dealt with this through water baptisms. It says in Matthew 3:6, the people came to be baptized confessing their sins, and John said to those who were questioning him, “I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance.” (Matthew 3:11a)
Water baptism does not save anyone. Instead, it is a symbolic act signifying what Jesus has done in our hearts.
John shows this as he explained that this was to pave the way for the one who was coming, saying, “But He who is coming after me is mightier than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.” (Matthew 3:11b)
And we know the one that followed John was Jesus, who said to Nicodemus, “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life. For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.” (John 3:14-16)
This is what we brought forth earlier in the process of salvation. It starts with confession and repentance, which was through John’s baptisms. But it still takes belief in Jesus Christ for salvation to take place.
Appendix B “The Passover Lamb”
There is within the pages of Scripture a foundational truth that salvation comes in and through God’s forgiveness of sin. John the Baptist’s father, Zacharias, gave this prophetic word concerning his son’s mission, saying, “To give knowledge of salvation to His people by the remission of their sins.” (Luke 1:7)
Concerning Jesus, Paul said that God the Father “has delivered us from the power of darkness and conveyed us into the kingdom of the Son of His love, in whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins.” (Colossians 1:13-14)
We have salvation through forgiveness, which comes through the blood Jesus shed on the cross.
Without blood being shed, there is no forgiveness. Hebrews 9:22 quotes from the law of Moses saying, “According to the law, almost all things are purified with blood, and without shedding of blood there is no remission.”
We find the law in Leviticus 17:11. It says, “For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it to you upon the altar to make atonement for your souls; for it is the blood that makes atonement for the soul.”
We find a foreshadow of Jesus’s sacrifice in the lamb that was sacrificed on the first Passover. They sacrificed a lamb without spot or blemish for each family. And when God saw its blood on the doorposts and lintel of a house, He would pass over the house, sparing the life of the firstborn within.
The Lord said to Moses, “On the tenth day of this month every man shall take for himself a lamb, according to the house of his father, a lamb for a household…(and) you shall keep it until the fourteenth day of the same month. Then the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill it at twilight. And they shall take some of the blood and put it on the two doorposts and on the lintel of the houses…And when I see the blood, I will pass over you; and the plague shall not be on you to destroy you when I strike the land of Egypt.” (Exodus 12:3, 6-7, 13)
It was on this day, the 10th day, that Jesus entered Jerusalem upon the colt of a donkey, in fulfillment of the prophecy. And it was then, on the 14th day, the day of Passover, that they crucified Jesus on the cross at the same time the priests were sacrificing the Passover lamb in the temple.
Jesus was indeed the Passover Lamb, whose blood forgives our sins and brings salvation to all who believe.
Concerning the coming Messiah, the prophet Isaiah said, “He was oppressed, and He was afflicted, yet He opened not His mouth; He was led as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before its shearers is silent, so He opened not His mouth.” (Isaiah 53:7)
John the Baptist, whose mission was to be the forerunner of the Messiah to announce His arrival and the forgiveness of sin, said of Jesus, “Behold! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!” (John 1:29)
Paul confirmed Jesus was the Passover Lamb, saying, “Indeed Christ, our Passover, was sacrificed for us.” (1 Corinthians 5:7)
And so it was that Jesus Christ, the Passover Lamb, sacrificed His life, shedding His blood upon the cross for the forgiveness of sin and the salvation to all who by faith believe.
