A Short Account of Biblical Salvation 1

This is not the manuscript I'm "running" for the July 15th contest, but my debriefing from the Saving Grace conference.

1. What are we saved from?
Before we can talk about what the New Testament means by salvation, we must figure out what we are being saved from. If I were to ask most Christians to answer this question, I suspect the first answer they would give is “sin.” Salvation is when we are saved from our sins.

But what does that mean? Are my sins out to get me? Are they lurking just around the corner waiting to jump out at me? In a sense they are! But that is not usually what a person means when he or she speaks of being saved from sins.

What we more likely mean is that we want to be saved from the consequences of our sins. In at least one respect, our world today can identify with the idea that certain actions bring about horrible consequences. Someone has an affair and a marriage falls apart. We are startled to find our children with judgmental or hateful attitudes we have modeled in front of them. You do something in a moment of rage with consequences you never foresaw or would have wanted.

The Bible places actions like these into the context of our relationship with God and calls them sins. 1 John 5:17 has perhaps the simplest definition of sin in the Bible: “all wrongdoing is sin.” It is not hard to figure out what wrongdoing is in relation to others. In general, it is anything that is hurtful or harmful in some way. Such “sins” against others can be intentional or unintentional. It is particularly hurtful if I intentionally ignore my wife’s birthday. But I have still wronged her if I forget it unintentionally.

This last example also reflects the fact that I can both sin against others by things I do and by things I don’t do. We might call the first wrong a sin of commission--it is something I do. The second is a sin of omission--it is something I do not do.

Further, groups can sin, even beyond the actions of individuals. If I had been a German in Nazi Germany, I would feel some sense of guilt for the Holocaust, even if I had opposed Hitler and had not been a Nazi. How could we have sinned against God and humanity in this way? We can thus distinguish between individual sins and corporate sins. This particular kind of sin is difficult for us to identify with, given individualistic Western culture. Nevertheless, we must at least reckon with it as a part of biblical culture (e.g., 2 Kings 23:26-27; Josh. 7:24-25).

Once again, the Bible places these different types of wrongdoing into the context of our relationship with God and calls them sin. The Bible mentions all these types of sin. Here two examples:

"It is sin if someone knows to do good and does not do it" (James 4:17). James refers here to an individual, intentional sin of omission.

"But into the second room the high priest enters only once a year, and he does not enter without blood to offer on behalf of himself and the sins that the people have committed in ignorance" (Hebrews 9:7). Hebrews here refers both to individual and corporate sins that Israel had committed in ignorance.

But the worst sins of all are those that by their nature do not acknowledge God as God. I believe that most of these sins come from the fact that we do not even take God into account in our lives--a horrible thing when you reflect that God is the one who owns this world. Would we treat lightly or ignore someone who had the power to prosper or destroy us? Christianity believes that God is interested in how we honor or dishonor Him. While the Bible portrays Him as loving to extremes unheard of on earth, it also teaches He ultimately will destroy those who do not recognize His authority over the universe.

We find both positive and negative examples of what serving and sinning against God look like. Here are two examples:

"Everything you do--whether in word or in action--do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, while giving thanks to God the Father through him" (Col. 3:17). Here is a positive example of how we can properly serve God--by factoring Christ into everything we do.

On the other hand: "Whatever is not [done] on the basis of faith is sin" (Rom. 14:23). Paul here is talking about instances where Christians disagree on what is right or wrong. While you can be convincedly wrongly, Paul teaches that what is most important is that you act in good faith toward God.

So what might it mean then to be saved from our sins? There are two principal ways in which God saves us from our sins through Christ.

1. God can save us from the power of sin over our lives today in this world. We will be talking about this possibility later in our short account.

2. God will literally save us from His wrath on the Day of Judgment.

Most of the New Testament thinks of salvation in these future terms. Romans 1:18 points out that there is a day of wrath yet to come:

"The wrath of God from heaven is revealed against all ungodliness and wrongdoing of people who fight against the truth by their wrongdoing."

But the good news about Jesus Christ is that "God has not appointed us for wrath but to obtain salvation through our Lord, Jesus Christ" (1 Thess. 5:9). "Therefore, since we have now been deemed right with God by Jesus' blood, how much more will we be saved through him from wrath" (Rom. 5:9).

The New Testament has other ways of formulating salvation. For example, Luke and Acts focus on the restoration of God's people when they speak of coming salvation. However, our discussion will focus primarily on the matter of eternal salvation and will center itself in Paul's writings.