SOTERIA: Salvation, the Savior and the Saved (3)

WHAT MOVES GOD TO SAVE [2]

Article by Pastor O’femi Ogunyemi

From the last episode of the series, we have been probing God’s motivation for salvation. That is, why God should save man, seeing that our misery is self -inflicted, especially, seeing that saving us would cost His Son’s life?

 

Well, God’s motivation for salvation is God Himself! Salvation is an outflow of His person and results to His glory. It is His pleasure to save man. He didn’t do it grudgingly. He took delight doing it, because it is who He is! Glory to His name forever! Apostle Paul, by the Spirit of God, wrote about this pleasure of God in saving us, in Ephesians 1:3-7:

 

3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, 4 just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love, 5 having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, ACCORDING TO THE GOOD PLEASURE OF HIS WILL, 6 to the praise of the glory of His grace, by which He made us accepted in the Beloved. 7 In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, ACCORDING TO THE RICHES OF HIS GRACE. [Emphasis added]

 

Pay attention to the emphasis in the above texts.

 

Verse 5 says our adoption as sons through Christ is according to, that is, in line with pleasure of His will. In other words, saving the rebellious humanity is His will and He finds pleasure in it. All of us have what gives us pleasure. Saving humanity is what gives God pleasure! See NLT’s rendering of verse 5:

 

“God decided in advance to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ. This is what he wanted to do, and it gave him great pleasure.”

 

Verse 7 says redemption, which is the forgiveness of sins, is according to the riches or abundance of His grace. God is so rich in grace that He cannot but save man, even though our misery is self-inflicted. Again, see NLT’s rendering of verse 7:

 

“He is so rich in kindness and grace that he purchased our freedom with the blood of his Son and forgave our sins.”

Salvation flows from the character of God Himself! Salvation is consistent with God’s character. God saves, in consistency with His character, to the praise of His. That is, salvation flows from God’s character and results to His praise.

 

Now, let’s see a few of these Divine characters that came into play in man’s  salvation.

 

LOVE & GOODNESS 

God is love. God is good. Both (love and goodness) express the same aspect of Him, but are still distinct. Love moves God to share Himself, as seen in Him sharing some of His attributes with man (Genesis 1:26), but goodness moves Him to deal kindly with man.

 

These two are the motivations for God’s dealings with man. Man has never gotten a thing from God by merit. From creation, God has always dealt with us according to His love and goodness. God has demonstrated these two to man in two ways. First, generally, through material generosity to all humans.

 

MATTHEW 5:45:

“That you may be sons of your Father in heaven; for He makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.”

 

Even before redemption came, God kept His love and goodness toward man running (Acts 14:16-17). Secondly, God demonstrated His love and goodness to humanity in a special way, through redemption. Reaching out to us in our sin by His Son was the greatest act of God’s love and goodness (John 3:16; 1 John 4:9-10, 16).

 

1 JOHN 4:9-10:

9 In this the love of God was manifested toward us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world, 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.

 

MERCY

Mercy is God’s tenderness toward those afflicted by sin. Sin put man in a sickly and pitiable state. But mercy moves God to reach out to and rescue the sinner from the affliction (Psalm 86:5).

 

EPHESIANS 1:4-5:

4 But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, 5 even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved).”

 

GRACE

Grace is God’s personality that moves Him to acquit the sinner, thus freeing him from the punishments He should take. God doesn’t judge unjustly. But when He has judged, there is a side of Him that pities the sinner and wants to save him from his punishments. Grace is God’s unmerited favor shown to those who rightly deserve judgment.

 

EPHESIANS 2.8-9:

8 For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of your- selves; 9 it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast.

 

LONG-SUFFERING

Long-suffering is God showing patience to sinners who, despite His love and goodness shown, keep rejecting His offer of pardon and life. His patience holds Him back from destroying the sinner, in the hope that he will come to repentance and salvation.

 

2 PETER 3:9: 

“The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance.”

 

These are the motivations for salvation. We messed up. God would have been right to leave us in our pitiable state. But His characters would not let Him leave us in our sorry state. He worked out our salvation, despite our rebellion against Him. What a God He is!

 

ICYMI: YOU CAN READ THE FIRST PART HERE.

 

(To be continued in the next episode.)