SOTERIA: Salvation, the Savior and the Saved (8)
Redemption is often used as a synonym for salvation. But in its own right, it is a distinct work of God in salvation, which addresses a specific problem of fallen man—our enslavement to sin.
SOTERIA: Salvation, the Savior and the Saved (7)
When I hear people speak of losing salvation, it is a clear indication that their view of salvation is faulty. Such people view salvation as a singular, one time activity of God that must be carefully and fearfully kept, or you lose it. But salvation is not a singular, one time event. It is a chain of activities of God which began at the point a person comes to God by faith in Christ, continue through his life, and perfected at the return of Christ.
SOTERIA: Salvation, the Savior and the Saved (6)
Either we don’t understand “eternal life”, or we don’t believe God’s word for it. But we can’t understand it and believe God’s word to be true, and still be afraid of losing the life that we have received. Eternal, Greek aionios, means never to end. The new creation life is not a life that ends! Why? God was not stingy with the gift of His life to us. He gave it abundantly.
SOTERIA: Salvation, the Savior and the Saved (4)
Grace is God’s favor given to the undeserving. Grace projects the idea of a gift given, but which the receiver is unworthy of, doesn’t contribute to, or pay for, coming solely by the giver’s magnanimity. This is how the Bible describes salvation—a free gift to unworthy people, who never contributed in anyway to their salvation, and are in no position to pay for it.
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.
SOTERIA: Salvation, the Savior and the Saved (2)
WHAT MOVES GOD TO SAVE (1) Article by Pastor O’femi Ogunyemi In this second part of the series, SOTERIA: Salvation, the Savior and the Saved, we are looking at the motivation for salvation. This is important because, looking at the incident of man’s fall, it is clear that the affliction of sin is self-inflicted. You can read the first part here. God has demonstrated His goodness to man right from the beginning. Before man came on the scene, God had put in place all that he would need for a good life. And, one will expect that with those gracious provisions should come a list of laws for man to keep. But there was only one given to man. GENESIS 2:16-17: “And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, “Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.” Many criticize and judge God harshly for putting this temptation before man, knowing that man is frail and would fall. Well, let’s set the records straight. First, God does not tempt anyone with evil and neither can He be tempted with evil (James 1:13). There is no evil in Him. Sin happens when man is enticed and lured away by his lust. Apostle James, by the Spirit of God, said this in the first chapter of his letter, in verses thirteen to sixteen. 13 Let no one say when he is tempted, “I am tempted by God”; for God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does He Himself tempt anyone. 14 But each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own desires and enticed. 15 Then, when desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, brings forth death. (James 1:13-16). This was what played out in the fall of man! God didn’t cause Adam’s fall. Adam fell because of his lust. Secondly, Adam, in his original, pre-fall state, differed from us in many ways. He was made as God’s image (Genesis 1:26, 27), implying that he possessed some aspects of God’s attributes, e.g., righteousness, love, mercy, wisdom, and justice, as the crown of God’s creation. God is love. God’s nature is to give of Himself. In making Adam in His image, God shared some aspects of Himself with man. So, Adam had the equipping for a perfect life. Augustine, the church theologian, described man in that state in Latin, posse non peccare, meaning able to not sin. It was the state we all would have come into, if nothing had gone wrong. But something did go wrong! Another vital feature of man is the will. God made us able to choose. God wants us to love and obey Him. But He won’t force us. He desires a relation- ship that comes by our choice at realizing His immense love for us. Adam had options —to stay under God’s rule or rebel. This was the point of Genesis 2:16-17—giving man an occasion to exercise his will. The genuineness of love is best ascertained where people have choices. The chance for man to exercise his power to choose came in Genesis 3. In vv.2-5, satan sold the idea of equality with God to man, as against God’s plan original plan for man. Indeed, man has governmental authority on earth. But man’s authority on earth flowed from God and could work only as man stayed under God’s authority. But satan perverted Adam’s view of God, so that he saw God no more as the good and caring Father, but a wicked and selfish God who did not want man to reach His full potential of becoming a god like Him. The thought of becoming a god consumed man. Then, though he could keep God’s law if chose to and had kept it so far, he chose to defy God. GENESIS 3:6: “So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree desirable to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate. She also gave to her husband with her, and he ate.” Man’s fall was not a matter of inability, but choice. Adam’s rebellion against God was an intentional act. And, by that action, humanity’s destiny was altered for the bad. Apostle Paul, in Romans 5:12ff., taught the terrible consequences of Adam’s choice on the human race. Sin and death became perpetuated in the world (v.12-14; Romans 6.23). Spiritual death—cessation of man’s spiritual faculties and abilities (vv.15; 1 Corinthians 15.22). Condemnation—the adverse judgment for sin—came on all humans (vv.16, 18). All humans became sinners (v.19). From Adam, a nature corrupted by sin passed to all, making us inclined toward sin. Augustine described all humans in this state of the fall as non posse non peccare, meaning not able to not sin. If humanity will ever get out of its miserableness under sin, then God must step into the situation. In the state of fall, we are completely incapacitated to rescue ourselves from the damning consequences of our sin. But why should God care, since we brought the misery on ourselves, and particularly, when the plan to save us would cost the life of His precious Son? (Series continues in the next episode.)
SOTERIA: Salvation, the Savior and the Saved (1)
Salvation is not a singular act of God. Viewing salvation this way, as a singular, one time act of God, will rob us of seeing the vastness and richness of God’s salvation. It is also the reason some think of salvation as what can be lost. But the Bible’s revelation of God’s salvation shows salvation, not as a singular act of God and one time event, but as a broad theme that captures all the gracious actions and activities of God to rescue man from the penalties and power of sin, and bestow His glorious riches on him, including eternal life and the provisions for a full, rich life.