Salvation is the beginning of all Christian experiences which includes all our inheritance in Christ Jesus. It is the centre of the gospel of Jesus Christ. It is the greatest need of mankind and therefore very expedient for us to discover how it actually is rather than as it may appear or might be imagined. I would love to discuss it concisely but it is better experienced than explained.
According to Romans Chapter 10:9, Salvation involves inward believe (with your heart) and outward confession (with your mouth).
The book of Romans 10:1 down reveals that the Jews had a commendable zeal for God because God was the object of their zeal, but it was flawed because it was not based on the right knowledge about God’s way of salvation. Paul before his conversion was example of such zeal. Today many Christians think salvation is about striving to obey God’s laws, and then they get frustrated if they keep sinning. Since we did not know the righteousness that comes from God and seek to establish our own, we do not submit to God’s righteousness just like the Jews.
Christ is the end of the law so that there may be righteousness for everyone who believes. The Greek word for “end” (telos) can either mean “termination” or “fulfilment”. It seems best here to understand it in the later sense. Christ is the fulfilment of the law (Matt. 5:17) in the sense that he brought it to completion by obeying perfectly its demands and by fulfilling its types and prophesies. The Christian is no longer “under the law” since Christ has freed him from its condemnation. Everything was finished on the cross.
Looking closely at Romans 10:9,
“That if you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.”
1. …if you confess with your mouth – there is the spoken word and the unspoken word, the word still in the mind – the reason. The later is the rational principle that governs a man’s life but maximally activated when spoken out. (Matthew 8:8). In the mind, it is a potential energy but converted to kinetic energy when it comes to the mouth. Here it is important that your mouth confesses your heart.
2. “JESUS IS LORD”. In 1 Corinthians 12:3b the bible says that no one can say, ‘Jesus is Lord’ except by the Holy Spirit. To acknowledge Jesus as one’s Lord and God is the high point of faith. To acknowledge is not only to know intellectually – for demons know and shoulder (James 2:19; Mark 1:24) but also confess publicly. There is a need to personalise it like Thomas exclaimed after he dipped his finger into Jesus’ side, “My lord and my God!”
3. …and believe in your heart – the heart is the seat of emotions, thought and will. Your emotion, thought and will have to be completely engaged with your conviction. This will command your confession. It is out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks. (Matthew 12:34; Luke 6:45)
4. …that God raised him from the dead – this is a bedrock truth of Christian doctrine and the central thrust of apostolic preaching. (1 Corinthians 15:4,14,17). You have to believe that you were spiritually dead in sin; that Jesus is the perfect sacrifice for your sin; he died for your sin taking also its guilt and consequences with him to the cross while he imputed his righteousness on you; after three days, God raised him from the dead glorified him.
5. …you will be saved. There is this school of thought that when we believe our spirit is saved (Justification- Romans 3:21-5:21), our soul is being saved (Sanctification – Romans 6-8), our body will be saved (the redemption of our bodies – Romans 8:18-27; 13:11). Here Paul is thinking of final salvation – salvation at the last day (the perfection of salvation).
Rom 1:17
For in the gospel a righteousness from God is revealed, a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: “The righteous will live by faith.”
We are saved by grace through faith but shall we continue in sin that grace may increase? God forbid! We need to understand first of all the purpose of salvation.
From the Genesis of time, God made man in His image and likeness so that our minds and spirits can join together with his (commune) to be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it; to rule our world. But because one man (Adam) sinned, we were alienated from God.
Rom 5:18-19
18 Consequently, just as the result of one trespass was condemnation for all men, so also the result of one act of righteousness was justification that brings life for all men. 19 For just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous.
We are therefore primarily saved to be reconciled with God and enjoy him in the fellowship of the Holy Spirit who is a deposit guaranteeing our salvation packages.
Eph 1:13-14
13 And you also were included in Christ when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. Having believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, 14 who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession — to the praise of his glory.
Hence the benediction which is Trinitarian in form and has ever since been a part of Christian worship tradition which expresses the Christian experience, whereby the believers knows firsthand the grace, the love and the fellowship that freely flows to him from the three persons of the one Lord God.
Grace is of our Lord Jesus; Love is of God and Fellowship is of the Holy Spirit. It is by Christ’s grace that the Love of God in the person of Christ was extended to us. We having received God’s gift of Love are brought into the fellowship of the Holy Spirit. Here we are not guided by laws but it’s a love relationship that generates a force that constrains us from living a life characterized by sin.
If you claim to be saved but still relates with God based on laws, Christ becomes a stumbling stone to you. (Romans 9:30-33). The power of sin is the law but the power of righteousness is faith.
May you grow from faith to faith until your final salvation – the redemption of your body and the manifestation of the fullness of who you really are in Christ Jesus. Amen.
*I remain yours in Christ, pastor Stanley Ebulue.*