Necessity and basis of salvation (2)
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The Basis of Salvation
The Basis of Salvation
Good Evening beautiful People of VMBCLA, GLBC, and all who may have stopped by this way. I thank God that you are still holding on to God’s unchanging hand. I greet you in the name of Jesus our Christ and Lord. Last week, I began to teach on the subject of “The Necessity and basis of salvation.” We dealt specifically with “the need or necessity of salvation.” We learned that Scripture stresses that fallen human beings are cut off from God on account of their sin. All need to be saved, if they are to enter into a new relationship with God as their Creator and Redeemer. Salvation is not the result of human achievement, privilege or wisdom, but depends totally upon the graciousness of a loving God, supremely expressed in the cross of Jesus Christ. People must respond in repentance and faith if they are to benefit from God’s offer of salvation in Christ.
Salvation is grounded in the love of God
Salvation is grounded in the love of God
Listen to the words of this little story...
When God was about to create man, says a Jewish legend, He took into His counsel the angels that stood about his throne. “Create him not,” said the angel of Justice, “for if Thou dost he will commit all kinds of wickedness against his fellow men; he will be hard and cruel and dishonest and unrighteous.” “Create him not,” said the angel of Truth, “for he will be false and deceitful to his brother-man, and even to Thee.” “Create him not,” said the angel of Holiness, “he will follow that which is impure in Thy sight, and dishonor Thee to thy face.”
Then stepped forward the angel of Mercy (God’s best beloved) and said: “Create him, our Heavenly Father for when he sins and turns from the path of right and truth and holiness I will take him tenderly by the hand, and speak loving words to him, and then lead him back to Thee.”
—J. A. Clarks
Tan, P. L. (1996). Encyclopedia of 7700 Illustrations: Signs of the Times (p. 493). Garland, TX: Bible Communications, Inc.
Salvation is not based on Human Achievement
Salvation is not based on Human Achievement
I am simply stating that we, in and of ourselves, can do nothing to merit or earn our right standing with God. Many people are under the impression that if they are “good enough” that will make the grade and pass the test, but listen to Apostle Paul...
Ro 3:28; Eph 2:8–9
For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from 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 as a result of works, so that no one may boast.
750 Engaging Illustrations for Preachers, Teachers and Writers 409: Love of God
In his book Enjoying God, Lloyd Ogilvie writes:
My formative years ingrained the quid pro quo into my attitude toward myself: do and you’ll receive; perform and you’ll be loved. When I got good grades, achieved, and was a success, I felt acceptance from my parents. My dad taught me to fish and hunt and worked hard to provide for us, but I rarely heard him say, “Lloyd, I love you.” He tried to show it in actions, and sometimes I caught a twinkle of affirmation in his eyes. But I still felt empty.
When I became a Christian, I immediately became so involved in discipleship activities that I did not experience the profound healing of the grace I talked about theoretically …
I’ll never forget as long as I live the first time I really experienced healing grace. I was a postgraduate student at the University of Edinburgh. Because of financial pressures I had to accordion my studies into a shorter than usual period. Carrying a double load of classes was very demanding, and I was exhausted by the constant feeling of never quite measuring up. No matter how good my grades were, I thought they could be better. Sadly, I was not living the very truths I was studying. Although I could have told you that the Greek words for grace and joy are charis and chara, I was not experiencing them.
My beloved professor, Dr. James Stewart, that slightly built dynamo of a saint, saw into my soul with x-ray vision. One day in the corridor of New College he stopped me. He looked me in the eye intensely. Then he smiled warmly, took my coat lapels in his hands, drew me down to a few inches from his face, and said, “Dear boy, you are loved now!”
God loves us now, not when we get better. God loves us now, as we are.
See also Ac 15:7–11; Ro 4:1–3; Ro 5:1–2; Ga 2:16; Ga 2:21; 2 Ti 1:9
After there had been much debate, Peter stood up and said to them, “Brethren, you know that in the early days God made a choice among you, that by my mouth the Gentiles would hear the word of the gospel and believe. “And God, who knows the heart, testified to them giving them the Holy Spirit, just as He also did to us; and He made no distinction between us and them, cleansing their hearts by faith. “Now therefore why do you put God to the test by placing upon the neck of the disciples a yoke which neither our fathers nor we have been able to bear? “But we believe that we are saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus, in the same way as they also are.”
What then shall we say that Abraham, our forefather according to the flesh, has found? For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God. For what does the Scripture say? “Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness.”
Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom also we have obtained our introduction by faith into this grace in which we stand; and we exult in hope of the glory of God.
nevertheless knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the Law but through faith in Christ Jesus, even we have believed in Christ Jesus, so that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the Law; since by the works of the Law no flesh will be justified.
“I do not nullify the grace of God, for if righteousness comes through the Law, then Christ died needlessly.”
who has saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace which was granted us in Christ Jesus from all eternity,
Salvation is grounded in God’s love for his people
Salvation is grounded in God’s love for his people
As we rapidly approach Good Friday, let us never forget that when Jesus hung on Calvary, people came from miles to see. They said if you be the Christ, come down and save your life. How many of you know tonight that it wasn’t the nails that held him to the cross…But, Love made him do it!
But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved),
See also Dt 7:1–8; Jn 3:16–17; Ro 5:8; 2 Th 2:16
“When the Lord your God brings you into the land where you are entering to possess it, and clears away many nations before you, the Hittites and the Girgashites and the Amorites and the Canaanites and the Perizzites and the Hivites and the Jebusites, seven nations greater and stronger than you, and when the Lord your God delivers them before you and you defeat them, then you shall utterly destroy them. You shall make no covenant with them and show no favor to them. “Furthermore, you shall not intermarry with them; you shall not give your daughters to their sons, nor shall you take their daughters for your sons. “For they will turn your sons away from following Me to serve other gods; then the anger of the Lord will be kindled against you and He will quickly destroy you. “But thus you shall do to them: you shall tear down their altars, and smash their sacred pillars, and hew down their Asherim, and burn their graven images with fire. “For you are a holy people to the Lord your God; the Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for His own possession out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth. “The Lord did not set His love on you nor choose you because you were more in number than any of the peoples, for you were the fewest of all peoples, but because the Lord loved you and kept the oath which He swore to your forefathers, the Lord brought you out by a mighty hand and redeemed you from the house of slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt.
“For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life. “For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him.
But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
Now may our Lord Jesus Christ Himself and God our Father, who has loved us and given us eternal comfort and good hope by grace,
Did I say “Love Made Him Do it!” 1 Jn 4:9-19
By this the love of God was manifested in us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world so that we might live through Him. 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. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has seen God at any time; if we love one another, God abides in us, and His love is perfected in us. By this we know that we abide in Him and He in us, because He has given us of His Spirit. We have seen and testify that the Father has sent the Son to be the Savior of the world. Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God. We have come to know and have believed the love which God has for us. God is love, and the one who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. By this, love is perfected with us, so that we may have confidence in the day of judgment; because as He is, so also are we in this world. There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves punishment, and the one who fears is not perfected in love. We love, because He first loved us.
Salvation is grounded in God’s grace
Salvation is grounded in God’s grace
Just one more point needs to be made today about the basis of salvation and that is that it is grounded in God’s Grace. I know that I am giving you a whole lot of Bible verses to read…But, this is Bible Study. Let’s check out a few more.
even the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all those who believe; for there is no distinction; for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, being justified as a gift by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus;
See also Jn 1:16; Ac 15:11; Ro 5:15–17; 2 Co 6:1–2; Eph 1:5–8; Eph 2:4–10; 1 Ti 1:14–15; Tt 2:11; Tt 3:4–7; Heb 2:9
For of His fullness we have all received, and grace upon grace.
“But we believe that we are saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus, in the same way as they also are.”
But the free gift is not like the transgression. For if by the transgression of the one the many died, much more did the grace of God and the gift by the grace of the one Man, Jesus Christ, abound to the many. The gift is not like that which came through the one who sinned; for on the one hand the judgment arose from one transgression resulting in condemnation, but on the other hand the free gift arose from many transgressions resulting in justification. For if by the transgression of the one, death reigned through the one, much more those who receive the abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the One, Jesus Christ.
And working together with Him, we also urge you not to receive the grace of God in vain— for He says, “At the acceptable time I listened to you, And on the day of salvation I helped you.” Behold, now is “the acceptable time,” behold, now is “the day of salvation”—
He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the kind intention of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, which He freely bestowed on us in the Beloved. In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace which He lavished on us. In all wisdom and insight
But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.
and the grace of our Lord was more than abundant, with the faith and love which are found in Christ Jesus. It is a trustworthy statement, deserving full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, among whom I am foremost of all.
For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all men,
But when the kindness of God our Savior and His love for mankind appeared, He saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to His mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out upon us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that being justified by His grace we would be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life.
But we do see Him who was made for a little while lower than the angels, namely, Jesus, because of the suffering of death crowned with glory and honor, so that by the grace of God He might taste death for everyone.