What the Bible says about Salvation through Christ's Life
(From Forerunner Commentary)
The Son of God became a human being to save people from their sins. Thus, salvation is the process whereby sinners are rescued from the consequences of sin.
Earl L. Henn
Basic Doctrines: Salvation
We are saved—receive salvation—by a living Jesus Christ! After He died, God the Father raised Him from the dead. Today, Christ is alive and powerful and sits at God's right hand to make intercession for us. He will help us overcome sin and live righteously as He did (Hebrews 4:14-16).
Earl L. Henn
Basic Doctrines: Salvation
Reconciliation with God is not the end of a process, nor does it stand alone. We are reconciled so that we can be saved, and we will be saved because Christ is alive.
John W. Ritenbaugh
Reconciliation and the Day of AtonementRelated Topics: At-One-Ment | Atonement | Day of Atonement | Reconciliation | Reconciliation with God | Salvation | Salvation Process | Salvation through Christ's Life
Justification is clearly an act of God's grace, because what we deserve from what we have earned—from what we have done, the conduct of our lives—is death. There is none righteous, no not one (Romans 3:10; Psalm 14:1). Since justification, then, cannot be claimed as a right because we have sinned, it must be received as a gift. That fact that it is given makes it an act of grace.
It is not our hanging on to Christ (that is, the keeping of the law) that saves us, but rather Christ hanging on to us. That is, it is not what we do, but it is what He does continuously as acts of grace that saves us, because we deserve death. If we can earn salvation through law-keeping, Paul is saying in verse 21, "then Christ died in vain." If we can earn salvation through law-keeping, then Christ's sinless life and agonizing death were not necessary, because we can do it ourselves.
Justification is not vindication or exoneration. Both of those words connote that a person was right all along, but the true facts were hidden from those who were doing the judging. In some cases with men, vindication is possible because people are judged unrighteously. Their judges are not using righteous judgment.
But God never judges unrighteously! He knows all the facts. He knows our heart. He knows everything about us in every situation that we have ever been in, so He cannot vindicate us because we are not clear of guilt. He cannot exonerate us because we are not innocent. Justification is more than that. It is setting us right or calling us righteous though righteousness does not exist in us.
John W. Ritenbaugh
Grace Upon GraceRelated Topics: Grace | Grace, Cheap | Grace, Costliness of | Grace,"Free" | Justification | Justification by Faith | Justification by Grace through Faith | Justification by Works | Justification through Christ's Sacrifice | Justification, Sanctification, and Glorification | Righteous Judgment | Salvation | Salvation by Grace through Faith | Salvation Process | Salvation through Christ's Life
Even when people realize that they should obey God and His commands, they may still scratch their heads over why obedience is necessary to the salvation process. If we are saved by grace through faith—as Ephesians 2:8 makes obvious—and not justified by works of lawkeeping (Galatians 2:16), what good do they do? Is not obedience to God's law useless or at the best, merely dutiful or ceremonial?
Those who ask these kinds of questions have a limited understanding of what God is doing with humanity. In essence, they believe that God's sole purpose is to "save" people from their sins, for that is what Christ's sacrifice accomplishes—the shedding of His precious blood pays the penalty for sin, redeeming us from eternal death, and with His righteousness covering our corruption, provides us access to a relationship with the Father (see Romans 5:6-11). This is a wonderful, divine act of grace because we do not deserve such merciful treatment.
The truth is, however, that salvation does not end there. One of the apostle Paul's comments in Romans 5 hints broadly at this: "Much more, having been reconciled [to the Father], we shall be saved by His life" (verse 10). Christ's death does not save us, but His resurrection to eternal life does! Not only does it make possible our future resurrection to eternal life (see I Corinthians 15:20-23), but it also allows Him to work with those whom God calls to bring them to spiritual maturity. Notice how Paul describes Christ's ongoing work with the church:
And He Himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. (Ephesians 4:11-13)
As Head of the church (Ephesians 1:22-23; Colossians 1:18), Christ now works to bring us "to a perfect man," that is, He is completing a spiritual process to fashion us in His own image. Paul calls this "the new man" in Ephesians 4:22-24: "Put off, concerning your former conduct, the old man which grows corrupt according to the deceitful lusts, and be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and that you put on the new man which was created according to God, in true righteousness and holiness." Theologically, this process is called "sanctification."
This is where our obedience comes into play. Paul writes in Hebrews 5:9, "Having been perfected, [Christ] became the author of eternal salvation to all who obey Him." Keeping God's commandments—His instructions—will guide us in learning what God requires of us and in impressing His character image upon us. God's laws do not save us, but they provide a pattern of behavior that pleases Him because such behavior reflects His own. Obedience, then, becomes a tool that we use in conjunction with Christ to grow in righteousness and prepare for the Kingdom of God.
Richard T. Ritenbaugh
Christian ObedienceRelated Topics: Building a Relationship with God | Christ's Blood Pays Death Penalty | Christian Obedience | Conversion, Process of | God Begins the Process of Salvation | God's Law Done Away | Keeping God's Commandments | Lawkeeping | Mortify the Flesh | Perfection, Going On To | Put on the New Man | Responsibility of Keeping God's Law | Salvation through Christ's Life | Sanctification | Spiritual Maturity | Spiritual Maturity, Process of