Five Essential
Bible Truths – Part 2
: page 1 : page 2 :
What Must I do
to be Saved? (continued)
Not a Life Insurance
Policy
Too many people think
of salvation in shallow terms. The
PLAN of salvation is more than saving
people from eternal death. The PLAN
is complete restoration and
transformation of people. Ultimately,
the PLAN reveals God’s
righteousness and fairness as He
deals with all of His creatures. For
some people, God’s offer of
salvation is a life insurance plan
offered through church membership.
Somehow, they believe that a church
(and/or its leaders) has the
authority to “offer” them
salvation. However, no church can
save. Only Jesus can save. Churches
and church leaders can only tell
about God’s offer of
salvation. (In this sense, pastors or
priests can be compared to
meteorologists. Meteorologists can
only report the weather; they cannot
control or own the weather.)
Another example of
shallow perspective is demonstrated
when people refer to “getting
saved” as though it were a
one-time event. The Bible does not
treat salvation as a one-time event,
but rather a two-step process.
The first step is a conscious
submission to what one knows or
believes to be the will of God. When
this submission occurs, God
determines a sinner to be a saint.
(Acts 2:38) This initial step is
called justification. When a sinner
is justified, he or she receives a
conditional grant from God that we
call the gift of salvation. Salvation
comes as a conditional grant because
the person can reject God’s
offer of salvation at any time he or
she chooses to do so. The Bible does
not teach that once a person receives
justification, he has salvation
forever. Instead, the Bible teaches
that when a person decides to no
longer submit to God’s will, he
or she is free to make the choice.
(Ezekiel 18; Mark 4:17; Luke 8:13;
Hebrews 6:4-6) Understand that our
submission must spring from love.
Jesus said, “He who does not
love me will not obey my teaching.
These words you hear are not my own;
they belong to the Father who sent
me.” (John 14:24)
Justification is not
the ultimate goal of salvation’s
process. God also seeks a second
step: Transformation. (John 3; 1 John
2:1; 1 Thessalonians 4:3) A
sinner’s character must develop
spiritually and ultimately be changed
into that of a saint. This step is
called sanctification. Both steps,
justification and sanctification, are
part of salvation’s process. In
fact, the second step
(sanctification) repeats the first
step, only on a daily basis. In other
words, conscious submissions to
God’s will is a daily experience
that subdues the carnal nature! Paul
wrote, “I die daily.” (1
Corinthians 15:31) He meant that he
had to crucify his selfish will so
that the Father’s will might be
done in his life. Jesus, our example,
was subject to the Father in this
way. The best example demonstrating
conscious submission of the will of
God occurred in the Garden of
Gethsemane. There, Jesus prayed that
His Father’s will be done
– even if it meant His death.
(John 6:38; Matthew 26:42)
Outside the Will of
God
What is sin? John says
that sin is a violation of God’s
will. In Romans 8, Paul writes:
“Those who live according to the
sinful nature have their minds set on
what that nature desires; but those
who live in accordance with the
Spirit have their minds set on what
the Spirit desires. The mind of
sinful man is death, but the mind
controlled by the Spirit is life and
peace; the sinful mind is hostile to
God. It does not submit to God’s
law, nor can it do so. Those
controlled by the sinful nature
cannot please God. You, however, are
controlled not by the sinful nature
by the Spirit, if the spirit of God
lives in you. And if anyone does not
have the Spirit of Christ, he does
not belong to Christ.” (Romans
8:5-9)
No Brand Names
To the secular mind,
God’s offer of salvation is not
a big deal. The secular or carnal
mind justifies antagonism toward God
by focusing on a superficial level of
spiritual life. For example, everyone
knows that different churches offer
different terms and conditions for
salvation. Therefore, a carnal mind
might conclude that Brand X church is
no different that Brand Y. Both
churches are merely an accumulation
of words and ideas.
There are churches
that teach that salvation comes only
through the church. In other words,
if you want to be saved, you must
join THAT church and DO certain
things that the church requires.
These notions distort God’s
purpose for a church. God is not a
church and a church is not God. God
gave organized worship for man’s
social and spiritual benefit of men.
Jesus divinely ordained churches to
serve man’s needs. (Matthew
16:18) He did not create the concept
of church to displace the daily
experience He wishes to have with His
creatures. God did not create church
to replace Himself. God does not
appoint men or woman to assume His
prerogatives. This is a point that
historically, has caused much grief.
Since nations began. More harm has
been imposed upon humanity “in
the name of God” than for any
other reason. When people conclude
there is only one true church and
they are sure their church Is THAT
true church, they often become
exclusive, even to the point of
arrogance – thinking of the rest
of mankind as “outsider.”
A Fragmented World
Before we look at the
elegant, yet simple way to salvation,
be aware of this: God’s offer of
salvation is not limited to one group
of people. We live in a fragmented
world consisting of over 6 billion
people. We speak different languages,
our skins are different and we eat
different foods. We worship in
different ways through different
religions. We have different
governments and cultures. We are a
fragmented world! The Bible says that
God caused this fragmentation. Notice
what the Bible says about language
approximately 120 years after the
flood: “Now the whole world had
one language and a common
speech.” (Genesis 11:1) At the
time of the tower of Babel, God did
something very interesting. He
suddenly changed the one language of
the world into many languages. God
did this amazing miracle to separate
people into small groups. (People
prefer to live and work among those
with whom they can communicate.) As
language groups formed, each group
moved away from the unfinished Tower
to settle in a new territory on Earth
for themselves. Then, God did
something even more amazing! He
ripped the Earth’s landmass
apart and formed seven continents.
Notice that the Bible says about this
“Earthmoving” event:
“Two sons were born to Eber: One
was named Peleg, because in his time
the earth was divided; his brother
was named Joktan.” (Genesis
10:25) (National Geographic has
produced many articles and maps
through the years on this interesting
topic. There is much evidence
indicating that at one time Earth
consisted of one land mass.) When God
divided the Earth, people who spoke
one language and lived in one
territory were separated from people
of other languages who lived in other
territories. God, in His wisdom and
sovereignty, used mountains, deserts
and great distances to separate (and
to keep separate) the people of
Earth.
Why did God fragment
Earth’s population? For
thousands of years, wide-open spaces
and natural barriers have prevented
strong nations from dominating weaker
ones. God knows the evil mind and
selfish heart of man. Ambitious men
and women strive for power, mastery
and wealth. When evil men use their
wealth and power for evil purposes,
the results can quickly come to total
ruin. Think of Alexander the Great,
Charlemagne, Napoleon and Hitler.
(Man-would-be-God-types.) Man wants
the honor, glory, and power of God.
Because God separated people into
widely dispersed groups, no one man
or evil system ruled over all of
mankind with complete control until
or unless God enabled it to happen.
(I say, “until or unless
God…”, because during the
end-time, God is going to allow the
devil to achieve world dominion.)
The splitting of
continents and the separation of
people slows the natural downward,
degenerate, spiral of sin and it
prevents the devil from corrupting
all mankind at one time as he did
before the flood. In other words, if
particular civilization becomes evil
and corrupt, God can destroy it
without having to destroy the whole
world. (Jeremiah 18:7-11)
Incidentally, the
division of the landmass into
continents explains why certain
animals are unique to certain
geographic locations. All the
kangaroos that lived after the flood
were living in a territory that was
separated from the original land
mass. As a result, the kangaroos
became unique to Australia. In
addition, the division of the world
into continents explains the
distinctive features of each race of
people. Dominant genes within the
first genetic pool of each language
group have produced the dominant
characteristics of each nationality.
It is also interesting to note that a
recent linguistic study documented in
National Geographic states
that the roots of all languages could
be traced to Mesopotamia where Bible
students believe the Tower of Babel
was located. It is exciting that
current research corroborates with
Bible story of a single root for all
languages.
God Did It
We have examined the
topic of the separation of continents
because it was God’s doing, God
is sovereign. It is God’s will
that there are many nations,
cultures, languages and yes,
religions. Remember that God loves
the people of the world. He did not
divide the world so most of the world
would be in darkness and have no
means of salvation. Consider this: If
God is responsible for dividing the
world into peoples, nations,
languages, tribes, and He did it by
divine decree. How many billions of
people have lived on this planet
since Adam and Eve? How many people
did not know the truth about the God
of Heaven? Do you think they are lost
because they did not know the
“truth” about God and His
Son, Jesus Christ? My response to
this: Salvation is not based on
knowledge of truth. Rather, salvation
is based on submission to the Spirit
of God! This does not mean that truth
is not highly important. On the
contrary, this means that we can
appreciate God’s salvation more
when we understand Him and His ways.
I have presented the
issue of fragmentation because
God’s offer of salvation is not
limited to one “true
church” nor is it restricted to
the Christians! (Please keep reading,
and you will see what I mean in a
moment.) God Himself caused the
separation of the continents and His
PLAN of salvation takes the varied
theologies of mankind into
consideration. Here are three
statements (and explanations which
follow) that you should think about:
- A person can
receive salvation without
knowing the only true God.
- A person can
receive salvation without
knowing Jesus Christ.
- A person can
receive salvation without
becoming a Christian.
No doubt, these three
statements will give most
evangelicals a lot of heartburn,
since they are convinced that a
person must have knowledge of Christ
and consciously receive Christ as
their Savior in order to be saved.
(According to the American Bible
Society, 3.5 billion people on Earth
have not heard of Jesus Christ.) For
this reason, evangelicals believe
they are very important to the cause
of Christ. Scripture will demonstrate
the basis for my three points, but
first we need to consider the popular
logic that many evangelicals follow.
(Some denominations are called
evangelical denominations because
they consider themselves evangelists
for the cause of Christ.) Their
theology produces the following
conclusions:
- All
non-Christians are condemned
(having no salvation).
- Only
“born again”
Christians have salvation.
- Evangelicals
into the entire world must
preach the gospel before the
end comes. (Matthew 24:14)
Before we consider the
biblical evidence showing the fallacy
of these three conclusions produced
by evangelical logic, notice that
these same three issues were
prevalent in New Testament times, but
from a Jewish perspective. At the
time of Christ, the Jews believed:
- All non-Jews
were condemned (having no
salvation).
- Only the
descendants of Abraham had
salvation.
- Jews must
preach the gospel to all
Gentiles before Messiah sets
up His kingdom. (Isaiah 49
& 56; Matthew 23:15)
The parallels between
the Jews of New Testament times and
the theology of many evangelicals
today are evident. A short
explanation of how Jewish attitudes
develop and what God actually
intended to accomplish through the
offspring of Abraham follows.
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