We All Need Saving, Part 1

‘…for “Whoever will call on the name of the Lord will be saved.”’ (Rom. 10:13)

Christians talk a lot about ‘salvation’ and being saved. In fact, you would probably fall short of authentic Christianity without addressing the need to be saved. I wonder though, do we really know what we are trying to escape, or why we need to be saved?
To some reading this post, an answer might have come into your mind as a foregone conclusion, but bear with me. For others, you might have not really thought about it. And as for others still, you have perhaps heard from a Christian something about needing to be saved, but didn’t quite get what the big deal is.
If you will allow me, I will like to address this need for salvation that is central to the gospel, and it is my prayer that those who do not know Jesus as their Saviour would reach out to Him, and those who do would grow in gratitude for their salvation.

Why Salvation is Needed

Before we talk about our need for salvation, we need to take a couple of steps back. You see, we are not the centre nor main focus of this story; it would be catastrophic to begin with us, as it skews our vision of the big picture.

God, the Creator of all things (Gen. 1:1, Col. 1:16) saw it fit to crown His act of creation by forming Man from the dust (Gen. 2:7). Man was different to all His other creations for different reasons. For example, we are told that Man was formed by God, a detail expressly mentioned during His act of creation, as opposed to speaking things into existence like He did with everything else (Gen. 1:3, v6, v9, etc). Here we see extra care being taken on the part of the Divine, stooping down to form Man, and then breathing life into him (Gen. 2:7). Another way in which Man was different to God’s other creations is that he was given charge over the rest of the created beings (Gen. 1:26b).
The most important distinction however, is that Man was created Imago Dei—in the image of God:

‘…Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.’ (Gen. 1:26-27, emphasis added)

Made in the likeness of God, Man is able to exhibit some attributes and characteristics of the Divine, often referred to as God’s communicable attributes. For example, we are able to reason, to feel, and to grasp some notion of morality; these are characteristics human beings inherently possess that other creatures do not, even though sometimes some creatures might display instinctive reactions that might mimic them.

After creating all things, God established a law over Man in his new environment, and a simple one at that: ‘The LORD God commanded the man, saying, “From any tree of the garden you may eat freely; but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you will surely die.”’ (Gen. 2:16-17, emphasis added).
Our ancestral heads—Adam and Eve—were given any and all things that a moral and content being could be given, and a warning was given to them. In hindsight, I would propose that it wasn’t necessarily the act that brought about the fall of mankind, but rather the disobedience that birthed it. We are told that through deception and an unguarded heart, Adam and Eve disobeyed God and did the one thing they were prohibited from doing (remember, they were allowed to have everything else), and thereby broke the law of a holy and just God (Gen. 3:6).

[The act of disobeying God and going against His law or requirements is referred to in the Bible as ‘sin’: ‘Everyone who sins is breaking God’s law, for all sin is contrary to the law of God.’ (1 John 3:4, NLT)]

This act in a sense was committed by our ancestors on our behalf, and so we are held just as guilty as they were. And before you scream out unfairness, I would add that we continue to show our own culpability by our persistent rejection of God and His law. He is a perfect and holy God and He made creation upright, and therefore requires a holy perfection and adherence to His law; no matter how well you think you do in other areas, if you fall short in one area of His requirements, you are guilty and fit for His judgment, for ‘whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles in one point, he has become guilty of all,’ (Jas. 2:10). The verdict on all mankind has been handed down:

‘…all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.’ (Rom. 3:23, emphasis added)

This is a serious problem because just as God warned Adam, ‘the day that you eat from it [the tree of the knowledge of good and evil] you will surely die,’ (Gen. 2:16-17)—or simply put, ‘the day you sin, you will surely die’—He has also warned us: ‘The person who sins will die.’ (Eze. 18:20a, emphasis added)

Now we see that because of our rejection of God and disobedience against His law—or simply put, because of our sin—there is an impending judgment. This is why we need to be saved, because our rebellion against our Creator has made us guilty and worthy of the penalty He has decreed.

Is the image slowly coming into focus?

We have briefly touched on the why, and in the next part of this post we will touch on the what. Until then…

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