In our previous post we briefly went through why we needed to be saved, or what caused our need for salvation. In this second part, I will venture to address what we need to be saved from.
The answer to this was already stated in the first part as a conclusion: we need to be saved from the just and impending judgment of God. There are many facets to the judgment of God, and we will not address them all in this post. In fact, we will keep in tune with the obvious one pronounced in the verses we considered last time:
‘The person who sins will die.’ (Eze. 18:20a)
According to this pronouncement, those who sin against God will die. In this post, we will address the three facets involved in this.
Physical Death
When the first law was passed, the penalty for breaking it was given clearly by God: ‘…you will die’ (Gen. 2:17). Prior to this marring of the image of God given to mankind, the concept of death was a foreign one. Do you realize the gravity of this? It means that death is unnatural. Let that sink in. Unnatural in the sense that it was not part of the human design; Death is an intruder to our lives! It comes to us as a result of the perpetual judgment for sin that God passed on us: ‘…By the sweat of your face you will eat bread, till you return to the ground, because from it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”’ (Gen. 3:19, emphasis added)
This saddening truth that sin = death was further expounded by Paul to the believers in Rome when he wrote to them, ‘When Adam sinned, sin entered the world. Adam’s sin brought death, so death spread to everyone, for everyone sinned.’ (Rom. 5:12, NLT)
So in this sense, the penalty for sin in our physical death is one which is demanded by God’s law.
Spiritual Death
Another aspect of our dying as a result of Adam’s and our sin is what we can refer to as our spiritual death. This refers to our deadness or irresponsiveness to God or the things He requires. When Adam disobeyed God, he—along with the rest of our human race—developed a disposition against the things God loves and requires, and for the things God hates and passes judgment on. Not only are we unwilling to obey God or to love what He loves and hate what He hates, but worse yet, we are unable to (Rom. 8:6-8).
We are dead to things of a spiritual nature. We might sometimes exhibit morality or outward signs of righteousness, but as a dead body might exhibit brief muscle spasms and bodily movements that could be mistaken for life, so also we might do or say certain things that resemble life. However, with the concept of deadness fresh in our minds, we have no misguided thoughts about the ability of a dead body being able to do or be anything other than dead of its own volition.
This spiritual deadness and inability to provide the righteousness required by God was captured quite succinctly by the psalmist when he confesses, ‘…There is no one who does good. The LORD has looked down from heaven upon the sons of men to see if there are any who understand, who seek after God. They have all turned aside, together they have become corrupt; there is no one who does good, not even one’ (Ps. 14:1b-3, emphasis added). This is the sad reality we face as a result of sin; we are dead spiritually.
‘…But I did find this: God created people to be virtuous, but they have each turned to follow their own downward path.”’ (Ecc. 7:29, NLT)
Second Death
The final and ultimate fulfilment of God’s pronouncement of death as the judgment for sin is found in what is called the ‘second death’:
‘…And I saw the dead, the great and the small, standing before the throne, and books were opened; and another book was opened, which is the book of life; and the dead were judged from the things which were written in the books, according to their deeds. And the sea gave up the dead which were in it, and death and Hades gave up the dead which were in them; and they were judged, every one of them according to their deeds. Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire. And if anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.’ (Rev. 20:12-15)
This is the ultimate judgment bestowed on all things contrary to God’s will: eternal torment and separation from God in Hell. Fittingly, only those whose names are found in the book of life will not be subjected to the second death, but only those who are known and are justified before God have their names written in the book of life (eg. Phil. 4:3, Rev. 3:5).
All who sin eventually come before the throne of their God and Creator, for ’it is appointed for [all] men to die once and after this comes judgment,’ (Heb. 9:27); and it is a dreadful thing to face the judgment seat and be condemned in sin and thrown into Hell for all eternity to remain how you lived: in separation from God.
The difference here however is that the sinner in Hell experiences none of the good and common graces of God (eg. Matt. 5:45). How sad it is to see how lightly people take the reality of what awaits the sinner! It is even worse that fewer people consider the gravity of such an eternal sentence as something that warrants more than a passing thought!
At the start of my previous post, I asked if people knew what we are trying to escape from or being saved from, and I am sure some were quick to answer that we are trying to escape from Hell—the second death. In a sense this is true, as it is the ultimate outworking of the judgment of God against sin and sinners. However if you even take a moment to look at my previous sentence, you might notice a vital point: it is God’s judgment. In reality, what we are in need of salvation from is God’s wrath and just judgment against sinners who reject Him and willingly commit treason against the eternal King of all:
‘…Or do you think lightly of the riches of His kindness and tolerance and patience, not knowing that the kindness of God leads you to repentance? But because of your stubbornness and unrepentant heart you are storing up wrath for yourself in the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God, who will render to each person according to his deeds: to those who by perseverance in doing good seek for glory and honor and immortality, eternal life; but to those who are selfishly ambitious and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, wrath and indignation.’ (Rom. 2:4-8, emphasis added)
What we need saving from is God and His judgment! No matter what misguided view of God we might hold or might have been taught, God cannot overlook sin. He indeed is love, but He is also just: ‘Far be it from You to do such a thing, to slay the righteous with the wicked, so that the righteous and the wicked are treated alike. Far be it from You! Shall not the Judge of all the earth deal justly?”’ (Gen. 18:25, emphasis added)
He cannot simply treat those who disobey His law and those who obey His law the same. Indeed, only those who are on the receiving end of judgment cry out for mercy; those who are being vindicated cry out for justice.
So we all sin and fall short of God’s standard (the ‘why’ we need to be saved), and are therefore guilty and fit to receive God’s righteous wrath and judgment (the ‘what’ we need to be saved from). Finally, I will aim to address the question I hope you are asking by now: the ‘how’ we can be saved. Until the next time…
(The final part to this post is available to read now.)
