Welcome back! In our first post we addressed why salvation is needed, and the second post touched on what we needed to be saved from. If you haven’t checked out those two posts, I would encourage you to have a read of those first before reading this final part.
We now come to the final question: How can I be saved?
Breaking News!
The gospel is good news, but you can see that it is necessary to know the bad news first before you can truly appreciate it. The bad news is that when Adam sinned in the garden while being the representative of all mankind, we sinned along with him, and indeed continue to do so. This results in death—the physical death all men experience at the end of their lives, the spiritual deadness towards God and His ways that all men are born into from the start of their lives, and the second death that awaits all those who are found guilty before the judgment seat of God.
That is the bad news. What is the good news?
The good news is that though we are all guilty (because we all sin), God has made a way for us to be made right with Him, and that is Jesus Christ:
‘…And there is salvation in no one else; for there is no other name under heaven that has been given among men by which we must be saved.”‘ (Acts 4:12)
How does Jesus save us? A simple way to explain it would be to say it is by becoming our substitute, ie by taking our place.
Jesus lived the perfect life God required
From the time Man was created, God required perfect obedience to His law; nothing short of perfection will do. Such moral perfection—let’s call it holiness—is impossible for people who are born spiritually dead because it is not only that we don’t want to do what God demands of us, but that we can’t (Rom. 8:6-8). Though made in the image of God who is perfectly holy, we are carriers of the distorted image Adam possessed due to God’s judgment for his disobedience. So in order to be made right with God we need to live perfect lives according to God’s law, blameless in His sight; but from the time we are born we go against Him.
Enter Jesus.
Jesus, though human, lived perfectly in accordance to God’s law and was therefore blameless in God’s sight. He was ‘tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin,’ (Heb. 4:15b, emphasis added). This means that while we take every opportunity we get to sin against God in our thoughts, words or deeds, Jesus on the other hand—though faced with the same opportunities and temptations—honoured God in all that He did.
How was He able to do what we as human beings are unable to because we are spiritually dead from the moment we are born? The answer is that though He is human, He is also God. This is a great mystery that no one can truly explain, but we do know that in Jesus ‘all the fullness of Deity dwells in bodily form,’ (Col. 2:9). This Jesus, though God, ‘…did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men,’ (Phil. 2:6-7).
You see, He had to become in the likeness of the very creatures He sought to redeem, as only then could He take their place (Heb. 2:16-18). He therefore took on the new nature that is humanity without giving up His deity (since God cannot cease to be who He is).
Jesus is sometimes referred to as the ‘Last Adam’ because just as Adam stood as our representative in the Garden in his disobedience, Jesus stands as our representative in His obedience (Rom. 5:18-19). This means that the perfect life that Jesus lived (and God requires) is counted on our behalf when we align ourselves with Jesus on the basis of faith—acknowledging our own inability to do what God requires, and trusting in all that Jesus has done in our place to make us right with God.
Jesus died and took the punishment we deserved
Rom. 8:3-4 – ‘…For what the Law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh, God did: sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and as an offering for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh, so that the requirement of the Law might be fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.’
As we already mentioned in the previous post, God’s condemnation for sin stands: ‘The person who sins will die,’ (Eze. 18:20a), and God is a just Judge whose word never fails. This means that every sinner has a debt to pay—a death to pay. Unfortunately, however, this death goes beyond simply a physical death to an eternal one, for it takes an eternity for a human soul to atone for sin in Hell. Let me put it this way: we would spend the rest of eternity atoning for every sin we commit, and we will never be able to get past our atonement to enjoy a life of right standing before God.
Enter Jesus.
Just as He took our place and lived the sinless life we were required, He also took our place by dying the death we deserved as an atonement for our sin. Though sinless, He had to die to fulfill the requirements of God’s law in order that God might be shown to be both just and the justifier of sinners (Rom. 3:26)—just in that He indeed kept His word and punished sin, but justifier in that He shows mercy to all who put their faith in Jesus, and can therefore give them right standing with Himself on the basis of what Jesus did on their behalf.
One of the best snapshots of this good news can be found in 2 Cor. 5:21: ‘He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.’ On the cross, all the sins of those who trust in Jesus were placed on Him to be paid for, and all of His right standing with God was placed on them to be lived out.
Jesus isn’t a dead Savior though; we are told that on the third day after His death, He rose again from the dead (1 Cor. 15:3-8), thereby vindicating Him as sinless before God, and assuring those who have faith in Him of a justified life (Rom. 5:8-11).
The Application
Over the course of these three posts we have sought to put to you a general idea of the notion of salvation—why we need to be saved, what we need to be saved from, and how we can be saved. I know some who might read this would still be unconvinced of their needy state, and might not care much for the thought of an impending judgment, but I implore you to please consider these things. Is your eternal soul really worth your obstinacy? Do you want to number yourself among those who risk the theory that there is no God, and that even if there is a God, you are not so bad and He must be loving enough to “let you in” anyway?
Dear reader, ‘Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, this he will also reap,’ (Gal. 6:7). Christianity is not a ‘pie in the sky’ religion with no basis except ‘blind’ faith. Our faith in the Eternal and Sovereign God is based on His revelation of Himself throughout the history of the world since its very inception, and on what Jesus Christ has done for all who believe in Him. It is as methodical as it is mysterious, and it is as supernatural as it is simple.
Won’t you take time to examine yourself today? Humble yourself and truly ask God for help to see your sin and His righteousness. If you yourself can attest to how far from perfect you are, then you are already off to a good start. Now consider the possibility that what you need isn’t more resolutions or self-help books or counselling or medication, but that the issue is something deeper. Lay aside the sarcasm for a moment and open up the Bible and read, and let the Word of God speak to you.
I pray that whoever genuinely does this will come to know the mercy of God, and receive a saving faith in Jesus Christ that not only saves from the wrath of God to come, but ushers in an adoption into the fold of God that secures an eternity with Him.
“Holy God, in love, became
Perfect Man to bear my blame
On the cross He took my sin
By His death I live again.” – Bob Kauflin & Drew Jones, ’The Gospel Song’
