by Jacob Ninan
The salvation that Jesus offers us, and the one only He offers, is for a restoration of our relationship and fellowship with God. There is a starting point – a gate, a way to walk in, and a destination – and it is possible for us to go wrong at every step. Salvation begins by giving us forgiveness of our sins. And then it goes on to save us from the power of sin and to transform us into His character in our daily life in an all-pervasive manner. Finally God gives us a sin-free body and perfect fellowship with Him in eternity. Whether we receive the true salvation at all, or how much of it we receive depends on knowing the truth. Jesus said, "You will know the truth, and the truth will make you free" (Jn.8:32). Knowing the truth also implies recognising error.
In this series which I call, "Ideas that mess with salvation', Part 1 addressed 'Nothing we need to do', Part 2, 'We must have enough faith' and Part 3, 'The battle belongs to the Lord'. You can read or listen to them on my website or on YouTube. This time I would like to look at three other common ideas. Why these ideas catch on is because there is some element of truth in such statements. But the problem is that when they are not understood properly or in the right context, they can become very misleading. One reason I strongly recommend that you read this to the end is that otherwise you might not get the reasoning behind my statements.
1. "We are not under any law."
What is true in this statement, and what is not? The new covenant that Jesus has given us and the old covenant that came through Moses are contrasted in terms of grace and law. The main feature of the old covenant was that God would bless those who kept all the law, and punish those who disobeyed them. The way to get right with God was through keeping God's laws. Throughout time, people came to realise that no one could manage to keep all of the law all the time. The result was that no one could qualify for salvation by his own efforts. Struggling to keep the Law was a burden no one could carry. Now Jesus has come offering us salvation by grace, offering it in a way that no one deserves. When we admit to God the truth about ourselves that we have sinned and stand separated from Him, He offers us a righteous standing with Him on the basis of what Jesus, His Son, has accomplished on the cross. Jesus took the punishment for our sins. And when we go to God accepting that we have no merit of our own and receive the sacrifice of Jesus as a substitution for us, God gives us forgiveness and acceptance. In that moment, we are set free from having to follow the Law in order to find acceptance with God. We are accepted not by keeping the Law but acknowledging Jesus as our righteousness.Walking under the Law was a burden no one could carry, because everyone failed. Now we are freed from carrying that burden. Now salvation is given to us as a free gift. That is the meaning of being freed from the Law and not being under the Law.
But then error begins to creep in. To put it plainly, many think of freedom from the Law as having no law any more to pay heed to. They imagine they have become free! That is the way the world thinks of freedom. People think that if only they could do whatever they wished, they would be free. They do not realise that they would then become slaves to their desires. That is not to be free! "Do you not know that when you present yourselves to someone as slaves for obedience, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin resulting in death, or of obedience resulting in righteousness?" (Rom.6:16). Slavery to sin is the most basic and severe bondage and it is this that Jesus came to save us from (Matt.1:21).
Before we came to Jesus and were born again, there was a 'law' working in us which was called the law of sin and death. What this meant was that we were being tempted at different times to do sinful things, and when we did them we got more distant from God. But at that time, we enjoyed doing those things and the only thing we tried to avoid was to get caught and suffer the consequences. In other words, our old nature was sinful, and when we sinned, it was natural for us. But when we came to Jesus, He gave us a new nature (Ezek.36:26,27). Now we got a hatred towards sin, and we wanted to stop sinning. But we also discovered that sometimes we were not strong enough to resist the temptation and we fell into sin. Then we learnt to ask God to help us overcome temptations and slowly became stronger and able to resist temptations. The new law that was now working in us was that when we are tempted, we realise what is happening, we ask God for help, and then with that strength we learn to say no to temptation. This is called the law of the Spirit of life in Christ, in contrast to the law of sin and death which we had earlier (Rom.8:2).
Now our conscience becomes increasingly sensitive towards sin, and we find ourselves wanting to stop doing things we used to do earlier without realising they were sin. Thoughts, attitudes and motives begin to get purified, whereas only actions used to considered as sins before (Heb.4:12). This is how Jesus makes us actually free. This freedom brings us to the law of the Spirit which gets written on our hearts.
But the wrong way of understanding freedom considers any law that tells people what to do and what not to do, as bringing bondage in the sense that people are restricted from doing what they like. Children imagine that when they can move out of their parents' control they can be free. Wives think that subjecting themselves to their husbands is to be avoided at all costs. Students do not want their schools or colleges to have any restrictions on what they wear, their performance in their studies, relationships, drinks and drugs, etc. The spirit that is trying to overrun the world is that of lawlessness where people do not want any law to control them.
But true happiness will come to us only as we subject ourselves to the personal, moral, social, physical and spiritual laws that our Creator has made for us. Jesus did not come to take away that law but to fulfil it (Matt.5:17).
2. "We have been saved"
The truth here is that many things definitely happen as a part of our salvation when we come to Jesus as our Saviour. Our sins are all forgiven, the wrath of God is taken away from us, we are accepted as children of God, etc. Certainly these are huge blessings given by God as a gift of grace, and there is good reason to be thrilled about them. But the mistake some people make is to think of salvation only as a once-for-all gift given by God and imagine that there is nothing they need to be concerned about afterwards. The result of this wrong assumption is that they do not remain alert about partaking of salvation increasingly in the daily life. According to many of them, all they need to do now is to share the good news with other people and wait for being taken up to heaven. Some of them keep themselves occupied with 'ministry' and assume that they must be very pleasing to the Lord.Let us remind ourselves that the goal of salvation is not merely to take us out from hell and place us in heaven. God wants to have a growing relationship and fellowship with us as we go through each day. This can happen only as we walk with Him, listen to what He tells us and do what He wants. That becomes increasingly possible only as we understand Him better, think more like Him, and our nature becomes transformed to His nature. This part of salvation is referred to as sanctification, which is to be set apart to God and to be made more holy as time goes on. This has to go on every moment of our life.
It should be obvious that this cannot happen if people are assuming they are already saved and are not looking forward to this daily transformation. A false sense of safety comes in, and they may not be even aware that they are actually drifting away from God. If all that is connected with salvation has already been accomplished, according to their view, they do not pay attention to what the Holy Spirit is telling them moment by moment.
Look at the practical implication. Every moment of our life, we are being bombarded with different ideas coming from our flesh, the world around us and demonic powers (1Jn.2:16). What happens if we do not recognise them as temptations or as being displeasing to God? Slowly, without even our being aware of it, we are being transformed into the mould of the world (Rom.12:2). Many do not realise that the salvation that Jesus has brought touches every part of our life, including our thoughts, intentions and motives, and we cannot excuse ourselves saying that we keep the Law when it comes to external behaviour (Heb.4:12). We may become 'street smart' and wise in the matters of this life, but then we are not becoming more spiritually minded or godly in our thinking, attitudes, values, etc. And we may be imagining that since we have been saved, we are children of God with a place reserved for us in heaven.
But what are we supposed to do if we actually follow Jesus? "And He was saying to them all, 'If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross daily and follow Me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake, he is the one who will save it.'" (Lk.9:23,24). This means that whenever we recognise the temptation that offers us some pleasure or advantage through doing something wrong or entertaining sinful things in our mind, we are to deny ourselves and please God. Otherwise we are neglecting salvation, and we are not being faithful to our Lord. So we can see how dangerous it is to continue with a false sense of security saying, "I have been saved!"
3. "Jesus will never leave me!"
This is true! This is something Jesus has clearly promised to everyone who has come to Him and become a child of God. "I am with you always, even to the end of the age" (Matt.28:20). "I give eternal life to them, and they will never perish; and no one will snatch them out of My hand. My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father's hand" (Jn.10:28,29). "I will never desert you, nor will I ever forsake you" (Heb.13:5). Especially when we feel so unworthy and as failures from our side, it is so comforting to know that He will not leave us. The most needy time in our life is when we have failed and know that it is we who have failed. Then it is that we can be comforted to know that our Saviour will not leave us when we need Him the most.However, if we misunderstand this to be a blanket assurance no matter what we do, that can lead us to carelessness concerning our life. Then we forget the conviction of sin that brought us to the Saviour at first, and how we desired to stop sinning. We begin to assume that sin is not such a serious thing because there is always the Saviour who pulls us out from its punishment. Sinning, confessing and sinning again becomes a lifestyle. The result is that we become hardened in sin, rather than getting delivered from the power of sin. The sad thing here is that we are turning the grace of God into a licence for our sins. This is the false gospel some people preach (Jude.4). We can see that this variant of the gospel is not genuine, from the counterfeit fruit it produces. It has the appearance of exalting grace, but it actually works against salvation.
It may be that this is the only gospel some people have heard and believed. Unfortunately, this is not a good news at all that it is all right to sin because there is forgiveness available freely. People who have been genuinely converted want to give up sinning, and that is why they have rejoiced in finding the Saviour.
The fact we need to face is that even though the Saviour will not leave us, and He will come looking for us if we wandered away from His flock, He will not forcibly save anyone who chooses to walk away (Rev.3:20). What we can see if we look around is that a lot of people who come to Jesus fall away. Maybe it is an unanswered prayer that offends them. Maybe it is the inability to understand some truth, such as why a loving and almighty God allows innocent people to suffer. There are different things that cause people to leave the Saviour they had come to earlier. It is not always possible to say that they had not really come to Jesus in the first place, because we have seen the results of their conversion and the fruit in their lives before they fell away. "For in the case of those who have once been enlightened and have tasted of the heavenly gift and have been made partakers of the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come, and then have fallen away" (Heb.6:4-6). If we do not consider this possibility and watch out, it can happen to us too. That is why there are many warnings given to the people of God (Heb.3:12). Do note that this is warning us about a falling away from God, and not about a backsliding. We stand with God only through faith, and if we give up this faith, we can lose this blessing, as God warns the Gentiles in relation to Israel who had fallen away from Him (Rom.11:19-21).
Conclusion
We can see how we need to have the right understanding of doctrine if we want to be able to walk in the right way. It emphasises the need for personally studying the word so as to get convinced oneself, rather than depending on second hand truth from someone else.