What is salvation? What is the Christian doctrine of salvation?

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What is salvation? What is the Christian doctrine of salvation?

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Question: "What is salvation? What is the Christian doctrine of salvation?"

Answer: Salvation is deliverance from danger or suffering. To save is to deliver or protect. The word carries the idea of victory, health, or preservation. Sometimes, the Bible uses the words saved or salvation to refer to temporal, physical deliverance, such as Paul’s deliverance from prison (Philippians 1:19).

More often, the word “salvation” concerns an eternal, spiritual deliverance. When Paul told the Philippian jailer what he must do to be saved, he was referring to the jailer’s eternal destiny (Acts 16:30-31). Jesus equated being saved with entering the kingdom of God (Matthew 19:24-25).

What are we saved from? In the Christian doctrine of salvation, we are saved from “wrath,” that is, from God’s judgment of sin (Romans 5:9; 1 Thessalonians 5:9). Our sin has separated us from God, and the consequence of sin is death (Romans 6:23). Biblical salvation refers to our deliverance from the consequence of sin and therefore involves the removal of sin.

Who does the saving? Only God can remove sin and deliver us from sin’s penalty (2 Timothy 1:9; Titus 3:5).

How does God save? In the Christian doctrine of salvation, God has rescued us through Christ (John 3:17). Specifically, it was Jesus’ death on the cross and subsequent resurrection that achieved our salvation (Romans 5:10; Ephesians 1:7). Scripture is clear that salvation is the gracious, undeserved gift of God (Ephesians 2:5, 8) and is only available through faith in Jesus Christ (Acts 4:12).

How do we receive salvation? We are saved by faith. First, we must hear the gospel—the good news of Jesus’ death and resurrection (Ephesians 1:13). Then, we must believe—fully trust the Lord Jesus (Romans 1:16). This involves repentance, a changing of mind about sin and Christ (Acts 3:19), and calling on the name of the Lord (Romans 10:9-10, 13).

A definition of the Christian doctrine of salvation would be “The deliverance, by the grace of God, from eternal punishment for sin which is granted to those who accept by faith God’s conditions of repentance and faith in the Lord Jesus.” Salvation is available in Jesus alone (John 14:6; Acts 4:12) and is dependent on God alone for provision, assurance, and security.

Recommended Resource: Faith Alone: The Evangelical Doctrine of Justification by R.C. Sproul.

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Related Topics:

What is the plan of salvation / way of salvation?

What is repentance and is it necessary for salvation?

What is the true gospel?

What does it mean for salvation to be a gift from God?

What is Lordship salvation?





OK...Call me stupid but if I Knew all that before I got "saved" I would never have asked Jesus into my life.

I would have run as far and as fast from you if you told m e that as I could.

It just wouldn't make sense, not would I care to try to figure it out.

But tell me I am going to Hell because God said it, then tell me I can avoid Going to Hell because God said it, then tell me I can talk to God because God said it, and tell me How to find out Waht God said...

Well I'm no idiot....I'll go ask God if He said it.

Ya don't give babies Prime Rib, so if you're a mother nursing a child, which works better if your breast feeding....,

Scaring the Snot out of New Born Babe?

Or Loving them to nurse and fall asleep in yours?

You can show me the Beef, like above,

But Show Me the Love, and I WILL get saved.

Michael James Stone

Is Jesus’ payment for sin more like a business transaction than a gift?

Question posted on Yahoo! Answers: Jesus paid for my sins, but there’s a catch. I have to devote myself to him.

Doesn’t that defeat it’s power as a gift? — I mean, it’s more like a business transaction now.

The gift is eternal life, salvation is the cost of the Son of God purchasing you from who you sold yourself to.

He doesn't have to give you eternal life, though he saved you from your sins, the choice is yours to continue in them or find out that the only real freedom is constraint.

Love constrains you to choose to Obey out of intimacy and tenderness, not devotion to a cause or religion.

Michael James Stone

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Is it just about believing that Jesus died for our sins or do we also need to have a relationship with him?

Question posted on Yahoo! Answers: Is it just about believing that Jesus died for our sins or do we also need to have a relationship with him? I believe he died for my sins but I don’t have the kind of relationship with God that I often hear people talk about. Basically I’m asking what do I need to do to be saved.

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Everyone that is anyone will tell you there is more and apply lots of criteria to what their personal faith is on this issue, but the bible includes many instances that cause most to realize:

IT REALLY IS UP TO GOD.

We can say we know, and pretend or contend for the faith, but when you get there, if your in Hell...............

WHOOOPS

What good was the argument?

Jesus Came for that reason. He said everyone was so bickering and arguing that if anyone did do as everyone wanted them to do, they still could not get into heaven because GOD his Father was the one Who decides.

Your Father in Heaven decides. You get to find out that decision one of two ways.
Personally or Impersonally.

You can ask Him and keep asking till you get an answer, or follow the plans most will tell you as the Gospel and get an answer from Jesus as to your state.

Since God gave His Son to die for me, I like that option. If I have to go by Man's ideas, I can, and it is a long road round about, but a walk about you might need to figure it out. God has a destiny for you, since he created you.

You will choose to either ignore it or do it and the only real way to be sure is to find out what that is and do it.

Reading the Bible helps, talking to God is great, going to church can be good. But if it is that important I would do all the research I could, because if you get into court one day, you find a judge in a traffic court, or a court of law, does not care IF you know you broke any laws. He will judge you anyways.

Me I want to get on the judges good side, because usually, in traffic court, I am more than guilty....,

If I have a relationship with the judge, in some way, I can at least "hope" he will have mercy.

A person who asks to be saved is like the man dying on the cross next to Jesus, You are guilty, but if you at least, at the very least Seeking the Lord....You shall be saved.


Michael James Stone

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Can Anyone Tell Me What the Gospel Is?

Derel Lehman can be found Here:
http://derek4messiah.wordpress.com/

Gospel is a funny word. I heard a long time ago that it comes from a middle English term, God-spell (no, I didn’t see the musical). The idea is that people are captivated by God through faith and caught, as it were, in a spell.

While that may be true, and I would agree God holds me spellbound, it is not what the term translated gospel in the New Testament is all about.

Actually, gospel translates evangelion, or good news. The ancient term finds its clearest context in the image of a messenger running from a battle to the worried population of a city. Will there be death and rape and pillaging today, or did the men of our town defeat the invader? It is a question of life and death, not a light concern. As the messenger approaches, he can be seen for miles and the dreadful anticipation of his message is the only thing anyone in that town is thinking about. Will it be disaster or gospel, calamity or evangelion, suffering or good news?

Our text at Tikvat David this Shabbat was a portion of Revelation 14, including verses 6-7:

Then I saw another angel flying directly overhead, and he had an eternal gospel to proclaim to those who live on the earth—to every nation, tribe, language, and people. He declared in a loud voice: “Fear God and give him glory, because the hour of his judgment has arrived, and worship the one who made heaven and earth, the sea and the springs of water!”

I asked my congregation, “What is the problem some people would see with this passage?” The answer came quickly, “It doesn’t say, ‘Believe in Jesus and be saved.’”

The apostolic use of the term gospel is distorted by so many things in contemporary and traditional religion. We have “gospel sermons” in many churches, or people complain if a Christian pastor does not “share the gospel” each week in his sermon. In many faith communities this means that the speaker must tell listeners “how to be saved.”

There are different elements people feel must be included in a “gospel” message: believe, Jesus died, be saved, not by works, if you want to be saved come forward during the invitation, etc.

Three Examples of the Gospel in the New Testament

There are precisely three times the New Testament spells out the gospel. In none of them do we find all of the elements I mentioned above that are commonly thought of as included in “the gospel.” In fact, only two of those elements (Jesus died, believe) are included in any of these three gospel examples in the New Testament:

The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel (Mark 1:15).

I preached to you the gospel . . . that Messiah died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures, and that he appeared . . . (1 Corinthians 15:1-5).

. . . an eternal gospel . . . “Fear God and give him glory, because the hour of his judgment has arrived, and worship the one who made heaven and earth, the sea and the springs of water!” (Revelation 14:6-7).

We learn from this that the gospel is not a singular message. It is a larger concept with many forms.

The gospel has an objective and a subjective sense. All three versions imply the coming of God to judge. Since the kingdom is coming, repent before it is too late. Messiah died for our sins, because God will judge. Fear God as the hour of his judgment has come. The objective sense is the reality of God and his order which overturns every other order and calls for us to reorder our lives.

The subjective sense is our response or lack of response. Paul’s explanation of the gospel is the only one that does not make the subjective sense plain. Yeshua’s version calls for repentance and surprisingly implies that the coming of the kingdom is something to fear. Revelation’s version is stated almost exclusively in terms of the subjective call to be prepared: fear, give glory, worship. The subjective call is implied in Paul’s version. Messiah died for our sins, a concise story which implies a part for us.

Too Small a Gospel?

The problem with the gospel as it is held in some faith communities is that it is too small.

In some places gospel does not include fearing and glorifying. There is a decided lack of vision for something bigger than ourselves, a kingdom, a reality which overtakes all false visions of reality.

If the gospel is merely a personal decision to receive a gift with no commandment to find one’s place in the larger mission of God, then it is a weak gospel. I am not alone by any means in saying the gospel of many faith communities needs an overhaul. There is much good in the communities which preach a limited gospel, but the signs of weakness are everywhere.

God’s rule on earth will be so much greater than people think. God is healing and perfecting creation and completing what he started building in the lives of people all over this earth. Those who fear and glorify see themselves not merely as recipients of a free kingdom which makes no difference here and now, but as servants to each and every person and to creation itself. The gospel is about God turning evil into good and there is plenty of work for those who fear and glorify, work in healing, helping, raising, restoring, building, feeding, giving, forgiving, representing, preserving, growing, repenting, and living.

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I am bothered by the post......, though having spent years in Jewish Community, I understand HOW he gets to this premise, I just struggle with the obvious contradiction He thinks as free to pick and choose to leave out I John or Church History.

There is a reason why many Messianic Jews go astray and are easily lead down a path of seemingly Hebraicism' s and purported "Tradition" when in reality they are often denying the Messiah who died to set the Jew and the Gentile free to seek the Father and have His Spirit teach and not necessarily Men who would be Rabbi's.

Eben Abram

Michael James Stone

PS. I did see the Musical, I loved it. The Movie especially, and while I can see the correlation of missing the point of the gospel, I can see the contradiction of putting a picture of a movie the person did not see.

TOO BAD, He would have seen the Gospel.

Where is God?: A Society Ready to Rumble - The I.D.F. in Prophecy ~ Bible Prophecy Today

A Society Ready to Rumble - The I.D.F. in Prophecy ~ Bible Prophecy Today

When people leave God Out, I leave the Scene....,

A look back at Joshua reminds me of Israel today and modern Christians Super Patriotic Christian Zionism and I shudder.......,

Imagine a person telling someone to go to war without the Ark of Covenant?

Picture Jeremiah for a moment telling Judah, you aren't going to win, but you are going into exile.

When I read the article above I could see these images as I could imagine very easily IDF getting stomped on till God intervene and reveal himself.

You see, Israel had it's Vietnam.....more than once and did not lose, but did not win....and one day what is left will be running for its life.

AND WHY?

Because Israel is apostate. Israel is in rejection of her God and God will reveal and deal with his people severely and harshly but shall redeem them unto himself....., in the end.

Israel today is Zionistic and Atheistic, it is not a religious state and ask an Israeli if He thinks God intervenes and he will likely say which one.

Zionism is not Chritsianity, nor is Christian Zionism following Jesus teaching.

We can pray for peace, but not support ungodly behavior by a Jew just because he is Israeli. As a Jew I am appalled at times by christian duplicity in many ways excusing sin among Jews because they are JEWS.........sheeesh........Hell has Jews in it, as well as Gentiles.

The IDF, like all armies, has been busted in the past for attrocities. They have had their Abu Gharib, but unlike us, because zionism is proported to be the ultimate humanistic expression of civility and manmade achievement, it is heinous to pure zionist.

War is Hell one man said and that is frankly a fact.

The coming battles are not meant to highlight some heroic occasion of Man killing man with God helping one side or the other, but the utter depravity and hoplessness of man that cannot accept the Message of the Prince of Peace.

Jesus did not come to kill nations and elevate Israel, He came to save the World and elevate the one who sent him that He spoke out to the People of his day and ours by declaring God is Love.

The Last Days heresy coming upon the World is already here and has ended one era after another when the people stand up and say they are Killing for God, when God will Himself provide the means to preserve his people.

It will not be by might, it will not be power, but by his spirit the Lord will deliver Israel and frankly when I see God deliver Israel as he promises he reveal then.

I will say to IDF............BACK OFF.......let God work.

In that day, soon, people will know it is the Lord that delivers Israel, not some concocted idea about How God will use practical means, no, God says He will reveal Himself as the only real saviour of His people.

Till then we pray, and I don't pray fro Israel to get stronger, I pray my people Turn to God and be saved.

Michael James Stone

Pray for....., What is Prayer?.......Know God

WHAT IS PRAYER?

The greatest privilege a Christian has is the privilege of prayer. Not only is it a privilege, but it is also the responsibility of every believer. Jesus said, "Men ought always to pray and not lose heart" (Luke 18:1). Prayer is simply talking to God, letting our concerns and requests be made known to Him. When we pray, we admit our need for God and our utter dependence on Him.

Only through a relationship with Jesus Christ do we have access to God (1 Timothy 2:5). We approach God in Jesus' name, not our own. Prayer is not a means of trying to get from God what we want, but rather a means by which we enable God to give us what He wants. Regarding prayer, Billy Graham said, "Prayer is the rope that pulls God and man together. But it doesn't pull God down to us; rather, it pulls us up to Him."

WHY PRAY?
We're to pray because God commands it (2 Chronicles 7:14; Luke 18:1). Through prayer, we receive things (James 4:2), experience fullness of joy (John 16:24), and find help in times of trouble. Prayer is the cure for worry (Philippians 4:6; 1 Peter 5:7) and also helps us resist temptation (Matthew 26:41).

WHEN ARE WE TO PRAY?
We are to pray always. The Bible instructs us to "Pray without ceasing" (1 Thessalonians 5:17). The Apostle Paul exhorted believers to pray "always with all prayer and supplication" (Ephesians 6:18).

TYPES OF PRAYER


PRAISE AND ADORATION
Through praise and adoration, we acknowledge God's goodness. We must recognize that when we pray, we enter God's presence (Matthew 6:9). Prayer takes us into the very throne room of God. As we reverence the Lord by communing with Him in prayer, our relationship with Him becomes more intimate, and our love more tender.

CONFESSION AND REPENTANCE
Confession and repentance are prerequisites for approaching God. The Bible assures us of forgiveness if we confess our sins to God. Jesus said, "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God" (Matthew 5:8).

THANKSGIVING
We need to always remember what God has done for us, and give Him thanks for it. We're to thank Him during the good times, as well as the bad times, "giving thanks always for all things . . ." (Ephesians 5:20). We're also to make our requests to God "with thanksgiving" (Philippians 4:6).

SUPPLICATION
Believers are to pray for our own needs and ask God for help in our daily affairs. We must never think that our requests are too small to bring before God. As Christians we are to pray about everything, being confident that God hears us, cares about us, and acts on our behalf.

INTERCESSION
Intercession means to pray on behalf of—and for—other people (1 Timothy 2:1). People can stop us from telling them about Jesus, but they can't stop us from praying for them.We're to pray for our familfriends, Christian leaders, our country, and whatever else God

WHAT IF I DON’T PRAY?
Neglecting to pray is a sin. David said, "Far be it from me that I should sin against the Lord in ceasing to pray for you" (1 Samuel 12:23). Jesus said, "Men ought always to pray and not lose heart" (Luke 18:1).

D. L. Moody summarized the necessity of prayer with this observation: "Jesus never taught His disciples how to preach, but only how to pray."

Copyright © 01 by Harvest Christian Fellowship. All rights reserved.

Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture references are taken from The Holy Bible, New King James version [NKJV], copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc.