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BY THE AUTHOR
Dr. W. Robert Cook, Th.D
This is the beginning of health and salvation.
By this means we are delivered from sin,
Justified and made inheritors of everlasting life;
not for our own works and deserts,
but for our faith, whereby we lay hold upon Christ.
Martin Luther (1483-1546)
In our study of theology we began where all biblically controlled theology must begin—with God. After considering his person and his plan we moved to an examination of the execution of that plan in the two great works of creation and providence. Particular attention was given to man, the crown of God's creative handiwork, and his subsequent rebellion and fall into sin.
It is now our task to consider God's rescue operation; his marvelous provision for fallen man. While all of the attributes of God are brought to bear in one way or another in all of the works of God, in his plan we are impressed with his sovereign will, in his creation with his omnipotence, in providence with his wisdom and in his dealing with sin with his righteousness and holiness.
As we come to the third great work of God all of these perfections are now blended symphonically, together with the themes of grace, mercy and love, into his cosmic magnum opus.
No believer in Jesus Christ can come to a consideration of these doctrines without a quickening heartbeat. Herein we are faced with the good news (gospel) par excellence. This is no incidental message which can be announced dispassionately; no common-place story among others of equal interest. This is the word of the only God of reality offering hope to lost mankind. As Carl Henry says, "The gospel is the good news of God's merciful rescue of an otherwise doomed humanity through the mediatorial life and work of Jesus Christ." [i]
The consistent message of the Bible is that God will not compromise his holy character in the face of sin. The remarkable truth of the New Testament is that he has graciously met the demands of his own holiness on our behalf in the person of his own Son. The gospel, then, is not merely a message but a message about a person. In fact, in one sense, at least, it can be said that Jesus Christ is the gospel.
One of the fundamental principles of hermeneutics is that ultimately one's study of any given biblical doctrine must be canon-wide. Error inevitably arises when the context of study is too narrow. To extrapolate theological truth from isolated texts is a threat to the life of the church. "Nowhere is this principle more important than in the study of the doctrine of salvation, for in no field are there more differences of opinion and in no study are the conclusions more far-reaching." [ii] Consequently, we must exercise the greatest care to set forth the following study with biblical balance.
I. The Meaning of the Term "Salvation"
A. The Terms
The major New Testament terms are sōdzō, sōtēria, and sōter (save, salvation, savior) and they teach us that salvation includes the ideas of deliverance, safety, and soundness.
B. The Physical Meaning
In literature contemporary to the New Testament, as well as in the New Testament itself, these terms were frequently used with no spiritual overtones. "Salvation" may mean deliverance or preservation of physical life; "to save" may mean to keep from harm or to rescue; "savior" was a title used for pagan deities and even of the Roman emperor. Some examples of this usage in the New Testament are in Acts 7:25; 27:34; Hebrews 11:7; cf. Luke 1:71; Matthew 24:13; 27:40; Hebrews 5:7; Acts 4:9.
C. The Spiritual Meaning
The primary usage of these terms, of course, relates to salvation in the spiritual sense of the word. As an introductory overview several things need to be noted.
1. Salvation is a necessary work. This is seen in light of:
a) Man's positional need
i. He is in Adam, under sin and thus God's condemnation rests on him (Rom. 3:9; Gal. 3:22; Rom. 5:12 ff.)
ii. Thus, man's need is for pardon and release to a new position in Christ, under grace (Eph. 2:13).
b) Man's natural need
i. Because of the sinful nature God declares that man is spiritually dead (Eph. 2:1-3; Rom. 5:19; Ps. 51:5).
ii. Therefore, man needs a new birth that will bring a new nature and spiritual life (John 3:3 ff.; 2 Cor. 5:17).
c) Man's practical need
i. Because he is a sinner by practice God condemns his actions (Rom. 3:10-12; Isa. 64:6).
ii. Consequently, man needs to be cleansed from his evil works and to begin to perform good works (according to God's standard) (Eph. 1:7; Col. 1:14; Tit. 3:3-8).
2. Salvation is exclusively a work of God (Jon. 2:9; 2 Tim. 1:8-10; cf. Eph. 2:8-10
The fact that salvation is by grace alone, the free gift of God apart from any human merit or action, is the clear teaching of scripture. While this is most emphatically set forth in the New Testament it is also found throughout Old Testament revelation.
Yahweh states, "I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show compassion on whom I will show compassion" (Exod. 33:19). Other evidences of the principle of grace are seen in the lives and testimony of such Old Testament characters as Jacob (Gen. 32:10), Isaiah (Isa. 61:10; 64:8; 65:1) and Daniel (Dan. 9:18). This emphasis upon grace is amplified in the New Testament (see e.g., John 3:27; 5:21; 6:44; Rom. 9:16; 11:6; 1 Cor. 4:7; Gal. 2:16, 21; Eph. 2:8-10; 2 Tim. 1:8-10; Titus 3:5).
Liberal theologians have taken passages such as Micah 6-8, Matthew 25:31-46, Luke 7:36-50 and Acts 10:4,34-35 as teaching that an ethical life of good deeds is the key to God's acceptance. In doing so, without exception, they have ignored the respective contexts as the proper setting for the interpretation of these passages.
Note the preceding grace in the Micah passage (6:4; cf. 7:7); the eschatological setting of the Matthew passage (25:31) and the fact that these actions toward Christ's brethren (the Jews) in the last time evidences a prior relationship to him (vv. 40,45); in the Luke passage the Lord specifically states, "your faith [not your works] has saved you" (7:50); and in the Acts passage the truth God is teaching Peter, to which he gives testimony, is that God is no respecter of persons, that is, he shows no partiality toward Jew as over against Gentile (10:9-16, 28,34-35). Both may come to God and both must come by faith on the basis of God's grace. [iii] Furthermore, any such conclusion as proposed by such Pelagian thinking must completely ignore the straightforward declarations to the contrary of such passages as Ephesians 2:8-10.
None of this is intended to nor does it in fact deny that man all the while is accountable before God for his sin. He is not an automaton but a responsible agent before the Judge of all the earth. Bloesch, speaking of what he calls "the paradox of salvation" says,
On the one hand is the peril of divine determinism or fatalism which makes a mockery of human freedom; this is more Stoic than Christian. On the other hand is an egalitarian voluntarism that makes salvation wholly conditional on man's free response. Christ then becomes only half a Savior, and it is no longer possible to speak of the sovereignty of grace. [iv]
He gives a helpful insight into this "paradox" when he later says, "when we believe and respond we do so through the new power that has come into our lives, the power of the Holy Spirit. This is why it is more proper to speak of a liberated will than a free will in the work of salvation." [v]
The need for a personal faith-response, and therefore of responsibility, must be maintained but it must be recognized that even this is made possible by the grace of God. In his treatment of this issue Bloesch shows a commendable desire to avoid synergism. Because of his tendency to equivocate on election he also has difficulty with monergism within which man is nonetheless accountable to God. This is the problem of much evangelical thought and consequently many of us tend to find ourselves playing around on the edges of synergism.
The order of God working for man's need must be preserved. Salvation originates with Yahweh. Who can forgive his own sin? Impart eternal life to himself? Clothe himself in God's righteousness? Write his name in heaven? The answer is self-evident and underscores the validity of the proposition.
3. Salvation is a complete work
It includes every divine undertaking for the believer from deliverance from his lost condition in sin to his final glorification.
a) It may be viewed from three standpoints (Phil. 1:6)
i. Past. The believer has been saved from the penalty of sin—Justification (Act s 16:31; 2 Tim. 1:9).
ii. Present. The believer is being saved from the power of sin—Sanctification (Phil. 2:12-13—the fact; Rom. 6, 8--the means).
iii. Future. The believer will be saved from the presence of sin—Glorification (Rom. 13:11; 1 Pet. 1:3-5).
b) It effects the whole person (2 Cor. 5:17—NASB)
i. Mind (Rom. 12:2; Eph. 4:23)
ii. Will (Phil. 3:13).
iii. Emotions (1 Thess. 4:13; Rom. 5:5)
II. God's Motives in Salvation
A. That his infinite love for the lost might be satisfied (John 3:16; 1 John 4:9-10)
B. That he might deliver those who believe from perdition and give them eternal life (John 3:16)
C. That the saved might do good works (Eph. 2:10)
D. That he might display the riches of his grace in the saved in ages to come (Eph. 2:7)
E. That his glory might be praised (Eph. 1:6, 12, 14)
F. This last item is the combination and culmination of all the others.
[i] C. F.H. Henry, God, Revelation and Authority, III, 63
[ii] H. C. Thiessen, Lectures In Systematic Theology, revised, p. 201
[iii] See also the extended discussion of these passages by Donald Bloesch, Essentials of Evangelical Theology, I, 183-87.
[iv] Bloesch, (op. cit., p. 201
[v] Ibid., p. 203
