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Biblical Salvation
If when asked the question, How do you know you are saved?, you respond, "Because I now live right", what does this mean? This sort of response would make the Hindu ascetic, the Buddhist monk, and the devotee of Islaam partakers of your type of salvation. Salvation in the Biblical sense is not right living as such. Biblical salvation as purposed by God is none other than living and breathing the whole of one’s existence under the Supreme Head, Jesus Christ. “Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the commandment of God our Saviour, and Lord Jesus Christ” (1Timothy 1:1). You cannot dichotomize the Lordship and Saviorhood of Jesus Christ--they are indivisible characteristics of His nature and His work in redemption. It is impossible to say, "Why, yes, I have accepted Christ as my personal Savior, but I have not quite made that step into receiving Him as Lord of my life." You are either saved unto God's ultimate and categorical reign in your life, or you are not saved at all, and the sentence of death and eternal wrath hang over you to this very hour.
God does not save a man or woman in order to place them on display to shine for a brief while until they collect dust while reveling in their own whiteness. The evidence of salvation in Jesus Christ is expressed in the irrevocable surrender of one’s life to God for God’s own desired end, whether destruction or blessing. Whatever tells for God’s highest glory is the mark of His Lordship and salvation in a man.
It is the religious fervor that denies the redemption of Jesus Christ that calls attention to its own accomplishments in living, whether by outright declaration or inward intention. Such a life only exemplifies the fact that the man doing such is more alive to himself than ever, and thus living for himself, and not for God. Conversely, it is the soul that has been united with Christ in His death, burial, and resurrection that takes no account of the right actions, but only remains a servant of his Master, chained to Him as His prisoner of love, doing his Master’s bidding out of a pure heart. (See 1John 3:2-9). "So likewise ye, when ye shall have done all those things which are commanded you, say, We are unprofitable servants: we have done that which was our duty to do" (Luke 17:10). Oswald Chambers says that sin is not the enemy of God, it is our enemy. He then states that the enemy of God is a moral rectitude based on a denial of Jesus Christ. Any form of morality that is divorced from the Cross of Jesus Christ is not morality at all, but rather a stench before a righteous and holy God.
It is the disciple of Jesus Christ that is a living sacrifice. A dead sacrifice is one that examines its own degree of rightness and in an attempt to modify itself, thus conforms to a higher standard. This is behavior modification, and it is an idea as foreign to the New Testament idea of salvation as night is to day. A living sacrifice, on the other hand, will have been changed from the inside out, not by gazing upon his own deeds or misdeeds, attempting to alter his character through personal ambition and striving; but rather by beholding the face of Jesus Christ, and in so doing is transformed by the Holy Spirit into a completely different image, that of the Lord Himself (2Corinthians 3:16-17).
Man’s work will result in work for man, perpetuating an image of a god fashioned after the likeness of man. As a side note, this sort of right doing will also produce a righteousness that is not righteousness at all, because it has traveled through the filter of man’s corrupted sense of virtue, which virtue is vitiated because it is merely the remnants of what man used to be prior to the fall of Adam. Transformation via abiding in and looking upon Yahweh Tsidkenu (the Lord our Righteousness, see Jeremiah 23:6) will result in bringing glory to God by God’s Spirit working within man—God’s handiwork done by God’s hand. "For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them" (Ephesians 2:10). This is done by the Lord Who is that Spirit. Ah, there is the wonder of it all—righteousness, redemption, liberty, salvation all under one Supreme Head, the Lord Jesus Christ!
God does not save a man or woman in order to place them on display to shine for a brief while until they collect dust while reveling in their own whiteness. The evidence of salvation in Jesus Christ is expressed in the irrevocable surrender of one’s life to God for God’s own desired end, whether destruction or blessing. Whatever tells for God’s highest glory is the mark of His Lordship and salvation in a man.
It is the religious fervor that denies the redemption of Jesus Christ that calls attention to its own accomplishments in living, whether by outright declaration or inward intention. Such a life only exemplifies the fact that the man doing such is more alive to himself than ever, and thus living for himself, and not for God. Conversely, it is the soul that has been united with Christ in His death, burial, and resurrection that takes no account of the right actions, but only remains a servant of his Master, chained to Him as His prisoner of love, doing his Master’s bidding out of a pure heart. (See 1John 3:2-9). "So likewise ye, when ye shall have done all those things which are commanded you, say, We are unprofitable servants: we have done that which was our duty to do" (Luke 17:10). Oswald Chambers says that sin is not the enemy of God, it is our enemy. He then states that the enemy of God is a moral rectitude based on a denial of Jesus Christ. Any form of morality that is divorced from the Cross of Jesus Christ is not morality at all, but rather a stench before a righteous and holy God.
It is the disciple of Jesus Christ that is a living sacrifice. A dead sacrifice is one that examines its own degree of rightness and in an attempt to modify itself, thus conforms to a higher standard. This is behavior modification, and it is an idea as foreign to the New Testament idea of salvation as night is to day. A living sacrifice, on the other hand, will have been changed from the inside out, not by gazing upon his own deeds or misdeeds, attempting to alter his character through personal ambition and striving; but rather by beholding the face of Jesus Christ, and in so doing is transformed by the Holy Spirit into a completely different image, that of the Lord Himself (2Corinthians 3:16-17).
Man’s work will result in work for man, perpetuating an image of a god fashioned after the likeness of man. As a side note, this sort of right doing will also produce a righteousness that is not righteousness at all, because it has traveled through the filter of man’s corrupted sense of virtue, which virtue is vitiated because it is merely the remnants of what man used to be prior to the fall of Adam. Transformation via abiding in and looking upon Yahweh Tsidkenu (the Lord our Righteousness, see Jeremiah 23:6) will result in bringing glory to God by God’s Spirit working within man—God’s handiwork done by God’s hand. "For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them" (Ephesians 2:10). This is done by the Lord Who is that Spirit. Ah, there is the wonder of it all—righteousness, redemption, liberty, salvation all under one Supreme Head, the Lord Jesus Christ!
posted by Bryan | 1:09 AM
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