The Essential: Salvation
Salvation is the final triumph of the gospel in bringing believers to eternal safety and joy in the presence of a holy and glorious God.
Salvation is the final triumph of the gospel in bringing believers to eternal safety and joy in the presence of a holy and glorious God.
How are you saved? Many people miss seeing Christ as the basis for our salvation and the fountain from which we draw for our moral life. This article reflects on two ways you can misunderstand the gospel, and explains the only way to get it right.
This article looks at salvation as the work of God alone, salvation as brought by Jesus Christ, and the plan of God in the redemption of man.
Is Christianity simply about forgiveness? This article argues that the gospel message is about not only forgiveness but also restoration through the resurrection of Jesus.
Why is it that many Christians are reluctant when it comes to sharing the gospel? What is the main reason for not evangelizing? One of the reasons for not sharing the gospel is that often people do not know what the gospel is. To overcome this problem, the article explains what the gospel is.
What is the gospel? When defining the gospel, take into consideration the ten things the article explains.
What is the gospel and how does it shape life? In Galatians 2:11-16 Christians are not only given the meaning of the gospel; they are also shown how the gospel shapes all of life.
What does it mean to be gospel-centred? Being gospel-centred is to focus on Jesus Christ.
Grace is getting what you don't deserve, and not getting what you do deserve. This article explains that the grace of God is the centre of the gospel's message.
Grace is important because grace is what carries the Christian life from its beginning to an end.
What should be the starting point in the salvation of man? With whom should our gospel start? In view of the fact that God elects his people unto salvation, can the church then sit back and wait, and can the sinner can be ignorant and complacent? These are the questions that this article attempts to answer.
Is it unfair to claim exclusivity of Jesus Christ for salvation? Jesus is the only way to salvation; to claim the opposite is being unfair.
This Introduction is about redemption. It explores the broad spectrum of meanings attached to redemption in the Bible. The author demonstrates how the Bible’s story about God actually answers our life’s questions. The pattern of creation, fall, and redemption is followed in a brief survey of God’s story with man. In a later section on redemption as renewal, the author indicates how God’s story culminates in a new creation.
Does the Bible say anything about infant salvation? What happens to infants when they die? This article looks at three answers given throughout church history. It then discusses infant salvation in relation to effectual calling and regeneration, election, baptism, and covenant. What should be the answer?
There are those who preach salvation that is based on good works and the free will of man. There is also salvation based on God's grace. This article shows that to preach a salvation dependent on man's free will goes against the grain of Scripture. It gives four reasons why this is so.
Christianity is knowing God, and at the heart of knowing God is the gospel. This article shows what the gospel is and what hinders people from knowing the gospel.
What is salvation? What are we saved from? Salvation refers to our ultimate redemption from sin and our reconciliation to God. We are saved from the God's judgment. Salvation is both of the Lord and from the Lord. It is the Lord who saves us from the wrath of the Lord.
This article contrasts the biblical understanding of redemption with the modern use of the word. The modern use of this word disassociates redemption with the concepts of Christ's work and mankind's sin.
Christ accomplished a complete salvation; there is nothing which needs to be added to what He has already done.
In 1 Corinthians 1:30 Christ is called our "redemption". This tells us something about our bondage to sin, about those who are redeemed by Christ, and the payment made to secure such a redemption.
In order for one to be saved, one must possess a saving knowledge. This is a knowledge that is rooted in the heart in response to the truth of the gospel, leading to faith in Christ. Salvation is knowing the Father and the Son in their character.
Is Jesus the only way of salvation? The doctrine of Inclusivism is a denial of God's justice and His gracious work of salvation.
This is the second article in a series on various doctrinal issues facing the church today. This article looks at the debate between salvation exclusivism and inclusivism. Are those who were not evangelized also saved?The current embracing of inclusivism by the Roman Catholic Church and the challenge of neo-Arminianism is posing a threat to the orthodox faith. The author calls readers to stand up for biblical truth.
This article examines how the resurrection, ascension and enthronement of Christ relates to our salvation. Christ's resurrection seals salvation, His ascension gives us guarantee, and His enthronement points us to Christ's Lordship.
This article is about the gift of salvation for believers. Christians are powerless, ungodly, dependant, guilty sinners. However, God met these needs and shortcomings with the gift of His Son.
In this exposition of Psalm 124, the author shows that God's people find confidence in God's protection and defense when they are faced with persecution and attacks.
What is Jesus' role in our salvation? This article addresses this question and discusses how it relates to evangelism. Do people have to hear the Gospel in order to be saved?
False expectations can turn a good relationship into a bad one. This is also true in our relationship with the Lord. When we hear Jesus say, “Whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst”, one might jump to the conclusion that once you come to Jesus all your longings are satisfied then and there. As if there will be no more dissatisfaction of any sort. But in this article, John Piper emphasizes that Christians should expect some dissatisfaction in this life.
Why should the gospel be central? This article points to biblical texts to reveal the importance of the gospel for the whole of the Christian life.
What is a threat to the gospel? When the message of justification is confused with the law, church membership, and work, then the gospel becomes bad news.
This article shows that salvation is only possible when sin is dealt with and the justice of God is fully satisfied. God fulfilled this in Christ; thus salvation is only through him.
The biblical concept of grace can easily become meaningless due to its abundant use in Christendom. The author of this article sets out to describe this term and especially how it is related to God's work of salvation. This grace is irresistible grace.
How would you define the gospel? As something, or someone? This article stresses the need for seeing the gospel as the crucified and risen Christ.
This article explores different aspects of the doctrine of salvation in the Gospel of John. Aspects considered include the role of repentance, incarnation, and vicarious atonement.
How did you come to believe in Christ? Answering this question rests in understanding: man's total inability, God's sovereign power in election, free will, the gift of salvation, the work of the Holy Spirit, the well-meant offer of the gospel.
Amidst all the grief and sorrows of this life, what is the one question that matters most? The question that is asked in Acts 16: what must I do to be saved? Today Christians must provide this answer to the many people who seek to fill the emptiness of their life without Christ.
This article mourns the misunderstanding now prevalent in relation to the gospel of Christ. It starts with an attempt to provide a biblical understanding of the use of nouns and verbs related to the word "gospel" and proceeds to explain what is meant by that word. The definition covers the basic message of the biblical story and also details how it must be told today in order to faithfully reflect the biblical message.
This article is in the form of a dialogue, and the discussion between the participants is focused on salvation that is based on one's contribution. The alternative view being expressed by the other participant is that salvation is based on no effort of the one saved, but must all be credited to God.
This article is in the form of a series of letters on the subject of salvation. It offers advice on the common misconceptions and errors surrounding the understanding of the event and process of salvation. It especially focuses on salvation as wholly a work of God, a calling to obedient living, a divine deliverance, and so forth.
The author sets out to describe what is meant by the expression "salvation by grace." It captures man's position in the misery of his sinfulness, God's choice to save man, and thus how salvation is not something that anyone can earn by merit but is a display of the grace of God.
Is there any hope for those who never heard the gospel? In this essay Baker affirms that the Scriptures teach that salvation is by faith in God, and mediated through Jesus Christ. The author wants to look at safeguards against the dangers of unwarranted inferences from this. He wants his readers to be wary of speaking carelessly about the hope we have.
In this article are notes on the doctrine of salvation defining the meaning of salvation and the involvement of the Triune God in salvation. The author also zooms in on the different views of salvation discussing the Arminian view and Calvinisitic view.
This Introduction calls attention to current discussions about the sovereignty of the grace of God displayed in his effectual calling through the gospel and regeneration through the Holy Spirit (monergism). This monergism stands in direct opposition to synergistic views of salvation where man fully participates in his salvation.
It has often been said that the Gospel of Mark has no real teaching on salvation. Theologians commonly identify the teaching on the person of Christ as Mark's central concern. Although Mark certainly does focus on Christ, for him his teaching on Christ is inseparable from what he teaches on salvation. In Mark's Gospel, understanding who Jesus is and what He did and is doing entails acknowledging his claim upon one's life. Therefor Mark's characteristic model of salvation is discipleship.
The term "salvation" (Greek, soteria) has given us the name for a central category of systematic theology (soteriology). However many discussions of the doctrine of salvation do not give much attention to the actual Biblical use of the word group related to salvation. In Systematic Theology the approach is to synthesize the various Biblical concepts, and the terms for salvation occur with relative rarity.
This essay focuses on the question, will God give the opportunity of salvation to those who have never heard the gospel of Christ? It wants to give a fair presentation of three different responses to this question: the unevangelized are lost, there is a future chance after death for the unevangelized, and the unevangelized are saved or lost depending on their response to the light they have.
John Calvin explains what is meant when God says he wants to have all men saved (1 Timothy 2:3-5). In the process, Calvin also seeks to show that this text should not be used to invalidate God's election of his people. Rather, it must still be understood in view of God's sovereignty even in the matter of salvation. The impact of this view on world evangelism is also debated.
This article discusses the matter of universalism, and shows how there is only one kind that is biblical.
Are those who have not heard the gospel excluded from the blessing of a life with God? More evangelical scholars have recently questioned the conviction that those who die without faith in Christ are excluded from eternal blessings. In this paper it is argued that an unqualified inclusivism undermines the urgency of mission and evangelism. Two scholars, Clark Pinnock and John Sanders are placed in the spotlight.
Is the view of salvation generally held in contemporary evangelicalism an under-realized eschatology with a too-narrow focus on forgiveness alone? This article suggests this is the case, and offers the doctrine of salvation we find in the theology of Athanasius as a correction.