Is Your salvation the work of God alone

Is Your Salvation The Work Of GOD Alone?

By:
On:
In: Apologetics
Tagged:
Spread the love

The most tragic thing that has occurred to humanity is our lack of interest in understanding and discovering objective Truth. Relativism has produced such a deep slumber that few people believe in the existence of objective truth. If you’re reading this, I’m assuming you believe in God’s objective existence. However, if you do not believe in the certainty of His existence, I welcome you to  CLICK HERE for my post on it. Before we can discuss the origin of your salvation, we must first define what it is to be saved. We’ve reached a point in our society where people believe hell is a construct invented to control people.

What Does It Mean To Be Saved?

Why do you think you and I need to be saved? The answer is straightforward, and it should send shivers down your spine. We absolutely need to be saved from God’s WRATH. When Adam and Eve disobeyed the Lord’s word in Genesis 3 (by eating the forbidden fruit), the entire human race was plunged into darkness. That is to say, by nature, we became enemies of God, and the Bible talks of us as objects of Wrath. So, in essence, we are born with God’s wrath on our shoulders. To be more specific, you and I are born with the same sentence: we are condemned to hell.

And the evidence of our condemnation is revealed in our incapacity to perfectly observe God’s commands. God is flawless in all of His ways, and in order to satisfy Him (have fellowship with Him), we must also be perfect in all of our ways by obeying His Law. In his book, James reminds us of this.

10 For whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become guilty of all of it

We’re also told in the book of Romans 3:10-11,

10 as it is written:

“None is righteous, no, not one;
11 no one understands;
no one seeks for God.
12 All have turned aside; together they have become worthless;
no one does good,
not even one.”
13 “Their throat is an open grave;
they use their tongues to deceive.”
“The venom of asps is under their lips.”
14 “Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness.”
15 “Their feet are swift to shed blood;
16 in their paths are ruin and misery,
17 and the way of peace they have not known.”
18 “There is no fear of God before their eyes.”

What do these verses teach us? The bible states unequivocally that there is none righteous, implying that none of us born with the Adamique nature has the inherent ability to be made right with God. In other words, we are unable to please God by nature, which means we cannot save ourselves. So, who can help us? And I’m sure any Christian would agree that God is the only one who can save us through the work of the Messiah Jesus Christ on the cross.

How Does Salvation Come About?

To answer this question, we need to look at what the Bible says. In John 3:16, we read the following,

16 “For God so loved the world,[a] that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.

Essentially, John 3:16 states that one is saved by believing in HIM ( JESUS CHRIST). To be saved from God’s wrath, one must believe (have faith) in the name of Jesus Christ. To put it another way, to believe in Jesus Christ’s name, one must have faith in His character. God is My Savior, as his name implies. But the question is, how does one acquire this faith, the faith to believe in Jesus Christ? Our misunderstanding of the Adamique nature will lead us to believe that we are capable of believing in Jesus Christ on our own. When the Bible says we are dead in our transgressions, it truly means we are dead (read John 11:1-44, a picture of our salvation). To put it another way, a dead man cannot save himself from death. When Adam and Eve fell, we as their offspring lost our ability to love the things of God, we were by nature slaves of sin ( the sinful nature). Paul expresses our condition in Romans 6:20,

20 For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness

Because we are slaves of the sinful nature, we can’t choose the good, we are unable to choose the righteous things of God. In other words, if given the choice between Jesus ( the good of God) and our wretchedness we will always choose our wretchedness. Paul adds in Romans 8:7-8,

7 For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed, it cannot. 8 Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.

It is crucial that we understand what the apostle is saying. The natural man ( the man/woman with the Adamique nature) according to the word of God does not submit to the law of God because He/she CANNOT. This is so emphatic that you cannot miss it. This means that you do not have the inherent ability to choose the good: to believe in Jesus Christ. I’m saying all this to say that even though John 3:16 says that whoever believes in Jesus will not perish, we must understand that “believing in Jesus” is impossible unless we are regenerated by God Himself. And this is where people lose their minds.

A Picture Of Our Salvation: Genesis 19:15-16

15 As morning dawned, the angels urged Lot, saying, “Up! Take your wife and your two daughters who are here, lest you be swept away in the punishment of the city.” 16 But he lingered. So the men seized him and his wife and his two daughters by the hand, the Lord being merciful to him, and they brought him out and set him outside the city

I’m sure you’re familiar with the story of Sodom, Gomorrah, and Lot. The complete record can be found in Genesis 18 and 19. I’d like you to concentrate on the highlighted phrases and terms. Lot foresaw the destruction of the city of Sodom. Yet the Bible states he lingered (in other words, he didn’t want to make the correct decision to depart even though he knew God’s vengeance was coming). And the scripture says that the angels grabbed his hand and drew him out of the city. According to the same scriptures, this act of seizing by the hand is represented as God’s mercy. What does this account reveal about the human condition? When presented between God’s will and our own will, we have the moral inability to do the righteous thing; we will always choose our will like LOT because we are captives of sin. And it takes the intervention of God through His mercy to save us. ( because HE is perfect in His love).

Let’s also go to Luke 18:18-27

18 And a ruler asked him, “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” 19 And Jesus said to him, “Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone. 20 You know the commandments: ‘Do not commit adultery, Do not murder, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Honor your father and mother.’” 21 And he said, “All these I have kept from my youth.” 22 When Jesus heard this, he said to him, “One thing you still lack. Sell all that you have and distribute to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.” 23 But when he heard these things, he became very sad, for he was extremely rich. 24 Jesus, seeing that he had become sad, said, “How difficult it is for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God! 25 For it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.” 26 Those who heard it said, “Then who can be saved?” 27 But he said, “What is impossible with man is possible with God.

As you can see, the young ruler made the bold assumption that he could be saved by keeping the law, but quickly realized that he couldn’t keep the law of God. The law was put into place so that mankind could look to Jesus for salvation. The law was never meant to be the means for salvation, for no one born with the Adamique nature can keep the law. I just wanted to mention that. But the most important part of this account is verse 27. Jesus clearly said that man cannot save himself ( it is an impossibility) unless God intervenes. But some may read this verse and suggest that Jesus is only saying that mankind can only be saved by accepting God’s offer of salvation. But we already came to the conclusion from earlier passages that man doesn’t have the moral ability to accept or receive God’s offer salvation. This lead me to another passage, John 6.

35 Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst. 36 But I said to you that you have seen me and yet do not believe. 37 All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out.

41 So the Jews grumbled about him, because he said, “I am the bread that came down from heaven.” 42 They said, “Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How does he now say, ‘I have come down from heaven’?” 43 Jesus answered them, “Do not grumble among yourselves. 44 No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him.

63 It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh is no help at all. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life. 64 But there are some of you who do not believe.” (For Jesus knew from the beginning who those were who did not believe, and who it was who would betray him.) 65 And he said, “This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted him by the Father.”

I hope after reading these passages, you recognize what is going on. The people had heard Jesus yet they grumbled and rejected His claims. I want you to zero in on the highlighted phrases , coming out of Jesus’ lips. Clearly, our Lord says that no one can come to Him, meaning no one can receive Him as Lord and Savior UNLESS ( this implies an initial  necessary condition) the Father draws him/her. In essence it is God who works in a person both to will and act according to His good purpose. So God works through His Spirit to enable our hearts to receive Jesus as our Lord and Savior, and this is the result of the mercy and grace of God.

Some might say that receiving Jesus is coerced. My personal reaction is that I’m delighted it happened to me. But what most people forget is that perfect love drives out fear. God’s love is what drove him to take Lot’s hand; it wasn’t force, it was divine perfect love. Let me ask you a question-what did you have to do with your physical birth? What part did you play in it? I hope your answer is a resounding NOTHING. So if you had nothing to do with your physical birth, what makes you think you had anything to do with your spiritual birth.  John 1: 12-13,

. 12 But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, 13 who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.

Your spiritual birth was according to the will of God, you had no part in it, it was solely the work of God. I know it’s a hard pill to swallow for many of you, that is because your pride. So is your salvation the work of God alone, YES IT IS.