Salvation Come!

Oh, that salvation for Israel would come out of Zion! (Psalm 14:7)

The biblical understanding of life and human society is that God must come and save us. It is good, during election times, to keep this thought in mind.

Most ideologies put their hopes in humanity — that we must fix our own problems without any expectation of God’s help or deliverance. Some invest in political solutions, some in economic solutions, some in popular social movements, and some others are anarchists who put themselves above all others.

But the Christian understanding is that any human government is a temporary arrangement, born out of necessity, and not the ideal. We must wait for the return of Christ before the ideal will be established on earth — as Christ taught us to pray, “Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” The order in Christ’s prayer is instructive — his kingdom must come first for his will to be done here like it is in heaven.

The values of his kingdom come to our hearts at our salvation, so the principle of the kingdom of God is already at work in this world. Through the teachings and witness of justice, mercy, righteousness, and compassion, we find the influence of Christ and of his future kingdom already among this world. A study of the history of the world’s governments will reveal that you cannot separate the establishment of fair and just laws from the influence of Christianity.

The Old Testament teachings of workers’ rights, fair compensation for injury, the central role of the family, the compassion for the poor and dispossessed, especially for the fatherless, and other central concerns of human justice, have become part of the fabric of world government and civilizations.

Yet we apply them unequally, imperfectly, and spasmodically. The problem is not only in the writing of just laws, but in the application of these laws and the daily living lives that will help establish justice.

The problem, in other words, is in the human heart itself, and no form of government will be able to completely establish justice until the heart is changed. And that must happen by God. so we pray as did the saints of old, “Oh, that salvation would come!”

Forgiveness came out of Zion: Zion was the fortified city of Jerusalem, but came to mean the temple mount itself, and eventually for Christians, the heaven of God — and all of this centered in the person of Christ. Peter quoted Isaiah the prophet when he said, “See, I lay a stone in Zion, a chosen and precious cornerstone, and the one who trusts in him will never be put to shame” (1 Peter 2:6 and Isaiah 28:16).

On Zion, on the temple mount, for centuries, the coming sacrifice of Christ for the sins of the world was acted out daily by the priests and the daily sacrifices — the pictured the coming sacrifice of Christ on the cross for the sins of the world. The world cannot be healed and move forward until there is grace and forgiveness. In the sacrifice of Christ is the mercy and grace of God for the forgiveness of all the sins of the world.

The future Millennial kingdom will come out of Zion: At the return of Christ the bible teaches about a Millennial Kingdom — a one thousand year period of time in the future where the government of the world will be centered in Jerusalem and Christ will reign. (Revelation 20) Christ, as the stone rejected by the builders, will become the chief cornerstone of a new world government.

The eternal city New Jerusalem will also come “out of Zion”: Christ will also return. The author of Hebrews spoke of the eternal dwelling of God and also called it Zion: “But you have come to Mount Zion, to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem” (Heb. 12:22). There will come a time when God will remove the impact of sin from the human heart, where he will remove our lusts and pride, and complete the spiritual transformation (Phil. 1:6; Rom. 8:28–30; 1 Thes. 5:23–24). There will come a time when human lives, whose hearts were unwilling to bow before Christ in faith and obedience will be removed from the scene of human society, and life shall be lived in the full knowledge and experience of his perfect Lordship.

So, during election seasons, it is good to remember these truths. We should elect the finest people we can — the most moral and decent — and enact the finest laws we can imagine. But the heart of our problems today is spiritual, and until Christ comes we will not live in perfect peace and justice. Yet he is coming! Salvation will come for us who believe! That is our hope!