Defining Christian Salvation: What’s the Real Deal?
What is Salvation?
Up to this point, we see the impact of sin — death. Following Jewish laws and customs doesn’t provide a way out. Nothing we can individually do can avoid the outcome of death and eventual judgment. Left there, we are lost, and there is nothing we can do. That summarizes the Old Testament save for the prophecies that God will provide a way.
The story of Jesus in the New Testament is told in four gospel narratives. However, the short of it is that God prepared himself a sacrifice that would forever end the need for future sacrifices. Recall the ancient Jewish law had to provide a regularly repeated sacrifice for infinity, and still, sin was not forgiven. It highlighted sins committed and rolled accumulated sins forward into the future. To paraphrase, it constantly threw our sins into our faces repeatedly. A constant reminder of guilt we never escape. This is why the prophets and good people of old who trusted God still died and went to Hades. We still see the wages of sin taking place all around us as death and destruction of one type or another abound.
The only way God could save his creation was to pattern and indwell a person who lived the law without sin and withstanding the assaults of Satan, even suffering death. Death is Satan’s power over those who sin, not the righteous. Killing Jesus was a big mistake as he had no authority to do so. In exchange, God transferred the righteousness of Jesus to those who believed and trusted in him. This transference cripples the power of Satan to condemn those having faith in Jesus.
“But now that you have been freed from sin and enslaved to God, the advantage you get is sanctification (cleansed). The end is eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the (unearned) gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus, our Lord.” — Romans 6: 22–23
Still, the issue is why death and destruction are still seen in the world today. If we are saved from sin, which leads to death, why is death still in the world? This is indeed a great question! Some think physical death, while part of God’s curse on the first humans in Eden, is a blessing. How can this be? When death was brought into the world by sin, and all flesh was cursed by it, it allowed the potential for salvation, unlike the fallen angels who sinned. As immortals, the fallen angels were imprisoned in darkness and held until the final judgment. The curse of God is irrevocable; once sin and death entered the world, this remained throughout the ages.
Humankind is unique as we are both a physical body and an immortal spirit. This allowed the curse of sin and death to be experienced without the destruction of the soul. God’s judgment against the sinful body persists. As Paul stated in Romans 7:21–25, the ongoing war between the body and the spirit doesn’t end because of the sanctification of Christ. The body still seeks to sin and, therefore, still faces the penalty of death. It’s the sanctified soul or spirit that is redeemed through Christ and, once liberated from the body of death, is raised to new life and ultimately a sinless spiritual body.
This confuses the modern world as many Christians claim all curses are removed after the sacrifice of Christ. We should enjoy wealth and prosperity now, a new Eden-like experience. Ultimately, this leads us to the conclusion that we should never die. This is fundamentally flawed, as reality reveals there is still death, poverty, and despair in the world…even for believers. Jesus repeatedly said his kingdom was not of this world and that flesh and blood could not inherit the kingdom of God. We share aspects of the Kingdom experience in this life but cannot enter while in the body. Only a foretaste (the Holy Spirit) and periodic experiences of joy remind us of our split nature.
