The Reasons, Method and Attainment of Salvation

 I have often mentioned the salvation from the penalty of sin that is available through Jesus, the Christ, the Son of God. I have not, however, explained what it is and how to attain it. I want to change that with this article. To do so, I will need to start at the beginning of time at the creation, and walk you through the ways that God has revealed Himself to humanity over time. There will be some jumping back and forth through the Scriptures to grab proof texts, but the story of salvation marches from Genesis all the way to Revelation.

There seems to be a misunderstanding among not only non-Christians, but even a lot of Christians, about how and when God's moral code was given to men, and how He has sought to encourage us to follow it. There are those who have rejected God who argue that the Bible is full of murder, intrigue, sexual indecencies and all manner of other things that Christians set themselves against, and they use this as an excuse to reject God. They are absolutely right that these things are in the Bible, but this is because the Bible is a story of mankind, not a road map to moral living. The Bible does provide us with the road map to moral living, but it is given in the midst of messy stories of how mankind has messed up alongside explanations of how God has acted to continue to draw us to Him in spite of ourselves.

In Genesis we read of the creation of the world and mankind. God creates one human being (Genesis 2:7), in His own likeness (Genesis 1:27). I believe that this was so that God could enjoy His own creation with a being that could enjoy it with Him. We likely all know what it is like to create something and to find joy in sharing it with others. It was this joy and intimacy that God was seeking when He created Adam.

Yet God found that "It is not good for the man to be alone" (Genesis 2:18), so He created woman so that man could relate to another in a similar manner in which God could relate to man. This partnership also created the means through which the world would be populated.

We read that God spends time in the garden talking with Adam and Eve, building relationship with His creation. We also read further that God spoke with Cain and with Abel (Genesis 4), indicating a personal relationship with them even after mankind broke God's rule and sought to be knowledgeable in the matters of good and evil (Genesis 3). This fall of man came as a result of Lucifer enticing mankind to seek to become like God (Genesis 3:5), which is the same thing that caused Lucifer to lose his place in God's dominion (Isaiah 14:12-14).

You see, God gave dominion over all of the earth to humanity whom He created (Genesis 1:28-29, Psalm 8), and He even had Adam name the creatures of the earth (Genesis 2:19-20). When first Eve and then Adam both submitted themselves to Lucifer's deceit, they forfeited their dominion and Lucifer claimed it. This is why Lucifer is said to be 'the god of this world" (2 Corinthians 4:4). But note that this reference to "god" is lowercase; this is not an ultimate or even a permanent title. Lucifer holds it temporarily, and only under the authority of God.

The fall of mankind from our state of righteousness with God came with curses for the serpent (Lucifer), Eve and Adam. But the curses also came with a promise. Through the woman, a way would be made to restore mankind to God; "He (the offspring of the woman) shall bruise you (Lucifer) on the head, And you shall bruise him on the heel." This is the first mention of a Saviour for mankind, who will destroy the power and dominion that Lucifer swindled from mankind, and He will ultimately reclaim it for Himself.

This sin of man, the original sin, caused a chasm to form between God and mankind. God is Holy, and He cannot allow sin to remain in His presence. It is not due to any weakness in Himself, but because of His own Holiness, an unclean creature cannot survive in His presence. We see an indication of this in Exodus where Moses asks God to be able to see His face. God's response is that God can only allow Moses to see His back as He passes by, and even this glimpse of God causes Moses' face to shine with a radiant afterglow of God's glory (Exodus 33:18-23; Exodus 34:29-35).

As we read through Genesis, even after The Fall, and in spite of the chasm between God and humanity, we see that God is still seeking relationship with mankind. As we read the generations of Adam in Genesis 5, we read of Enoch, who seemed to have a particular relationship with God. This is indicated in the description of his end. Genesis 5 gives us the lineage of Adam through to Noah, and every generation that is listed ends with the stated death of the patriarch; eight times we read the words "and he died" as father begets his sons, yet in verses 21-24, we read of Enoch, who was said to walk with God; a description that the others do not share. Then when we read of Enoch's end it is stated thus; "Enoch walked with God; and he was not, for God took him." This is understood to mean that Enoch did not actually die, but that God took him to be with Him while Enoch was still alive.

As the Scriptures continue, we come to Noah, whom we are told "found favor in the eyes of the Lord." (Genesis 6:8). He also had a relationship with God when it appears that the rest of the world had rejected Him or had otherwise become corrupted. The world had become completely corrupted from the ways in which God had created it. Through improper social and sexual relations with angelic beings, mankind had been taught things that we weren't supposed to know and nature itself had become corrupted right down to its collective genome, which I covered to some degree in my article where I talk about ancient "gods" and mythological creatures. 

There is a theory to which I at least loosely subscribe, that Lucifer figured out that God was going to send a Saviour through the human bloodline (Genesis 3:15), so he figured out that if he could contaminate that bloodline sufficiently, God's plan would be thwarted and he could continue messing with 'his' world. The reason God had to act when and how He did was that both the animal and the human creation had been corrupted (Genesis 6:12) by fallen angelic beings, but "Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his time" (Genesis 6:9). That word "time" also translates to "generations", which indicates that Noah's bloodlines had not been contaminated as had the other human bloodlines. Noah's family had maintained a pure human bloodline and Noah himself had cultivated a relationship with God, so God used Noah to build the ark which was to be the nature of the salvation of the world through the cleansing of the flood. God needed to clear the human genome of spiritual contamination in order to restore the pure human bloodline through which the Saviour would enter the world.

Note also that it was not Noah who gathered the animals that were to go into the ark; God Himself chose animals with pure bloodlines and sent them to the ark by His own hand (Genesis 6:20). If Noah had gathered the animals, there was a very good chance that he would have accidentally grabbed some animals of tainted bloodlines; God's involvement in this ensured that that did not happen. So through the flood, God saved humanity and ensured that the planned path for humanity's Saviour was still secure.

Now let's jump ahead through history to Egypt where the Israelites had been living and working as slaves for the Egyptians. They had become a people without a land and without freedom, and God was about to fulfill His promises to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob that their descendants would occupy a land that they had not carved from the wilderness and cities that they had not built up. But first, He had to get them out of Egypt.

Here we come to the stories about the plagues that God sent on Egypt, including the last plague of the deaths of the first born of all the households that were not marked for protection. What was the mark? It was the shed blood of an innocent lamb placed on the lintel and the doorposts of the house. There are those who have postulated that the placement of the blood on the top and sides of the door frame, along with potential dripping to the threshold (or some believe that a trough was dug at the threshold and filled with blood as well), indicated the wounds on Jesus' head, hands and feet from His future crucifixion. God instituted the Passover in Egypt which was to be a sign for the Jewish people from that point on to point them to not only the promise of their Messiah, but to also point them to the man Himself. I have previously mentioned that I need to write an article linking the Passover to the sacrifice of our Saviour, Jesus the Christ. With Passover coming up in the next month and a half, I should probably start pulling that information together.

After the first Passover, Israel left Egypt and started travelling across the desert, where God lead them to Mount Sinai, which we touched on a little bit when I mentioned Moses earlier. It was on Mount Sinai that God gave the Israelites His Ten Commandments by which they were to live, as well as different laws and rules around civil governance, religious observations and physical and spiritual cleanliness laws. This was really the first time that God gave mankind specific guidelines to follow in order to please Him. This was entirely new information to the Israelites. Prior to this, everyone tried to find their own ways to God, which lead to so many pagan religious practices. All that this generation had known was Egyptian pantheism, which was the worship of many gods, along with their sacrificial and worship systems. It is for this reason that we really can't be too hard on the Israelites for making for themselves the golden calf of Exodus 32; they were only trying to worship the only type of god that they had ever known. This is also why that generation was unable to fully commit to God as He had revealed Himself, and they ended up almost all dying in the desert without seeing the fulfillment of God's promises. Only Caleb and Joshua survived to see the Promised Land due to their faithfulness.

God was choosing the Israelites as His own people, and He gave them the rules and the laws to set them apart from the other peoples of the lands through and into which He was about to lead them. These rules were never going to be completely fulfilled by any man; it was simply impossible to do, and God knew this, but He had to set them on a path that would bring them closer to Him instead of farther away, which is what every path of religious worship that mankind had travelled on had done to that point. Without His guidance, the Israelites would have immediately moved back towards a pagan worship and sacrificial system which would have them worshipping demons instead of their Creator God.

Part of these laws included instructions for conducting various sacrifices for the cleansing of the sins that the people would invariably commit; not necessarily due to a desire to disobey God, though that was considered as well, but also to accommodate the incidental sins that we all commit. As you read through these sacrificial laws, you see that there was a lot of blood spilled to cover the sins of the people. Over the centuries there were hundreds of thousands of animals whose lives were taken and whose blood was spilled in order to cover the sins of the people according to God's standards. In Leviticus 17:11 we see where God tells Moses why it is that these sacrifices have to be made. We read "For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it to you on the altar to make atonement for your souls; for it is the blood by reason of the life that makes atonement.’"

Gotquestions.org says the following regarding this; "A “sacrifice” is defined as the offering up of something precious for a cause or a reason. Making atonement is satisfying someone or something for an offense committed. The Leviticus verse can be read more clearly now: God said, “I have given it to you (the creature’s life, which is in its blood) to make atonement for yourselves (covering the offense you have committed against Me).” In other words, those who are covered by the blood sacrifice are set free from the consequences of sin."

But just as the rules could never be fully obeyed by any man, the blood of animals could never fully cover the sins of mankind. This was never supposed to be the final solution, but again, it points to the requirement of the spilled blood of one that is innocent to cover man's sins against God. This sacrificial system was supposed to remain in place among the Israelites until the Messiah came and fulfilled the promise of God going all the way back to Genesis 3 and the curse that was placed on the serpent. The problem is that the religious leaders of Jesus' day did not recognize Him as their Messiah, so the vast majority of Jews do not do so either. If it weren't for God having the Romans destroy the second Temple, the Jewish people would still be conducting their sacrifices to God, which after having sent His very own Son to fulfill the Law, those sacrifices would be a detestable odour in His nostrils. There are around 35 Biblical references to the sacrifices of the Israelites being a sweet odour in God's nostrils when they are conducted correctly, but since the final sacrifice has been presented, the smell of their sacrifices is no longer pleasing to Him. It was actually an act of mercy on God's part that the Temple was destroyed and the sacrifices were brought to an end so that His anger with His people who have rejected His Son would not be continually stirred up. Yet the Orthodox Jews still desire to set up a new Temple and reinstate the sacrificial system.

Jesus came as the pure and spotless Lamb of God to act as the final sacrifice to pay for the sins that we commit. His birth, life and death fulfilled over 300 prophecies about the Messiah that the Jews were to watch for. We have the benefit of hindsight and the letters to the churches that make up the New Testament, yet too many people still reject Jesus as God's Son and the only way by which we can hope to see God (John 14:6).

Jesus' birth indicated that He was the final Passover Lamb. His life exemplified how we are to live according to God's purposes, and His death fulfilled the rules of the Passover. But His death was not the final act. His death paid the penalty for our sins in much the same way that the Passover Lamb covered the lives of the firstborn in Egypt, and as the sacrificial animals temporarily did for the Israelites, but His resurrection defeated the grave and promised eternal life to those who accept the gift of the payment that He made, and it is because of His resurrection that the payment is final! After His resurrection, Jesus ascended to Heaven and took His place as the High Priest in the Temple of Heaven and intervenes for us with the Father.

The writer of Hebrews lays it out for us in this way in Hebrews 9:11-22; "But when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things to come, He entered through the greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this creation; 12 and not through the blood of goats and calves, but through His own blood, He entered the holy place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption. 13 For if the blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a heifer sprinkling those who have been defiled sanctify for the cleansing of the flesh, 14 how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without blemish to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?

"15 For this reason He is the mediator of a new covenant, so that, since a death has taken place for the redemption of the transgressions that were committed under the first covenant, those who have been called may receive the promise of the eternal inheritance. 16 For where a covenant is, there must of necessity be the death of the one who made it. 17 For a covenant is valid only when men are dead, for it is never in force while the one who made it lives. 18 Therefore even the first covenant was not inaugurated without blood. 19 For when every commandment had been spoken by Moses to all the people according to the Law, he took the blood of the calves and the goats, with water and scarlet wool and hyssop, and sprinkled both the book itself and all the people, 20 saying, “This is the blood of the covenant which God commanded you.” 21 And in the same way he sprinkled both the tabernacle and all the vessels of the ministry with the blood. 22 And according to the Law, one may almost say, all things are cleansed with blood, and without shedding of blood there is no forgiveness."

What is the first covenant that is mentioned here? It is the covenant that God Himself made with Abram in Genesis 15. Here we see the manner in which a covenant was established in the ancient middle east. When two parties were going to enter into a covenant relationship, the greater of the two parties had the lesser of the two parties cut animals in half and lay them in such a way as to create a pathway between the pieces. The lesser of the two parties would walk the pathway, stating the conditions of the covenant, and the understanding was that if the lesser party would break the covenant, he would become like those dead animals, the pieces of which he had walked between.

Yet when we examine Genesis 15, we see that, though Abram provided the animals, God Himself walked between the pieces, proclaiming that if Abram, or his descendants, broke the covenant, God would place Himself in the position of forfeiting His life in payment for that trespass. We know that God is passing between them because the words "flaming" and "torch" (v. 17) are the same words that we read in Exodus 19 and 20 when we are told that God descended on Mount Sinai in fire. So God appeared first to Abram in fire to establish this covenant, then to Moses in the desert, then again to Moses and all of Israel to establish another covenant with them.

The words of the covenant that God spoke as He passed between the animal pieces are as follows, which we find in Genesis 15:18-21; "To your descendants I have given this land, From the river of Egypt as far as the great river, the river Euphrates: 19 the Kenite and the Kenizzite and the Kadmonite 20 and the Hittite and the Perizzite and the Rephaim 21 and the Amorite and the Canaanite and the Girgashite and the Jebusite."

God promised the land to Abram's descendants as long as they remained faithful to Him. Yet we know that, again and again, Israel turned their collective backs on God. I am sure that not all Israelites rejected God, but a sufficient number of them did for God to punish them as a whole by causing them to be removed from the land. So the covenant was broken, not by God, but by the Israelites. Yet the covenant made with Abram required that God become like those slaughtered animals in order to restore relationship between God and His chosen people. So God had to die.

This is why Jesus, the Son of God and part of the Triune Head of God had to come to earth as a man and to die as the perfect, innocent sacrifice; the Lamb of God. The terms of the covenant had to be fulfilled, and that burden was God's to bear.

So hopefully you know of the story of Easter; the real story, not the Easter bunny and chocolate eggs. I do not have the time or the space to cover that here, but as we are approaching Easter again, this is another article that I may need to write in order to lay it out and explain the importance of different aspects of it. But I hope that you at least know that the Biblical Easter story is that of the sacrifice of Jesus and, most importantly, His resurrection, for the payment of our sin debt to God.

Now for the final aspect that I want to cover in this article, and that is how we, as sinful, fallen humans, can attain that salvation for ourselves. It is very simple to attain, but it is not easy to retain properly. I don't mean that we need to be perfect in our steps after this; God's grace is great where we fall short, but too many people think that claiming the gift is the first and final step. That will get you into the gates of Heaven, but God promises a home, and the nature of that home is up to us to determine through how we live our lives. Claiming salvation will get you what would amount to a Heavenly shack just inside the gates; I strive for a mansion right next to the Throne Room of God, and I encourage you to do the same. This requires that we give our lives to God, which means that we do not pursue our own desires, but His.

There are Christians who use "The Sinner's Prayer" to take others to God's throne and get them to accept Jesus' gift of salvation. This is not a Biblical statute and this prayer is not found anywhere in Scripture, though there is nothing wrong with praying it. So following is an example of The Sinner's Prayer. If you feel like this is a step that you want to take, then please feel free to pray these words to begin your journey of faith. You just need to understand that this is just the first step of a journey; this is not the destination. This is a commitment to God to walk with Him and not to just stand beside Him. God is not stationary, and if you want to stay with Him you need to move as He moves. If you want to claim Jesus' salvation for yourself, you can pray the following:

Dear Heavenly Father, I know that I have lived a life of sin in defiance of what has been your will for me. I recognize that You are God and that I am your creation. I want my life to show that I have chosen to follow You. Father, please forgive me of my sins and remove the debt of the punishment due to me. I confess with my mouth and I believe in my heart that Jesus is Your Son and I claim the shed blood of Jesus as the payment of this debt. I believe that Jesus rose again and sits at Your right hand and that I receive forgiveness because of His sacrifice. I commit myself to seeking You and Your will for my life, and I commit to turning away from my sinful ways. Please guide me as I seek to know You more. Amen.

 If you have prayed this prayer, please let me know by leaving a comment in the comments section below or by sending me an email at the address found in my profile information. As I said, this prayer is not a destination, there is an entire journey of discipleship ahead of you, and I don't want you to walk this path alone. Perhaps I can help you to find a good church in your area where they can disciple you in your walk.

Salvation through Jesus by His shed blood is the only way that we will avoid an eternity of anguish away from God in the Lake of Fire. God does not desire that anybody goes there. It was created for Satan and his demons because they have rejected God, but people that reject God are destined for that same future as well. God has provided a way for us to avoid that future and to spend our eternity with Him. God does not send anybody to Hell; we choose it for ourselves when we reject His detour.