The Requirements for Salvation

Justification does not equal Salvation, but is rather a sub- category underneath Salvation. It is the door through which men enter onto the narrow way to salvation (Mt. 7:13f). What is required for a person to go through this door and enter into the road leads to life; that road upon which we will find sweet fellowship with our living God?

The requirement: humility. What was the problem with Man when he fell? Pride! He wants to be God! He wants to think he earned it! He wants to think he deserved it! When one really understands the transaction between God and God, and the nature of salvation in Jesus Christ, it is a tremendously humbling thing. He experienced hell for us so we could have a relationship with our Father in Heaven!

In a counseling session once with a couple--the woman wanted a divorce and the man came to me and said "Fix my marriage", I explained to them that they had a problem in their relationship with God. They objected--"No no, we're all set; we're Christians and know all this."

Let me advise you early on: do not believe a Christian is one just because they say so. Salvation many times is presented as a little ticket to Heaven; believe the four little laws, say a prayer, and you'll wind up in Heaven. Thus people do not end up loving God or loving their neighbor, but they do have this little ticket. Jesus Christ is not a ticket, and Salvation is certainly not a ticket to Heaven! Salvation is New Life in Christ. Many people may have tickets; but I have often found they do not have life.

When people come to me, I presume they are not saved; I don't care how many times they prayed to receive Jesus! I presume that they do not know God. Therefore, you have to question them in a slightly different way--especially when they know all the "right" answers. How do you expose them for the rebels they very well may be? Or lead them lovingly from their confused shadows into His marvelous light?

I asked the wife if she was saved; she said "Oh yes, I'm a Christian." The man thought he was set, too, being a good Catholic. But in the first session he realized that he had never experienced the life of Christ inherent in the new birth. After he expressed his desire to experience the new birth, I told his wife, who was of the opinion that her husband did not love her, that before now he did not have Christ; now he did, and God could teach him how to love her. It might not be the love that she wanted or expected, but I explained that none of us can have exactly what we want. We are not God, and therefore do not really know what is best for us--and certainly have no right to control what we believe is best. She had to be willing to stay married him as not only because she was the one who had chosen him, but also because he was the one through whom God was going to teach her to love.

I asked her if she was willing to do that. She said, "No."

I asked why not.

"Because I deserve better than him."

We then want back through the topic of salvation again, and I asked her what she deserved from God's point-of-view. She said that she did not know what I meant.

I asked again, "What do you deserve? Are you a sinner?" She told me she was a good person, that she deserved to go to Heaven. I said, "You're as good as God?"

She replied, "I mess up a little bit."

I asked her again, "Do you deserve to go to Heaven or not?"

Finally she admitted, she probably needed Jesus to save her (But her tone of voice betrayed her lack of belief in this fact).

So I asked her, "You deserve Hell, then." She couldn't bring herself to say it. No wonder she thought she deserved a better husband! She thought she deserved Heaven! Her God saw things only from her point of view. He saw her as a good person and her husband as an evil one. God always agreed with her and let her do whatever she wanted. And when her God was not so agreeable--he was thrown away. Of course the problem was that her God was not the creator God of the universe. That is a problem with many who call upon His name today. He is a God of their own imaginations. Such a God cannot bring healing--or salvation!

So then next week when we met again, I asked her, "What do you deserve?" Until she admitted that she deserved Hell, we couldn't get anywhere! This person was proud, and arrogant, and she had created her own God! And she would determine what kind of husband she should have gotten. That person can not be saved! Pride had blinded her from the truth!

She did not have the necessary ingredient for salvation--humility! We need to see God as He is--righteous, holy, our Creator! The cosmic Law-Giver, the One who said, "Here's how to love your neighbor!" We keep telling God, "I have a better idea! I'm like Henry Ford! I can do better than your plan! I don't need your book or your Holy Spirit! I can do it myself!"

You may think the above example an extreme one, but my experience is that this is all too often the norm.

We need to see ourselves as God sees us. When He looks down from Heaven upon the sons of Adam He does not see any good people! NONE! Not one! Romans 3:9-18).

I asked this woman how God saw her when He looked down from Heaven; she said He saw her as a good person. I said "You just told me you were a law-breaker!" She said, "Well, I'm not perfect." How does God look at imperfect people? "The wrath of God abides on the sons of disobedience!" (Ephesians 5:6). Does God look down from Heaven and see a bunch of good, little, sincere people? NO! God sees a bunch of people who are hostile to him; who thumb their nose at God, who spit at Him and mock Him, who could care less about Him. That's what God sees. And until we are willing to see ourselves the way God sees us, we are not able to understand our need for Salvation.

We need to see that we are poor substitutes for God. The mess we see in the horizontal realm results from the fact that everyone is their own God! Everyone thinks he has a better plan! In reality, of course, we don't. This woman had five children, aged nine years old to one! Now she was going to divorce her husband! And everything's going to be better? (Her husband, though unsaved, was a good provider, never beat her, or was physically abusive to her. He had been unfaithful when they were engaged years before, which she had recently found out.) She was going to be happier? She insisted she was.

I drew the scenario out with her. On the average, two years after a divorce child support from the husband stops, and he moves to another state; the Law can't catch him. She insisted that wouldn't happen. I asked her if she's was willing to bet her kids life on it, to which she had no answer.

Then I asked her what man would have her. She had five children! Was she crazy? No man would want to shackle himself with that support! She was going to wind up raising those children on her own, poverty-stricken and on welfare, claiming that she was having a better life than the one she had! This scenario is being repeated all too often in the USA today. It is amazing the power the devil has to blind the eyes of the unbelieving.

People are so deceived and proud that they don't realize that they are poor gods. We have to get those to whom we are witnessing to see that the just consequences of the wrath of God are already being worked out! Galatians 5:7 says "Do not be deceived; God is not mocked. What a man sows he reaps. He who sows to the flesh reaps destruction; he who sows to the Spirit reaps eternal life." One of our problems in evangelism is that we try to make people feel good! Our purpose should be to make them feel terrible, because their state is far worse than they think it is! The surgery is much more radical than they think they deserve! But what a sure hope of abundant life for those who enter in!

Ultimately, salvation is a matter of yielding control of our lives up to God; letting God be God. This is captured in Acts 2:37: After Peter announced "that this Jesus, whom you crucified, God has made Him both Lord and Christ!” (I doubt that made them feel very good.) “And they fell down on their faces and said, `Brothers, what shall we do?' Peter said unto them, `Repent, and be baptized.'" He did not say, "Here is a ticket to Heaven"; No, he said "Repent; turn away from your sins, your self-self-centredness, your self-righteousness! Serve the living God!" A person gets saved when God, through the power of the Holy Spirit, opens blind men's eyes through the mystery of preaching, and that blind man throws himself unreservedly upon the mercy of the living God. And God will save any who do that.

But God will not save the man who tries to cut a deal with God. "I'll get saved, God, if you do this; I'll get saved, God, if you do that." God is not interested in playing our games; if we try to cut a deal with God, we really haven't given up control. God saves those who unreservedly throw themselves on his mercy.

What's the evidence of salvation? Acts 2: Repentance. Turning away from "I am God", to "Thou art the living God".

But it is secondly a salvation from the kingdom of darkness to light. Peter said "Be saved from this perverse generation." This is pictured in baptism, which is the sign of a person leaving the kingdom of this world for the kingdom of God. Baptism is rather like a rite of passage; a passage into a new country.

Because of this, salvation culminates in being added to the church. By the church I mean the universal church of Jesus Christ, but I also mean a specific group of believers, with whom true kingdom living is being learned and practiced. Many "Christians" say that they want to be baptized, but that they do not want to be added to the church. For these, there is still a problem somewhere; where is it?

Let's find it, for those who desire to follow God cast their lot with God's people. There is a horizontal, as well as a vertical, component, intimately connected. We can't tell God, "I really want to love You, but I can't stand these people." It does not work; that is not true salvation. Salvation has two components. The next chapters focus on the second component--the horizontal one.