What the Bible Says About Salvation

(Genesis 3:15) The teaching of salvation is wonderfully simple in Scripture. God has made a way for man to be saved from himself, from his sin, from the wrath of God. Nothing else is more important than knowing the answer to the question: "What must I do to be saved?" (0956250304) ----more----

 

The Question of Salvation

Some questions in this world are more important than others because some questions affect not only time. They affect all of eternity. Questions like what think you of Christ. Or how about this question, sirs? What must I do to be saved? 

Soteriology: The Doctrine of Salvation

We've come in our study of what God says in the word of God to a subject that is of supreme importance because it affects where you're gonna spend eternity. And that is what the Bible says about salvation. Perhaps no other doctrinal subject has been more debated and more discussed and more misunderstood. Then the doctrine of salvation. And yet in scripture, there's a beautiful simplicity to the message of salvation. 

The First Promise of a Savior

I want us to begin where God begins with the very first promise of a savior. It's found all the way back in the Book of Genesis, in Genesis chapter three. It's a great reminder that Jesus Christ truly was the lamb slain from the foundation of the world. That from the very Garden of Eden, God viewed Golgotha. In fact, before he ever created Adam. In the mind of God, his precious son, the Lord Jesus Christ was already on the cross.

From the beginning of time, God intended to redeem fallen humanity, and that's revealed in Genesis chapter three and verse number 15, where the Bible says God speaking, "And I will put iny between thee." That's the devil between the and the woman. "And between thy seed and her seed, it shall bruise thy head and thou shall bruise his heel."

Now Genesis three 15. It's easy to breeze over it, but Oh, don't do that. Mark it in your Bible and mark it in your heart, because Genesis three 15 is the very first promise in the Bible that a Messiah was coming, that a redeemer, a savior was coming. And in it we find the very first message concerning the doctrine of salvation.

Remember, someone has said that the first 11 chapters of the Book of Genesis are a seed bed of doctrine, and that every great doctrine in the Bible can be found there in seed form. And when you come to the New Testament, you find those same doctrinal truths just in more fully developed form. We've been discussing from the Book of Genesis what the Bible says about man who man is.

We've discussed what the Bible says. About sin, but now we come to the good news. Aren't you glad that the God who made man and the God who knew we would sin provided salvation? He made a way so that we could be saved. 

Understanding Our Need for Salvation

Now, what are the basic lessons we learned from Genesis three 15? The first is that man is a sinner. That we are fallen. You don't need a savior unless you have been separated from God. Something has come between you and God. So the very first thing we must remember in the doctrine of salvation is that everybody needs it. Remember what Jesus said in Luke chapter 19, verse number 10, he said, "For the son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost."

People have to understand they're lost before they can understand what it means to be saved or even have a desire to be saved. We might say it this way. You have to understand the bad news before you can appreciate the good news. The good news. That's the gospel of the death and the burial and the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

But frankly, who cares that he died was buried and rose from the dead if there wasn't a necessity for that, but there wasn't a necessity because we're all sinners. Romans chapter three, verse number 23 says, "For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God." We needed a savior. So it brings us to the second great truth.

God's Provision of a Savior

The first is that man is a sinner, and the second is that God alone can provide a savior. God is the savior. He promised that the seed of the woman would come. That's the lovely Lord, Jesus Christ. That's why it's important that we acknowledge that Christ was born of a virgin. He didn't come through Adam's lines.

Sin was passed down from Adam to the next generation through the mainstream of humanity. But he did not come from Adam. He came from God through a virgin Mary. The seed of the woman and the seed of the woman when he came for one purpose. And that purpose was to redeem fallen humanity, to restore us to God, to bring us back to the righteous God.

Our sins separated us from the Lord, but Jesus Christ came for one purpose, and that is that we could be saved. John chapter three, verse 16 says, "For God so love the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life." Jesus said in John 14:6, "I am the way, the truth and the life."

No man cometh unto the father, but by me. How about Acts 4:12? "Neither is there salvation in any other. For, there's none of the name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved." The verse that I quoted at the beginning of our study today, "Sirs, what must I do to be saved?" Here's the answer in Acts 16"31 "And they said, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shall be saved, and thy house." Salvation is not an institution. Salvation is not a, process of turning over a new leaf and trying to be a better person. It's not a 12 week program you go through. Salvation is not coming to know some human being here on earth. It's not being baptized. It's not all of the externals.

Salvation is one thing. Salvation is a person. His name is Jesus Christ. 

Receiving Salvation Through Faith

And you receive salvation when you receive the person of Jesus Christ. John chapter one, verse number 12 says, "But as many as received him to them, gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name." Here are the two key words, receive and believe.

How do you receive salvation? You receive salvation by believing on the Lord Jesus Christ. You receive salvation the moment you put your simple faith in Christ and Christ alone for your soul's salvation. Many years ago, just as a child, I came to God in simple repentance and faith. I didn't even know all the right words, all the doctrinal terms, but that's what happened that day.

I came to God and I confessed that I was a sinner and couldn't save myself, and I called on the Lord and God kept his promise. Oh, what a glorious promise. Romans 10:13, "For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved." Salvation is not something. It is someone, and His name is Jesus. 

A Call to Believe and Rejoice

I hope you'll come to know the Lord Jesus Christ as your personal savior. If you've never believed on the Lord Jesus, would you look to him right now in simple faith? Would you pray a simple prayer, faith from your heart to God? He's listening. At this moment. He's listening. He wants to hear your cry. Simply say to Him, "Lord, I'm a sinner and I can't save myself. I believe that Jesus Christ is the Savior."

Look to Christ and be saved today. And if you are a Christian, rejoice in it and never get far from the simplicity of the gospel. The Apostle Paul wrote to the church at Coreth and he said, "I fear that is the serpent Belial through his subtlety, so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ."

He went all the way back to Genesis and he said, "As sneaky as that old serpent was in the garden, he's just as deceitful and deceptive today. Don't let him get you arguing and debating lots of things, and forget that salvation is very simple. It is the Lord Jesus Christ and Christ alone." They asked John Newton - the man who wrote, "Amazing grace, how sweet the sound who saved a wretch like me. I once was lost, but now I'm found, was blind, but now I see." They ask him on his deathbed at the end of his life. His mind was about gone. His memory had slipped, and they said, John Newton, "What do you remember?" And Newton's response was simple but profound. He said, "There are many things I do not know at this stage in life, but there are two things I remember. One is that I am a great sinner, and two is that He is a great Savior." Friend, that is the essence of salvation. That is what the Bible says. 

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