Читать книгу MYSTERIES OF GOD'S KINGDOM - Kenneth B. Alexander - Страница 9
ОглавлениеWHAT IS SALVATION?
Salvation is an experience that all Christians must have in order to walk on with God. It is a gift of God bought for mankind by the blood of Jesus Christ on the cross. The oft quoted scripture of John 3:16 says: “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life”. Salvation is eternal life and, as the experience is expanded, a lot more.
In this article we will refer to initial salvation, which is the first experience an individual can have in Christ. We will also go further to explain a greater degree of salvation that is available, that is salvation “to the uttermost”. Salvation to the uttermost is the obtaining of the state of perfection that is available from the Lord and leads to a resurrection from the dead, as Christ attained as the first-fruits Son of God. Salvation to the uttermost is the obtaining of that same resurrection obtained by Christ so that Christ becomes the first of many brethren that become like Him in every respect.
In principle, initial salvation is very easy to receive. The only requirement to receive salvation is: “that if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved; (Romans 10:9).
Thus there are only two requirements: BELIEVE in your heart and CONFESS with your mouth. Simply mouthing the phrase won’t help. You must really believe in your heart. Then by the confessing of that belief you immediately receive God’s eternal gift. It doesn’t completely manifest itself at that time but you do receive the entire gift of grace at that time.
The word salvation is used in both the New and Old Testament. In the New Testament, the Greek word is “Soteria”, which means deliverance, preservation and salvation. In the New Testament the word is used in many contexts but always denotes the personal and eternal deliverance granted by God, through His Son, to those who accept His conditions of salvation (Acts 4:12; Vine’s Expository Dictionary).
Surprisingly, the term is used more frequently in the Old Testament than the New. This proves that salvation was not suddenly initiated by Jesus physical appearance on the earth, but was available throughout Biblical history. The Hebrew words for salvation are “yasha” meaning “to deliver” and “yesha” denoting deliverance, rescue, salvation, safety, welfare. These words are used in the Old Testament well over 150 times—it may mean save, saved, saves, savior, deliver, avenger, safety and victorious. Jesus’ name came from Yasha and Yesha. His name Yehoshua or Yehoshua literally means “the Lord is salvation” or “Messiah” (New American Standard Hebrew-Aramaic and Greek Dictionaries: Updated Edition).
Salvation is the basic tenant of Christian faith. Receiving salvation is the beginning of a believers walk with God. But basic salvation is only that: a beginning. Salvation is an ever expanding experience, for those who want to go on with God. Hebrews 7:25 says, “Wherefore also he is able to save to the uttermost them that draw near to God through Him, seeing he ever lives to make intercession for them”
Therefore there is basic salvation and there is being saved to the uttermost. Basic salvation means that by your faith and confession you will be saved from the condemnation that comes upon the evildoers or those who do not believe. Salvation to the uttermost means you will manifest the entire gift from God which includes resurrection life and being conformed to His very image.
Thus God’s entire plan of salvation goes far beyond the initial acceptance of Jesus Christ as your personal savior. When we are first saved we are, in essence, newborn babies in Christ. Following salvation, we must learn how to walk and function as mature Sons in Christ. Maturity of His Sons is Christ’s ultimate goal.
Ephesians Chapter 4 explains this process to maturity: “And He gave some as apostles, and some as prophets, and some as evangelists, and some as pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of service, to the building up of the body of Christ; until we all attain to the unity of the faith, and of the true knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ. As a result, we are no longer to be children, tossed here and there by waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, by craftiness in deceitful scheming; but speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in all aspects into Him who is the head, even Christ, from whom the whole body, being fitted and held together by what every joint supplies, according to the proper working of each individual part, causes the growth of the body for the building up of itself in love” (Ephesians 4:11-16).
The goal of Christ is that our salvation experience expands to that of a mature man, to the point of becoming the fullness of Christ. This is not accomplished in a vacuum but within a body which itself grows into a collective unit of mature Sons that function together in the unity of the Spirit of God. Since this does not happen automatically upon initially receiving Christ, Christ has given His “Sons to be” gift ministries who will help guide us into all of His fullness, identified in Ephesians 4 as apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors (shepherds) and teachers.
Much of Christianity today does not understand the level of salvation that is available to them. They feel that it is sufficient to bring someone to the altar and have him/her confess Christ as Lord. Most churches conduct what are called “altar calls” where congregants confess their sin and accept Christ as their Savior. Christianity calls this forgiveness “saving” the soul for Christ.
Many churches measure their success by how many people they have “saved” in this matter. So called evangelistic efforts seek souls they can save and feel comfortable that once the soul is saved he then has all the essential elements to be able to die and go to heaven, avoiding the fires of hell. However, in most churches, there is little or no follow up to this initial experience, There is little effort to bring the saved individual into deeper and deeper levels of knowing Christ. As a result many “saved souls” believe they have something they don’t really have as they leave the altar and continue to live their lives as they were but, believing that since they are saved that they have acquired some kind of security in the afterlife.
Actually a real walk with God is a continuing and expanding salvation experience. A Christian who is just saved still deals with sin in his walk on a continual basis. A saved Christian often finds that he has to continually return to Christ to seek forgiveness for each sin as it rears its ugly head in his/her life. And there are some sins the saved Christian just cannot seem to overcome no matter how many times he repents. So saved Christians go through life crippled in a sense as the sin never seems to completely abate. This situation is not so much the weakness of the flesh as it is not realizing the entirety of what Christ did for us on the cross.
There are two distinct aspects of what Christ did for us by His death on the cross. First, He forgave mankind of their sin and no longer held their sins against them. A Christian is forgiven no matter how much he stumbles and falls short. God is always there to uphold, revive and forgive. However this state of being tossed to and fro by the effects of sin was not His entire purpose for mankind. He not only wants to forgive sin but to remove it entirely so it is no longer and ongoing problem.
Salvation is actually a 2-step process leading to complete perfection. The first part is the part of salvation that forgives sin. 1 John 2:1-2 says: “My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. And if anyone sins, we have an Advocate [intercessor] with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous; and He Himself is the propitiation [satisfaction] for our sins; and not for ours only, but also for those of the whole world”. Therefore under the first part of salvation, we can commit sin, even inadvertently, and God will forgive us through Christ. Actually He has already forgiven us for all the sins we have committed and will commit in the future if we remain with Christ. However, as we shall see, continual repentance is not required for forgiveness.
In order for us to fully understand this principle of removal of sin we must look to the Old Testament for the type and shadow of what Christ was later to fulfill in His flesh. Yom Kipper or the Day of Atonement, which occurs within the Jewish Feast of Tabernacles, is a type and shadow of the roles of sacrifice and the removal of sin. Christ was the ultimate sacrifice in that in one act He removed the sin of the entire world. In the Old Testament forgiveness and removal of sin was no less real, but was only a temporary measure.
The Day of Atonement is the most significant day in the Jewish experience. It is mandated by God in Leviticus 23:26 and described fully in Leviticus 16. The literal translation of Yom Kippur is “Day of Atonement”. Biblically and liturgically it is also known as Day of Judgment and Sabbath of Sabbaths. Atonement literally means reconciliation to God after the bond had been broken by sin. It means, in a broader sense in Hebrew, ‘purge,’ ‘cleanse,’ ‘expiate,’ ‘purify,’ ‘wipe on or off,’ ‘cover,’, ‘justify’ etc. The literal meaning of the word is simply “at-one-ment”, i.e., the state of being of one or being reconciled, so that atonement is actually reconciliation to God.
The most important ceremonial aspects of the manifestation of atonement in the days of the Old Testament involved the High Priest, two goats and a bull. This ritual helps us understand what Christ actually did on the cross. This has great significance to us today.
At that time the Jews had constructed a temple (tabernacle) in the wilderness as a prelude to the great temple that was to be built in the Promised Land by Solomon. The temple was constructed into three main areas or divisions: the “outer court”, the “Holy Place” and finally the Holy of Holies, the most Holy place. No one entered the Holy of Holies except Moses and the High Priest once a year on the day of Yom Kippur (for a fuller description of the Holy of Holies see quote from Hebrews below). A veil separated this most Holy place from the rest of the temple.
A ritual occurred on the Day of Atonement which literally cleansed the Jewish people from all sins they had committed the previous year. This Old Testament ritual is actually a representation or type and shadow of the eternal sacrifice that Christ was to initiate. As we can see below, salvation, as represented by the Day of Atonement, included the two aspects of Christ’s sacrifice for us. The following are a summary of the events which led to the Atonement in Old Testament times. (see Leviticus 16 for a description of the entire process).
There were two goats and a bull involved. The bull was slain as Atonement for Aaron the high priest so he would be ritually pure to carry out the rest of the atonement for the people. After that the first goat was sacrificed for the defilement of the temple by Israel. This represents the first part of Christ’s sacrifice for us. The first goat was slain and sacrificed as forgiveness for the sins of Israel. Forgiveness is only the beginning of what Christ did for us. It is the first step.
The second goat remained alive. It was brought before the Lord where Aaron the priest became the vehicle of God to transfer all of the sin of Israel for the previous year to that goat. This was an actual occurrence. The actual sin of the people was taken by Aaron and transferred to this second goat. The goat was then led outside the camp and disposed of in some way. This is a type and shadow of what Christ did on the cross. While on the cross God (the Father) transferred all of the sins of mankind onto Christ. By the actual sin being transferred onto Christ it was in reality removed from mankind, once and for all.
Thus Christ did not die only for forgiveness of sin. He died to remove sin completely. Many Christians live like the Old Testament Israelites lived. They keep coming to the High Priest or Christ continually to have their sins forgiven again. We, even as saved Christians, still have sin in our lives and we feel the need to continually seek forgiveness each time we think we have sinned. We don’t realize that Christ has already removed all of the sin from our lives and those of humanity in general.
Paul the Apostle realized this principle at work in his life. He laments in Romans 7: “For we know that the Law is spiritual, but I am of flesh, sold into bondage to sin. For what I am doing, I do not understand; for I am not practicing what I would like to do, but I am doing the very thing I hate. But if I do the very thing I do not want to do, I agree with the Law, confessing that the Law is good. So now, no longer am I the one doing it, but sin which dwells in me. For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh; for the willing is present in me, but the doing of the good is not. For the good that I want, I do not do, but I practice the very evil that I do not want. But if I am doing the very thing I do not want, I am no longer the one doing it, but sin which dwells in me” (Romans 7:14-20.
To break down what Paul is saying is that in his own fleshy nature he is unable to do the Law (the commandments of God) or to please God. He knows the law is spiritual since Christ said He did not come to abrogate the Law but to fulfill it (Matthew 5:17-18). So Paul finds this duality in himself in that he desires to be righteous but still finds himself constantly warring within himself between the two natures. However he finally realizes that the sin that he struggles with on a daily basis is not his own sin he but comes from an exterior source, the sin dwelling within him, separate from his own being.
What Paul realizes is that Christ, on the cross, removed sin from the earth. With the sin removed, then the evil that seems to be within him does not belong to him. So if he does something, or lives a certain way, he realizes that it is the sin who is doing the acts, not him.
You may correctly ask that if Christ removed sin from the world entirely why does it still seem to be present in our lives? To understand this we must examine closely what Christ did on the cross.
The answer has to do with the ruler of this world called Satan. Satan is also aware of the principle of transference God used to transfer mankind’s sin to Christ. When the sin of the world was removed, Satan was not removed. He was condemned. Although he was defeated on the cross he remained on the earth and retained all the evil and sin which had been transferred away from humanity to Christ. Knowing that the time for his inevitable destruction was near, he set about to delay this from occurring. He did this by trying to transfer his own sin, condemnation and evil back to man and try to convince man he was still sinful. This is perhaps his most successful scheme in delaying the manifestation of the Kingdom of God. If man, although already made sinless by Christ, accepts Satan’s evil as his own he is identifying and bonding with the devil and is at risk of experiencing Satan’s own eternal condemnation. Therefore mankind must realize that they have been made totally clean and sinless by Christ and realize that the lie that we are still sinful beings or have sin, is a lie of the enemy accomplished by the transference principle. The sin we think we still have is not actually us but is a lie of the enemy (Romans 8:1).
Paul goes on to say: “I find then the principle [law] that evil is present in me, the one who wants to do good. For I joyfully concur with the law of God in the inner man, but I see a different law in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin which is in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will set me free from the body of this death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, on the one hand I myself with my mind am serving the law of God, but on the other, with my flesh the law of sin” (Romans 7:21-25). Paul ultimately sees that the sin with which he struggles is not his own sin but sin which has been transferred to him from the outside, from the accuser, and does not belong to him at all. This may seem a technical point but upon this realization rests our heritage in Christ to live in His kingdom without any sin at all.
The Book of Hebrews more fully describes this experience. Hebrews introduces the New Covenant of Christ where righteousness is written on our hearts so that we receive a nature incapable of sin, as Christ’s was. Under the Old Covenant of the Old Testament, deliverance from sin was only temporary and had to be done over and over again. There was never a change of nature that made sin impossible. A better, more permanent, sacrifice was needed. So by Christ’s once and for all sacrifice on the cross he made available a provision whereby man could appropriate a nature like unto His, which would be forever incapable of sin.
This New permanent Covenant is stated in Hebrews and reproduced here: “For if that first covenant had been faultless, there would have been no occasion sought for a second. For finding fault with them [the Old Covenant], He says,
“Behold, days are coming, says the Lord,
When I will effect a new covenant
With the house of Israel and with the house of Judah;
Not like the covenant which I made with their fathers
On the day when I took them by the hand
To lead them out of the land of Egypt;
For they did not continue in My covenant,
And I did not care for them, says the Lord.
“For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel
After those days, says the Lord:
I will put My laws into their minds,
And I will write them on their hearts.
And I will be their God,
And they shall be My people. “And they shall not teach everyone his fellow citizen,
And everyone his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’
For all will know Me,
From the least to the greatest of them.
“For I will be merciful to their iniquities, And I will remember their sins no more.”
When He said, “A new covenant,” He has made the first obsolete. But whatever is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to disappear” (Hebrews 8:7-13; Jeremiah 31:33 et. sq.).
Under the New Covenant the laws of God are written on our hearts rendering sin impossible. What we could not do in ourselves, as evidenced by our failures under the Old Covenant (applicable to the ancient nation of Israel) Christ did with one perfect sacrifice acceptable to God. It will further no longer be necessary for us to teach one another to know the Lord for we will all know Him. Having this sinless nature we will thus be like Him in every respect. This is salvation to the “uttermost”. He has saved us and He has delivered us by one sacrifice.
Through the true salvation experience we will come to “know the Lord”. In God’s mind, He is looking for a marriage relationship with us, just as we come to “know our wife/husband” in the natural realm. God says: “And I will make them lie down in safety.
“I will betroth you to Me forever;
Yes, I will betroth you to Me in righteousness and in justice,
In lovingkindness and in compassion,
And I will betroth you to Me in faithfulness.
Then you will know the Lord” (Hosea 2:19-20).
“So let us know, let us press on to know the Lord.
His going forth is as certain as the dawn;
And He will come to us like the rain, Like the spring rain watering the earth” (Hosea 6:3).
Receiving full salvation means a “pressing on” to know Him more. Every day we seek the Lord to expand our salvation experience. As we do so, He provides more and more light to show us the way. Isaiah 28:13 describes how the Lord will lead us:
“So the word of the Lord to them will be,
“Order on order, order on order,
Line on line, line on line,
A little here, a little there”.
God wants us to return to Him with all our hearts.
“Yet even now,” declares the Lord,
“Return to Me with all your heart,
And with fasting, weeping and mourning; And rend your heart and not your garments.”
Now return to the Lord your God, For He is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger, abounding in lovingkindness and relenting of evil” (Joel 2:12-13).
We must be diligent every day to seek the Lord. He is happy when we do this: “I love those who love me; And those who diligently seek me will find me (Proverbs 8:17).
We must seek Him with all our hearts in order to obtain this gift of entire salvation.
You will seek Me and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart.
‘I will be found by you,’ declares the Lord, ‘and I will restore your fortunes and will gather you from all the nations and from all the places where I have driven you,’ declares the Lord, ‘and I will bring you back to the place from where I sent you into exile.”
Therefore there are actually many levels of salvation; there are many mansions in the house of God. Wherever you stop seeking the Lord for more, you will stay where you are. Dying is not a magic way of receiving salvation. What you have obtained on earth will go with you, be it good or bad. By continuing to expand your salvation experience you are eligible to receive and manifest, as Christ, everything pertaining to life and Godliness in this age and in the age to come.
With this New Covenant experience we are literally “born again”. Basic Christian thought is that once you have received Christ you are immediately “born again”. This has become a catch phrase for the Christian movement. But being born again is not a trite statement used as a synonym for salvation. It is a literal rebirth into a new age of the Kingdom and the spirit.
Although it can happen in one great experience, more likely it will happen through a continual, daily, unfolding experience. Actually being entirely born again is the day we become mature in Christ and stand with His entire nature perfected in us. This happens as our spirit is continually perfected by the working of God in our lives. The obvious difference is that when we initially accept Christ, we are mere babies in the things of Christ. There is a maturing process that must go on throughout our lives. The baby must grow up.
Too many feel the initial acceptance of Christ is enough for us to be reborn and then receive our reward in heaven when we die. So many feel entitled to simply wait for that time confident they will appear prefect in Heaven after their physical death. That is not the truth. There are many in Heaven right now who are not perfected and are waiting for their full fulfillment. Hebrews 11:30-40 makes this clear. After remembering all the great men of God who died in faith in Hebrews chapter 11, the writer of Hebrews notes that they all died without receiving the promise. The writer of Hebrews states: “And these all, having obtained a good report through faith, received not the promise: God having provided some better thing for us, that they without us should not be made perfect. None of those who died in faith will be made perfect until we are made perfect. This confirms Christ’s statement that the first (those who have gone o before us) will be last and the last (us) will be first because we must become perfect first before them.
Also the Book of Revelation speaks of the souls of the dead in Christ crying out for fulfillment from under the altar. When He opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain for the word of God and for the testimony which they held. And they cried with a loud voice, saying, “How long, O Lord, holy and true, until you judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth?” Then a white robe was given to each of them; and it was said to them that they should rest a little while longer, until both the number of their fellow servants and their brethren, who would be killed as they were, was completed. (Revelation 6:9-11).
Dying and going to Heaven is obviously not the ultimate answer. We on this side of the veil of death must become perfect before those in heaven can have their fulfillment. This goes beyond simple salvation. It involves a process of becoming perfect right here and now in this earth. If you doubt this, remember the words of the Lord’s Prayer: “Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven”. Right here, right now. on earth. We need not wait. We should press on to the full calling of Christ, until the veil of death is rent and the spiritual and earthly realms become one. That is salvation. That is fulfillment.
1 John confirms that we are to be like Him when he appears: “Beloved, now we are children of God, and it has not appeared as yet what we will be. We know that when He appears, we will be like Him, because we will see Him just as He is” (1 John 3:2). And where does Christ appear? He appears here on earth at His second coming. He will appear to many Sons who have become like Him. As Hebrews 2:10 says: “For it was fitting for Him, for whom are all things, and through whom are all things, in bringing many sons to glory, to perfect the author of their salvation through sufferings”. Christ was therefore the first fruits of many other Sons who would also be birthed through his sacrifice.
