"We are saved. We are being saved. We will be saved"
By: Art Javier
INTRODUCTION
Not too long ago
my eldest sister had asked me in many occasions, “do you know if you are
saved?” Are you sure that you are going
to heaven?" It was always a moment of silence, on my part, whenever she
throws me this question at me. Thank God and He deserves all the glory—today, that
silence is now finally broken.
The Bible teaches
us that grace is the only hope for salvation and the only pathway to heaven. A
lot of contemporary people particularly in advanced countries cannot understand
and will never comprehend such a position. Followers of success-oriented financial gurus nowadays, which I will not
name here, will find this hard to believe.
The Hebrew word “yesha” as it refers to salvation, also
means,” deliverance, rescue, safety, to help one in distress.” The biblical implication of salvation which
is synonymous to “saved” is like an anathema to these people since it implies
“one needs help” or “you can’t do it on your own.” For the record, the word “salvation”
as many authors assert appears 101 times in the Bible.
In societies
where Republican governments are established and democratic principles are the
order of the day, the people believe in human goodness and confidence in human
nature. Therefore, the overriding theme of the entire Bible that salvation
comes to us as free, is a slap to the faces of these people and negates their human
pride. These people honestly believe that they have the intellectual aptitude
and the abilities to work for their own salvation.
Religion has reinforced and fortified their
belief that through their good works they can attain salvation. They believe
that they can do everything what God wants them to do primarily because of
their abilities.
This is contrary to
the teaching of the Bible. The fact is, we should not be ashamed to challenge and
stand vehemently against this erroneous belief. Paul and the full force of the
Reformation stood vigilantly against this position and spread the word that
salvation is a sovereign act and belongs only to God and that the gospel is the
power of God to salvation.
We quote in
Romans 1:16, “For I am not ashamed of the good news of Christ, for it is the
power of God to salvation.”
This is the good
news of the Gospel that we don’t have to work for our salvation. Our human
goodness and good works intended to attain our own salvation are like filthy
rags in the eyes of God. We quote from Isaiah 64:6.. “All of us have become
like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags.”
Our Lord Jesus had
already paid the price at the cross for us to have salvation. Salvation is given
to us free. It is what God does to us,
not what we do to ourselves. At the
garden of Gethsemane, Jesus prayed and asked the Father, if there is any other
way that man can be saved. There was none. It was only through His sufferings
and His death on the cross that can save mankind. That is why, “Jesus is the
only Way, the Truth and the Life, for us to attain salvation”
Salvation is such
an all-encompassing word that rolls into one the various concepts and words
that describe the redemptive work of our Lord Jesus Christ. If we study
salvation deep enough or what it means to be “saved” we realize its
comprehensive meaning and is such an overwhelming word that actually connotes,
“justification, redemption, imputation, sanctification and glorification.” All these words are contained in this one word
“salvation.”
There are three phases of salvation. Some
refer to this as the three stages of salvation. But to explain it more simply, salvation can
be conjugated in three tenses. We must understand this very well since if we
cannot comprehend this we will miss a lot of blessings and we will deprive
ourselves to take our spiritual growth to the next level.
The first is, “We
are saved.” It is in the past tense. We quote in Ephesians Chapter 2:8, “For by
grace you have been saved by faith, not of your works it is the gift of God.”
And in Titus 3:5,
“He saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his
mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy
Spirit.”
Once we put our
trust and faith in Jesus Christ, we are immediately saved. So to answer my
sister’s question, in the introductory part of this article, I know I am saved
and I am confident that I’m going to heaven, not because of my good works but
because after I put my trust and faith in our Lord Jesus, He has imputed His righteousness
in me and I am able to stand legally, pure and blameless, in the eyes of God.
The technical
word for this is “justification.” Justification is the instantaneous act of God
whereby He forgives the sinner of all his sins, -past, present and future-and
declares him perfectly righteous in His sight. Justification is predicated on
the “gift of righteousness” that God freely imputes to the believer at that
instantaneous moment of salvation. Justification is always by grace and never by
works, as the sinner is “justified” as a gift by His grace through the
redemption which is in Christ Jesus.
We quote in
Romans 3:24, “and all are justified freely by His grace through the redemption
that came by Christ Jesus.” To be
justified therefore means, “to be saved from the penalty and the guilt of sin,
which is damnation. In sin, I have been
separated from God and had become spiritually dead. But in Jesus, who has
justified me, I have been reborn, regenerated in spirit and now I am
spiritually alive. Therefore, I know I
am saved.
The second phase
of salvation is, “we are being saved.” It is in the present tense.
We quote Paul in 1
Corinthians 1:18: “For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are
perishing, but to us who are being saved, it is the power of God.”
Is there a contradiction
in this sense because Paul said elsewhere that we are already saved in the past
tense and now he is saying here that we are being saved or we are in the
process of being saved, in the present tense?
Some people
historically did see that this is a contradiction and added more confusion by
only taking this aspect of salvation in the present tense and totally excluded
the others. This is manifested in classic religion theology where they zeroed
in on the present tense aspect of salvation by teaching us that we are
presently being saved by Christ’s sacrifice on the cross, by the ministry of
Marian and the saints, through our adherence to the sacraments and leading a
life in accordance with the teachings of religion. This classic theological
doctrine only believes in the present tense of salvation, “that we are being
saved,” and does not believe in and totally dismissed the past tense phase of
salvation that “we are saved.” They totally missed and disregarded the
‘justification” part of salvation. They have confused, “sanctification” with “justification.”
To be an adherent
to this kind of religion, or any religion for that matter, will never give you confidence
that you are presently “saved,” especially given, that you are still alive here
in this world. The fact is, as they
teach, that no one can actually say that one is presently “saved.” To believe that one is presently “saved” according
to religion is presumptuous because the only way we will know we are saved, as
they say, is when we have led a good life here on earth, have done good works,
obeyed the laws of their religion - and lastly we have to die - and then we
will know if we are saved or not.
We understand
their position because they do not understand the Gospel. First and foremost, “gospel” means “good
news.” The good news is, salvation is free. When we repent of our sins and
accepted sincerely that Jesus is our personal savior, then we are immediately “saved.”
It doesn’t sound good news to me at all if
I have to do good works to be able to attain salvation. Therefore, I am completely confident that I
am “saved” after I have accepted our Lord Jesus, not because of good works but
because of His righteousness, that He has justified me and imputed His
righteousness in me.
Let me
re-emphasize here why there is confusion between “justification” and “sanctification.”
You see we are presently being saved
without necessarily excluding the fact that we have already been “saved.” We
have already been saved from the penalty and guilt of sin. So what are we being
saved from? We are being saved from the pollution and corruption of sin. Simply
put we are being saved from the power of sin. This is a continuous process
which the Bible refers to as
sanctification. This is the process whereby a believer moves from spiritual
infancy to spiritual maturity over time as he learns God’s word and makes good
choices to live God’s will. We must constantly affirm and tell ourselves, “I am
not yet what I will be but thank God I am not what I used to be..”
The true
Christian who will advance to spiritual maturity can only do so through the
power of the Holy Spirit and on the basis of God’s Word which he daily learns
and applies.
We quote Romans
10:17, “Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.” This means
that, faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through
the word of and about Jesus Christ.
In brief,
therefore, sanctification is never instantaneous, but a life-long process until
we leave this world and ultimately go to heaven.
GLORIFICATION
And now we come
to the final phase of salvation, the future tense. “We will be saved.” We quote
from 1 Peter 1:5, “and through your faith, God is protecting you by His power
until you receive this salvation, which is ready to be revealed on the last day
for all to see..” and continuing in verse 9 ..“for you are receiving the end
result of your faith, the salvation of your souls.”
The technical
term for this last phase of salvation is glorification.
This is the time when we finally leave this world and come home to our Father
in heaven, either by death or rapture. The Christian never really achieves a
sinless perfection until he is given a glorified and perfect body in heaven.
This final phase of salvation is the stage where we are saved from the presence of sin.
These three
phases of salvation is never a contradiction. They are truly harmonious with
each other. The problem arises when people pit each phase of salvation against
each other. We shouldn’t do that. Some will say, “Ok I’ll go with Paul and you
can go with Peter.” There is no contradiction between what Paul said and what
Peter said, in the same manner as there is no contradiction between what Paul
had said that “we are saved by faith” and what James had said that “faith is
dead without works.”
The born again Christian should study these three
phases of salvation even more closely and deeply and realized that these are
harmonious to each other. I therefore reiterate and conclude these stages of
salvation truly complement one another.
We are saved from the guilt
and penalty of sin (justification), we are being saved
from the power of sin
(sanctification) and we will be saved from the presence of sin (glorification).
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