I am Saved
Salvation is by faith, not by works.
Salvation is by God’s grace, not by my merit. Ephesians 2:8-9. This means that it is something that God
gives freely, it’s not something we can earn by living a good life.
When you think of your salvation what do you
think of? What changes when someone gets
saved? What happens at salvation? What does it mean? Of the many things that occur, here are a 3
to get you started:
#1: I am Forgiven all of my sins
First, when I say
I am saved I am saying I am forgiven all of my sins. In Colossians 2:13 it says, “God
forgave us all our sins”. In
Ephesians 1:7 it says, “In Christ we have redemption through His
blood, the forgiveness of sins…”
The “the forgiveness of sins” – “ALL our sins”. Forgiveness is the word “apheimi”, meaning “to send
away”. “It indicated a legal cancellation of a debt or the granting of a pardon”
(McArthur, 18).
As a born again
Christian I am completely cleared of all my sins. My sins are no longer associated with me because
they have been sent away from me. Jesus
Christ took them away from me when He died on the cross. I am not in
my sin anymore and it is no longer
near me. Forgiveness seems to have this
“do not associate my sins with me anymore”
kind of meaning.
There is a phrase
in the OT that often times is said by the Israelites, “Far be it from me…”. Samuel said to King Saul, “Far
be it from me to sin against the Lord and not pray for you”. When God was going to destroy Sodom and
Gomorrah in Genesis 18, Abraham pleaded with God not to destroy it if there
were any righteous people in it. He said
“Far
be it from you God to destroy the righteous along with the wicked.” Job said, “Far be it from God to do evil.”
It was a phrase
of dissociation. Far be it from me meant
you didn’t want your name associated with something negative. You don’t want others to think of you and
then associate you with this thing.
Don’t ever put my name in the same sentence with that!
Funny
illustration: Have you ever heard someone
say, “I wouldn’t be caught dead wearing
that!” What they mean is that they
don’t want to be associated with that shirt.
They could say, “Far be it from me
to ever wear anything like that!”
Apheimi means to
send away and the idea of forgiveness means that God has taken your sins away
from you so that He no longer associates you with your sin.
There is a great
picture of this God gave in the OT. The
greatest holy day in the whole year was the Day of Atonement. The high priest would take two unblemished
goats for the sacrifice. One goat was
killed and the blood was sprinkled on the altar. The other goat become what was called the
“scape-goat”. That’s a familiar term for
us today that means someone else took the fall for my offense. This is a biblical term and the basic meaning
has remained all the way up til today in our language. The high priest in Israel would place his
hands on the 2nd goat’s head and confess the sins of the nation of
Israel. It was symbolic of the transfer
of the offenses of Israel onto the goat who was going to take the fall for
Israel’s sins. Then, this is key - the
goat would be led way out into the wilderness so far that it could never return
to Israel. The sins of all Israel on
that goat were being “carried away”, or “sent away” on the scapegoat. How powerful a picture of God’s forgiveness!
If God doesn’t
associate me with my sins anymore, what does He associate me with? Now, He associates us with Jesus Christ. When He sees us He sees Christ. When He thinks of us He thinks of
Christ. Because we are now “in Christ”
and no longer “in our sins”. More on
this in a moment.
When I say I am
saved I am saying that I am forgiven all of my sins.
#2: I am Adopted by God
Secondly,
when I say I am saved I say I am adopted by God. In Ephesians 1:5 it says, “In
love, He predestined us to be adopted as His sons through Jesus Christ, in
accordance with His pleasure and will”.
Turn with me also to Romans 8:14-17. [READ]
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Now the concept
of adoption would be significant to both Jews and Romans. Remember now that Paul was a full-blooded Jew
born with Roman citizenship and grew up in the Roman city of Tarsus. Adoption was very common in Roman life. It is very significant that Paul doesn’t take
time to explain any details of what occurred during an adoption. I’ll explain in a minute.
In
Roman adoption, an entire stranger could become a full member of the family and
house. There was a unique ritual that
was done in the courts to make the adoption legal. There had to be 7 witnesses. A symbolic sale was performed with the use of
copper and scales. The biological father
would sell his son twice, and then twice buy him back. After the 3rd time he sold his son
he did not buy him back. Then the
adopting father would go to the Roman magistrate and plead for the
adoption. Then the final vindication and
the claim from the adopting father would be declared, “I claim this man as my
son”.
Barclay describes
this point: “Once the process was completed, the adoption was indeed complete. The person who had been adopted would have
all the rights of a legitimate son in his new family and he would lose
absolutely all his rights he had with his old family. In the eyes of the law he was a new
person. So new was he that even all
debts and obligations connected with his old family were abolished as if they
never existed.” He becomes in the
eyes of the law a new person, Unger says he is seen as born into a new
family. He assumes the name of the
family, and begins to participate in the family as a full member.
As Christians we have
to understand this. The people who Paul
wrote to originally were fully aware of what happened in adoption so he doesn’t
need to explain. He knows that when he
says to them, “God has adopted you” the full force of that transaction will hit
home to them.
This is what God
has done for us. Through Jesus Christ
God has adopted us as sons and daughters and we are now full members of God’s
household. WE BELONG TO HIM! We were born brand new into His family. Our past would be erased and we are made
brand new. We have the full rights,
privileges, position, inheritance, and standing as fully legitimate sons and
daughters.
When
I say that I am saved I say that I am adopted by God and am a full-fledged
member of His family.
#3: I am Justified
Thirdly,
when I am saved I am justified. Romans
4:25 says, “He was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for
our justification.” He died for our
sins. He paid our penalty with his
death. And then, as the proof, as the
receipt for the transaction, He was raised up from the dead. The resurrection of Jesus Christ was God’s
statement to mankind, “Now you know that
what My Son said He was going to do for you is in fact what He did.”
Now notice it
says “for our justification.”
The resurrection of Jesus from the dead proves that we are
justified.
Justification is
a legal term. And it means that in the
court of heaven, where God is the Judge, we have been declared innocent of the
charges of sin. We are now viewed in the
“eyes of the court” as though we have
never committed any sin. There is no
guilt, no blame, no punishment.
The record – your
account - has been wiped clean, all because of the death and resurrection of
Jesus Christ. But to be justified goes
even further. While forgiveness has the
idea of wiping your account clear of all sin, justification has the idea of
filling it with God’s righteousness. It
means that in the courtroom of heaven He has declared you to be completely
righteous in the eyes of the court. Now,
legally, you are not only declared innocent, but, you are declared
righteous. Second Corinthians 5:21 says,
“God
made Him who had no sin to become sin for us so that in Him we might become the
righteousness of God.”
When I say that I am saved, I am
saying that I am justified.
Conclusion:
Salvation is by faith, not by works. It is not by faith in my works, but, faith in
the finished work of Jesus Christ on the cross.
Salvation is a gift from God, not a reward for
our good life.
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