My study of Medieval Church History a couple of sessions ago really brought out some truths I hadn’t thought of before and stimulated my thinking. One thing I learned was that Western Christianity took a different direction or a different view regarding salvation than Eastern Christianity. I’ll be taking a course, Lord willing, on Eastern Christianity in the near future and I’m really looking forward to that, because I believe there’s a lot we can learn from that “branch” of the body of Christ. But one of the most important differences has to do with what salvation really consists of, or we could say, what it is that we’re really saved “from” or saved “for,” or, we might say, we’re saved “to be.”
Different leaders and movements have emphasized different aspects of salvation over the centuries. I believe it important for us to be aware of these different perspectives, because the Bible really gives us a variety of pictures of salvation, shows several ways in which we’re saved, several things we’re saved “from,” and several things we could say we’re saved “to.”
What I learned was that the Western Church tended to see salvation more forensically than the Eastern Church. Forensic means having to do with courts and law. The Western concept is that man has sinned or committed a crime against God. He gave clear commandments, starting with “thou shalt not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil,” and man disobeyed those commandments. Therefore, man is guilty before the Supreme Lawgiver, the Supreme Judge. He has committed a crime and guilt for that crime before God is his greatest problem. Man needs forgiveness from the Holy God. This is how I used to present the gospel when teaching evangelism for many years. It’s a true and accurate aspect of salvation.
Since God is perfect, He cannot allow law-breaking. To do so would allow chaos in the universe. It would mean He doesn’t stand behind His word, His commands. If a parent tells a child not to do something, they will be punished if they do it, and then doesn’t back up their words, doesn’t punish, but lets the child get away with the disobedience, that parent is promoting further disobedience. Other children in the family, seeing this, will learn the parent’s words don’t have to be obeyed. Parents don’t follow through, their commands don’t carry weight. Disobedience isn’t that serious.
God said in Ez. 18:4, “The soul that sins shall die.” He told Adam and Eve that they would die if they ate from that tree. He therefore had to follow through and carry out the sentence of death. That is where death actually entered into human existence. Every person born on earth since that time must live under that sentence and die physically. As the perfect Author of perfect laws, God must see to it that they are obeyed, and every disobedience is punished. Adam and Eve committed the original sin, but since their time, every human being has been born a sinner and commits their own sins, their own breaches of God’s Law. We are all, in a sense, criminals and rebels against the Divine Law and the Divine Lawgiver. Our guilt is inescapable, and the sentence of death must be carried out. There are many examples of this in both the Old and New Testaments, of people executed for their crimes, such as gathering firewood on the Sabbath, taking the Lord’s name in vain, taking some loot from the city of Jericho, or lying to the Holy Spirit about the proceeds from the sale of a property. The soul that sins shall die, and we’ve all sinned! As Jer. 2:22 says, we are stained with sin and guilt, and there’s no soap on earth that can wash out those stains! We’re all guilty, and if we go to the Final Judgment as we are, there can only be one sentence – depart from me, you cursed one, into the Lake of Fire prepared for the devil and his angels. Oh wretched men and woman that we are! Who shall save us from this guilt, from these crimes we’ve committed, from this disobedience to the Law of God?!
Well, thanks be to God, Jesus the Christ does! All of us as Christians have heard of how Jesus lived the perfect life which God requires of us, never committing even one infringement of the Law, never disobeying His Father. Only God in human flesh could live such a perfect life! That’s why God became man, the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. Only God could live a perfect life, but only a human could be punished for crimes human beings have committed against God. If a non-human had sacrificed for us, man’s sin and guilt would still be unatoned. Only a human could bear the burden and punishment for sin and die for it as God had ordained. God’s wrath was revealed from heaven against human sin, so a human had to deal with that.
For that reason, the Incarnation is the marvelous mystery of God that solves the human problem of guilt and crime against God. Jesus, who never sinned, who knew no sin, was made to bear the penalty for the sins of the entire human race on the cross. He was completely innocent, but was punished as if guilty. He took our God-forsakenness upon Himself, which is why He cried out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” He did this so that the righteousness of God which was perfectly manifested in His life could be credited to our account by faith. Thus, He saved us from guilt, saved us from God’s wrath, and saved us from the punishment we deserved forensically, as criminals, guilty of high treason against a holy God.
Both Jesus and Barabbas were held by the Romans. Jesus was innocent, and even Pontius Pilate believed that and wanted to release Him. Barabbas, on the other hand, was absolutely guilty of breaking Roman law (and the Law of God). What happened? Barabbas was released, and Jesus was crucified. In a very real sense, Barabbas was the very first man who could say Jesus died in his place. But he certainly wasn’t the only one. The truth is, we were all on death row, guilty before God, and worthy of the death sentence, but Jesus died in our place. The gospel teaches us how to be saved from guilt and the judgment of God for the crimes we’ve committed. It shows the way to receive forgiveness from a Holy God.
How must we respond to God to be saved from this guilt, and experience salvation in this forensic sense? Believe the gospel! Believe this message that you have sinned and your sin deserves eternal punishment, away from the presence of God. Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ! Believe that He died for your sin and that God will accept His death in your place and give you His righteousness. By faith, you accept Christ’s sacrifice for your sins and trust you are forgiven. The most basic truth of the gospel is that we are all guilty before God, but atonement has been made, and amnesty is available, if we’ll come and take advantage of it. We have to admit our sin, our crimes against God, and ask for forgiveness, based on Jesus’ sacrifice. It’s as simple as that, but it does require your response of faith. And it’s something you may have to continually remind yourself and the devil and anybody else of, and stand on faith that it’s so.
But the story doesn’t end there, and being saved from guilt isn’t the only way of looking at salvation, because there are many other metaphors which express what we needed to be saved from. Sin is a crime against the Supreme Judge and Lawgiver. And we certainly need to be forgiven and have our records cleared. But if we stop there, we end up legally forgiven sinners, who no longer have to fear judgment to be sure, but still have no meaningful relationship with God and still fall very short of being and doing what He made us for! Next time we’ll look at other aspects of sin and salvation. I hope you’ll join me then.