We’ve been looking at salvation, different aspects of it, different metaphors that express what it is, different ways parts of the church have looked at it over the centuries. We’re asking the question, saved from what? Why do we need to be saved and what are we saved from anyway?
We started off looking at the predominant Western view, that sin is a crime against God, and what we need is to be forgiven of our guilt before Him, we need to have our records expunged. This is the forensic view of sin, and it’s completely right and legitimate. Lots of people probably don’t realize they’ve broken God’s law, and ignorance of the law is no excuse – there’s a death sentence on their heads! We really need to be saved from that guilt and condemnation!
But there’s another aspect of sin and salvation that is perhaps even more basic. This aspect that I want to discuss today was emphasized by the Eastern Orthodox wing of the Church from the beginning. It’s the idea that we don’t just need to be forgiven of our guilt or to have our criminal records expunged; our need is more profound than that. What we actually need is to be raised from the dead!
After all, the Bible doesn’t just say we’re weak or defective in some way, or that we’re just misguided or ignorant. It actually says we’re dead in trespasses and sins! (Eph. 2:1, 2) This is hard for us to relate to and accept, because we feel very much alive. We do have physical life, and everyone recognizes that. We move, breath, eat, work, talk, etc. So how can it be said that we’re dead?
Well, in the Greek New Testament, there’s more than one word for life, and understanding that might be helpful. One of the words is “bios,” from which we get the word biology, the study of living things. We all know what bios is about and what it’s like, because we all have it. It’s just physical life. But there’s another Greek word for life we need to know, and that word is zoë. (Jn. 10:10) This seems to refer to the sort of life which comes directly from God, a spiritual sort of life. God breathed into Adam the breath of life and he became a living soul. And in the upper room, Jesus breathed on His disciples and said receive the Holy Spirit. We could say that zoë is this spiritual principle of life that comes into us when we accept Christ as Lord and Savior and are born again, or born of the Spirit.
Until a person is born again, born from above, born of the Spirit, they have no connection to the dimension and the power of God. That’s why Paul said the natural man, not born of the Spirit, cannot understand or perceive the things of God, because they’re foolishness to him and he cannot know them (1 Cor. 2:14). When nerves are damaged, our flesh can become sort of deadened to sensations. When Novocain is injected into our gums, they become deadened and can’t feel the dentist’s drill. When we have not yet repented and yielded our lives to Christ, we’re dead like that, in trespasses and sins. Our spiritual nature is not in contact or vitally linked with the dimension of the Spirit. We don’t feel God’s presence. We don’t understand who He is. We don’t get anything out of reading His Word. We don’t see the value of being in a worship service. Why? Because we’re dead spiritually!
Remember that God told Adam and Eve that on the day they ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, they were going to die. Well, they ate that forbidden fruit, but they didn’t die physically for literally hundreds of years. Was God then in error when He told them they’d die? No, He was talking about spiritual death, separation from His presence, His life, His power. We were meant to be vitally connected to God and have His very presence and life within us. But once sin came in, we were cut off from that life. Every person who’s been born since has been born dead, in a sense. That’s what Ro. 5 tells us, death came in through sin.
Now you could tell a dead person that he/she should get up and be active. You could order him/her to wash his/her face, tidy up their appearance, clean the house, or do some sort of work, but no matter what you say or how vehemently you insist upon it, the person will not respond. Why? Because they are not capable of responding – they’re dead! Any religious demands put upon people who haven’t been born again are about like telling a cadaver to clean house or go work out – useless and not doable!
Therefore, any sort of salvation for dead people would have to involve bringing them to life, would it not? So salvation has to be far more than forgiveness of sin, or getting our criminal record expunged. It has to be far more than a religion, a philosophy, or a book of rules for living. Salvation requires a new infusion of life, it is breathing life into something which has been dead.
Ezekiel saw a vision of a valley of dry bones. (Ez. 37) They represented the nation of Israel. The nation was dead, carried away into exile because of sin, and completely unable to serve God. They were supposed to be a royal priesthood that could represent God to the world and represent the world before God. God had great purposes and a great work for them to do, but they were completely unable to do it. They were cut off from God, banished from His presence, and totally corrupted by sin. There was absolutely no way they could be what God had intended them to be or do what He had intended them to do.
But Ezekiel was told to prophesy over the bones. When he did so, the Spirit of God joined them back together, bone to bone, covered them with flesh and muscles again, then breathed life into them, and they all stood up as a mighty army. This was a picture of the rebirth of Israel, but it is also a picture of what happens to any person who repents of living for themselves and asks Jesus to come into their life.
When God created Adam, He breathed into him the breath of life and he became a living soul. In the same way, when we receive Christ, He breathes His Spirit into us, we come alive. We become new creatures in Christ (2 Cor. 5:17), created in righteousness and true holiness (Eph. 4:24), and finally become capable and empowered to be and do what God requires of us. This is simply not possible before new life is breathed into us! Dead people cannot serve God! They cannot do what living beings can do. And we cannot love God, worship Him, pray, witness, live holy lives and be the kind of people God wants us to be until we receive His new life, spiritual life, zoë, the God-kind-of-life.
So salvation isn’t just being forgiven of our crimes and delivered from guilt. It isn’t just having our criminal records expunged. No, it’s far more radical than that. Salvation is life from the dead! It is being born again to a living hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. When we accept Christ as Lord, the Bible says we are raised to walk in newness of life. (Ro. 6:4) We are resurrected, raised up to be with Jesus, and made to sit with Him in heavenly places. (Eph. 2:1, 2)
Now this is what the gospel provides for us. It’s what Jesus died to give us. He laid down His life, so that we might be able to receive His Spirit, and experience the abundant, everlasting life He has made available. So you and I need to be sure we’ve received that life. How do we do that? Well, it’s obviously more than changing your religion or accepting a few facts. It isn’t joining a church or signing a piece of paper. It is something we can only receive from God, because only He creates life and only He can give life or take it away. To receive eternal life, we have to interact with God Himself.
What we must do is repent of sin, repent or change our way of thinking about God and ourselves and our orientation in life, and change the way we look at Jesus. We’ve got to see that we’re not just misguided, ignorant, or weak – we’re absolutely dead to God and need His life to come inside us!
We need to see Him as the very Source of life, the One we must “negotiate with.” You can’t get life from any pastor, priest, or rabbi. You can’t get it from any TV evangelist or any church or organization. You must get it from God. That means each person must go to God personally, and make the “connection” with Him by prayer and faith. I want to urge you to do this, to go to God directly yourself. Ask Him to work faith and repentance into your heart and life. Give Him your life, tell Him you want Him to be in charge of it, and you’ll do whatever He tells you to do with it. Ask Him to give you His life, the very life of God that He has promised. Ask Him to help you make this “great exchange” – your old, wretched self, dead in sins, for His righteous and pure life, fully connected or “tapped in” with God.
If you do this with sincere faith, you will receive true, everlasting life! If you truly come to God to make this exchange, giving Him your life and receiving His, you will be raised to walk in new life. You will actually experience a new birth, and God’s Spirit will come to live in yours. Your spirit will be what’s called “regenerated;” it will truly come alive. That’s what it means to be “born again” and become a new creation.
When that happens, your life will change, it has to. It won’t change outwardly. Your appearance won’t change (except for maybe a smile on your face and a new light in your eyes). Your memories won’t change, and you won’t become a genius or a superman or a supermodel, or sprout wings. But you will be new inside, different inside. You will be a child of God, with a new power, purpose, and direction in life.
Have you received eternal life? You’ll know it if you have! If you never have given your life to God and let Him give you new life, I urge you to do it today!
Now there’s still more to salvation, so I’m going to continue this series, and look at other aspects of it. Next time we’ll look at how God saves us from the power of the devil. I hope you’ll join me for those upcoming studies. Till next time, may God richly bless you!