Doctrine of Salvation

IV. Salvation

Salvation involves the redemption of the whole man, and is offered freely to all who accept Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour, who by His own blood obtained eternal redemption for the believer. In its broadest sense salvation includes regeneration, justification, sanctification, and glorification. There is no salvation apart from personal faith in Jesus Christ as Lord.

A. Regeneration, or the new birth, is a work of God's grace whereby believers become new creatures in Christ Jesus. It is a change of heart wrought by the Holy Spirit through conviction of sin, to which the sinner responds in repentance toward God and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Repentance and faith are inseparable experiences of grace.

BF&M’s doctrine of Salvation

Object Lesson:

Kristin/Tiffany/Sarah: Rope, bucket, tape

Pull the rope to get the bucket across the piece of tape

What does God say this is an example of?

I’m going to read from John 6 and we’ll get started looking at today’s Baptist doctrine.

John 6:37-40, 43, 65

This same Greek word “draw” is better translated as dragged see Acts 16:19

This draw is not to woo like calling your dog. Here boy, here boy. Its God drawing a sword from a sheath, or God drawing fish up in a net, or like our object lesson it refers to how 1^st Century Jews would draw their water up out of a well. In the NT Helkuo always refers to compulsion. John 6, 12, 18, twice in 21, Acts 16, 21 and James 2.

Sinners do not come to God. God brings sinners unto Himself.

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Today we’re going to look at the BF&M’s doctrine of Salvation, I’m going to start by reading a little Romans and Roy/Robert can you read the whole article I’m done?

Romans 8:28-39

The first section of Salvation states that SBC Baptists offer salvation to all who accept JC. This seems like an awkward phrase, someone elaborate it for us. Are we only offering Salvation to those who already believe?

There’s an important note to make at the end of this section on the exclusivity of Christianity. “There is no salvation apart from personal faith in JC as Lord.” I was happy to hear Jay just preach on this a couple of weeks back Jesus saying No one comes to the Father except through me. Unfortunately I’ve also heard some Baptist friends of mine actually disagree that the only way to heaven is through personal faith in JC as Lord.

Give me some of your guy’s thoughts. What if there was some deaf, blind, mute, hermit alone on a mountain top in Tibet that lived for 100 yrs and never once heard the Gospel and he died and stood before God, what would we expect to hear? The book that got Rob Bell kicked out of his own church Love Wins only suggested that there might be other ways into heaven and he lost his job. What do you think fair, unfair? (The New Yorker bio – Hellraiser)

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Regeneration – God is the active agent in regeneration.

Acts 16:14 – its God not Lydia that prepares her heart for the Gospel

Ezekiel 36:26 & 11:19 – its God who replaces our stony hearts of unbelief with soft hearts that can trust Christ

John 3:1-8 –Jesus tells Nicodemus not only can’t you get to heaven but also you can’t even see heaven until you are (and this is the same word in the Greek genneo anothen) “born again or born from above”. It should probably be both - born again from above, God’s rebirthing.

Any questions so far?

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Moving on. Question for you: Is faith and repentance your part in the Salvation transaction or is it more of God’s work in dragging you to Himself?

1^st - a transactional view of Salvation is heretical, that would make Salvation “by works” which is rejected in several books in the New Testament namely The Apocalypse of St John and Paul’s letters to the Churches of Rome and Galatia.

Yet all of us who have been saved remember Jesus telling us to Repent and Trust in Him to be saved and we did it. Isn’t that our part?

2 Timothy 2:24-25 – Paul names a couple of 1^st Century heretics by name and says yet God may grant them repentance leading them to the Truth, those who repent are those whom God has granted repentance.

Ephesians 2:4-9 – Again this reiterates that God is the primary mover in regeneration as well as the gifter of your faith. I’ve actually had atheist friends growing up and they flat out told me I get what you want me to believe (Jesus) I just can’t, I don’t have that kind of faith and Paul says that’s true unless God gifts you with faith to trust in Christ you can’t trust in Christ.

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Justification – Martin Luther famously said during the Reformation that this was the article on which a True church stands or falls.

And again this is God’s work, in which he accepts Christ’s righteousness in your place instead of judging you solely on your own merit.

I am holy, I am a saint but not due to my own self-righteousness but because of the perfect righteousness of Christ and Christ’s atoning blood that covers my filth.

The original verb form of Messiah/Christ (massah) meant to smear like smear paint on a wall, or cover with oil (to anoint) this coating of Christ’s righteousness is why people are allowed into heaven, the error we need to correct with our non-believing friends is its not good people go to heaven and bad people go to hell, the bible first says we’re all bad and yet this is how a bad person like you or me can get into heaven is by Christ’s righteousness smearing, Jesus’ massah.

Titus 3:3-8 & Romans 3:21-30 – this 2^nd passage corrects the error today that Jews and Gentiles will be judged by different standards. No, both are judged by faith in Christ’s redemption.

God is the one who gets full, total, and whole praise for Salvation because He’s the only party at work in Salvation.

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Sanctification – So what now? Now that you’re a Christian what do you want to do with your life? Do you want to honor God? What would honor Him? What does he want from you?

Sanctification is the first and only part of this article that you get to work along side God on. Sanctification is not about some epic, specific, grandiose dream God has for your life. It’s all pretty ordinary practical stuff. Baptism, the Lord’s Supper, learning a lot about what the Bible says about Christ, raising your kids to know God, loving and respecting your spouses, working hard with your hands as if your boss where Jesus himself, love your neighbors, honor God, be always thankful for Christ. Caring about the poor, the helpless, being selfless these are what prepare us to enjoy Heaven for an Eternity.

Any thoughts or advise for the rest of us on sanctification? Struggles, concerns, questions?

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Glorification – starts with sanctification and isn’t complete till we live with Christ eternally.

2 Thessalonians 1:11-12 & 2 Timothy 2:10-11 (this passage is the motto for my blog)- Glorification was accomplished in the past by Christ’s work but it points us toward Christ’s 2^nd coming, being with other believers, at the Judgment and eternally in glory, immortal, righteous, and holy.

Abstracts of Principles VIII. Regeneration

Regeneration is a change of heart, wrought by the Holy Spirit, who quickeneth the dead in trespasses and sins enlightening their minds spiritually and savingly to understand the Word of God, and renewing their whole nature, so that they love and practice holiness. It is a work of God’s free and special grace alone.

And as he journeyed, he came near Damascus: and suddenly there shined round about him a light from heaven: And he fell to the earth, and heard a voice saying unto him, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me? And he said, Who art thou, Lord? And the Lord said, I am Jesus whom thou persecutest: it is hard for thee to kick against the pricks. (Acts 9:3-5)

Paul’s conversion would serve for an outline sketch of the conversion of any one of us. How was that conversion wrought? Well, it is clear that there was nothing at all in Paul to contribute to his salvation.

You might have sifted him in a sieve without finding anything upon which you could rest a hope that he would be converted to the faith of Jesus. His natural bent, his early training, his whole surroundings, and his life’s pursuits all fettered him to Judaism and made it most unlikely that he would ever become a Christian.

The first elder of the church that ever talked to him about divine things could hardly believe in his conversion. “Lord,” said he, “I have heard by many of this man, how much evil he hath done to thy saints at Jerusalem” (Acts 9:13 KJV).

He could hardly think it possible that the ravening wolf should have changed into a lamb. Nothing favorable to faith in Jesus could have been found in Saul; the soil of his heart was very rocky, the plowshare could not touch it, and the good seed found no foothold.

Yet the Lord converted Saul, and he can do the like by other sinners, but it must be a work of pure grace and of divine power, for there is not in any man’s fallen nature a holy spot of the size of a pin’s point on which grace can light.

Transforming grace can find no natural lodgment in our hearts; it must create its own soil. And blessed be God, it can do it, for with God all things are possible.1

C H Spurgeon

Spurgeon on Conversion – often from our limited POV we think we became a Christian when we came to God.  However when this issue is viewed in light of Scripture: any True Christian will see what the Scriptures say: ‘The Election is from the Lord (Ephesians 1); Call is from the Lord (Romans 8); the Coming to Christ is from the Lord (John 6); the Conversion is from the Lord (John 3); & the Faith & Repentance are from the Lord (Ephesians 2 & 2 Timothy 2).  And we finally learn the extent of His Grace & Mercy & Worth of Worship lies in the fact that the whole of Salvation is of the Lord (Jonah 2:9, Psalms 37:39, Revelation 7:10)’.

From Charles Spurgeon:

“One week-night, when I was sitting in the house of God, I was not thinking much about the preacher’s sermon, for I did not believe it. The thought struck me, How did you come to be a Christian? I sought the Lord. But how did you come to seek the Lord? The truth flashed across my mind in a moment – I should not have sought Him unless there had been some previous Influence in my mind to make me seek Him. I prayed, thought I, but then I asked myself, How came I to pray? I was Induced to pray by reading the Scriptures. How came I to read the Scriptures? I did read them, but what led me to do so? Then, in a moment, I saw that God was at the bottom of it all, and that He was the Author of my faith, and so the Doctrines of Grace opened up to me, and from that doctrine I have not departed to this day, and I desire to make this my constant confession, ‘I ascribe my change wholly to God.’”