Soteriology Lesson 2 - Introduction

     Those who have trusted Christ as Savior are “justified as a gift by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus” (Rom 3:24).

     It’s important to understand that Christ died for only one kind of person: the lost sinner who stands condemned before a holy and righteous God. If we don’t see ourselves from the divine perspective, as lost and in need of a Savior, then Christ and His work on the cross will be rejected. The cross is God’s righteous solution to the problem of sin, as well as His greatest display of love toward sinners. At the cross, God judged our sin as His righteousness required, and pardons the sinner as His love desires. To understand the cross of Christ is to understand the heart of God toward a fallen world He wants to save.

     We don’t earn or deserve God’s kindness in any way, for the record of Scripture is that we are helpless, ungodly, sinners, and enemies of God (Rom 5:6-10) who were reconciled to Him “through the death of His Son” (Rom 5:10). Salvation is never what we do for God; rather, it’s what He’s done for us through the death of His Son, who paid the full penalty for all our sins on the cross at Calvary. Salvation is a work of God alone. We bring nothing of worth to God. Nothing at all. Our contribution to salvation is sin and death, both of which Christ bore on the cross. Jesus freely took our sins upon Himself on the cross, and paid the penalty for our sins and died the death we deserve. That’s love. That’s grace. If we got what we deserved in this life, we would all be dead and forever condemned in the lake of fire. Salvation is based entirely on the merit of Christ, not on anything we do. It is the work of Christ and nothing else. Robert B. Thieme Jr. states:

• "Every human being needs to be saved, because everyone enters this world in a state of spiritual death, total depravity, and total separation from God. Because man is born hopelessly lost from God and helpless to do anything about it, God, in His grace, designed a perfect plan to reconcile man to Himself. God the Son took the burden of responsibility: He became true humanity and remained sinless so that He could be judged for the sins of the world (1 Pet 3:18). While Jesus Christ hung on the cross, God the Father poured the full wrath of His justice upon the Son He loved so perfectly (Matt 27:46; Rom 5:8–10; 2 Cor 5:21). Christ “bore our sins in His body” (1 Pet 2:24) and took the punishment in our place. God’s righteous standard approved of Jesus’ sacrifice as payment for all human sins. Hence, when every last transgression had been judged, Jesus said, “It is finished” (John 19:30). Salvation work was complete."[2]

     Some erroneously think salvation is offered to those who are worthy, who live a good life and please God through good works. The Bible does not teach this. The claim of Scripture is that “there are none righteous, not even one” (Rom 3:10), “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Rom 3:23). Sin is anything that is contrary to the holy character of God. The Bible teaches that everyone is a sinner (1 Ki 8:46; Prov 20:9; Eccl 7:20; Isa 53:6; 64:6; Jer 17:9; Mark 7:20-23; Rom 3:9-23; 7:18-21; Gal 3:22; Eph 2:1-3; 1 John 1:8-10). Sin separates us from God and renders us helpless to save ourselves (Isa 59:2; Rom 5:6-10; Eph 2:1-3). Lightner states, “Man’s need of salvation is occasioned by his sin and God’s estimate of him. Since it is God who must be pleased, it does not matter what man thinks of himself or how he proposes to be acceptable to God. What really matters is what God thinks, what he has done to save man, and what he expects, and in fact, demands of man.”^[3] When the subject of sin is studied, it results in a basic threefold classification that we are sinners in Adam (Psa 51:5; Rom 5:12, 19; 1 Cor 15:21-22), sinners by nature (Rom 7:14-25; Gal 5:17), and sinners by choice (Jam 1:14-15).

     To be sinners in Adam means his original sin, the sin that was committed in the garden of Eden, is transmitted to all his descendants (Gen 2:16-17; 3:1-24). Adam is the head of the human race. When Adam sinned, we all sinned with him. His fallen position is our fallen position. His guilt is our guilt. Adam’s sin is imputed to all his offspring, for “through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned” (Rom 5:12; cf., 1 Cor 15:21-22). David wrote, “I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin my mother conceived me” (Psa 51:5). Concerning this verse, Allen Ross states, David “was affirming that from the very beginning of his existence there had never been a time that he had not been in a sinful state—he was human after all. The verse does not mean that a little baby is a wicked sinner; but it does mean that everyone who is born is born in a state or condition of sin, and that state unchecked will naturally lead to acts of sin.”^[4] Being born in Adam means we are born with a sinful nature. Ryrie notes, “Adam’s original sin produced that moral corruption of nature that was transmitted by inheritance to each succeeding generation.”^[5] The sin nature is resident in every person; both saved and unsaved, and is the source of internal temptation. Warren Wiersbe states, “The flesh refers to that fallen nature that we were born with, that wants to control the body and the mind and make us disobey God.”[6] Since the fall of Adam, every person is born with a sin nature, and it is this nature that internally motivates us to rebel against all legitimate forms of authority, both human and divine. When we yield to temptation, we produce personal sin, which is any thought, word, or action that is contrary to the holy character of God. James wrote, “each one is tempted when he is carried away and enticed by his own lust. Then when lust has conceived, it gives birth to sin” (Jam 1:14-15a).

Dr. Steven R. Cook

 

[2] R. B. Thieme, Jr. “Salvation”,  Thieme’s Bible Doctrine Dictionary, (Houston, TX., R. B. Thieme, Jr., Bible Ministries, 2022), 232.

^[3] Robert P. Lightner, Handbook of Evangelical Theology: A Historical, Biblical, and Contemporary Survey and Review (Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Publications, 1995), 189.

^[4] Allen P. Ross, A Commentary on the Psalms 1–89: Commentary, vol. 2, Kregel Exegetical Library (Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Academic, 2011–2013), 187.

^[5] Charles Caldwell Ryrie, Basic Theology, 252.

[6] Warren Wiersbe, The Bible Exposition Commentary: New Testament, Vol. 2 (Colorado Springs, Col., Victor Publishing, 2001), 18.