Salvation Explained
Salvation Explained
by Danny C. Wash 
Because of what occurred in the Garden of Eden, when Satan deceived Eve and then Adam, and they ate of the forbidden tree, their spirits were darkened and divorced from God. Their soul became dominant because of the sinful disobedience of eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, so they now knew they were no longer acceptable to a relationship with God because of sin. In the deepest part of their heart, because of what Satan had put into them, they had a hatred for God and His rule. As rebellious man (a generic term including women) they also desired to be independent from God and to be their own ruler and god. Just as all of us could be considered to have been in our parents, in a sense, when they joined together and we were created from and out of a part of them, so was the whole human race in Adam and Eve when they sinned and then set in motion the creation of the races of people with their first children. When Adam sinned he was a representative of all people who were born later because of being our initial ancestor and it corrupted not only Adam but all of the human race that was “in Adam” when he sinned. Adam began as God’s first and representative man and from him would flow all people thereafter. The sin principle placed in Adam and Eve from satan was somehow placed into their corrupted DNA, so that the sin principle was thereafter passed from parent to child at the time of conception. Man, on his own, was unable to truly and first love God or anyone else before himself. He had a lesser form of love that was self-serving and was not God’s love, which is others serving. This independence and self-love is in man’s heart and in his flesh (not our physical flesh but that part of man where his lusts and selfish motives reign in sinful independence from God).
God is righteous and perfect. Therefore, God will not dwell in the presence of sin. So, how could God remedy the problem of man being under the control of and in league with the devil without violating the principle that sin must be punished with the death of the sinner? The only solution was that mankind must die in order for God’s righteousness to maintain its truth. But how could this occur without all of mankind being extinguished eternally? There was no way around the ultimate truth that man must die to satisfy this principle. Sin can only be paid for in the form of blood being shed in death to satisfy the holy wrath of God against all sin. The answer was shown to man in God’s dealing with the Jews, when He was going to rescue them from Egypt, by requiring them to kill a lamb and smear the blood over the door of their houses, so that the death angel would pass over them and not require the life of their firstborn. Also, God demonstrated this requirement when He set up the temple worship and the sacrifice of perfect and innocent lambs with their blood being shed and sprinkled on the altar of the temple.
God knew that man was helpless to solve the sin problem himself and that only God could solve it. God also knew that it would take “another Adam” to solve the problem caused by the “first Adam." So, eventually in the fullness of time, He came to the earth in the form of a man, Jesus, who became the second and last Adam, to rescue mankind from this sin problem through His blood being shed, His death on the cross in place of all mankind, and His resurrection. Jesus came in His incarnation as one of us, mankind, to identify with us in our humanity, but without sin and also fully man and fully God. God baptized, in His eyes, the whole human race, past, present and future into Jesus in the cross (Romans 6:3-11), so as to take away our sins through Christ’s sacrifice. All of our sins, past, present, and future were laid on Him by God, and as a representation of us, Christ died on the cross. In Christ’s dying; in God’s eyes, our “old man” died and was buried with Christ. Our “old man” was our former life of the flesh identified with Adam, the Adamic race, and all of its sinful rebellion from God because of Adam’s disobedience inspired by the devil and aligned with him. Then, with our old man left dead and buried in the tomb, God raised Christ, with mankind in Him, from the dead to new resurrection life. Christ was raised as the new and last Adam and we were identified with Him and in Him, in God’s eyes as new creations in Christ by faith in Him. When Christ was raised by God and given resurrection life (which is different from human life), that resurrection life then transformed our old, now dead and buried Adamic man, into the “new man” in the “one new Man, Jesus Christ” and by this we exited the sinful Adamic race to become a member of this new race in Christ. Paul said in 2 Corinthians 5: 14-15;17: “...one [Jesus] died for all, therefore all died....therefore if any man is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come.” God was satisfied, in His wrath against the sin of Adam and the resulting sins by all of mankind thereafter, with what Jesus did in His sacrifice on the cross. The cross of Christ brought God the satisfaction He needed because all of our sins were atoned for and were forever forgiven. All the sins are gone from His thought and sight forever for those who believe in faith!
Now, all of this truly happened objectively in a real place, in real time, two-thousand plus years ago at Calvary outside Jerusalem. However, the objective cannot become subjective and applicable to each of us personally, even though objectively before God our old man is dead and all our sins are covered, without each of us individually entering into that objective fact subjectively in our time, place, and life now.
The only way it can be entered into is through the doorway of faith. Everything with God begins with faith. And, subjective justification, the new birth, the being “born again” occurs when we believe in faith that this event truly happened, that Christ died for us, and was then resurrected bodily, as the Bible says and that when He died, we died and when He was raised, we were raised to new life in Jesus. When we do this, then all of these objective facts becomes operative and alive in our life by the Holy Spirit. I Cor. 1:30 says that “by His doing you are in Christ.” Paul said on behalf of all of us, “I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.” (Galatians 2:20 KJV).(see endnote 1) You had nothing to do with it and you can have nothing to do with it now, but believe in faith that it happened and that because it happened, you are forgiven and you now have the resurrection life of Christ dwelling in you by the Holy Spirit.
We are in union with God in Christ in our spirit. Paul again said, “Have you forgotten that when we were baptized into union with Christ Jesus we were baptized into His death . . . For if we have become incorporated with Him in a death like His, we shall also be one with Him in a resurrection like His . . . For in dying as He died, He died to sin, once for all, and in living as He lives, He lives to God. In the same way you must regard yourselves as dead to sin and alive to God in union with Jesus Christ.” (Romans 6:3-7 NEB). I believe that the baptism referenced in this verse is not our physical water baptism but is the great, once for all, baptism by God of the whole human race into Jesus at the cross, as discussed above. The Bible speaks of more than one kind of baptism. There is the individual physical water baptism; but there is also the baptism by the Spirit, the baptism of fire, the baptism of Jesus, the baptism of John, the baptism of suffering, and the baptism of Moses. There was also the baptism of the cross (Mark 10:35-39), which is what I am referring to. Jesus used the language of “baptism” to refer to His cross and His sufferings. James and John came to Jesus asking for a place of honor in the kingdom. Jesus asked them, “Can you . . . be baptized with the baptism I am baptized with?” (Mark 10:38). They replied that they could, and Jesus confirmed it: “You will . . . be baptized with the baptism I am baptized with” (verse 39). I believe this is the great baptism of the human race into Christ “into His death” at the cross referenced in Romans 6 quoted above and is not our physical water baptism, which is discussed in more detail below. Certainly, this baptism referred also to the disciples experiencing the kinds of suffering that Jesus had to suffer by their taking up their cross daily and following Him, just as we must experience, but not as a necessary part of our being saved. (Luke 9:23-25).
The Holy Spirit enters into your spirit the moment you believe those facts in history and you believe and rest in them for your salvation and justification before God. You are now in right-standing with Him because you are in Christ. Christ’s work on the cross and His resurrection has done all this. You must rest in and depend upon His work for you by faith.
All of this is through God’s grace, which is essentially God’s perfect love and power for us and His mercy toward us. It is through this gift of grace that we are saved and justified in His presence as we stand in Christ, who makes us acceptable (“all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, being justified as a gift by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus . . . so that He would be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.” Romans 3:23-24, 26). Nothing else makes us acceptable – no good works, no penance, no reformation, no water baptisms, no giving up things, no trying to get better and work for God or love for others – nothing but God’s grace that brought about the cross of Christ and His resurrection and justification of us.
This “saving faith” is also a gift from God that allows us to believe the objective facts and trust in them and Him, as our salvation. It is all of God in Christ through the Holy Spirit and what He did and is doing to save us. If any of it depends upon our faith being correct or our believing correctly or our repenting correctly or our praying correctly; then we are a target for the devil and our own minds to doubt whether we did all of it correctly and really meant it enough. Because we are weak and sinful, anytime we must depend on anything we did or believed, it is subject to doubt and attack. The devil will come, when you have sinned and sow the seed of doubt, that you were perhaps not saved correctly or really, since you didn’t do your part correctly or sincerely (“If you did, then why are you still sinning?” is his question or our question). But, if it is all of God in Christ and His work and grace through the Holy Spirit, then we have no reason to worry or doubt. It is Christ’s faith and faithfulness we are given. It is God’s grace that we are given. (“For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God. Ephesians 2:8). It is God’s gift of repentance we are given. (“. . . knowing that the kindness of God leads you to repentance.” Romans 2:4. “Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Jesus Christ, that we might be justified by the faith of Christ, and not by the works of the law: for by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified” Galatians 2:16 KJV). All are the acts of God in Christ through the Holy Spirit to save us and “our faith” or believing is really enabled and mixed with the “faith of Christ” and the “faithfulness of Christ,” so that it is all provided to us from God and is perfect and acceptable to save us. Jesus is clear when He said in John 15:5, “ . . . apart from Me you can do nothing.” Otherwise, having once expressed faith in God, and if your salvation depends on your faith alone; how could you continue in salvation, if your mind is clouded and you become unable to think clearly because of mental illness, injury, or disease to continue with conscious faith on your own to endure to the end. Therefore, thank God, that our salvation does not depend on our conscious faith alone but is perfected and made acceptable by the “faith of Christ.”(“If we are faithless, He remains faithful for He cannot deny Himself.” 2Timothy 2:13). Jesus cannot deny Himself because He is in us and we are in Him (if we have believed into Him at one time) by His faithfulness to God and the cross.
Well, you say, you mean I don’t have to begin living and acting differently than I did before as an unsaved sinner? No, you don’t in order to be saved. However, the catch is that the Holy Spirit now dwells in you and will begin giving you the desire and power to abandon any actions and inactions that are not good for you in His will and will not glorify God or will encourage and enable you to do things that will be good for you and will glorify God. This is still all of God in Christ through the Holy Spirit in bringing you into a new life, new desires, and experience.
Just as God is three in One – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; you are three in one – body, soul, and spirit. This is a very important fact because the new birth, the new life, and the Holy Spirit comes into your spirit, not your soul and body initially. The spirit of man is the innermost nonphysical part where the Holy Spirit dwells and this is that part of you that is sinless now because the Holy Spirit dwells there and has made it alive to God, where no sin dwells. (No one who is born of God practices sin, because His seed [in man’s spirit] abides in him; and he cannot sin [in his spirit], because he is born of God. 1John 3:9) Your spirit also contains your conscience and intuition. Your “heart,” as the Bible refers to it, is generally referred to as your real self, your personality, and the combination of your conscience, mind, and will.
You are not sinless in your soul though, which is your mind, will, and emotions. The Holy Spirit communicates Christ to your soul and you communicate with Christ through the Holy Spirit in your spirit. The plan of God originally was for man’s spirit to rule over his soul but the devil and Adam’s sin turned this around, so that the unsaved man’s soul rules over his spirit and his spirit is dead toward God, but not to the demonic spirits. Once the Holy Spirit enters into man’s spirit, any demonic spirits are excluded from man’s spirit. The Holy Spirit begins His work of attempting to produce the image of Christ in man’s soul, as man by faith and obedience, cooperates with the Holy Spirit in allowing this. This involves the dying of the independent rule of man’s soul and surrendering to Christ’s rule in his soul through the Holy Spirit breaking forth into man’s soul from man’s spirit. Once Christ’s rule is established in man’s soul, it is communicated through man’s body to the world.
The sins that continue to occur in our soul and body, even though they are covered by the blood of Jesus and don’t interrupt our relationship with God, they do interfere with our fellowship with God, until we acknowledge and confess the sins to Him and depend on the blood of Jesus to cause God to forgive and remove the interference with our fellowship with Him. John tells us, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” (1John 1:9). Jesus said to Peter, “He who has bathed needs only to wash his feet; otherwise he is completely clean. And you are clean . . . ”(John 13:10).
Speaking of water, we need to mention physical water baptism after your conversion. Water baptism is important in that it has to do with your confessing Jesus as Lord and becoming your Lord. Romans 10:9-13 (NEB) says, “If on your lips is the confession, ‘Jesus is Lord’ and in your heart the faith that God raised Him from the dead, then you will find salvation. For the faith that leads to righteousness is in the heart, and the confession that leads to salvation is upon the lips. Scripture says, ‘everyone who has faith will be saved from shame’- everyone: there is no distinction between Jew and Greek, because the same Lord is Lord of all, and is rich enough for the need of all who invoke Him. For everyone, as it says again-‘everyone who invokes the name of the Lord will be saved.” Notice that the verse says that “the faith that leads to righteousness is in the heart . . . ” This means that our justification (being made righteous) is instantaneous in our spirit in the inner man, when we have faith.(see endnote 2). However, the confession of the lips that “Jesus is Lord” leads to “salvation.” Salvation, here, is not the justification event when we have believed with faith and are made righteous in our spirit, it is the beginning of a process of salvation of our souls that continues for the remainder of our life, as we grow in our faith and the Lordship of Christ in our lives and behavior. Some call this the sanctification process as we grow in our Christian walk. Paul tells us in 1Thessalonians 5:23-24, “Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you entirely; and may your spirit and soul and body be preserved complete, without blame at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. Faithful is He who calls you, and He also will bring it to pass.” If you really analyze these verses, it confirms what I have said about you having a spirit, a soul, and a body and that Jesus is committed to bring you through and produce sanctification (the setting apart for Jesus) in all of these parts of you at the coming of Jesus.
The apostle Peter said in 1Peter 3:20-21, speaking of Noah and the ark that eight persons were brought safely through the water. He then says, “. . . and corresponding to that, baptism now saves you..." But Peter was not referring to our justification by faith, he was referring to the “salvation” part I discussed above of the sanctification process proceeding throughout the remainder of our lives. So, our water baptism is the part of the sanctification process that begins after we believe in saving faith and are made righteous in our spirit. Then with our confession that Jesus is Lord by and with our physical baptism in water we enter into the salvation/ sanctification process for the remainder of our life. Also, our baptism is our confession before the world, God, Satan, and everyone that we are agreeing that we have died with and in Christ, have been buried with Him, and have been raised with Him in His resurrection.
I have attempted to describe the events of justification and salvation, but we should all remember that Jesus is Lord and our Savior and God’s love, mercy, and grace is over all, so that the exact procedure of salvation is His and may not always follow the precise process described above for all persons. The final event in all this is in our Lord Jesus’ merciful hands and the Holy “Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God.” (Romans 8:16). It is a knowing in our spirit that we are children of God, which is not always definable or exactly knowable by the conscious mind.
May God bless you and grant you His revelation in your heart, so that the above words may become assurance and life in your body, soul, and spirit to His glory and your progressive salvation.(see endnote 3).
Endnotes:
1. “We believe that the King James Version of the Scriptures best conveys the sense of the original language. The modern versions change the phrase “faith of Christ” to “faith in Christ” throughout, which overwhelms the passage with redundancy. Paul never intended the emphasis to be upon what man has achieved, but instead what the Savior has accomplished on his behalf. The apostle here is clearly contrasting these two phrases. We are not justified by keeping the law, rather we are declared eternally righteous by the faith of Christ. It was Christ’s faithfulness that is the basis of our justification. He faithfully carried out the will of the Father to provide redemption through His finished work at Calvary (Heb. 10:5-10). While salvation is a free gift given to all who place their “faith in” what Christ has done, He being the object of our faith, it was at great cost. The payment to rescue us from the eternal consequences of sin is the precious blood of Christ. Only those, however, who place their faith in Him have the forgiveness of their sins (Eph. 1:7).” Quote by Paul Sadler
2. “Come to the Roman letter, and you see quite well that "justification" is only another word for righteousness - being made righteous before God. The whole argument there is: "There is none righteous, no, not one" (Romans 3:10), and then, out of that, comes all that is said about justification. Justification is simply to find that righteousness, to produce that righteousness, to bring to a position of righteousness. What is unrighteousness? Disobedience! What is righteousness? Obedience! How did Christ provide God with the righteousness that He demanded? By His obedience, His utter obedience. How did Adam bring this race under condemnation, that is, take it off the basis of righteousness, and, therefore, of acceptance with God? By disobedience! So that the obedience of Christ provides righteousness. "Christ Jesus, who was made unto us... righteousness" (1 Corinthians 1:30). How? Because of His perfect obedience. That obedience of the Lord Jesus was as Man for man. It was representative obedience. His being in heaven means that there is the virtue of a perfected obedience in Him, satisfying God for you and for me, and we stand upon a basis of righteousness because of the perfect obedience of the Lord Jesus. Then we are brought by the obedience of one Man (that is Romans 5) into the presence of God in the Person of the Lord Jesus, to stand without judgment and without any fear of judgment. No condemnation in Him, the inclusive, representative, racial Man. We come into acceptance with God because of His obedience, but, having been put in acceptance with God, our business is to walk in the obedience into which we have been planted. How can we walk in obedience? How are you and I going to keep on in obedience? The natural man cannot do it! The Adam man has proved helpless in this. How are we going to do it? The Spirit of the obedient One is in us, to be the strength of His obedience to us. 'Lord, I cannot of myself be obedient, BUT You, as having already triumphed in this matter of obedience, are in me; I live on Your strength in this matter.' That is living by Christ, and that is walking in obedience by reason of the Holy Spirit energizing. "It is God which worketh" - energizeth is the word - "in you both to will and to work, for his good pleasure" (Philippians 2:13).” from Work in the Groaning Creation Chapter 2 -The First Adam and Last Adam by T. Austin-Sparks
3. For anyone that wants to find Scripture verses to support the above explanation of salvation, please see my article which is an Overview of the Gospel and is entitled, “What is the Gospel.” Here is the link where you can see them in the article and endnotes: https://danwash76710.blogspot.com/2021/11/an-overview-of-gospel-by-danny-c.html
