Video Transcript: Salvation (12:52)

Hi, I'm David Feddes and this talk is about believing the truth about salvation. The Christian Leaders College and Institute statement of faith says salvation is merited only by Jesus perfect obedience, and substitutionary atonement. 

Salvation is entirely God's gift, not our achievement, and is received by faith not works. So in short, salvation is all from Jesus and from God, and it's received through faith and not through the things that we can do. It's merited by Jesus, the prophet Isaiah spoke of the coming death of Jesus and says he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities, the punishment that brought us peace was on him. and by his wounds, we are healed. He gets the suffering, we get the healing, he gets the punishment, we get the peace. So what we get is not what we deserve, but what he deserves. 

Hebrews 7:26 “says, We have such a high priest wholly innocent unstained, separated from sinners”, Jesus is completely sinless, God made Him who had no sin, to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. That is the great exchange described in the scriptures of what Jesus has done, that Jesus gets what we deserve, taking our sin upon himself and all the punishment, and we by faith, get what he deserves, and we become right with God, and nobody else but Jesus can do that. 

For us. Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved. We have to realize that the Bible does not teach pluralism. It does not teach that there are many ways to be saved, that there are many paths to God, that anything will get you there. 

There is no other name. Only Jesus can save us. So a part of our confession of faith is that it is Jesus's merit. But it's important to realize that is only the value of Jesus, only the merit of Jesus that can save us He is the only Savior. We cannot trust any other leader, any other religion, any other path to God, any other method of rescuing ourselves only Jesus merits salvation. He merits it by his perfect obedience, which is credited to us. And in order to be right with God, perfect obedience is needed. 

But when we've sinned, we also need punishment. And God either will take the punishment on himself in the person of Jesus, or the punishment will be dealt out to us we need propitiation, we need the blood of Jesus Christ, to pay the penalty to endure the punishment for the sins that we've committed. 

Scripture says in Romans 3 all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. Now propitiation is not an everyday word that we use, but it is, it refers to something that turns aside wrath that absorbs wrath or punishment, and only the blood of Jesus can turn aside or absorb the wrath of God against human sin. 

And instead of inflicting that on all humanity, or saying that this or that person will suffer it instead, God himself in the person of Jesus, the second person of the Trinity, becomes one of us, and then takes all of our guilt and our sin upon himself and gives his precious blood, as the Son of God and as the Son of Man. And because he's done that, we can receive by faith, the forgiveness that comes through Jesus Christ. 

So two things sometimes the theologians call it, Jesus passive obedience and his act of obedience. His act of obedience, is perfect fulfillment of God's law and doing everything God required of him without ever sinning. His passive obedience is enduring the call to suffer the wrath against sin to absorb the punishment. And so it's perfect obedience is credited to us. And his suffering, through the giving of his blood, washes away our guilt, our sin, and absorbs the punishment as a propitiation so that we can be right with God. 

So we're rescued from the guilt of sin were rescued from the punishment of sin. We have credited to us the goodness of Jesus Christ, as though we've never sinned or done anything wrong. God views people who trust in Jesus as being as right with Him as Jesus himself has earned by his perfect obedience. Now, that means that when we receive salvation, we don't look to ourselves. We don't look to our own efforts to get us into God's favor. We don't look at salvation as a wage that we can earn. 

The apostle Paul says, Now when a man works, his wages are not credited to him as a gift. But as an obligation, let's say you put in your time you go into work every day, you work really hard. And then at the end of your period of work, your boss comes and says to you, and gives you your paycheck. Here's a gift, say, I earned that. It's not a gift when you've been working hard, and you earn what was given to you, as payment as a wage. So when a man's works, his wages are not credited to him as a gift. But as an obligation, however, to the man who does not work, but trusts God who justifies the wicked, his faith is credited as righteousness. 

Through faith, Jesus righteousness, is credited to the person who's not counting on his own works, her own works, but God who makes the wicked right with Him through faith in Jesus Christ, we're counting on God's mercy on His free gift, not saying, I've been good, I deserve it. One of the great dangers in human religion is that it's always looking for ways to be right with God, and to say that I can do it myself, that I'm going to do what's necessary to earn God's favor and his acceptance. And that is not how it works. None of us can measure up to God's standard of perfect holiness, only Jesus, and therefore, we need God's mercy in Jesus, to make us right with him. 

There's a story about a woman who wanted to have a portrait painted of her. And she was not a very beautiful woman. In fact, she was pretty ugly. But she wanted a famous painter to paint her picture. And so she sat for the portrait while he painted away. And finally, when he was done with all of his paintings, she wanted to see it. And he showed it to her. And she said to him, sir, that painting does not do me justice. The painter said, Madam, you do not need justice. You need mercy. 

Well, that's the situation we're in. We don't need justice. We need mercy. God's justice was laid upon his son, when Jesus became the propitiation for our sins. And now God's mercy is poured out on people, when we trust God, to give that to us, as a free gift of his love. It's received by faith. God so loved the world. Jesus himself said, God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whoever believes whoever trusts in him should not perish but have eternal life. 

The apostle Paul said, “This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ, to all who believe not our efforts, not our achievements. But trusting faith in Jesus Christ”, we know that a person is not justified by works of the law, but through faith in Jesus Christ. I do not know if by the grace of God for His righteousness, we're through the law, then Christ died for nothing. 

That's a very strong way of stating it, would God have sent his own precious Beloved Son to die for us if we could earn our own way, and be saved by our own efforts? Of course not. There was no other salvation only the gift of His Son. We do not want to say that Christ died for nothing. He died for sinners that we might live forever. We don't want to nullify the grace of God by saying that we can contribute. Instead by faith. We receive what God has given and what Jesus has earned by his value, his merits.

Let's say you receive a check and it is a check for a very, very large amount of money. Now, what should you do with that check? Well, you might say to yourself, This check is for a million dollars, and I only have $37. In my account, I can't possibly accept that cheque. But you're misunderstanding how a cheque works. It doesn't matter what you've got in your account, the value of the cheque depends on the account of the one who wrote it.

 If the one who wrote you the check has many millions, and they wrote you a check for a million, that all you've got to do is trust that they indeed have that and sign your name and endorse it for yourself. And you just became a millionaire. So it is with the merit of Jesus Christ. If you constantly look at yourself and say, Well, do I deserve God to save me? Am I good enough? How is my account looking? Your account is looking very bad. If you're without Jesus, and you're doing it on your own, you can't possibly earn eternal life or pay for it. 

But Jesus has paid entirely and it depends on his value, not your value. When God offers you the check when God gives you that gift of salvation, and your name is written on it as you put your faith in him and you say, yes, Jesus, I trust you that salvation is for me, then it's Jesus value, not yours that counts. And you become a millionaire, you become eternally wealthy, through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. By grace, you've been saved through faith, this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God, not by works so that no one can boast. 

For we are God's workmanship created in Christ Jesus, to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. So good works are involved in Christianity as we follow the Lord Jesus, God has planned all along with there are going to be some great things that he's going to do through us and in us, and we're going to live a life that's more and more pleasing to God. But that is not what our salvation is based on.

That is only evidence of our salvation once God has saved us. The Salvation is based on God's grace and the gift of salvation in Jesus Christ. And so, we confess salvation is merited only by Jesus perfect obedience and substitutionary atonement. Salvation is entirely God's gift, not our achievement. It is received by faith, not works