Why Must We Be Saved, and What, Exactly Are We Saved From?

As I write today, I recognize that this is longer than usual so I ask that you patiently and prayerfully consider all I am saying, and look to the Scriptures to see if I am right or wrong. Eternity is at stake, and as we approach Easter, I want to address the “why” of it all. All too often, Christians do not understand salvation. We want it, sure, but we do not know exactly why we need to be saved, what we’re saved from, and what we’re saved for. Why did Jesus Come? What was His purpose? Simply put: in the beginning, God created a perfect world. Mankind was created in His image, and was also created perfectly, and God called his world “very good” or “Very much of God.” What went wrong? Adam and Even disobeyed God. They learned what evil was BECAUSE they disobeyed, and on that day, they died.

They did not, of course, die not physically, not right away, but the connection to their Creator was severed. As Ephesians 2:1 says “And you were dead in your trespasses and sins.” Adam and Eve were cast out of the place where heaven and earth met, Eden, and they and the ground were cursed because Adam did not obey the voice of God. Though God provided a sacrifice and a covering for their sins, they were still cursed, cast out of His presence, and eventually would die. Why so harsh a punishment for one act of disobedience? That’s a question I always get. Simply put: God’s standard is perfection. He created a perfect world, and His standard, Holiness, means perfection.

Note though, that God provided the sacrifice to cover their sin: He killed something from His very good world (that’s where He got the animal skins) that their sin, their nakedness and their shame would be covered for a time. But there is also a greater problem: man was made to be immortal, and the spirit that God created to be in man would live on after the sinful body perished. What happens to the spirits of humans? Well, the Old Testament speaks, often, of Sheol: the place of the dead.  This place is mentioned at least 65 times in the Old Testament.

Known as “the Pit” Sheol was the place where souls went to wait for judgement. Jesus gave an expansion of this in the Parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus (Luke 16:19-31, please read it for yourself so you know I am not merely pulling things out of thin air!). When both men died, they both went to Sheol; the Rich man went to Hades, which was a place of fire and torment until the final judgement, and Lazarus went to a place of comfort and waiting called “Abrahams Bosom.” We know both places existed in the same plane of existence: the Rich man talked to Abraham, there was a chasm between the two places, and no one could cross over between the two places. Lazarus was comforted, but the Rich man was in torment. Death is not the end! Unfortunately, death gets eternally worse for those who die outside of God’s will.

Jesus taught on the concept of hell more than any other Biblical speaker. He spoke of it as a place where there is “outer darkness” (Matthew 8:12), a place of unquenchable fire (he mentions fire at least 20 times, including in Matthew 5:22, and 18:9), and a place where there will be weeping (Sorrow and regret) and deep anger (gnashing of teeth; see Matthew 13:42 and elsewhere). Many of us see Hell as a place of separation from God; Jesus taught us the opposite: it is a place where God’s wrath against sin and rebellion never ends!

Some see this a cruel, but since the beginning, God has warned us! He provided both the first (the covering for Adam and Eve) and last sacrifice (Jesus Christ) for the sin of man-kind. His standard is perfection, and we CANNOT measure up no matter how hard we try. So He provided His own Son, Jesus Christ to save us from our sin, and the consequences thereof. The standard of Heaven is Perfection, Jesus met the standard when He became Human, born of a Virgin, living perfectly according to the Laws and Covenants for 30 years of life, then, in that perfection, teaching for 3 years and calling people back to God’s standards. At the end of His time as teacher, He offered Himself as the Ransom for sin. His once for all sacrifice is enough to cover the whole world and all who have ever been or will be for their sins! He died for sin, rose again proving death has no power.

This gift, though freely offered, comes with a price: you must follow Jesus and be born again! That’s what Baptism is. It’s more than an outward sign of an inward process: it is Jesus Christ proclaiming the Gospel over your life! He crucifies your flesh publicly, buries you in a watery tomb, and raises you up again a new creation (Romans 6:3, Galatians 2:20). Jesus died to save you from an eternity of God’s wrath, to make you Holy as He is holy, and to bring you to Himself in eternity. Don’t waste time if you’ve not come to Him. Don’t waste your salvation if you have. Romans 6

What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it? Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.

For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. We know that our old self^[a] was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. For one who has died has been set free from sin. Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. For the death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God. So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.

 Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions. Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness. For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.

What then? Are we to sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means! Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness? But thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed, and, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness. I am speaking in human terms, because of your natural limitations. For just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness leading to sanctification.

 For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. But what fruit were you getting at that time from the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death. But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.