 Heal me, O Lord, and I shall be healed; Healing and salvation go together |
RH #3: Revealing the Biblical Gospel,
Part 1
Part 1
God made us for His pleasure. Psalm 149:4 tells us that "The LORD taketh pleasure in His people: He will beautify the meek with salvation." Salvation morally is very beautiful. Any salvation that doesn't do that, we would be hard pressed to call salvation.
The Old Testament likens salvation also to water. Salvation comes in a cup in Psalm 116:13 and is drawn from a well in Isaiah 12:3. Palestine is, in many areas, a hot and dry land. Even the Jordan river is more of a rivulet. Water has a ready symbolic meaning there, standing between the traveler and death. Salvation, it seems, is meant to quench our thirst for righteousness.
Righteousness and salvation are mentioned together several times in Scripture. One of those, is Isaiah 51:5-8:
My righteousness is near; My salvation is gone forth, and Mine arms shall judge the people; the isles shall wait upon Me, and on Mine arm shall they trust. Lift up your eyes to the heavens, and look upon the earth beneath: for the heavens shall vanish away like smoke, and the earth shall wax old like a garment, and they that dwell therein shall die in like manner: but My salvation shall be for ever, and My righteousness shall not be abolished. Hearken unto Me, ye that know righteousness, the people in whose heart is My law; fear ye not the reproach of men, neither be ye afraid of their revilings. For the moth shall eat them up like a garment, and the worm shall eat them like wool: but My righteousness shall be for ever, and My salvation from generation to generation.
Where is God's righteousness? The Bible says, "It is near." Hebrew expression often uses parallelisms in thought, and here we have, "My righteousness is near; My salvation is gone forth, and Mine arms shall judge the people; the isles shall wait upon Me, and on Mine arm shall they trust." Righteousness, salvation, and judgment and trust are all piled-up right here together, a group of parallel expressions helping us see that ssalvation is never disconnected with righteousness.
Further, God says in this text that there are--somewhere--a people who know His righteousness. Who are they? Verse seven says, "the people in whose heart is My law."
How is it that real righteousness was ever disassociated with salvation? The result of permitting the presence of God's Spirit to manifest itself in us is that we will have Christ in us, the hope of glory (Colossians 1:27-29). And Jesus does righteousness. The behavior of one following God will be different, will be in fact, righteous behavior.
Conditions
Just in case anyone were to begin thinking that behavior can be disengaged from our salvation, they ought to carefully consider Psalm 50:23: "Whoso offereth praise glorifieth Me: and to him that ordereth his conversation aright will I shew the salvation of God." We have here a very clear condition. In order to see the salvation of God, we must order our conversation aright. The original Hebrew here has derek, as in walk-way or path. Conversation was an old English word for how one behaves, walks, or lives. So this text says that living right is a condition to experiencing God's salvation.
By no means is this the only such text. Another is found at Proverbs 28:18: "Whoso walketh uprightly shall be saved: but he that is perverse in his ways shall fall at once."
Which Comes First?
I can hear someone say though, that we can't live right without God's help. And that is correct. What did we find in our first presentation? We are, in our fallen state, without strength (Romans 5:6). Right here is where we get into many problems because folks insist on putting one thing before another thing, when these things go together and happen together. You cannot obey without God's strength and you cannot have God's strength unless you obey. That's why it is true that in the moment that you exercise faith you receive strength to believe and in the moment you receive strength to believe you exercise faith. Don't put one before the other.
When we begin to subdivide and organize into a hierarchy that which Scripture does not, then we open up a whole new theological playground. We begin to manipulate the truth and make it useless. You begin pulling justification and sanctification apart and before long they are irreconcilable in your mind. When I was a kid I used to have pocket watches. Whenever one would get to where it wouldn't run anymore, I would take it apart and attempt to put it back together. Did this three or four times. Never got one back together; there's a lesson in that.
We cannot obey without God's strength, therefore we cannot obey without His intervention. But we cannot even believe apart from His intervention. Remember, our humanity after the fall by nature is cold and dark and unloving. Such a nature has no interest in expressing faith. It is only because God intervenes that we can believe. So then what benefit is there to us in trying to say that obedience comes after faith, or that it comes before faith? The fact is that biblically they both have to happen univocally--at the same time, in one voice. The only benefit is that putting obedience second in sequence means it can be removed from the gospel by those bent on turning the grace of God into a license to sin.
Salvation as a Garment
In Isaiah 61:10-11 salvation is spoken of as a garment:
I will greatly rejoice in the LORD, my soul shall be joyful in my God; for He hath clothed me with the garments of salvation, He hath covered me with the robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom decketh himself with ornaments, and as a bride adorneth herself with her jewels. For as the earth bringeth forth her bud, and as the garden causeth the things that are sown in it to spring forth; so the Lord GOD will cause righteousness and praise to spring forth before all the nations.
But is this merely a paper righteousness? A covering of people who underneath are filthy still? Context, context. The first verse of this Psalm says that Jesus is sent to "bind up," "proclaim liberty," and open the prison of those who are bound. It goes on to say that they will build again the old wastes, raise up and repair. Isaiah 62:1-2 says "For Zion's sake I will not hold My peace, and for Jerusalem's sake I will not rest, until the righteousness thereof go forth as brightness, and the salvation thereof as a lamp that burneth. And the gentiles shall see Thy righteousness and all kings Thy glory . . ." The 12th verse says that they'll be called "the holy people."
Notice that what we don't find here is an asbestos suit for sinners, which is what some have thought salvation was. God checks out a suit to you and you just stay inside when the fire comes and you're O.K. But being clothed with salvation and righteousness by God means also healing (being bound up), being proclaimed free, and not only proclaimed, but the prison doors opened--being made free! The garments of salvation do not enclose our filthiness, but come to those who have consented to have their filthiness removed. Then they can wear them. Then God's righteousness becomes Zion's righteousness too. Then they are holy people.
"Being Saved" in the Old Testament
Consider Judges chapter seven. Gideon is preparing an army by which to deliver Israel. But God is concerned. What does He say? Judges 7:2: "The people that are with thee are too many for Me to give the Midianites into their hands, lest Israel vaunt themselves against Me, saying, Mine own hand hath saved me." And you know the story, how God helped him to sift things down to only 300 men. We are thus reminded that even as man cooperates with the divine, salvation comes only from God and not from flesh. Our own hands do not save us. Our cooperation does not even save us. Cooperation is a condition of being saved, but it is not a cause of being saved.
You go to a store. You fill out a form to apply for credit. When they process the form they don't give you any points for having filled it out; that was a condition of making the credit application but not a meritorious cause in granting you the credit line. Now your credit history, did you make your payments on time, etc., that stuff will go towards determining what credit you get. Do you see the difference?
When it comes to salvation we have to meet certain conditions, but they don't earn us any credit. Gideon's band initially had too many bodies. God was concerned that they would think that their strength had given them the victory so He made him reduce the size of his group. If you or I ever think of our role in the salvation plan as being more than we ought, rest assured that Jesus will find some way of demonstrating to us that we are overestimating ourselves. Better yet, let's not even go there. But at the same time, when the human part is reduced to absolutely nothing, not even a single condition, we also go off-course, because salvation becomes an arbitrary thing, where even the decisions are dropped onto God and then we come to that strange place where we think we cannot be lost or that our behavior doesn't matter. So we need to watch and pray and study so that we don't drop off into misunderstanding at this point.
Extravagant Grace?
Another passage of interest comes in Isaiah 45. There Isaiah rebukes those who "pray to a god that cannot save." God is described as "a just God and a Saviour" (Isaiah 45:21). One of the catch-phrases going the rounds today is to speak of God's "extravagant grace." Its quantity seems to be emphasized rather than its quality. God is portrayed a lavishing this extraordinary quantity of grace on people, recklessly, lavishly, profligately even. They also highlight how undeserving of salvation we are.
Now it is true, we dare not remove the fact that we come to God with nothing and do not merit salvation. We would not shrink grace down in order to add even a tiny place for us to bask in the glory of achievement. Clearly, when it comes to our salvation we have nothing, absolutely nothing of which to boast. It is all of God.
But let us remember that the conflict between good and evil is very largely over whether God is fair or not. Is He just? And our text claims that He is "a just God and a Saviour." It is one thing to say that our salvation is undeserved, but it is another thing to implicitly say that God is unfair when He saves us. If God has no legitimate basis upon which He saves us, then He is unjust, isn't He? After all, some will be lost, shut out from existence forever, and some won't be. Then if God is indiscriminately passing out a salvation which is denied to some but indifferently given to others, can He rightly claim to be "a just God and a Saviour"?
There is a basis upon which we are saved. We are willing to go God's way rather than our own. We are willing to be made willing, willing to submit to God's ways, to participate in an eternity where unselfishness will be the mode of operation. And God assists us and helps us to become a part of that. But there are those who consent to live that way and those who do not. Those who desire to live justly will be saved, notwithstanding the fact that even their desire to live justly comes to them from God. They still freely select it. They do not deserve to be saved for anything they do; but on the basis of what God does for them. It's just that they receive what He does for them and they are changed. In eternity everyone will be running on the same program--God's program. Thus it may be entirely undeserved, and yet entirely just, because God never gives out a discount on morality. He holds His standard of holiness high.
The result is found in Isaiah 45:25: "In the Lord shall all the seed of Israel be justified, and shall glory." The word "justified" there is tsadiq in Hebrew, literally, "made holy." The god who cannot save cannot make people holy. He does not exist. "There is no god else beside Me" (Isaiah 45:21). But the God we worship is a holy God and He designed His people for holiness, for His pleasure. We were made for Jesus (Colossians 1:16). When we are "in the Lord" that doesn't mean that we are wicked but covered, it means that we are made right by God's presence which we consent to, and even desire (Isaiah 63:9). But He puts the desire there. He brings enmity against sin. He provokes in us a love of righteousness alien to the heart of fallen man. In this way He is a just God and a Saviour.
Healing and Salvation
Jeremiah said, "Heal me, O Lord, and I shall be healed; save me, and I shall be saved" (Jeremiah 17:14). Again and again and again we find this dual motif: healing side by side with salvation. To the Hebrew mind they were one and the same!
We are going to, in our next meeting, take some time to look at this. We are going to discover a distortion of vast proportion, a historical cleavage that has separated out internal and external aspects of salvation. Healing is surgically separated from a legal form of salvation and one is put into a box over here and the other into a box over here. Think of it this way. What if you separate the legal part of an operation at Loma Linda from the healing part of the operation? Now you have a piece of paper that says you were in the hospital at Loma Linda for your problem. You can wave it around and brag it around that you went to Loma Linda for treatment. Fine. But what if they never did the surgery? What if there was no healing? Then your problem still remains, notwithstanding the big important and impressive name you are able to broadcast about and share with friends and relatives.
How often do we as Christians fall into this same idea and subscribe to a gospel that is supposed to save but we allow some pointy-headed theologian somewhere to take the healing part, the victory part, the change part if you will, out of the gospel? How much better that we hold the same understanding that Jesus had and the same understanding that Jeremiah had: "Heal me, O Lord, and I shall be healed; save me, and I shall be saved."
Salvation From Sin: Matthew 1:21
The New Testament opens with the powerful reality of Matthew 1:21. The angel instructed that the Messiah be named Jesus, "for He shall save His people from their sins." The first chapter of the New Testament also connects the coming of this Savior from sin with the deliverance of Israel from captivity (Matthew 1:17). So we continue to see the themes we saw in the Old Testament.
Here it is important to point out that the very foundation of the New Testament has deliverance not in sins, but from sins. It is important right here to stop and think. When we understand that Jesus' role in the plan of salvation is to "destroy the works of the devil" (1 John 3:8), and that He does this by applying the power of His merits to us both inwardly and outwardly, Jesus becomes a name meaning salvation indeed. Never could you say of a gospel stating God's plan and His power is that we stop sinning altogether here, now, in this life--that that was salvation in sin; you could only say of such a gospel that is proposes salvation from sin.
On the other hand, a gospel claiming that we are saved while still sinning, but that we are counted sinless anyway because of Jesus' life put to our account while we sin still, could never rightly be called salvation from sin, but would have to be a form of salvation in sin.
Let's be clear brothers and sisters. Not only, as we saw last week, does the Old Testament lay down a foundation of victory over sin in its gospel teaching; but here, at the very start of the New Testament, we see, indisputably, even as it builds its own foundation, that we are dealing with something the likes of which scarcely have been grasped or preached for 2000 years, even today in our own beloved Adventism. The gospel, the good news we'll find stretched out all the way through the New Testament, is a Jesus-centered gospel giving power to overcome, providing "all things that pertain unto life and godliness" (2 Peter 1:3).
Can Jesus Do It?
In the next chapter of Matthew we discover the woman who snuck upon behind Jesus and touched His garment. When she did that she was healed. The Bible says she was "made whole" (Matthew 9:21-22). Do you remember what we said last week? We read from Jeremiah the verse that said "heal me and I shall be healed, save me and I shall be saved." We noticed that the two can't be separated; that healing and salvation go together. Well, here it is again, now in the New Testament. Now look in your Bible there. See where it says she was "made whole"? That word in the Greek is sodzo. This word is translated back and forth throughout the New Testament, sometimes like this, "whole," other times as "healed," and often as "saved." This passage could have been translated that this woman had been made "saved" as she exercised her faith.
Why is this all so important? Sometimes brothers and sisters we don't believe it. We begin to doubt with the doubters out there who turn their eyes to their failing experience and say that Jesus doesn't truly save. But we must keep our eyes firmly fixed on Him by faith. We must take Him at His word. Because you see, He asks us the question found in Matthew 9:28: "Believe ye that I am able to do this?" But for so long we've been slogging through the swamp of a wimpy, faithless Christianity that refuses to say that Jesus can do this for us. It refuses His salvation until a more convenient time. And that more convenient time is always the moment of glorification.
It is more convenient because that means we don't really have to believe the New Testament, we don't really have to take God at His word. We can limp along with one hand in sin and another hand in righteousness and get the conscience-salving band-aide kind of Christianity. You know. The one where we go home after church and rejoice that we went to church. Then we keep on as before. We still don't read our Bibles, we still don't pray. We still don't really believe that any of this spiritual stuff matters. And we get back just what Jesus said we would. "According to your faith be it unto you" (Matthew 9:29).
Can Jesus do it? Is He a just God and a Savior? Does He heal His people? Is His name Jesus because He saves us from sin? Every one of us must decide deep in our hearts. We want to give our hearts to Jesus, but you see, there's an exchange to be made. "What do we give up, when we give all? A sin-polluted heart, for Jesus to purify, to cleanse by His own blood, and to save by His matchless love" (Steps to Christ, p. 46). Have you really given Him yours? have I?
Salvation in John
Well now, everyone loves John 3:16. I've got good news; I love it too. But I study it too. You know what it says. "For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life." In this tightly packed verse then we have God giving because He loves, and He gives something to the lost, that whoever will exercise faith in His Son would have everlasting life. In the next verse we have "For God sent not His Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through Him might be saved." His mission is the opposite of condemnation--salvation.
But what does John mean by salvation? Does He mean legal salvation? He boils it all down in verses 20-21: "For every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved. But he that doeth truth cometh to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest, that they are wrought in God." You see, there is nothing merely legal here, nothing merely forensic. Nothing! John is talking about what people do. Those that do evil hate the light (Jesus sent into the world to destroy the works of the devil). They refuse the light so that what they are doing will remain unreproved. But the person who is doing the truth comes to Jesus (who was manifested to destroy the works of the devil). He comes so that what he is doing, i.e. what he is, will be made known.
John 3:16 is about God changing people. The salvation in John 3:17 is a salvation from a faith that works (Galatians 5:6). The focus is indeed on Jesus, not on any works done by us apart from Him. Nevertheless where there is faith there are positive deeds. And as we considered last week, neither faith nor obedience precedes the other; but both occur together and in the same moment. One legitimately cannot be put before the other.
Those who want to apply this in a strictly forensic way need to realize that for John to talk about the law is a very rare thing. He uses the word for "commandments" frequently, and always in a positive light. But he uses the word "law" infrequently--so much so that out of his five New Testament books, the gospel has the word a few times (mostly referring to the law in terms of the books called the law and the prophets) and First John has it once. It doesn't even occur in Revelation or the other Johannine epistles! I don't want to make too much of this, but it is interesting--particularly so when theologians try to make this passage a strictly legal issue. They can't get that from the text; it's an imposition. Then, they will try to go around that by saying that obedience is a fruit of the gospel but it is not interior to it. Obedience is, by them, placed outside of the gospel. Watch for that fine-print. The end result of it is "another gospel which is not another" (Galatians 1:6-7).
Conversion and Healing
Now here's a most interesting one. John 12:37-40: "But though He had done so many miracles before them, yet they believed not on Him: That the saying of Isaiah the prophet might be fulfilled, which he spake, Lord, who hath believed our report? and to whom hath the arm of the Lord been revealed? Therefore they could not believe, because that Isaiah said again, He hath blinded their eyes, and hardened their heart; that they should not see with their eyes, nor understand with their heart, and be converted, and I should heal them."
Notice what's in these verses: seeing with eyes, understanding with heart, conversion, and healing!--comprehension, acceptance of God's way of salvation and the conversion that goes with it, and then healing. There they all are, laid out like a train. God initiates everything, makes possible the change of our hearts, we willingly choose to follow Jesus and thus cooperate with Him, and next there is salvation--healing--judgment--victory.
Now the interesting thing here is that God says He doesn't want them to see and understand and be converted. Why would that be? Because they resolved to refuse to believe. They refused Christ; and the Father refused their conversion and healing. To believe is to exercise faith, and to exercise faith is to obey, and vice versa. So again, here is more evidence that you can't have one without the other. And if you can't have one without the other, then how can you draw an arbitrary chalk-line in the sky and say that believing is inside the gospel and obeying is outside of it? Do I dare to say this--its all done in the name of legalism?
If so, then who's the legalist?
In some of these computer graphics programs you have the capacity to create an image with several layers in it. Then you can do a lot of things with the image and turn on and off the appearance of the various layers. Well, when you get down to saving your image on disk a box will come up on your screen and say that in order to save it you need to "flatten the image"--that is, to merge all the layers into one picture. Then you can't work with the various layers after that, because the image is as flat as a pancake; it has been reduced to one layer only. The Bible is somewhat like that. You have all these important Spirit-inspired truths recorded in the Bible but a certain way of thinking wants to flatten all of the layers down into one--legal salvation. Obedience, healing, etc., those other layers of the overall picture are not allowed to be visible.
There are those who want to strip healing out of the gospel, perhaps even conversion. Friends, this is why God gave you a Bible. You have it in your hand. You can double-check anything that I say, anything that you read anywhere, anything that you hear. God has given you all the layers. Don't let us with our pretty theologies take them away from you. They're your layers, not the preacher's.
Salvation in Acts 4:12
Some want to insist that after Acts two, it is a fundamentally different scenario; that salvation is different after that. I don't believe it. There are mighty developments, but the plan of salvation does not there divide or change. It is the same. There is still one Lord, one faith, one baptism. There is still salvation only through Jesus. There is still only the one gospel that not only says we are saved but changes those who are saved.
How inconvenient this gospel is! It is not a gospel of complacency, or that grants us "dodging rights." We cannot say after we have sinned (to paraphrase Adam), "God, it's not my fault, but the gospel that You gave me to be with me." No, friends. The gospel is the same all through the Bible, as we shall see. We want to give our hearts to Jesus. Let's look at the way He has outlined for us. Start with me in Acts 4:7-12:
And when they had set them in the midst, they asked, By what power, or by what name, have ye done this? Then Peter, filled with the Holy Ghost, said unto them, Ye rulers of the people, and elders of Israel, If we this day be examined of the good deed done to the impotent man, by what means he is made whole; Be it known unto you all, and to all the people of Israel, that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom ye crucified, whom God raised from the dead, even by Him doth this man stand here before you whole. This is the stone which was set at nought of you builders, which is become the head of the corner. Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.
The power they are asking about here is dunamis, strength, and in what name, a question of authority, they have healed this man. Peter makes it very clear to those who hear the exchange. He says, If you are asking how the asthenous, "weak" man was what? "Made whole," sesostai, "has been saved," or as we could have it, "has been healed"--(Notice that this is the same word we mentioned before that is translated "heal" or "save.")--he says, We have an answer for you. It is by the name of Jesus. "Even by Him doth this man stand here before you whole."
Jesus makes people whole. He does it now. No, He doesn't take away the fallen nature right now. But He does give power to overcome it, to supercede its control, to subdue it. Whereas before we had been in bondage to our lower nature, now through the strength given us by God it is taken captive, it is held in bondage. Often it is a very close battle to keep it there, but that is the plan. Jesus was manifested to destroy the works of the devil (1 John 3:8), not just in some cold and distant theological world, not just at the time He came, not just in the lives of the heroes of the Bible, but in your life and my life, here and now. He would destroy the destroyer. He would make us whole.
Now Peter arraigns "the builders," the ideological architects before the bar of God and says that they in constructing their temple have left out the corner stone, the standard, the measure, the base line by which all the temple is to be aligned. Mind you, still they built a religious temple, but leaving Jesus out. He didn't fit in their plan.
They wanted a salvation just like we so often want today; one limited, with only a few cursory demands made. One with which the fallen nature still can be nursed and retained, while lip service is given in the worship of God--a halfway scheme; one allowing them to brag about how spiritual they were while treating God's demands obedience as but a cafeteria option.
They "set at nought" the chief cornerstone, Christ; they "made of none effect" His counsel. And did not the "testimonies of the Spirit of God" come to the people through Jesus? Oh yes. Then in its advanced state of rot, Israel was fully engaged in the process of making "of none effect the testimonies of the Spirit of God." Now this is very interesting!
But notice the remainder of this passage: "Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved."
Salvation is not in a system of theology only, but Christ is the substance. Salvation is not in methods of worship, in techniques of testimony, in songs and CDs. It is not in degrees or academic achievement or rubbing shoulders with the latest crowd of refugees at Fuller. It is in Jesus.
Salvation is in His name only, for He only is the channel of access to the Father, He only is the giver of grace from heaven, He only is He who sends the Holy Spirit to us to help us become more like Him. Oh how we err when we turn to technique and the latest fads in order to do the work of heaven. No other name is given under heaven whereby men must be saved but Jesus. Nor will any other message suffice to meet the stern needs of the hour but the present truth message for that hour sent by the Cornerstone Himself. If we are not giving heaven's message with a strong present-truth ring in it, it is because we are trying to do heaven's work under our own energies, according to our own wisdom, by means of our own very offensive-smelling schemes.
Israel in the day of Peter had erected an institutional system by which they could all be very religious but keep their sins. I would submit to you that some today have done the very same, down to the dot. But God sent forth the fiery and the bold to shake them out of their lethargy and tell how His salvation was, even if it seemed but the strange and idle tale to the pitifully pious re-modelers of God's religion. And today He is doing the same. Today we must be forthright in declaring that no other name is given under heaven whereby men might be saved--that Jesus' methods alone will lead to true success in the work of God.
We live at an hour when boundaries are anathema, when many methods are being pressed into play that are very strange fire. Today many innovations in worship are mere impositions from a contemporary paganism, the identification of such having escaped our notice. Many things in use today certainly are not on Jesus' list. You see, there is no other name given, and so our methods must be Jesus' methods. If we really believe "Neither is there salvation in any other," then we will not make the attempt to go our own way.
Jesus is the center. We can be saved only in His way. And His way means a good deal of cooperation between God and man, wherein God gets all the glory and all the credit and all the praise; we receive neither glory nor praise nor credit, but we do cooperate, we do hold the door open by His strength so that He may enter and repair us. This is the salvation spoken of here, a salvation by which this man in the story was "made whole." Jesus only is the name by which you and I may be made whole.
Salvation in Romans 1:16
Now we come to the book of Romans. Many of a certain stripe have a certain view on what salvation is. A lot of them think that the gospel as they understand it--is what is taught in Romans. As a group they tend to hold that all of salvation is encompassed in justification, in being (so they say) "counted" right, and that no part of the gospel has anything to do with "making" one right--that that is all just an add-on--important as an add-on, nice as an add-on, but not necessary to salvation. Some of these think that Romans is their stronghold; that no one in their right mind, disagreeing with their view, would dare to tread there. I disagree. In fact, Romans is the stronghold of the true gospel understanding. Let's look into one of these powerful passages then: (Romans 1:15-23).
As much as in me is, I am ready to preach the gospel to you that are at Rome also. For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek. For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, The just shall live by faith. For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness; because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath showed it unto them. For the invisible things of Him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse: because that, when they knew God, they glorified Him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things.
Notice the inspired definition here given by Paul: the gospel is "the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth." We should notice that the word power here is the Greek dunamis, meaning strength, explosive power, like in our modern word "dynamite." It is a power for everyone who will believe, and which results in "salvation."
The word salvation here and the word deliverance both are sound translations. The gospel is the power of God unto deliverance for all who will believe. Then it says that it is in this gospel that the righteousness of God is revealed. See, whether God is fair or not is revealed in His gospel. Is He an arbitrary, wheel-of-fortune type God, randomly saving some and destroying others? Or is there a method to His--kindness?
How might all of this look from the devil's perspective? Have you ever thought of that? Maybe Satan would say, Well, can't You at least do as much for me as You are doing for them? Can't You just count me as righteous? And see, if He could, wouldn't there then be unrighteousness with God? But how is that different for us when we live by the same selfish plan as Satan, when we somehow must think that our lives don't matter, that our lives testify nothing of God? Did you hear the Word of God? It said that it was in the gospel--in the gospel as displayed in the life of the professed follower of God--that His--God's--righteousness is revealed!
The fictional gospel that counts us as changed only could be managed by Satan. He could say that he would count someone as what they were not. He is a liar and the father of lies (John 8:44). It would be right up his alley to do that. But the Bible is explicit: in our God there is no lie, no shadow of turning. He cannot tell an untruth, no, not even in the service of any (supposed) ultimate good. God's gospel counts us as changed as we are changed. His accounting always matches the reality. He rightly estimates what we are for He knows what we are. And He knows when we access His power.
When the woman touched Jesus' garment, He said that He felt virtue going out from His presence; immediately He sensed the touch and application of faith. He knew she had been healed. And it is the same today my brothers and sisters. Today, when you, when I, call upon Him for power it is the same. He senses the power going out to us. Today, even more as our Intercessor in heaven He sends forth divine power to aid His people. Did you ever think about that? That when you pray for help, Jesus notices, He experiences it? No wonder He calls us His brethren! No wonder He knows what are our trials and our testings.
We here speak not of an authority merely exercised by God, but a strength, a supernatural power to change. That's what's in the gospel. It operates not merely by authority, but by power, on our lives. If the gospel were, as so many think, an accounting only as righteous, an authoritative declaration, a different Greek word, likely would have been used here. But it wasn't. Instead heaven inspired the idea of power.
Again, this righteousness of God is revealed what? "From faith to faith." Now we can have no faith unless God's Spirit sends life and light into our darkened being. But when He does, and when we consent, when we act on and press into service this faith provided by our Father, then the gospel provided by our Father takes effect. And it is not as though the word of God was without effect. So here is the salvific formula given in Romans: God's righteousness is revealed in the lives of His people as they choose to exercise the faith He gives them. And how shall the just live? "The just shall live by faith." As we, provoked by Him, embrace Him, as we respond to His goodness, in obedience, by faith, we live justly. And we go forward in this, God's way.
Let's consider one more evidence. See, the next thing Romans says is that not only God's righteousness, but His wrath is revealed "from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness." They hold back, they hold down the truth because of how they live. They claim to be righteous but they live out a lie, a mere form of godliness. But God is not fooled. His wrath is revealed from heaven. No matter their profession, He refuses to count them as what they refuse to become. And so in vs. 21 they refuse to glorify Him, and in vs. 23 they change "the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man."
They refuse God's righteousness and insist on their own righteousness. They keep their behaviors but call themselves His children anyway. And you know what? That can become a pious mask. That can leave one where they say that they are counted by God as what both He and they know they are not. Brothers and sisters, we are made in God's image--the image of a moral Being. But we turn God's glory into an image made like corruptible man. We as much as imply that God's righteousness covers our continuing willful sin. And that means that He is unjust, or that sin isn't really so bad, or that salvation isn't really so good.
Either our lives reveal God's righteousness or our own evil. No theological slight-of-hand can adjust this truth. Either we are changed into His image from glory to glory, from faith to faith, or we are living under our own steam and our lives testify of God as if He were only as selfish as ourselves, saying who or what is righteous only on an arbitrary and amoral line, portraying the incorruptible God as if He were corruptible man, as erratically moral as we have been.
Pardon me for believing that the gospel of God is the power of God unto salvation for all who believe, and that when God says so, He means it!
Salvation in Ephesians
If you have read through the New Testament even a little you will be thinking about what the book of Ephesians says about salvation. This book is very rich on this topic. We are running out of time and can spend only a little now. But turn with me to chapter two of the book. Let's take a look.
The first line in this chapter insists that what we had been now is changed, that now we have been quickened, made alive "together with Christ" He lives even now, He empowers even now. We sit together with Him in heavenly places "in Christ Jesus" (Ephesians 2:1-6). Now here is an important idea, the idea of being "in Christ." We'll look into this some more on an occasion when we can go in deep and careful. But for now realize this: we are not in Christ unless Christ is in us. Now if you want some evidence for that, just spend some time browsing through John 15. Again, I would invite you to join me for a moment just a few pages over at Colossians 1:27-29). What are we told there?
To whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory: Whom we preach, warning every man, and teaching every man in all wisdom; that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus: Whereunto I also labour, striving according to his working, which worketh in me mightily.
The riches of God's glory is not us in Christ, but Christ in us. You see, the pauper's way is us in Christ when we mean that we refuse His change and He saves us anyway. Yes indeed, we must be "in Christ," but that doesn't mean that we are only counted changed. When we are in Christ it means that we also invite Him, receive Him inside. It is this presence of Christ that changes His people, that gives us the "hope of glory," that works in us mightily. Do you remember the classic statement from Galatians 2:20? Here is yet more evidence: "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." Paul said that Christ lived in him. That was how he lived "from faith to faith." He was not alone. He lived as a Christian with Christ within, the hope of glory.
The evidences are piled high. But one more before moving along. Back in Ephesians 2:8-9 we read the classic statement on salvation: "For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast." I believe and accept and cherish this truth with all my heart. I am saved by grace through faith. It could never arise merely from myself. It is the gift of God. Nor may I work for it, receive credit towards it, merit it, or make myself good enough for it on my own. No, never! Yet, all that being true, I receive it in the context of the oft unspoken truth of the summary verse, Ephesians 2:10: "For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them."
We are His workmanship, not our own. God's workmanship glorifies its Maker. Our lives will glorify Him. When you and I are "created in Christ Jesus," the work never stops there. Rather, this creation goes on to its purpose: "We are created in Christ Jesus unto good works." And God, before, from the very beginning, ordained that we would walk in such, live in such, live-out such, express such, and show the world the righteousness of God. We are the monitor screens, the radio stations, the portals through which heaven teaches, the cable-channels to which every heavenly intelligence is tuned. These are things that angels want to look in to. And they are. All the universe wants to know what it means to give our hearts to Jesus, what it means to experience the salvation of God. This, this, is salvation in Ephesians.
For more on salvation in Ephesians, print out the following message: Collision With prophecy #12: Stealing Candy From Babies. http://www.collisionwithprophecy.org/journey/cwp12.html.
Conclusion
We've raced through a topic that fills the Bible, and we've left much out. But those are the time constraints imposed upon us by the fact that sermons have to start somewhere, and they have to end too. So this one has to end. But in our next meeting, we're going to see a special insight from a text I left out in this presentation. Wait until you see it! Until then, let us continue in prayer and fellowship, and in coming to grips with the deep and wide, practically boundless manner in which the Bible fully sustains this gospel of the kingdom, and no other! Amen.
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