An Incorrect Orientation to Salvation
Nowhere in the New Testament is the salvation that is offered through the Lord Jesus Christ described as deliverance from Hell—nowhere!
The wicked are always assigned to Hell. The wicked belong in Hell.
The wicked shall be turned into hell, and all the nations that forget God. (Psalms 9:17)
People who continue in sin are worthy of death.
Who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them. (Romans 1:32)
If the Lord Jesus came to deliver the wicked from Hell and death apart from their conversion into upright, holy behavior, He would be working against the righteous judgment of the Father.
If a wicked person were released from Hell because of professing belief in the Lord Jesus Christ, where would he go? He certainly would not be allowed to enter the new Jerusalem.
Blessed are they that do his commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city. (Revelation 22:14)
The wicked cannot enter through the gates into the new Jerusalem because they practice wickedness. They do not keep God’s commandments. Would we change this "by grace" and turn the holy city into the suburbs of Hell?
Where would the wicked go? To some area where there are other wicked people who also have been released from Hell and death because of their belief in Christ?
The reason that nowhere in the New Testament is the salvation that is offered through the Lord Jesus Christ described as deliverance from Hell is that this is not the nature or purpose of the Christian salvation.
The Lord Jesus came to find and to save the lost. Jesus came to save us, not to deliver us from the penalty of Hell. We belong in Hell as long as we practice wickedness.
What does it mean to be saved? It means to be delivered from wickedness so the Father can receive us to Himself and to the inheritance assigned by the Word of God to the sons of God.
There is a total difference between viewing the Christian salvation as a pass from Hell to Heaven, and viewing the Christian salvation as the re-creating of the human personality so that the individual can be received of the Father. The one is not scriptural and is destructive. The other is scriptural and results in all the rewards and blessing we associate with being saved.
Somewhere in the early history of the Christian Church the Gospel of the Kingdom of God was changed from the making of a new creature, into deliverance from Hell and the obtaining of eternal residence in the spirit Paradise. This mythology, akin to and derived from the other religions of the world, has persisted to the present hour and accounts for the spiritual immaturity of the Christian people.
It is time now for the message we preach to be changed from that which is not scriptural and destructive to that which is scriptural and redemptive.
But isn’t our purpose to save people from Hell and death? No, it is not. The wicked always will be in Hell and death. That is where they belong. If they were released into God’s Paradise then Paradise would be filled with Hell and death. Isn’t that true?
When we come to the sinner and tell him that if he will accept Christ he will not go to Hell when he dies we mislead him completely concerning the plan of the Lord for his life. We start him off on the wrong foot, with an incorrect view of what God is requiring of him.
What we should be saying is this:
You are a sinner and cannot come to God as you are.
No matter how hard you try to make yourself presentable to God you cannot succeed. You were born in sin. The guilt of Adam’s sin as well as your own sin has cut you off from God.
The Lord Jesus shed His blood on the cross of Calvary to satisfy God’s judgment concerning the guilt of your sin. If you will put your faith in Jesus as your Lord and Savior, God will forgive your sin.
God will give you eternal life by placing His Spirit within you.
You will be born again, meaning Christ has been born in you.
Now we come to the part that is critical to our correct orientation to salvation.
You must repent, you must turn away from your life in the world and begin to serve God.
You must be baptized in water as a sign of your repentance. Water baptism portrays two facts: it shows you now have taken your place with the Lord Jesus on the cross; it shows also that you are now part of the resurrected Lord Jesus and have risen with Him to the right hand of the Father. From now on you must regard yourself as dead to sin and the world and risen with Christ into the Kingdom of God.
The individual who has accepted the false gospel, that Jesus Christ came to save us from Hell apart from any change in our personality, goes through life waiting until he dies so he can go to Heaven. Meanwhile he tries to do good but fails more often than not. He has not been oriented correctly to the Christian salvation.
The individual who receives the true Gospel, that Christ came to save us from sin, goes through life as one who is dead to this world but who is living daily in Christ at the right hand of the Father.
The believer who pictures himself as forgiven and ready for Paradise is not undergoing the daily transformation that itself is salvation. He is waiting for death to verify and establish his salvation, not being changed into a new creature in the present hour. He has a wrong vision of the Father’s purpose and program.
The believer who pictures himself as dead with Christ and risen with Christ is overcoming sin each day. He counts himself as dead and risen. He experiences every kind of tribulation so that through these he might press into the Kingdom of God.
Salvation is a process of continual judgment and deliverance from sin. This is why Peter speaks of fiery trials and then tells us it is difficult even for the righteous to be saved.
Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened unto you: (I Peter 4:12)
For the time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God: and if it first begin at us, what shall the end be of them that obey not the gospel of God? And if the righteous scarcely be saved, where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear? (I Peter 4:17,18)
The purpose of the fiery trials is that we might cease from sin. They are Divine judgment on our sinful personality.
Forasmuch then as Christ hath suffered for us in the flesh, arm yourselves likewise with the same mind: for he that hath suffered in the flesh hath ceased from sin; (I Peter 4:1)
These comments from the fourth chapter of I Peter make little sense in terms of the view of the Gospel as deliverance from Hell when we die. But if we view salvation as the working out of our dual position of crucifixion with Christ and resurrection with Christ, and tribulation as being a judgment on our crucified adamic nature, then the fourth chapter of I Peter makes perfect sense.
Water baptism saves us by giving us a good conscience toward God. Our sins are forgiven because we have died with Christ on the cross. We now are risen with Him and are working out our own salvation with fear and trembling.
The quick, cheap gospel of deliverance from Hell by grace forms the great bulk of the Christian preaching of our day. "Count how many decisions for Christ you can get!" The expressions and concepts are false. The result is a crowd of people who do not know the Lord and are not coming to the Lord.
They have been drawn to the churches by carnal means and they must be kept in the churches by carnal means.
They are not growing in Christ, meaning they are not learning how to reject evil and choose good.
For every one that useth milk is unskilful in the word of righteousness: for he is a babe. But strong meat belongeth to them that are of full age, even those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil. (Hebrews 5:13,14)
They are not travailing in birth because Christ is not being formed in them. They constitute the majority of the Christian "believers" of our day, but they are not being saved. They have begun their Christian walk with an incorrect understanding of the Divine redemption.
For we are made partakers of Christ, if we hold the beginning of our confidence stedfast unto the end; (Hebrews 3:14)
Our participation in Christ is always conditional, always dependent on our maintaining a joyous trust in God throughout our discipleship.