View source for The Program of Salvation

Therefore leaving the principles of the doctrine of Christ, let us go on unto perfection; not laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works, and of faith toward God, Of the doctrine of baptisms, and of laying on of hands, and of resurrection of the dead, and of eternal judgment. (Hebrews 6:1,2)

"And of eternal judgment."

Let us think for a moment about the process of salvation. Salvation is deliverance from the guilt, power, and presence of sin. Man comes into the world with tendencies toward loving and trusting the world and the things of the world, with various lusts and passions dwelling in his flesh, and with self-will, self-centeredness, and self-love strongly entrenched in his personality. All of this is his inheritance from Satan, a rebellious cherub.

It is easy for man to sin, very difficult for him to behave righteously, to think, speak, and act in a holy manner, and to obey God faithfully. It is easy for man to serve and worship Satan (or so it seems!), very difficult to serve and worship God (or so it seems!). Actually the Lord is a loving and kind Master whose commandments are not grievous while Satan is a harsh, cruel master who never can be satisfied. But Satan has convinced the churches we are not able to keep God's commandments and we must keep on sinning. This is a lie.

The purpose of the program of salvation is to move man from the power of Satan to the power of God.

Following are some of the major steps of the program of salvation:

God draws us to Christ.

God sprinkles the Passover blood of protection on us so we are not condemned with the world.

God assigns our adamic nature, our first personality, to the cross with Christ.

God puts His Holy Spirit in our personality and Christ is born in us.

God raises our new born-again nature to His right hand in Christ.

God judges and removes from our personality all that is unrighteous, all that is unholy, and all that is disobedient and self-seeking. This is an eternal judgment.

God forms Christ in us.

The Father and the Son through the Holy Spirit take up Their eternal residence in our transformed personality.

Our physical body is raised from the dead and then clothed with our house from Heaven, the white robe of righteousness that has been formed as we have obeyed the Holy Spirit throughout our discipleship.

God assigns us to the various roles and tasks we now are eligible and competent to perform.

In our day we are placing an unscriptural emphasis on the beginning aspect of salvation to the neglect of the process and the goal. The product of this overemphasis is people who "make a decision for Christ" and then fall away; make another decision for Christ and then fall away; make another decision for Christ and then fall away. There are many such individuals in jail at the present time where they go to a Bible study and make another "decision for Christ." They make a decision for Christ because they want to please God, they want to be righteous. But what they are being taught is a philosophy, a system of belief, not the Divine salvation.

It absolutely is necessary that salvation begin in our life with a decisive, clear-cut action. We must turn away from our own attempts to save ourselves. We must put our faith in the blood atonement made by the Lord Jesus. We must repent of our sinful behavior and renounce the things we are doing we know to be sinful.

We must be baptized in water, declaring we have died to the world and now are raised with Christ that we might enter the Kingdom of God. These actions must be performed clearly and decisively.

But this is just the beginning. After this there is a life to be lived in which we work out our own salvation with fear and trembling-not as today with gleeful overconfidence but with fear and trembling that we might be faithful in pleasing God.

We have been given the piano, now we need to learn how to play it. Otherwise the Christian Gospel is to us a religious philosophy, not the power of God to salvation.

Then there is the Day of Salvation that is coming in which Christ will remove the presence of sin from us and clothe us with a robe of righteousness. The robe of righteousness is fashioned as we keep putting to death, through the Spirit of God, the sinful deeds of our body. In the Day of the Lord we shall be clothed with a body from Heaven that has been formed as we have put to death the deeds of our body on the earth. We are going to reap exactly what we have sown.

Salvation has a specific beginning, a specific program, a specific conclusion. Remember, salvation is defined as complete deliverance from the guilt, power, and presence of sin. Each of us has been given a mark toward which to press. There is a conclusion of the work of salvation, not a conclusion of growing in the Lord but a conclusion of the work of delivering us from the guilt, power, and presence of sin. Such deliverance is not completed at the beginning of our salvation but at the end.

It is not the beginning that saves us but the end. He who endures to the end is the person who is saved. We can go through the program successfully as long as we keep our eyes on the Lord. But if we grow cold and neglectful we are heading back toward the fire that will consume the adversaries of God. This is what the Book of Hebrews teaches us.

God is granting revivals of repentance in the United States in the present hour. This may prove to be our last opportunity to seek the Lord. Let us make sure we do not, after repenting, grow cold again. (There may not be another opportunity to repent!) Let us rather press forward to the finish line so we may be saved (delivered from the presence of sin) in the Day of the Lord. We will be made a partaker of Christ if we hold fast our confidence steadfastly to the end.[[Category:Faith]]