Salvation to all Who Believe

Steven R. Cook

www.christonly.com

 

 

            God offers eternal life to the person who responds favorably to the gospel.  The gospel is the good news that God has provided salvation through the work of Jesus Christ.  God has to do the saving, because all mankind is spiritually dead as a result of sin.  

 

Romans 5:12 Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned

 

1 Corinthians 15:22 For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all will be made alive.

 

            Adam was the reason sin entered into the world, and as a result death spread to all mankind. When Romans 5:12 states “all sinned,” it is in the aorist tense in the Greek, meaning that when Adam sinned, he served as the representative of all mankind, and so we sinned with him. Because Adam sinned, his children are born with sin natures, and Adam’s original sin is transmitted to all his descendants. Because Adam sinned, all his children are born “in his own likeness, according to his image” (Gen. 5:3); that is, the fallen image of Adam. We sin because we are sinners; we are sinners because Adam’s sin is passed on to us as his offspring.  Regarding Romans 5:12 John Piper writes:

 

Paul is saying that the consequence of Adam's sin, death, was experienced by those who had not done what Adam did. In other words, Paul is stressing here that it is not our own individual sins that bring our first condemnation on us. People die who had not sinned in the likeness of the offense of Adam. The point is that Adam's sin is the most fundamental problem, not our sins – just as Christ's righteousness is the fundamental solution, not our righteousness.1

 

            Apart from the imputation of Adam’s original sin to all mankind, it should be realized that man, by his own efforts, can never win the approval of God.  Isaiah makes clear that “all of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like a filthy garment; and all of us wither like a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away” (Isa. 64:6).  If a lost sinner were to be “good” his whole life and give to charities, feed the hungry, shelter the homeless, give to the poor, offer medicine to the sick, and perform every other deed declared righteous by men, and then gather all those deeds into one bag and bring it before God and demand its “trade-in value,” it would be worth one “filthy rag.”  All of man’s relative righteousness can never measure up to the standard of God’s prefect righteousness.  Man’s relative righteousness is equal to one “filthy rag,” which in the end will be tossed into fire to be burned like a soiled undergarment which cannot be cleaned. 

 

            God’s own righteousness is the norm or standard by which all humanity is found either justified or condemned.  That which measures up to God’s perfect righteousness is acceptable to Him, and that which falls short is rejected.  God’s righteousness is the standard that has to be met in order for a person to gain entrance into heaven.  “Clearly righteousness is understood as a matter of living up to the standards set for a relationship.  Ultimately, God’s own person and nature are the measure or standard of righteousness.”2  The problem with humanity is that everyone is born “in Adam.”  This means that all humanity is born in sin, and being stained by sin, can never by their own efforts measure up to God’s perfect righteousness.  

 

            The question “how can a man be just with God?” is of major importance.  Often humanity sees God as possessing only the attribute of love, and subsequently asks “how can a loving God send any to the lake of fire?”  The Bible declares that God is love (1 John 4:7-12); however, the Bible also states that God is righteous and just (Ps. 9:7-8; 119:137; Rom. 10:3-4).  Therefore, God can have nothing whatsoever to do with sin, except to condemn it.  The real question is “how can a righteous and just God allow a rotten sinner into heaven?”  God can allow a person into heaven because His love found a way to satisfy His righteousness and justice without compromising His character, and this act of love can be observed in the substitutionary death of Jesus Christ on the cross. 

 

            Peter tells us good news when states that “Christ also died for sins once for all, the just for the unjust, so that He might bring us to God, having been put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit” (1 Pet. 3:18).  This is the greatest trade-off in history; the “just for the unjust.”  Christ took all humanities sins upon Himself, so they might be able to receive His righteousness.  Paul makes this truth clear when writing to the church at Corinth:

 

2 Corinthians 5:21 He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.

 

            God the Father placed the sin of all humanity (including Adam’s original sin) on Jesus Christ while He was on the cross and judged Him as if the sinner was there paying for the consequences of his own sin. Furthermore, God the Father gives His righteousness to the sinner who comes by faith alone to Christ alone.  God will declare the believer righteous the moment he trusts in Jesus for salvation.  Keep in mind that all human sin was imputed to Jesus, and that just as such an imputation did not make Him a sinner in conduct, so the imputation of God’s righteousness to the believer does not make him righteous in all his behavior, it only declares him to be righteous before God. 

 

            The Bible declares that “by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast” (Eph. 2:8-9).  Paul explained clearly that salvation is “through faith.”  Faith does not save, Jesus saves; faith is merely the means by which a believer receives salvation.  J. I. Packer declares:

 

The necessary means, or instrumental cause, of justification is personal faith in Jesus Christ as crucified Savior and risen Lord (Rom. 4:23-25; 10:8-13). This is because the meritorious ground of our justification is entirely in Christ. As we give ourselves in faith to Jesus, Jesus gives us his gift of righteousness, so that in the very act of “closing with Christ,” as older Reformed teachers put it, we receive divine pardon and acceptance which we could not otherwise have (Gal. 2:15-16; 3:24). 3

 

            Salvation is by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone and nothing else is required of the believer who would be declared righteous before God.  This is possible for one reason only, and that is because Jesus Christ died as a substitute for humanity.  Only because of Jesus’ death, burial, and resurrection does the believer find opportunity for salvation with God.  Kenneth W. Allen writes:

 

The grounds of justification are the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ. He was without sin in His person and conduct and during His earthly life He kept the law perfectly. Having therefore no sins of His own for which He need suffer the penalty of death, He had the right to die on the cross as a propitiation for the sins of the world. 4

 

            The basis of justification is made possible only through the work of Jesus Christ on behalf of all humanity.  The believer benefits from the fact that Jesus died as a substitute for him, and there is no longer a barrier between God and man (2 Cor. 5:19-21; Eph. 2:14-15).  Millard J. Erickson states:

 

It is as if, with respect to one’s spiritual status, a new entity has come into being.  It is as if Christ and I have been married, or have merged to form a new corporation.  Thus, the imputation of His righteousness is not so much a matter of transferring something from one person to another as it is a matter of bringing the two together so that they hold all things in common.  In Christ I died on the cross, and in Him I was resurrected.  Thus, his death is not only in my place, but with me. 5

 

            The good news is that God has removed the barrier that existed between fallen man and Himself, and the only response of the lost is to “believe in the Lord Jesus Christ” (Acts 16:31).  Once you understand and trust in Christ for salvation, you are given eternal life and belong to the royal family of God.  By placing your faith in Jesus Christ, God will give you eternal life and place His righteousness within you as the gift that makes it possible to have a relationship with Him.  Will you trust in Jesus as your Savior today? 

 

 

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1          John piper, Adam, Christ, and Justification: part 5 (Desiring God Ministries, available from:

 

http://www.desiringgod.org/library/sermons/00/082700.html, August 27, 2000).

 

2          Millard J. Erickson, Christian Theology (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Book House Co., 1998), 968.

 

3          J. I. Packer, Justification; Concise Theology: A Guide to Historic Christian Beliefs (Wheaton: Illinois, Tyndale House Publishers, 1993) 165.

 

 

4          Kenneth W. Allen, “Justification by Faith” Bibliotheca Sacra 135 (1978): 112.

 

5          Millard J. Erickson, 836.