A personal testimony and presentation of the Gospel

“I have read in Plato and Cicero sayings that are very wise and very beautiful; but I never read in either of them: ‘Come unto me all ye that labour and are heavy laden’” (Augustine). Like Augustine, I have found in Jesus a unique figure who towers above every other historical figure. Many have attempted to point to a way of salvation, but only Jesus said that he was the way of salvation. Jesus is the Savior of mankind and that is what makes him so unique.

I did not always know the Savior. Growing up, I had very little Christian teaching. In junior high I began to rebel against society. By the time I was eighteen, I was an alcoholic and a frequent user of drugs. I was angry, depressed, alone, lost, in darkness, without hope, and without God (Eph. 2:12). I was on a fast track to prison, insanity, or death. It was into this darkness that Jesus came and rescued me. I received Jesus as my Savior and my life was completely transformed. That was more than thirty years ago, and the Savior has never forsaken me. I love and admire Jesus more today than ever before, and I long for the whole world to know of the glorious salvation that comes through him.

But who is Jesus? What makes him capable of saving mankind? What exactly is he saving mankind from? How does this salvation work, and in what way will it change lives? In the following post, I will briefly discuss these questions. I cannot, however, answer them in full because these subjects are inexhaustible. Though we may study the person and work of Jesus Christ the Savior for all eternity, we will never behold the fullness of his beauty, grasp the completeness of his wisdom, reach the limits of his power, or fathom the depths of his love. He truly is a wonderful Savior.

Why Does Jesus Need to Be Our Savior?

“Something has gone terribly wrong. And everyone knows it” (Driscoll 145). Despite our continuous efforts, war, poverty, injustice, suffering, sickness, and death still plague mankind. All of these are a result of our fall into sin.

God created the world in a state of perfection and declared it all to be good. Mankind was God’s special creation – made in his image and likeness and given dominion over the earth (Genesis 1-3). God, man, and creation dwelt together in perfect order, harmony, fellowship, love, and holiness. This state of “universal flourishing, wholeness, and delight” is referred to as shalom in the Old Testament (Plantinga 10).

Deceived and tempted by Satan, our first parents, Adam and Eve, disobeyed God, breaking that divine fellowship and bringing a curse upon the entire created order. Through their sin, death entered the world and all were made sinners (Rom 5:12). They exchanged the truth for the lie and the shalom of God for the wrath of God (Rom 1). Now, we are alienated from God, ourselves, each other, and even creation. Driscoll explains:

As a result of the fall, the descent into sin has continued unabated ever since. A respect for authority was replaced by rebellion. A clear conscience was replaced by guilt and shame. Blessing was replaced by physical, spiritual, and eternal punishment. Viewing God as a friend to walk with was replaced by viewing him as an enemy to hide from. Trust was replaced by fear. Love was replaced by indifference and even hatred. Intimacy with God was replaced by separation from God. Freedom to obey God was replaced by enslavement to sin. Honesty was replaced with lying and deceit. Self-sacrifice was replaced by self-centeredness. Peace was replaced by restlessness. Responsibility was replaced by blaming. Authenticity was replaced by hiding.

In short, we need saved! The world as a whole needs to be saved and brought back into shalom. We, as individuals, need to be saved from the results and consequences of our sin and brought back into fellowship with our creator. There is only one who can save us from sin and the wrath of God — Jesus! So with that wonderful name in mind, let us take a look at who this Savior is.

Who is Jesus That He is Able to Be Our Savior?

Jesus is the most well known, influential, and controversial figure in history. There are no shortages of opinions about who and what Jesus was and is. Some say he was a good teacher, some an enlightened sage, some a really good person. But what does God reveal in scripture about who Jesus is and why he came? What qualifies Jesus to be the Savior of the world? The biblical teaching about who Jesus is can be summarized as follows: “Jesus Christ was fully God and fully man in one person, and will be forever” (Grudem 529). Furthermore, it is Jesus’ unique identity as the God/man that qualifies him to be the world’s Savior.

In Philippians 2:5-11 we are given a beautiful summary of the person and work of Jesus in two stages — his humiliation and exaltation (ESVSB 2524-2526).

“Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” (Phil 2:5–11)

In this passage we see Jesus as fully God in his preincarnate glory who, in an incomprehensible act of love and humility, laid aside his deity and became fully man. As fully God, he was sinless and through his perfect life of obedience qualified to be the unblemished sacrifice for the sins of the world (1 Pt 1:19). As fully human, Jesus rightfully became our new representative and succeeded where our first representative, Adam, failed (1 Cor 15:45-49). Subsequently, there is now one saving mediator between God and man — the man Christ Jesus (1 Tm 2:5).

What Did Jesus Do in Order to Save Us?

But what exactly did Jesus do to bring about our salvation? The Philippians passage goes on to say that this God/man, Jesus, became obedient “to the point of death, even death on a cross.” Furthermore, Jesus did not stay dead but he was resurrected from death and “God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name…” It is through Jesus’ death and resurrection that he has procured the salvation of the world. The cross was a horrific way to die. Invented by the Persians and perfected by the Romans, crucifixion was designed to bring about death in the most painful, torturous, and humiliating way imaginable (Driscoll 245-249). It was to this fatal humiliation that God the Son subjected himself, but why?

The scripture teaches that Jesus died for our sin (Is 53:5; 1 Cor 15:3; 1 Pt 2:24). His death was a substitution for ours. The only perfect human who did not deserve to die, willingly gave his life as payment for the penalty of our sin, which is eternal death (Rom 6:23). God is merciful and always desires to forgive whenever possible, but because he is also just it is not always possible. As the judge of the universe he must punish sin or he would not be good. The Bible tells us that Satan, who has already been judged for his rebellion, hurls continuous accusations because of God’s forbearance in dealing with the sins of humanity (Revelation 12:10). Essentially he is saying, “No fair God! No Fair!” If it were not for Jesus’ death on the cross, Satan would have a valid objection, but because “God put forward [Jesus] as propitiation by his blood… [he is able to] be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus” (Rom 3:25-26).

In order to save us, Jesus died on the cross, but that’s not the end of the story because death could not hold the sinless Son of God (Acts 2:24-34). Three days after the crucifixion of Christ, Jesus rose bodily from the grave (Mt 28; Mk 16; Lk 24; Jn 20). The resurrection completes Jesus’ work of salvation by proving that he is in fact who he said he was — the divine Son of God, and that God the Father has received his death on the cross as an acceptable sacrifice for the sins of the world. In addition to divine vindication, Jesus’ resurrection makes the way for us to experience new life and assures our own bodily resurrection from death (1 Cor 15:12-34; 1 Pt 1:3).

How Do We Receive the Salvation of Jesus?

Though Jesus atoning death is sufficient for all, it does not automatically apply to all. Everyone who has a faith that believes, repents, and receives Jesus and his work will be saved (John 3:16). Saving faith is more than mere intellectual assent or a naïve “beliefism” (James 2:19). It is a Holy Spirit enabled response to the gospel. As the Spirit draws us, he sheds light on our consciences and convicts us of sin, [God’s] righteousness, and the judgment to come. He reveals Jesus and convinces us of his saving work (John 16:8-15). As we turn in repentance away from sin and towards Jesus, the Holy Spirit sheds the love of God in our hearts bringing about genuine spiritual transformation called regeneration or the new birth (John 3:3-8; Romans 5:5). It is not our own righteousness, good works, or perfect doctrine that saves us, “for by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God” (Ephesians 2:8). If you want to be saved from the wrath of God that abides upon the unregenerate, come to Jesus with simple, trusting faith and receive him into your life as your dying savior and living Lord. Embrace the apostle Paul’s exhortation to, “…confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved” (Romans 10:9–10).

How Will Receiving Jesus as Savior Transform Our Lives?

The moment you exercise saving faith and put your trust in Jesus, you will never be the same again. “…If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come” (2 Cor 5:17). The ways in which receiving Jesus as savior transforms a person’s life is literally innumerable, because through Jesus God has “ …granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness…” (2 Pt 1:3). However, in Romans 5:1-11 Paul gives us a concise list of some tremendous blessings that follow our salvation:

Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die— but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation. (Romans 5:1–11)

In our final section we will briefly unpack this remarkable passage of scripture.

1. First Paul says that our saving faith justifies us. Justification refers to that fact that in Christ we are declared not guilty. It is just-as-if-i’d-never sinned. We exchange our sin for Jesus’ righteousness through his substitutionary death on the cross.

2. Second, through Jesus we have peace with God. Prior to salvation the Bible teaches that we are God’s enemies and are at war with him. We fight against God and the very nature that he created us with and as a result experience turmoil within ourselves. When we surrender and stop fighting through repentance and faith, we know both objective and subjective peace. Objectively we are no longer at war with God but are now considered to be his friends. Subjectively we feel peace as the Holy Spirit bears witness to our acceptance with God. Additionally, we feel a harmonious peace as we cease to strive against our own nature which was designed to function in selfless love and reflect the image and glory of God.

3. Third, through saving faith in Jesus, we obtain access to God the father and his grace in which we stand. We are able to “come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need” (Hebrews 4:16, NKJV). The separation from God, caused by our sin, is forever removed.

4. Fourth, salvation gives us a joy “in the hope of the glory of God.” We have a deep assurance that God is in control of everything and that his plan for complete restoration of all things is unfolding in human history. Shalom will one day be completely restored to all of creation, and the Spirit’s presence and joy is the down payment of the future fulfillment of that promise. This living hope even gives the believer the ability to “rejoice in… sufferings, knowing that suffering produces” godly character and that all things work together for the good of those that love God and are called for his purposes (Romans 8:28).

5. Fifth, we notice that the “Spirit has been given to us.” God actually comes to dwell inside the believer, leading, guiding, teaching, convicting, comforting, and empowering him or her. It is an amazing thing to think that we are the temples of the living God (2 Corinthians 6:16).

6. Sixth, we are saved from the wrath of God. It is not popular to talk about God’s wrath, but making it unpopular does not make it untrue. God is love, and takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked (Ezekiel 18:32), but in his justice he must punish sin. The wages of sin, outside of the grace and mercy available through Jesus Christ, is eternal death (Romans 6:23) in a place of torment (Matthew 13:41-43; 25:31-46). We must all choose whether we will stand before God in our own righteousness or in the righteousness of Jesus Christ.

7. Finally, Paul says that through Jesus we have “received reconciliation.” Reconciliation means “the removal of enmity and the restoration of fellowship between two parties” (Grudem 1253). We, who were once estranged enemies of God, have found our way home and have been reconciled and restored in relationship with our heavenly father. He invites you back as an adopted child and heir. He delights that you are home. He rejoices over you with singing (Zephaniah 3:17). Welcome home pilgrim, the journey has been long, the road hard, but now you are with your God. Enter into the joy of the Lord Jesus, your wonderful Savior (Matthew 25:21)!
   
   Works Cited

   Crossway Bibles. The ESV Study Bible. Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2008.

   Driscoll, Mark and Gerry Breshears. Doctrine: What Christians Should Believe. Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2010. Print.

   Grudem, Wayne A. Systematic Theology: An Introduction to Biblical Doctrine. Leicester, England; Grand Rapids, MI: Inter-Varsity Press; Zondervan Pub. House, 2004. Print.

   Keller, Timothy J. Center Church: Doing Balanced, Gospel-Centered Ministry in Your City (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2012). Print

   Plantinga, Cornelius. Not the Way It’s Supposed to Be: A Breviary of Sin. Grand Rapids, Mich: Eerdmans, 1995. Print.

   The Holy Bible: English Standard Version. Wheaton: Standard Bible Society, 2001. Print.