Major Bible Themes

We have been talking about your favorite subject, sin. We talked about man's fall and sin as characteristics and universality and we spent a couple of weeks on that. So today we are going to talk about salvation from the penalty of sin. We want to cover the meaning and scope of salvation. What is it?

Which is not a nice word. There are three tenses. grammatical tenses in salvation, what are they and what do they mean? And salvation is conditioned upon faith alone. For all you good Mormons, I know it's tough for you to accept that, but that's the way it is. Okay, salvation. Derived from the word, the Greek word, soteria, which means deliverance or preservation. In your mind, what do you think salvation means? If you look at this word in the New Testament, you can find different uses for it.

In Acts 7.25 and 27.34, it's actually used of material or temporal deliverance. If you were in physical jeopardy and you got delivered, they would use this word, soteria. Anybody recognize the word, soteriology? I didn't think so. But if you happen to be one of those unfortunate people that goes to seminary, you stop using the word salvation and you start using the word soteriology. Makes you sound smart, big deal.

So it also in Acts 4.12 and Romans 1.16 of spiritual or eternal deliverance. So one of the really big aspects of salvation is the idea of deliverance. which is much more than just the word pardon for your sins. In a future deliverance for the believer in the next section, in the present experience of God's power to deliver, we'll cover those two things next week. It's used in Luke 1, 69-71 about the deliverance of the nation of Israel, salvation.

To sum up all the blessings for the believer, somebody read 1 Peter 1.9 Those of you who can read English and have a Bible. 1 Peter 1 9. The laptop guys usually get there faster.

Obtaining is the outcome of your faith and salvation of your souls. Okay, say that again. Obtaining is the outcome of your faith and salvation of your souls. So salvation is more than just forgiveness, do you agree? If I say to you, I say to Steve, Steve you're saved. Wouldn't he say from what to what? Pretty easy to discuss I'm saved from something. What am I saved from spiritually? Am I saved from sin? Sin has a penalty, right? God said the soul that sins it will surely die. So death is the penalty.

Separation from God for all eternity. But then he added on another little thing after that. You know what it was? A little place called hell and the lake of fire. So not only is there separation but there is consequence for sin. So when salvation is offered it has to be offered so that it takes care of not only the forgiveness but the penalty and the resultant consequence. See that? The consequence has to be taken care of otherwise it isn't salvation.

In the Old Testament, there were two references in Psalm 3.8 and Jonah 2.9. Salvation belongs to the Lord and salvation is of the Lord. Now, let's talk about that for a minute. Whose idea was salvation? God. You mean it wasn't mine? Or yours? Or Adam? Now Adam, when Adam sinned in the garden, the lights went out, and how did he feel? He felt naked, right?

And he felt like he had to cover himself, didn't he? So his remedy for salvation from separation from God was to cover himself with whatever he could find. And if you've ever been to Hawaii, you can see that the plants are big enough to make a suit out of. So he covers himself.

What was the problem with that? If that had worked, it would have been salvation of Adam. You understand what I mean by that? Well, like you said, it's a covering. What's that? It's a covering. There, it was a covering. But God came along and offered Adam salvation. What did he offer him? Places. No. What did he offer him? Take away. No, when God showed up in the garden with Adam, and here he is clothed in his philodendron, and God says, here, Try these on. What were they? Skins. Skins. Where did you get them? From a dead animal. From an animal that had to be killed. You didn't get them at Wal-Mart. The animal had to be killed. And he used animal skins to cover Adam's sinfulness.

Now, was Adam safe? Right then? No. No, because you had to believe in him. This thing doesn't go that far, does it? See the bottom right one, it says salvation is conditioned upon faith alone. When God said to Adam, here are the skins, here's my remedy, what did Adam do? He put them on. Was that not an act of faith on Adam's part? I think it was. Is Adam saved? I think he is.

Because he took God's solution to his problem. You alright with that? It also shows that just saying that you know who God is, is not salvation. Say that again? Adam had been in fellowship with God. So he knew who God was but he sinned in spite of that fellowship. And he knew he had entered into the consequence. He died spiritually instantly and he was going to die physically. Well it's like it says in the New Testament that even Satan knows the penalty of sin.

So when you talk about salvation, you think about salvation, you should think about it as an all-encompassing word. That it is a rescue, that it is forgiveness, that it is freedom from the penalty of your personal sins, and the fact that you're a sinner in Adam. We'll talk more about that. Now, the scope of salvation covers all of these words. Substitution. What does substitution mean in terms of salvation?

Somebody took your penalty. There's a penalty for your sins. You're guilty and you're going to suffer the consequence. Somebody took that consequence for you. That's part of salvation. Redemption. This is like the class on Marchbank's class on the basic doctrines of salvation. Quickly, what does redemption mean? Redeemed.

You can't define a word with a word. What is that? I just did. It means to buy back out of the marketplace. It means that you were sold into the slavery of sin, you got redeemed. Somebody paid the price. Reconciled means you've been brought back to God. Propitiation, one of my favorite words. What does it mean? It means one thing.

Satisfaction. Who got satisfied in this? God did. He got satisfied about your sin. If he wasn't satisfied, none of the rest of it would have happened. Conviction, where the Spirit of God convicts you or persuades you. Repentance. What does repentance mean? To be really sorry for what you did? Say the same thing as God. No, that's conversion. Change of mind. Change of mind, that's all it means. It has nothing to do with emotion. You can feel really sorry, but that's not repentance. Repentance is just a change of mind. Okay? Faith, regeneration, what's regeneration mean? The new creation. Yeah. Re means new, or again, generation. Born again, that's what it means. It means something brand new.

Forgiveness, we know what that means. Justification, what does justification mean? Declared righteous. You're not righteous in yourself, God just declared you to be so. Sanctification means set apart. Preservation And what does glorification mean? Oh my goodness. The heart of salvation is glorification. What does that mean?

When Christ prayed to the Father in John 17, He said, Father, glorify me as a human being, with the glory that we had before the world began. Glory is the sum total of God's intrinsic attributes shining forth. So he says glorify me as a man with that same glory that we had because I'm God too. And then later on what does he say? He says, I have given the glory you gave me, I've given that.

So part of your salvation is this gift of glorification of God in and through you for all eternity. That's kind of cool. But not now, when you die. Well, you have it now but you can't see it. I'm a glorified individual? Not yet. But you have it positionally, it's yours. You just haven't manifested it yet. Okay. Is it... It takes a new body to pull that off. Does that make sense?

Is that glorification part of... what Adam and Eve had with God before? Answer, no. It's more than that. Because Adam and Eve were created creatures, made in the image and likeness of God, so they had a lot of the attributes that God has. But they weren't glorified, they were innocent. What we're going to have, with the new body and manifested, is the very assets that God has, except for deity.

We will all live in the millennial kingdom. and with Christ and there will be the nation of Israel and a bunch of Gentiles around. How are they going to tell you from like the Jews? The reason they're going to be able to tell you, yeah that's right, you're going to have a glorified body and the glory of God is going to radiate out of you. The people that live on the earth are going to instantly recognize you as a member of the body of Christ, as a member of the bride, because you will manifest His glory. You won't need incandescent light bulbs. Isn't that cool? Isn't that your favorite verse?

2 Corinthians 3.18, Beholding us in the mirror of the glory of the Lord.

You get to do that in the word now. Yes. So I mean when you say we can't manifest it or anything until we have a new body, aren't we being transformed now by his word? Anybody under hear the question? Is there some of the glory that can and does get manifested through us now? Answer, yeah it does.

The principle is as we behold the glory of the Lord, reflectively, unveiled face, in the mirror. What's the mirror? It's the word of God. It has a profound effect on us as we behold. We are changed transformed or transfigured from one state of glory to the next, to the next, to the next, even as by the Spirit of God.

So it's an internal thing to start with. It's the conformity to the image of Christ so that you begin to manifest his life through your personhood. That's done by beholding the glory of the Lord. You are conformed externally by the circumstances that are around you. So God is working all things together for good to do what?

To conform you and transform you into the very image of Christ so that you would manifest to some degree, reflectively, that glory now. But there'll come a day when it'll be full on. Oh, by the way, the beholding part will never end. That's the cool thing. Okay, we have it now because... Because we have faith, we believe. But let's talk for a second about this beholding business. How is that done? You take out your Bible tonight, or whenever, and you start to read it.

And 2 Corinthians 3.18 says, Beholding is in a mirror, the Word. What's the difference between reading, studying the Bible and beholding? Is there a difference? What is it? You can't say yes without an example. Well, because you could be book smart, but you know everything, but it's not in your heart.

Then you'd be older to follow the person of Christ, not just an academic reading the Bible. That's exactly right. And I think believers should be instructed early on. I'm talking about this to those nine-year-olds in there. That when you're in the Bible, you should be looking for the glory of the Lord to be radiating out of there to you. And any believer who spends any kind of time in the Word is going to say, I know what you mean. I may not be able to explain it, but I see things of the Lord Jesus Christ that I can't see any place else. And it's Him, not me. I went in there looking for a solution for my problem and I met Christ in the process.

How cool is that? The word salvation then represents the whole work of God by which he rescues man from eternal ruin and doom of sin and bestows on him the riches of his grace, including eternal life now and eternal glory in heaven. That's a really good definition of salvation. It's long. I don't know if it's in your book or not. I think it is. So, salvation is the saving work of God.

We've been made fit to be the partakers of the inheritance of the saints enlightened. What the heck does that mean? God made you fit or suited you out to what? To be a partaker of the inheritance of the saints. What does that mean? To be like them. Like them, like them saints? All these people in this side of the room?

The point being is that when you are saved, this process happened to you. You were suited out by God to be an inheritor with all the saints in light. God exists in light. You can't function in light unless you're like him. You see that? You and I live in darkness. We think that, gee, what a beautiful day. Trust me, this place is dark. In eternity, when the new heavens and the new earth are recreated, there's no sun. How come? Don't need it. Don't need it. Why not?

His glory will radiate. That's right. That's exactly right. He lives in light. God does. The Lord Jesus Christ. So you've been suited out so you can live there and be comfortable functioning in life by God. That's already been done, positional. You've been accepted in the beloved, you've been made the righteousness of God. No, that can't be right.

I've got my own righteousness, don't I? Didn't God give me righteousness? He declared us righteous. He declared us righteous. Well, like he said, he declared Abraham righteous because of his faith. Is that the same thing that I have as a believer? We have Christ's righteousness. We have the very righteousness of God in Christ. Whose righteousness is it? It's His. But I give because I'm in Christ.

Now that affords you an awful lot of opportunity that a guy like Abraham didn't have who was declared righteous. Why? What's the difference? Abraham's not in Christ. Right, because Christ wasn't there yet. That's right. So your intimacy and your association and your being suited out is much different than Abraham. Although Abraham's safe, no problem, but he doesn't have what you and I have. I read the anthology, I read those. And they have that up a lot, which I think is what a lot of believers don't really understand.

And that's where I think this always goes back to identification. You're accepted in, because you're placed in here. What more do you need to do? And that's where I think a lot of struggles and a lot of I have to, and that's where the old man creeps back in because he wants to do something.

And when you, I mean, a lot of, like I said, the latest anthology things I've been reading. Yeah. You're accepted in, I mean, do you understand that? Do you believe that, that you are accepted now? It's like that, it's like that Hungry Heart a couple of weeks ago that we read on Tuesday. Yeah. And I'm paraphrasing it.

Do you function, do you try to act like a king in order to become one? Or do you act like a king because you already are one? Sure. So when you start to read about what we call positional truth, that you're this, this, this, this, and this, your behavior pattern is based on what you already are.

You don't behave in order to try to emulate what you want to become. You function based on what you already are. And the best example, I have a chocolate Labrador. I'm not teaching him how to be a cat. He functions as a Labrador, and guess what? It's all built into him. He knows what to do. He barks, he sniffs, he does all those things that Labradors do. He retrieves, and that's because he is a Labrador, it's in him. If I am already a son of God, am I? Have I then already made an inheritor of the saints in life? Am I a saint? Answer yes. then my behavior pattern should be based on the fact of what I already am, not what I'm trying to become. I'll give you a good example.

Prince William and Kate go to Hollywood a couple weeks ago, right? And he's a prince and now she's a princess. And all those Hollywood types try to rub shoulders with them so that they can kind of learn how this loyalty behavior pattern works so that they can adopt some of it. Did William have to learn how to be a prince? Heck no, he's been a prince since day one. He knows how to act like one. He is one.

You're a son of God. You're accepted in the beloved. You're the righteousness of God. If you learn from the word of God what you are, and you live by faith, then what you are will be manifested through you. by the energy and the power of the Holy Spirit, not by you trying to imitate anything. That's a big difference. By your actions. But the energy is the Spirit of God manifesting through you what you already are, not what you're really working hard to become.

So that book, Imitating Christ, could have been one page long. You are already. That's right. The Imitation of Christ by Thomas, what was his name? a canvas. 600 pages of how to imitate Christ. He should have not wasted his time. He read the wrong Bible.

I'm made near to God. Am I trying to get near to God or am I already near? I'm already near. I'm a son of God. Wow. I'm a legitimate organic offspring of the God of the universe. way more than Adam being made in the image and likeness of God. I've been recreated in Christ.

I enjoy exactly the same position that Christ enjoys with the Father. Same. And I have the nature to correspond with it. Already got that. I'm a citizen of heaven. Sometimes when you read the news and these guys are trying to figure out what to do with the debt limit, you forget that you're a citizen of heaven. You're made a new creation.

Look at 2 Corinthians 5.17. If any man be in Christ, he is a new kinos, new in kind and quality creation. Behold, all the old things have passed away. Everything has become new.

You're an entirely different kind. Even though you've got the same body you had when you were saved, and if I look at you, you look the same, positionally and internally, you are a brand new creation. and not made over like Adam, you're made over like the resurrected glorified Christ. That's who you already are. You're a member of the family and the household of God, and oh by the way, you're made complete in Him. In Christ Jesus dwells the fullness of the Godhead bodily. And you're complete in Him.

What can you add to that? I'll give you all the money in my pocket if you can give me one thing that you can add to that. Nothing. So what's the issue with the believer? Is it an attempt to try to attain all of these things? Or is it arresting my faith in the fact I already am these things? Well they may not be aware of all this.

You are now, I just told you. Well, I am. Yeah, I am because you just told me. But you see, the bad thing about that is that, you know, at times I just lose it, really. And then what happens? Then what happens? I don't know. Well, do you lose all of this? No, I can't lose it. You can lose this. It's still doing what? And you know, Monique, I did the same thing Friday night, I lost it. Mad? Oh, was I angry.

And did I lose any of these things? No, but I was functioning like none of this was true of me. But it didn't change the fact that this is still true of me. What did I lose when I lost it? I lost the fellowship with the Lord Jesus, that's what I lost. The intimacy with Him. So how do I fix that?

Sure. Confession and confession, that word confession means to say the same thing. What does he want to hear from me? This. He doesn't want me to say, oh, I'm just terrible, let me list all these sins and I've got to feel sorry for them for a while before you restore me. No, what he wants me to say is that this is true of me. I confess that I've been functioning as though this wasn't true of me, but this is true of me. I agree with you.

And notice 1 John 1.9 does not say to ask for forgiveness. Why not? Because if you're this person, you don't have a problem with forgiveness, what you have a problem with is intimacy and fellowship. The fact that confession is a perfect word to use with restoration of fellowship because if forgiveness was asked for, and you had to ask for forgiveness, then it would negate whether this was permanently true of you or not.

See that? So the meaning and scope of salvation. Now, three tenses of salvation. You have been saved, and you right now are being saved, and you know what? You're going to be saved in the future. Kind of scary, isn't it? So, the first one right here that we'll talk about now I have already been saved from the penalty of my sins.

What was the penalty? Death. And what was the consequence? Hell. Lots of it. Long time. I was on my way to hell. The guy that led me to the Lord, he used to put it this way, he said most people think that they live on the yellow line and that they do some good things and bad things and at the end of the day they'll have done enough good things so that God won't say. He said this is the best hell is ever going to be. I love the mindset because if positioned in Adam you're lost and your fate is set and there's nothing you can do about it other than believe. In past tense, it refers to my being saved from the penalty of sin. Down here, from the penalty of sin, eternal death to eternal life.

Ephesians 2.8 says, for by grace you have been saved through faith. It's a grace operation, your involvement in it is your faith. And oh by the way, how much credit do you get for believing? Faith is the one thing a human being can do that he gets no credit for, because he did nothing. All the credit is in what he believes, not the fact that he believed. Okay, keep me on that. I can keep going then, right?

John 5.24, he who believes. Notice the tense of the verb.

Has passed. From what to what? From death to life. Has passed. Already done. Don't get to go back. I've had Christians come to me and say, oh, you know, I keep blowing it, blowing it, blowing it. And God has made it in my service. It's too late for you. What do you mean? Well, you're already saved. No matter what you do, it's too late. Sorry. Well, I changed my mind. I don't care if you did change your mind. It's still too late for you. OK.

John 10, 28, you shall never perish. No one shall snatch them out of my hand. That verse says, I give them eternal life and they shall never perish. The I give them eternal life is in the present tense, which means I'm constantly, every minute, always giving them eternal life. I didn't give it to them once and that's it. I'm doing it now, and I'm doing it now, and I'm doing it now, and it's all the time.

And Romans 8.1, there's no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

Boy, location is really important. real important to me. In spiritual things, location is huge, because I'm either in Christ or in Adam, and either one of those locations means a huge destiny of where I'm going to be for all eternity. So, that's past tense. Now, present tense, as you can see up here, says, from the power of sin. That's what's going on in our life today. We are being delivered or being saved from the power of the sin nature. And this is where the identification truths enter in. If you have a sin and I have a sin nature, when you study the book of Romans, chapter 1-1 through chapter 5-11, Paul uses the word sins, S-I-N-S. and they are the actions of a sinner.

From 5.12 on he uses the term sin singular with a definite article in front of it, the sin. And what he means is this thing called the sin nature. Your sins have to have a source. They just don't happen because they happen. You have to have a source for your sins which is your sin nature. Now as a believer Positionally you've been placed in Christ, but the sin nature is still in you and it didn't die.

It's still there. So it's always trying to manifest itself through you. It wants to be relevant. So the Spirit lusts against the flesh. The Holy Spirit has strong desires against the flesh. and the flesh has strong desires against the spirit. So you got this war going on inside of you. The issue of salvation is, can I presently be delivered from the power of my sin nature? What do you think? Is that possible? I got one yes. Two yeses, three, four, hey great. Yes, that's what's going on now.

Romans 6.6 says this, knowing this, understanding this, that my old man, which is with its sin nature, was crucified with him.

For what purpose? That the body of sin might be, and I do not like done away with because it sounds like it's going to go out of business. A better translation is put out of business, taken offline, not be relevant. Do you understand that? The reason that you were crucified with Christ was to separate you positionally from the power of this sin nature. Maybe do it this way.

A non-believer sitting right here, his spiritual makeup is this. He's body, soul, and spirit. He has a sin nature that controls him. He's in the sin nature and the sin nature is in him. Now sitting next to him is a Christian believer. body, soul, and spirit. He has the resurrected life of Christ that now controls him, but he still has the sin nature that is alive and well within him and trying to manifest itself through him. This guy is in sin and sin is in him. This guy is in Christ and sin is in him. Does that make sense?

Romans 6.11 says even so consider yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, the sin nature. You should by faith reckon yourself to be dead to the sin nature. Why should you do that? Because he told you what happened, that you were crucified with Christ.

Galatians 2.20 says I have been crucified with Christ, done deal, nevertheless I'm still living in the flesh, But the way that I live now is by the faith of the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. Where is the focus of my faith?

In Romans 6.6, I did die unto sin. I was buried with him. I did already rise with him in newness of life. I do have a new nature.

Now, these are called the identification truths. We are to walk in him by faith. How are we doing time-wise? You sure everybody's watching right? So you know it gives you such freedom. You know it gives you such freedom and you have that and you believe it without falling back in your old thoughts. Right. So you're like a free little bird flying around. Well you're free in Christ. Okay. Now, right in the middle of all of this you're probably thinking well don't I have any decisions to make? Isn't there anything for me to do? Yeah there is. Let's read.

Let's look at Romans 6.13 and 14. Do not go on presenting the members of your body to sin as instruments of unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those alive or sin shall not be master over you, for you are not under law, but under grace." Okay. Here's what's cool here. What's the command? Do not be presenting your instruments, your bodily, including your mind, to unrighteousness, to sin. But contrary-wise, present them to God. as those that are alive from the dead. Wow, pretty cool.

So what's your decision? Here comes sin coming right at you. And the bait is being dangled and you're looking it over thinking, wow, pretty cool. But it's sin and you know it's sin. So the next thing you recognize is that in and of myself, I'm toast. I'm going to be controlled by this sin unless I do one thing.

What do I need to do? What does 13 say to do? I'm to present myself, my members to God. So what am I saying? I'm going to the Lord and I'm saying, look, I cannot function outside of sin controlling me You've got to do it. So I'm giving myself to you. I'm depending on presenting myself to the Spirit of God to deal with the sin issue based on this truth. So what happens? I'm living by faith.

Is the battle mine or is it the Spirit of God's battle? Sure it is. What's my job? To let him do his job. Does that make sense? If I live under grace, and listen to this, sin shall not have dominion over you. Why? Because you're not under a law system. You're under a totally grace system. And grace is real simple. It's God's unlimited and unmerited blessing towards you based on the totally adequate work of Christ on the cross. It's unlimited and it's unmerited. So if I could do something about my own sin, then I would merit But at this point, here's the temptation.

I say to the Lord, I'm relying on Romans 6.13. I'm presenting myself to you to deal with this sin issue. I do not have to respond to it because you told me I don't have to. I can reckon myself dead to sin and alive to you and here are my members and you deal with sin. Wait, is that too simple, too easy? But it works in all areas of your life, it's not just in sin, but you can take any, like I used to smoke cigarettes, and you just lift the thing. I did the same thing with me. Gone. Yeah. So think about what I'm saying, because that is not what you're going to normally hear about how you fight sin. You're not going to hear that.

But that's what the Word of God instructs us to do. You're not to move one inch from where you're already positioned in Christ. The temptation is to get you to operate outside of Christ and to take sin on. As soon as you do that, you're toast. But if you live under grace, and Romans 12 says, present your body to God. Okay, sounds reasonable to me. and don't be transformed to the world anymore. If you're presented and focused and abiding in Christ, you're not being conformed to the world's process. So your decision is presentation. Your decision is not to fight sin. Does that make sense?

One of the things you said last week and the week before was that folks that are in the world who are in Christ that they deal with good and evil and they're trying, that was very big to me. Because there are a lot of good people out there and they're trying to be good and not be evil.

What we were talking about for those of you who weren't here is we were talking about the two trees in the garden, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and the tree of life. The tree of the knowledge of good and evil is what we all became when Adam took a bite out of that fruit. We did it with him. So our whole frame of reference is good versus evil. Everything we do is good versus evil. Well there was this other tree in the garden called the tree of life.

And Jesus when he was here said, I'm the tree of life. So the issue in Christianity is not to move from the evil branches to the good ones. The idea in Christianity is to come down out of the tree, go down in the garden and get up in the tree of life. The tree of life functions by faith and position and does not have any reference to good and evil. It has reference to righteousness and holiness and life. Good and evil isn't even an issue over here.

You see that? But we, even as Christians, come out of this good and evil mentality and don't realize that deliverance from the power of sin is based on life, not good and evil. Is the life of Christ in you? You're yielding yourself to the Spirit of God capable of keeping you from sinning? Absolutely. Are you capable of keeping yourself from sinning? Good luck. No way. It isn't going to happen. Galatians 5 says walk in the Spirit and you will not fulfill the lust of the flesh. Right? Is that what it says? If you walk in the Spirit, what do you do when you walk in the Spirit? What's that? You're focused. Your mind, everything is on the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ.

What that verse really says is that it's impossible to fulfill the desires of the flesh when you're beholding Christ. It's impossible, because you can't do two things at the same time. Mike, going along that route, if it's not us fighting the sin, it's the Lord's battle, does that mean that when we do sin, it's a failure of Christ to keep us from sinning? That's a great question. No, it's our failure because we didn't function by faith. And whatever is not of faith is sin. Now, last part.

There will come a time when in the future we will absolutely be saved from the very presence of sin. And what's cool about that is, and 1 John 3 says, it has not appeared as yet as to what we shall be, but when he appears we will be just like him. Here's the deal, when any of us check out of the planet and get to go home to be with the Lord, hallelujah, the sin nature doesn't go with you, that's very cool. And, the next thing is, is to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord. Does that mean you're kind of over back behind him over here? No, it means you're face to face with him. Right?

You've already been suited out to be an inherited of the saints in light so you can take in the full on glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ when you see him. You have no sin nature and you have him. You're now free from the very presence of sin.

How cool is that? Protected for salvation and ready to be revealed in the last times. We'll perfect a good work in you on the day of Jesus Christ. So, what your salvation has offered you is three issues. You've already been saved from the penalty of sin. You're in the process of being saved from the power of the sin nature. And you will be saved from the very presence of sin. How cool is that? I mean, that's a lot to include in the word salvation, because sin is the issue. 115 passages in the New Testament, salvation of the sinner is declared to depend on believing, and 35 passages declared depend on faith.

Faith is the tool that God has given us to use because it is the one thing that fits under the heading of grace. If grace is God's unmerited and unlimited blessings, if that's what grace is, how do you fit into that environment? When God says, I want you to believe, Romans 4 says that it's of faith that it might be of grace. Faith is the one thing that fits under grace because the value of what you believe is in what you believe, not the fact that you did the believing. although you get all the benefits.

Does that make sense? The value is in the work of Christ. The value is not in the fact that you believe. But believing opens the door to you. One last thing on the bottom here. Salvation is not believe and pray or believe and confess. or believe and confess Christ, believe and repent, believe and make restitution, or believe and make Jesus the Lord of your life. It's none of those things.

It's believing in the person and work of Christ, period. Dear Father, how we thank you for your grace. And oh, what a great salvation, as you say in Hebrews, it's just a magnificent salvation, Father, that we might continually enter into more and more of the grace that we live in and the provision that you've given us in the Lord Jesus Christ. And we pray in his precious name. Amen.