Thanks, Brenda, for the edit. On Brenda's recommendation, I broke the point down to more manageable pieces. Each "piece" is now labeled as Purpose, Application, and Result. I also was not happy in how I added the phrase "by faith alone." It raised the question of whether we were saying a person had to believe in Christ by faith alone or had to believe that salvation was applied by faith alone. I think that the adjustment has cleared that up. But let me know.
Section 6: Salvation
A. Purpose - Salvation is the activity of God to remove the guilt of sin from people in order to reconcile them to himself for the eventual restoration of perfect and intimate relationship between God and humanity.
- Purpose and Plan – Romans 3:21-26; Ephesians 1:3-14; 3:7-12; Hebrews 1:1-4
B. Application - God applies Christ’s sacrificial payment for sin to the individual who through repentance and faith, believes in Christ, the revealed righteousness of God. Belief in Christ entails the acceptance of the facts that Christ is God; that the sinless Christ’s sacrificial death paid the penalty for the individual’s own sin; and that the individual has no merit of his own to be worthy of God’s grace.
- Application of Christ’s righteousness – John 1:12; Romans 3:21-25; 5:15-21
C. Result - The believing person receives remission of sins, justification, sanctification, and adoption in everlasting relationship through the Holy Spirit.
- Remission of sins – Matthew 26:28; Colossians 1:13-14; Hebrews 10:12-17
- Justification – Romans 4:23-25; 5:16-18
- Sanctification – Romans 6; 2 Thessalonians 2:13
- Adoption – Galatians 4:4-5; Ephesians 1:4-6
I wrestle with myself (not so much with other people) over where the words faith and grace belong in statements about salvation. By grace you have been saved; (and again) by grace you have been saved through faith (Eph. 2:5, 8, 9). Through him we have also obtained access by faith in to this grace in which we stand (Rom. 5:2). Not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith (Phil. 3:9). And faith gives us full assurance, as Hebrews 10:22 states: Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith. Of course then there is the question of the verbs--believe, repent, accept--and the nouns--faith, belief, repentance, acceptance.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, all that to say that I think this statement is clear. Salvation is God's activity (point A), and God applies Christ's work (point B). We believe, we accept, we repent. Not an equal work, by any means, but our actions are possible because of the object of our faith.
I hope I haven't muddied the waters.