What Is Salvation?

It’s hard for a person who grew up under religious law to understand that we are NOT justified by the law, that in fact, the law works against us because we live in a fallen human nature. It’s a whole different mindset and hard to understand if we’ve been trained to seek our goodness and salvation by the exercise of our own efforts. Most people who just don’t understand will try and try and try to be “good.” Then any good they seem to achieve causes them to pat themselves on the back and consider themselves a good person.

But we are not, none of us. We are fallen.

Sin is the natural force within us – because all descendants of Adam are born in a fallen state. Put two very young children together in a room with colorful toys, and inevitably one will try to take the other’s toy. This is evidence of a fallen nature. We gossip about people because it reinforces the conclusion we’re trying so hard to believe about ourselves, that we are better than they. If someone sins in a particular way that we are not weak in, we just love telling about it because in comparison it makes us feel good about ourselves. But it’s all a lie. We are NOT good, we are fallen, every one of us. The hardest thing for us to do is to finally admit that about ourselves, and to stop lying to ourselves about ourselves.

Here’s what the Bible has to say about our human condition:

“ALL we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord hath laid on HIM the iniquity of us all.” Isaiah 53:6

“But we are ALL like an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are like filthy rags;” Isaiah 64:6

“There is none righteous, no, NOT ONE;” Romans 3:10

“The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; Who can know it?” Jeremiah 17:9

We are NOT saved by being “good.” No one can be good ENOUGH.

Religions teach that we are saved by the preponderance of good works, and that is the very opposite of what Jesus Christ has taught us. We are saved when we recognize that we live in a fallen human nature which cannot be “trained.” The harder we try, the more we become distraught – because it simply doesn’t work, it CANNOT work. You can’t train yourself out of your particular brand of sin. If you should seem to succeed, sin will just manifest itself in a different way. Overcome one thing, another will pop up. And that’s across the board – the case with every human being.

No, Jesus said the ONLY solution is that we must be BORN AGAIN.

WHY can’t a person be justified by the works of the law?

Many, many people are smugly confident of their salvation because they feel they have kept the laws of God to the best of their ability. But the Scriptures tell us that we are NOT saved by having kept the laws of God, BECAUSE we live in a fallen human nature and our fallen human nature is not CAPABLE of keeping the laws of God. All of us sin.

Once you sin, the law is broken and you can no longer claim that you’ve kept the law. The law is like a glass – once it’s broken, it’s broken, period. There is no remedy for it.

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