Lesson 6. God’s Plan of Salvation. Part 2. A school of the foundations of the Christian faith that every Christian should know. The school consists of twelve lessons. The school’s founder is the Christian Bible Institute.
As we saw in the previous lesson, salvation became possible only through the miraculous work of God, who provided redemption from the guilt of sin and deliverance from sin’s deadly effects through the incarnation, earthly life, and death of Jesus Christ at Calvary. For salvation in Christ to become a reality for a particular person, faith is necessary. The Bible says:
John 3:16 “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life”
Saving faith has two aspects. First of all, it becomes possible only through the work of the Holy Spirit. At the same time, saving faith is directly connected with the person themselves—with their attitude toward their sin and their attitude toward God. In this lesson, we will examine the process of salvation as it is seen from the human perspective.
The Path to Salvation
The Bible says that salvation begins when the Holy Spirit convicts a person of their sin. This is what Jesus Christ said about the ministry of the Holy Spirit shortly before His death and resurrection:
John 16:8 “And when He has come, He will convict the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment: 9 of sin, because they do not believe in Me; 10 of righteousness, because I go to My Father and you see Me no more; 11 of judgment, because the ruler of this world is judged.”
In this passage, Jesus clearly says that one of the Holy Spirit’s first tasks is to convict people of their sinfulness before God. Fallen humanity needs a work from above in order to see itself as guilty before God and perishing.
Although people commit many different sins, the Holy Spirit convicts them first and foremost of the fundamental sin from which all others arise. This sin is unbelief. Sometimes unbelievers experience pangs of conscience when it condemns them for wrongs or crimes they have committed. Usually, in such cases, people feel uncomfortable and seek freedom from their sense of guilt. To find freedom, some even resort to repentance. They repent and confess their offense before a priest, before the person against whom they sinned, or even before God. Nevertheless, such repentance does not yet mean being born again. Jesus Christ said that the Holy Spirit convicts people first of all “concerning sin, because they do not believe in Me.” Being born again is possible only when a person, in brokenness, acknowledges being a sinner who has rebelled against God and turns to Jesus Christ as their personal Savior, acknowledging Him as their Lord.
The human side of repentance can be very well illustrated by the story of the prodigal son, which Jesus Christ once told. Please read this story carefully in Luke 15:12–24.
The story begins with a young man who, believing that he could arrange his life better if he were independent of his father, takes what he thought belonged to him and leaves home to seek happiness. The central problem with the prodigal son’s action was his attempt to set himself against his father. He rejects his father and his way of life, opposing them with his own independence and self-confidence.
1. Awareness of Sin
The first important stage of repentance is awareness of sin. When the prodigal son left his father, he saw his happiness outside his father’s house, in the world toward which he rushed with all his energy. This closely resembles the condition of a person without God. Unbelievers seek happiness everywhere and in everything except God. The reason is that turning to God requires acknowledging His authority and submitting to Him. Yet people want independence—that is, the right to feel like masters of their own lives and the right to determine their own destinies.
Trying to chase the phantom of happiness apart from God, a person makes strenuous efforts, trying one new option after another. At first, the prodigal son had money and perhaps friends in whom he thought he could find happiness. His imagination painted beautiful pictures of the pleasures he could enjoy in a world of independence from his father. But, as usually happens, as soon as a person achieves what they have pursued for so long, they become disappointed in it.
Many hope to find fulfillment through a good education. But even after obtaining it, they continue to feel empty and that life is meaningless. Then another goal appears before them. Now they hope to achieve happiness by getting a good job. But after reaching this goal as well, a person sees that happiness is moving farther and farther away. After work will come marriage, a home, social status, and perhaps many other goals that, like those before them, promise fulfillment but will ultimately bring disappointment, emptiness, and meaninglessness.
The prodigal son’s journey in search of happiness ended with increasing disappointment instead of fulfillment and joy. First, he may have lost his wealth; along with it, he probably lost his friends as well; then he lost his job. Perhaps during that time the prodigal son thought, “Should I return home to my father?” But his pride and self-esteem prevented him from doing so. He had left his father as an independent hero, and therefore returning would have meant total defeat. This continued until the prodigal son reached complete despair.
The economic downturn in the country forced him to seek food by working as a swineherd. His wages were permission to eat from the trough where the pigs fed. One day, sitting by the trough, the prodigal son suddenly realized that the happiness he had pursued so eagerly was actually found in his father’s house. He suddenly recognized his complete defeat and his guilt before his father:
Luke 15:17 “When he came to himself, he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired servants have more than enough bread, and I perish with hunger! 18 I will arise and go to my father, and I will say to him: Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you, 19 and I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Make me like one of your hired servants.’”
Becoming aware of one’s guilt before God is a very important step, with which revival begins. Repentance means turning one’s life in the opposite direction. It begins with a change in one’s inner attitude toward God. Before repentance, a person runs after the illusion of happiness that he sees apart from God. In repentance, a person turns his face toward God, seeing from that moment onward all his future and all his happiness only in Jesus Christ. He acknowledges that life without God has no meaning and takes concrete steps to move toward Him.
Repentance is the most important event in a person’s life. Through repentance, a person acknowledges the reality that without God he is heading toward ultimate destruction. The Apostle Paul, emphasizing the importance of repentance, simply pleads with every person to be reconciled to God.
2 Corinthians 5:19 “...God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. 20 Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were making His appeal through us; we implore you on behalf of Christ: Be reconciled to God.”
2. Confession of Sin
Awareness of sin is the first step of repentance. Nevertheless, true repentance necessarily includes not only an inner awareness of one’s guilt before God, but also an open acknowledgment of one’s need for the Savior and a confession of His lordship.
The prodigal son’s life would not have changed much if he had merely changed his opinion of his father, but had never gotten up, gone to his father, and acknowledged his guilt before him. For a person experiencing repentance, his relationship with God becomes the highest priority. He is no longer ashamed to acknowledge his need for the Savior; on the contrary, he wants everyone around him to see that he bows before the absolute greatness of God, who revealed salvation to him in Jesus Christ.
Romans 10:9 “Because if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved, 10 for with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved.”
That is why repentance includes openly confessing one’s sin and acknowledging our need for the Savior. A person can repent anywhere (Jonah repented in the belly of the whale), but if repentance has truly taken place, a born-again person will never be ashamed of his Savior by hiding what happened from others. He will tell his relatives about it. He will seek fellowship with others like him—born-again people.
3. Acknowledging Jesus Christ as the Lord of One’s Life
Another important element of repentance is acknowledging Jesus Christ as one’s Lord. When the Apostles were asked, “What must we do to be saved?”, they always answered: “Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved” (Acts 16:31). Christ’s salvation becomes available to a person only when they acknowledge their complete bankruptcy and Christ’s absolute lordship.
The lordship of God is what the people who sinned in the Garden of Eden rebelled against. They wanted to become gods; that is, they claimed lordship for themselves. The claim to lordship and independence from God is the core of original sin, inherited by every person. Therefore, deliverance from the influence of sin means acknowledging God’s absolute lordship. Repentance restores a person to a state of harmonious relationship with God. This means that a person acknowledges God’s absolute position as the Creator of the Universe and, by accepting Jesus Christ’s saving sacrifice through faith, is reconciled to God, entrusting their life to Him.
Acknowledging Jesus Christ as the Lord of one’s life means several serious changes in our attitude toward life:
- A born-again person develops an inner desire to submit to Jesus Christ always and in everything. This desire is the foundation of the process of sanctification, which we will discuss later.
Jer. 31:33 “...after those days, says the Lord: I will put My law within them and write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. 34 No longer will they teach one another, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they will all know Me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the Lord, because I will forgive their iniquity and remember their sin no more.”
- A born-again person acknowledges the absolute greatness of Christ’s person and therefore strives to become like their Savior and Lord.
Phil. 3:7 “But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. 8 Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For His sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ 9 and be found in Him, not having my own righteousness that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith; 10 that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and may share His sufferings, becoming like Him in His death,”
- A born-again person acknowledges that Christ, and Christ alone, has the right to determine what is right and what is wrong, what is good and what is evil. Therefore, they build their life according to what Christ says in His Word, acknowledging the absolute authority and truth of His Word.
John 17:17 “Sanctify them by Your truth; Your word is truth.”
- Acknowledging Jesus Christ as the Lord of one’s life means that a born-again person hates sin. Living on an earth afflicted by sin, a born-again person sometimes finds themselves in situations where they sin. But in all such cases, a true Christian is always distinguished by the fact that they cannot remain in sin.
1 John 3:9 “Everyone born of God does not practice sin, because His seed remains in him; and he cannot keep sinning, because he has been born of God.”
The Work of the Holy Spirit in Salvation
The Bible says that a person is dead in his sins and transgressions; therefore, awareness of sin, its confession, and recognition of Jesus Christ as the Lord of one’s life are impossible without the work of the Holy Spirit. Although repentance is a person’s responsibility, no one can take credit for his repentance. First, because true repentance is the work of the Holy Spirit in a person. Second, because a truly repentant person acknowledges that God is all in all (this is the essence of his repentance and new birth), and therefore can never boast in himself, but only gives glory to God in brokenness.
Eph. 2:8 “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God: 9 not of works, lest anyone should boast.”
Above, we examined the process of salvation as it appears from the human perspective. Now we will look at this same process from God’s perspective.
1. Bringing a person to brokenness over sin and repentance
Speaking about the prodigal son, we observed the outward side of the process of a person’s spiritual development. At the same time, another, more important process is always taking place in a person’s spiritual development—the work of the Holy Spirit in the sinner’s heart.
God richly blesses all people with undeserved blessings. He commands the sun to rise on the evil and the good. He provides all the conditions necessary for people’s lives on earth. In addition to these blessings, God also shows special mercy to humanity by sending the Holy Spirit to point people toward God and give them new birth. The Bible clearly says that salvation is impossible without the Holy Spirit:
John 3:5 “Jesus answered: Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the Kingdom of God.”
John 6:44 “No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him”;
1 Cor. 12:4 “…no one can call Jesus Lord except by the Holy Spirit.”
2. New Birth
Without God, a sinful person strives for personal dominion. Even when speaking about goodness or religion, his essence remains unchanged—he considers himself the measure of everything. Therefore, only one solution can change this condition: new birth. Jesus Christ spoke very clearly that salvation is possible only through new birth (John 3:5). A person needs a new nature—a nature that, unlike his old, sinful nature, would find happiness in submission to God. This new nature is given to a person only as a result of being born again.
Rom. 8:9 “But you are not living according to the flesh but according to the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God lives in you. Now if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not His. 14 For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. 15 For you did not receive the spirit of slavery again to fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption by whom we cry out, ‘Abba, Father!’”
Being born again is a unique work of the Holy Spirit, who gives life to a person’s heart, bringing him into new life in Christ. New birth takes place at the moment of repentance. By freeing a person from the guilt and power of sin, the Spirit of Christ comes to dwell in him.
Eph. 1:13 “In Him you also, having heard the word of truth, the Gospel of your salvation, and having believed in Him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, 14 who is the guarantee of our inheritance, until the redemption of the purchased possession, to the praise of His glory.”
At the new birth, the Holy Spirit also unites the believer with the rest of the believers, bringing everyone together as one in Christ. The Bible calls this work baptism in the Holy Spirit.
1 Cor. 12:13 “For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—whether Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and we were all given one Spirit to drink.”
The ability to live a holy, God-pleasing life also comes from the Holy Spirit. A born-again person becomes able to grow in Christ’s attitude toward God and life. The Spirit of Christ, dwelling in a person, changes their view of the world around them, giving them the ability to understand and accept the Word of God.
1 Cor. 2:14 “The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he understand them, because they are spiritually discerned. 15 The spiritual person judges all things, but he himself is not subject to anyone’s judgment. 16 For who has known the mind of the Lord, so as to instruct Him? But we have the mind of Christ.”
Rom. 8:10 “But if Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin, but the spirit is alive because of righteousness.”
Moreover, the new birth is the cause and guarantee of our resurrection.
Rom. 8:11 “And if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you.”
3. Being Clothed in Christ’s Righteousness
In addition to convicting people of sin and bringing about the new birth, the Holy Spirit performs another important work in a person at repentance. Through the Holy Spirit, a person is clothed in Christ’s righteousness. We have already discussed that, to free people from the guilt of sin, Jesus Christ took their sin upon Himself and bore the punishment for it. Since a person has no righteousness of their own, salvation becomes possible only because Christ gives them His righteousness.
1 Cor. 1:30 “It is because of Him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God, and righteousness, sanctification, and redemption.”
Phil. 3:8 “Indeed, I consider everything to be a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have lost all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ 9 and be found in Him, not having my own righteousness from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that is by faith; 10 that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and share in His sufferings, becoming like Him in His death, 11 and so, somehow, attaining the resurrection from the dead.”
Titus 3:5 “He saved us, not because of righteous works that we had done, but according to His mercy, through the washing of regeneration and renewal by the Holy Spirit, 6 whom He poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, 7 so that, having been justified by His grace, we might become heirs with the hope of eternal life.”
The presence of Christ’s righteousness is the only reason a person will be justified before God. This righteousness is not earned by us; it is given by Jesus Christ to every true believer.
Homework: Memorize Phil. 3:7–10
Source: Christian Bible Institute
