School of the Fundamentals of Christian Faith “The Creator and His Creation.” Lesson 17. The Need for Salvation. The school consists of 22 lessons. The school’s founder is the Christian Bible Institute.
Why Salvation Is Necessary
The Bible describes the reality of human life in detail: humanity’s creation, fall into sin, and present relationship with the Creator. To understand this reality, we must first consider the unique essence of God’s nature.
God’s Absolute Holiness
God is an absolute Person. He is the Creator, infinitely surpassing all creation. God is absolutely dependent on no one. He is the source of life. He exists by Himself. He is the first cause and beginning of everything that exists.
Exodus 3:14 God answered Moses: “I Am Who I Am. Tell the Israelites: ‘I Am has sent me to you.’”
God possesses absolute knowledge, absolute power, and absolute love. He is absolute goodness. He possesses absolute peace, harmony, creative power, and so on.
Isaiah 40:22–28 He sits enthroned above the circle of the earth, whose inhabitants are like grasshoppers. He stretches out the heavens like a curtain and spreads them like a tent to live in. He reduces princes to nothing and makes the rulers of the earth as nothing. No sooner are they planted, no sooner are they sown, no sooner do they take root in the ground, than He blows on them, and they wither, and a whirlwind carries them away like straw. “To whom will you compare Me? Who is My equal?” says the Holy One. Lift up your eyes and look to the heavens: Who created them? The One who brings out their host by number and calls them all by name. Because of His great power and mighty strength, not one of them is missing. How can you say, Jacob, and you, Israel, complain: “My way is hidden from the Lord; my God has disregarded my cause”? Do you not know? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He will not grow tired or weary, and His understanding is unsearchable.
God speaks directly and clearly about His special status in the universe
Deut. 5:6–9 “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, the land of slavery. You shall have no other gods besides Me. You shall not make an idol for yourself—any image of anything in heaven above, on earth below, or in the waters beneath the earth. You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sins of their fathers to the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me; Deut. 6:4–5 Hear, O Israel! The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength.
God is holy. His perfection and absolute status are preserved by His holiness. God’s holiness does not allow anything unclean or rebellious against God to approach Him.
Isa. 6:1–5 In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and exalted, and the train of His robe filled the temple. Above Him stood seraphim, each with six wings: with two they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they flew. They called to one another: “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of His glory!” At the sound of their voices, the doorposts and thresholds shook, and the temple was filled with smoke. Then I cried out: “Woe is me! I am ruined! I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, yet my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts.”
God’s holiness is defended by His wrath, which strikes everything sinful—everything that opposes God or refuses to agree with Him. In many places, the Bible speaks of the terrifying power of God’s wrath, which destroys every sin and every impurity completely.
Ps. 20:10–11 At Your appearing, You will make them like a fiery furnace. In His wrath the Lord will swallow them up, and His fire will consume them. You will destroy their descendants from the earth and their offspring from among mankind.
God’s wrath is not His whim, but a reality that inevitably operates whenever something or someone imperfect rebels against God, claiming His place.
The Absolute Sinfulness of Humanity
The second important element in understanding the need for salvation is a correct understanding of human sinfulness. The essence of Adam and Eve’s fall was their rebellion against God. When God created humanity, He explained that violating His will would bring death.
Gen. 2:16–17 The Lord God commanded the man: “You may eat the fruit of any tree in the garden, but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, because on the day you eat from it, you will surely die.”
The devil approached the human being and prompted him to take several irreversible actions:
Gen. 3:4–5 “You will certainly not die,” the serpent said to the woman. “For God knows that when you eat it, your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”
By these words, the devil caused the human being to:
– Doubt God
– Try to “think independently” of God
– Try to take God’s place
– Try to determine for himself what is good and what is evil
The nature of the Fall is that human beings, by their very nature, became self-centered and selfish. The personal interests of fallen humanity, and its claim to the personal right to determine its own value system (what is good and what is bad), inevitably come into conflict with God. This is the enormous problem of sinful human nature. Therefore, even when unregenerate people do good, they do so because they themselves consider something good, not because they have acknowledged that God calls it good. Thus, human beings, not God, remain the ones who determine what is good.
The Bible says that a state of absolute sinfulness—that is, asserting oneself, living for oneself, and opposing God—has permeated human nature through and through.
Romans 3:10–18 It is written: “There is no one who is righteous, not even one! There is no one who understands; no one seeks God. All have turned away and become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one.” “Their throats are open graves; their tongues practice deceit.” “The poison of vipers is on their lips.” “Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness.” “Their feet are swift to shed blood; ruin and misery mark their ways, and they have not known the way of peace.” “There is no fear of God before their eyes.”
As a result, every person who comes into the world is hopelessly sinful, and therefore their sinful nature brings upon them the destructive action of God’s wrath. No one is exempt from this.
John 3:36 Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life; God’s wrath remains on them.
In His mercy toward humanity, God did not destroy them immediately after their sin in the Garden of Eden. Instead, God began the long and complex process of carrying out His plan of salvation.
In Old Testament times, God commanded His people to worship Him in a special way and offer sacrifices. Through this, God prophetically pointed to the true sacrifice of Jesus Christ, which was to be offered to satisfy God’s wrath directed against sinful humanity. In Old Testament times, people could not even approach the place of worship without first bringing a special sacrifice to appease God on a special altar standing in the temple courtyard (Lev. 1:5). The sacrifices of the Old Testament merely pointed to the sacrifice of Jesus Christ and therefore could not actually appease God’s wrath. That is why Jesus Christ had to come to earth, to stand between God and humanity, shielding them with Himself from the destructive wrath of God’s holiness.
See how the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews describes the inability of Old Testament sacrifices to cleanse a person from sin:
Hebrews 10:1–4 The Law is only a shadow of the good things that are to come, not the realities themselves. Therefore, the Law can never make perfect those who come to worship by repeatedly offering the same sacrifices year after year.
If it could, would they not have stopped offering them? For the worshipers would have been cleansed once for all, and would no longer have felt guilty for their sins. But these sacrifices are an annual reminder of sins, because it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.
Thus, human beings, on their own, are simply incapable of restoring their relationship with God. All their attempts are based on asserting their own value, independent of God. Therefore, their own merits cannot provide them with salvation.
Perdition Without a Savior
Having rebelled against God, humanity became cut off from the source of life. For this reason, death reigns throughout the Universe around us. Everything in this world is moving toward decay. The world is afflicted by diseases and catastrophes. Plants die. Animals die. People die. Every person knows that sooner or later they will die. Sin inevitably brings death and destruction with it. Just as an aggressive virus infects every cell of the body, sin has infected every particle of the Universe.
Romans 8:20–22 For creation was subjected to the futility of existence, not by its own choice, but by the will of the One who subjected it. Yet creation has hope of being freed from the power of decay and attaining the same glorious freedom as the children of God. We know that all creation has been groaning and suffering like a woman in labor up to this very moment,
After the Fall, the destructive effects of sin began to manifest not only in the physical realm. Sin also affected morality and social relationships between people. Evil, violence, and unrestrained passions arising from human pride bring pain and suffering that poison human relationships. All the disasters of modern society, from deception and betrayal in personal relationships to international terrorism and wars—all of these are the direct and inevitable consequences of sin.
Moreover, because all people descended from Adam and Eve were born in an atmosphere of rebellion against God, every person is afflicted from birth by this virus of sin, which inevitably leads them to death. Scripture speaks about this very clearly:
Romans 3:10–18 It is written: “There is no one who is righteous, not even one! There is no one who understands; no one seeks God. All have turned away and become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one.” “Their throats are open graves; their tongues practice deceit.” “The poison of vipers is on their lips.” “Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness.” “Their feet are swift to shed blood; ruin and misery mark their ways, and they have not known the way of peace.” “There is no fear of God before their eyes.”
Thus we see that humanity, descended from Adam and Eve, who rebelled against God, has a nature that opposes God. This nature is filled with self-assertion and the elevation of personal interests above the will of God and the interests of others. This is what the desire of the first people to “become like gods” means.
Every person descended from Adam and Eve has a strong desire by nature to occupy the place of God—that is, to have the power and right to do whatever they consider necessary and to determine for themselves what is good and evil, right and wrong. This condition is inseparable from human nature. The direct results of this condition in every person’s life are pain, suffering, corruption, and death.
The Need for Retribution for Sin
In addition to completely corrupting human nature, sin led humanity to another problem: awareness of guilt before God. The sin of Adam and Eve, just like the sin of every person, is a direct violation of God’s law. Thus, every person descended from Adam and Eve is legally guilty before God.
Romans 3:23 For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God
God’s justice is unchanging. Sin necessarily brings punishment. Therefore, every person will surely answer for their sin.
Romans 6:23 For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in union with Jesus Christ, our Lord.
Human Attempts to Be Saved
Throughout human history, people have tried to solve the problems caused by sin. Disease, disasters, social hostility, and injustice bring great suffering to humanity, driving it to seek a way out of this situation. History bears witness to the many attempts humanity has made to free itself from the consequences of sin.
Religion. Since ancient times, people have used religion in an attempt to find freedom from the problems of sin. Realizing that they depend on higher powers, people invented gods for themselves and devised systems for worshiping them. All existing religions are built on the principle that a person must earn the favor of a deity by performing certain ceremonies and meeting certain conditions. Thus, ancient shamans convinced people that, for the gods to bless their hunting, family, or health, they needed to sacrifice a particular animal. Buddhists claim that a person draws closer to deity by cleansing the body through a special diet and purifying the mind through special meditations. Muslims say that to gain Allah’s favor and enter paradise, one must pray five times a day facing Mecca, fast, and visit holy places at least once in one’s lifetime.
The problem with all religions is that they are based on an attempt to “improve” a person who is completely corrupt by nature. Thus, all religions, while trying to make people better, fail to achieve their goal because they cannot address the central issue—changing the human heart.
Philosophy is another means by which people try to solve the problems caused by the consequences of sin. The basic idea of philosophy is the assumption that all human troubles result from a lack of knowledge; that is, if a person possesses the right knowledge and is taught to think correctly, all their problems will be solved. Unfortunately, despite the existence of many thousands of different philosophical systems, not one of them has freed a single person from the consequences of sin. Nor could it, because philosophy, like religion, tries to eliminate the consequences of sin while ignoring sin itself.
In addition to religion and philosophy, people have turned to many other means that, as they believed, could solve their problems. These included politics, psychology, sociology, and even bioengineering, which proposed removing the genes of evil from human DNA. All these attempts ended in complete failure for the following reasons:
- First of all, people try to eliminate the consequences of sin without changing their attitude toward sin and, consequently, toward God. All human attempts to solve the problems caused by the consequences of sin are based on the assumption that people are good in themselves and therefore only need to be slightly “improved” or “retrained.” People try to rid themselves of the consequences of their rebellion against God while keeping themselves on the throne and continuing to defy the Creator.
- The second reason for the failure of human attempts to escape the consequences of sin is humanity’s corrupt, sinful nature. This nature is completely filled with sin. Performing complex religious rituals does not free a person from self-will, pride, or the struggle against God. In this case, religion is an attempt to speak with God “as an equal.” People, as it were, bargain with God: “you give me this, and I’ll give you that.”
- The third reason is that every person living on earth is completely infected with the virus of sin. In trying to build something new, people use the same infected material of human sinful nature. Sin, like a cancerous tumor, is so closely intertwined with every person’s soul that destroying it is impossible without the death of the person themselves.
Thus, no human efforts can free people from the deadly consequences of sin. Direct intervention by God is necessary for this.
The Need for a New Nature
The Bible says that the only way to solve the problem of human sin is to be born again.
John 3:5–6 Jesus answered, “I tell you the truth, no one can enter the Kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit. Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit.”
Back in the Old Testament, God told the people of Israel that a time would come when He would make a New Covenant with His children. The essence of the New Covenant lies not in external requirements, but in a change of heart.
Jer. 31:33 Therefore, in the future I will make this covenant with the house of Israel, declares the Lord. I will put My Law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be My people.
There is only one way for a person to be saved from sin: to receive a new nature, that is, to be born again.
The Required Qualities of the Savior
For a person’s salvation to be possible, the following conditions must be met:
- a. Punishment for sin. Human sin must be punished, which means that a person must die. “For the wages of sin is death…” (Rom. 6:23).
- b. Providing the conditions for the new birth. Just as Adam became the forefather of fallen humanity, there had to be Someone from whom those with a new nature would descend—a nature of submission rather than rebellion against God.
These conditions could be fulfilled in only one way: a person was needed who was free from sin and able and willing to take upon Himself the sin of humanity, freeing people from guilt and giving them His sinless, God-pleasing life. God miraculously fulfilled these conditions in the God-Man, Jesus Christ.
John 3:16 For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him will not perish but have eternal life.
Review questions:
- What is God's holiness? Why is it absolute?
- Why is God angry with sinners?
- How did people become sinners?
- What is salvation?
- What do we need to be saved from?
- Why can a person not save themselves?
Source: Christian Bible Institute
