Basic Bible Doctrine (Part 09) – Salvation by Grace

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1. Salvation by Grace (Eternal Salvation)
   1. Given that men by nature under sin are spiritually dead, unrighteous, and filthy and cannot seek, understand, please, nor believe in God; if man will be reconciled to God and spared eternal punishment, it is God who must save the sinner.
   2. God’s law demands death for sin (Rom 6:23).
      1. God is infinite and eternal and therefore the punishment for breaking His law must be eternal punishment.
      2. God is holy and therefore cannot acquit the wicked (Job 10:14; Nah 1:3).
      3. Acquit – 1. To settle, clear off, discharge, pay (a claim, debt, or liability).
      4. God’s law demands death for sin and God would be unrighteous to clear that debt.
   3. If our sin debt is to be cleared, there must be a daysman, a mediator, to stand between sinners and a righteous God to make intercession for them.
      1. Job wished for a daysman (An umpire or arbitrator; a mediator) to stand between him and God (Job 9:33).
      2. An animal sacrifice would not suffice because it is neither human, nor can it suffer infinitely (Heb 10:4,11).
      3. If atonement would be made for the sins of men, it would have to be by a man being sacrificed for those sins.
         1. This man would have to have no sin himself, else he would be dying for his own sin and couldn’t die for someone else.
         2. This man would have to be able to suffer infinitely in order to endure eternal punishment.

• In order to suffer infinitely, and not spend an eternity in hell, this man would have to be God.

1. God would have to become a man and suffer infinitely for the sins of others.
2. Enter Jesus Christ.

1. A plan was struck between the three members of the Trinity.
   1. God the Word (Joh 1:1) would be made flesh (Joh 1:14) by being conceived in the womb of a virgin by the power of God the Highest and God the Holy Ghost, and would become the Son of God (Luk 1:35).
   2. His name would be Jesus, (Jehovah saves) and He would save His people from their sins (Mat 1:21).

• He would be the God-man Who would be the mediator between God and men (1Ti 2:5).

1. Mediator – 1. One who intervenes between two parties, esp. for the purpose of effecting reconciliation; one who brings about (a peace, a treaty) or settles (a dispute) by mediation.
2. He would make intercession for transgressors (Isa 53:12).
3. Intercession – 1. The action of interceding or pleading on behalf of (rarely against) another; entreaty, solicitation, or prayer for another; mediation.

• He would live a sinless life (1Pe 2:21-22; 1Jo 3:5; Heb 4:15; Heb 7:26).
• He would fulfill all that was written in the law (Mat 5:17; Act 13:29).

1. He would be made sin for the sins of men (2Co 5:21; Rom 8:3).
2. He would bear the sins of men (1Pe 2:24; Isa 53:11-12; Heb 9:28).
3. He would offer his sinless body for a sacrifice for the sins of men (Heb 10:5-10; 1Pe 3:18; Heb 9:26).

• He would suffer and be wounded for those sins (Isa 53:5; 1Pe 3:18).
• His soul would be made an offering for sin (Isa 53:10-11).
• He would die for those sins (Isa 53:12; 1Co 15:3).

1. The Spirit would present the blood to the Father (Heb 9:14).

• The Spirit would raise Jesus from the dead (Rom 8:11).

4. Who did Jesus die for and how did those people come to be in that group?
   1. The story starts before the foundation of the world.
   2. God, being omniscient, knew that Adam would sin and plunge the human race into sin and death (Rom 5:12).
   3. God looked down throughout time at all mankind, Jew and Gentile, and found not one that would understand and seek Him and do any good (Psa 14:2-3 c/w Rom 3:9-12).
      1. Therefore to send Jesus to die for the sins of any or all of them, and then make the atonement effectual only after they would understand and seek him and do good by believing in Him would save none of them, because none of them were capable of meeting those conditions.
      2. If any of them were going to be saved, God would have to be the one Who sought them and saved them.
   4. Foreseeing this fallen lump (A compact mass of no particular shape; a shapeless piece or mass;) of mankind (Rom 9:21) who Adam (not God) fitted to destruction (Rom 9:22 c/w Rom 5:12), God decided before He even created the world to choose some of them and put them in Christ (Eph 1:4).
      1. The purpose of choosing them in Christ was so that they should be holy and without blame before him (Eph 1:4).
      2. Should – pa. tense of SHALL v.

• If God chose them so that they should be holy, then that necessarily means that when he chose them, they were not holy.

1. In other words, God chose them in Christ so that Christ would make them holy by dying for their sins.
2. This means that He did not retroactively choose people before the foundation of the world who chose to put themselves in Christ thousands of years later.
   1. The idea of people seeking God before God changed them by grace was already shown to be false (Psa 14:2-3 c/w Rom 3:9-12).
   2. The section on Total Depravity thoroughly proves the impossibility of this.
3. This is election according to the foreknowledge of God (1Pe 1:2).
   1. The elect were elected to the sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ.
   2. The foreknowledge that God’s election was according to was not the foreknowledge of their works (whether they would believe in and submit to God or not): their works were not considered when God elected them (Rom 9:11).
   3. This was rather foreknowledge of their identity, their person.
   4. The Lord knows them that are His (2Ti 2:19).
   5. The Lord foreknew his people who are His elect (Rom 11:2 c/w Rom 11:5).
   6. Jesus knows His sheep (Joh 10:14,27).
   7. God doesn’t know all men in this way (Mat 7:21-23).
   8. The elect are foreknown, the others are never known.

• The elect were predestinated to be God’s children (Eph 1:5).
  1. Predestinate – 1. Theol. Of God: To foreordain by a divine decree or purpose: to salvation or eternal life; to elect.
  2. This foreknowledge and predestination of the elect guarantees that they will be:
     • justified by the blood of Christ (Rom 8:30 c/w Rom 5:9).
     • called to new spiritual life by the voice of Christ (Rom 8:30 c/w Joh 5:25).
     • glorified (Invested with glory, rendered glorious) in heaven like Christ (Rom 8:29-30 c/w 1Jo 3:2).
  3. Jesus completed the work that the Father gave him to do and He fully and eternally saved all that the Father gave him to save (Joh 17:2-4) and lost none (Joh 6:37-39; Joh 10:28).
  4. The eternal salvation of God’s elect is a completed fact (2Ti 1:9). Thank God!
  5. If you believe that Jesus is the Christ and that He has saved His people from their sins, then you show the evidence that you are one of the ones He died for and saved eternally (Joh 5:24; 1Jo 5:1). (More on this in the next couple of studies.)