Prayer: Father God, if all You had said was “the wages of sin is death” we would be without hope, for we are all guilty. Yet forgiveness of that sin and the hope of eternal life is extended to everyone who confesses with their tongue that Jesus Christ is Lord. Thank you for your gift of salvation. Amen.
Main Scripture: Read Romans 10:8-13.
“The word is near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart," that is, the word of faith we are proclaiming: That if you confess with your mouth, "Jesus is Lord," and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved. As the Scripture says, "Anyone who trusts in him will never be put to shame." For there is no difference between Jew and Gentile—the same Lord is Lord of all and richly blesses all who call on him, for, "Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved."
Associated Scriptures:
For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life (John 3:16).
I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile. For in the gospel a righteousness from God is revealed, a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: "The righteous will live by faith" (Romans 1:16-17).
On the last and greatest day of the Feast, Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, "If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him." By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive. Up to that time the Spirit had not been given, since Jesus had not yet been glorified (John 7:37-39).
Correlative Quotes:
And a simple study of the four gospels reveals the fact that the Judaism of the first century was not the supernatural system given by God whereby the sinner knew that he couldn't keep the Law of God and thus was penitent and prayed to God...like David did in Psalm 51...pleading for mercy and grace by faith in a God who was willing to forgive and thus receive salvation as a gift of grace, not earned by works.[1] – John MacArthur
Justification does have a relationship with works. It secures the removal of God’s wrath so that his Spirit flows freely in a union where works are possible and necessary. And salvation is a larger reality than justification. Justification is one aspect of salvation.[2] – John Piper
The sole basis for our justification is Christ and his holy life and his atoning death. However, our salvation includes all three aspects I mentioned earlier. That is, salvation is our justification, sanctification and our glorification.[3] – R. C. Sproul
Faith is a work of God in us, which changes us and brings us to birth anew from God (cf. John 1). It kills the old Adam, makes us completely different people in heart, mind, senses, and all our powers, and brings the Holy Spirit with it. What a living, creative, active powerful thing is faith! It is impossible that faith ever stop doing good. Faith doesn't ask whether good works are to be done, but, before it is asked, it has done them. It is always active.[4] – Martin Luther
Study:
Salvation is the doorway, the hallway, and the living room of eternal life. We enter in through the doorway of redemption, equipped with the gift of faith, provided by the grace of God; that’s justification. We move down the hallway of life, resisting the open door to sin, focusing on the pathway of righteousness. This is the obedience that God has prepared for us; that’s sanctification. Then, at the end of the hallway of life, we enter into the living room of eternal fellowship with Christ; that’s glorification. Salvation is the umbrella under which all three come together to form a life prepared, performed, and perfected.
The word “salvation” communicates the thought of deliverance, safety, preservation, soundness, restoration, and healing. In theology, however, its major use is to denote a work of God on behalf of men, and as such it is a major doctrine of the Bible which includes redemption, reconciliation, propitiation, conviction, repentance, faith, regeneration, forgiveness, justification, sanctification, preservation, and glorification. On the one hand, salvation is described as the work of God rescuing man from his lost estate. On the other hand, salvation describes the estate of a man who has been saved and who is vitally renewed and made a partaker of the inheritance of the saints.[5] – R. C. Sproul
Justification is a judicial term. It says that God has made us righteous by the blood of Jesus (1 Corinthians 5:21). To be justified is to have our sin erased and forgotten. This action of God is initiated by faith in the sacrificial death of Christ alone (redemption); we cannot earn it. The action by which God justifies the unrighteous prepares us to live a life free of the chains of the flesh. Our goal should now be to glorify God and not to satisfy our fleshly desires (Galatians 5:16-18).
The New Testament writers, specifically Paul, defines the term in a judicial sense. Imagine God the judge, sitting on His throne, declaring to the believer, "In light of what Jesus has done on your behalf, you are (now) righteous. Things are now right between you and me. Court dismissed.[6] – Arnold G. Fruchtenbaum
Redemption, and its companion justification, establish our right to be the children of God. Sanctification is the process by which we grow spiritually. We grow by listening to, being convicted by, learning from, and acting on the direction of the Holy Spirit.
Our relationship with God is maintained by the action of the Holy Spirit. Whenever there is sin in our lives, there is conflict with God. The Holy Spirit convicts us of that sin, we repent, and our relationship is restored (Romans 7:15-25).
The Holy Spirit is the continuous agent of sanctification, who works within us to subdue sinful impulses and produce fruits of righteousness, or right actions (Romans 8:13; 2 Corinthians 3:17-18; Galatians 5:22). This process is sanctification. … In the spiritual sense of a believer's life, sanctification means "to be set apart for God," or to be made more holy through conforming to the image of His Son.[7] – Arnold G. Fruchtenbaum
Salvation is a work of grace (Ephesians 1:7). Since redemption, justification, and sanctification are all actions within the scope of our salvation, they are also acts of God’s grace. God justifies us by grace (Romans 3:24), He also sanctifies us by grace (Romans 15:15-17, NASB), “But I have written very boldly to you on some points, so as to remind you again, because of the grace that was given me from God, to be a minister of Christ Jesus to the Gentiles, ministering as a priest the gospel of God, that my offering of the Gentiles might become acceptable, sanctified by the Holy Spirit.”
Sanctification has at its core obedience. Living under the control of the Holy Spirit (the power influencing sanctification) requires obedience to God. In Leviticus 20:8 (NASB) we see that obedience has always been a requirement of sanctification when it says, “And you shall keep My statutes and practice them; I am the Lord who sanctifies you.”
Glorification will be the final display of God’s grace. We will be deemed, perfect for eternity. Romans 8:29-30 describes the process by which we will be glorified when it says, “For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified.”
God called us “to be conformed to the likeness of His Son.” It is God’s purpose to transform the believer. Paul explains transformation when he writes, “But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, who, by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body” (Philippians 3:20-21).
Jesus will make us into the perfect creation He originally intended.
Summary Statement:
Our salvation has made us a new creation in Christ Jesus (2 Corinthians 5:17) and prepared us for a life of obedience that glorifies God. Even though we are now perfect in position (Hebrews 10:14a), we are not perfect in reality. We are a work in progress ready to perform the actions that are pleasing to God. (Hebrews 10:14b).
As a result of our salvation, we are being changed, transformed into the likeness of Jesus (2 Corinthians 3:18). Our goal in life before salvation was to satisfy the desires of the flesh, at any cost (Romans 1:18-23). Our goal after salvation is to praise and worship our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ (Jude 1:25). He alone is worthy to be praised.
The goal of our life is to be perfected or glorified in the Day of Christ; a bride prepared for its Groom (Revelation 19:7-8). All this, redeemed, justified, sanctified, and glorified now and forever is by grace through faith alone in the action of the birth, life, suffering, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus.
[1] John MacArthur, The Substance of Faith, © Grace to You, All Rights Reserved, June 29, 2003, message 90-381. gty.org/resources/sermons/90-381/the-substance-of-faith
[2] By John Piper, Three Ways Our Deeds Relate to Our Salvation,©2015 Desiring God Foundation. Website: desiringGod.org., desiringgod.org/articles/three-ways-our-deeds-relate-to-our-salvation.
[3] R. C. Sproul, R. C. Sproul Comments on the Difference between Justification and Salvation, reasonablechristian.blogspot.com/2009/02/r-c-sproul-comments-on-difference.html
[4] Paul F. Pavao, Quotes by Martin Luther on Salvation by Faith Alone, Copyright © 2009-2015, Paul F. Pavao, All Rights Reserved, christian-history.org/martin-luther-sola-fide-quotes.
[5] J. Hampton Keathley III, Soteriology – The Doctrine of Salvation, © bible.org, All Rights Reserved, bible.org/article/soteriology-doctrine-salvation
[6] Arnold G. Fruchtenbaum, What do they Mean and what does the Bible Teach about them, © crosswalk.com 2016 All rights reserved, crosswalk.com/faith/spiritual-life/justification-and-sanctification-what-do-they-mean-and-what-does-the-bible-teach-about-them-11628887.
[7] Ibid.
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