By the Scripture’s Own Writers
Salvation
Definition
Salvation is the deliverance from the destructive power of sin, a redemption from the ultimate end of sin which is everlasting death, annihilation. It means a restoration to divine favor and perfection after having sinned or missed God’s mark of perfection set for faithful mankind. Salvation as referred to in the Bible may either be (1) the preserving of one alive from trouble or an impending immediate disaster or (2) the opportunity to receive everlasting life in a state of peace, happiness and prosperity. Salvation is not an act of divine justice but rather an act of divine mercy. It is a justification or a being declared righteous granted by God the Superior to a handicapped inferior. As an act of mercy it is the withholding (1) of the consequences of disaster or (2) of the punishment of everlasting death (annihilation) when either is justly due for failure to keep the Divine law. Salvation that counts is not a self-salvation, a salvation by works, a salvation by law or a universal salvation, as these are all unclean religious fallacies.
Jehovah God a Savior from Disaster and Trouble
Exodus 15:2 “Jehovah is my strength and song, and He is become my salvation: this is my God, and I will praise Him.”
2 Samuel 22:3 “God, my rock, in Him will I take refuge; my shield, and the horn of my salvation, my high tower, and my refuge; my savior, You save me from violence.”
Jehovah God a Savior to Everlasting Life
1 Timothy 4:8, 10 “But godly devotion is beneficial for all things, as it holds promise of the life now and that which is to come. For to this end we are working hard and exerting ourselves, because we have rested our hope on a living God, who is a Savior of all kinds of men, especially of faithful ones.”
Jude 25 To God our Savior, who alone is wise, be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and forever. Amen.
A Merciful God, Jehovah Alone Justifies, Declares Righteous to Salvation
Deuteronomy 4:31 “For Jehovah your God is a merciful God.”
Romans 8:33 “God is the One who declares them righteous.”
1 Peter 1:3, 5 “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, for according to His great mercy He gave us a new birth to a living hope . .. who are being safeguarded by God’s power through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last period of time.”
God Provides the Chief Agent of Life, the Savior Jesus Christ
Acts 5:30, 31 “The God of our forefathers raised up Jesus, whom your hands had killed, hanging Him upon a stake. God exalted this One as Ruler and Savior to His right hand, to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins.”
Luke 1:68, 69 “Blessed be Jehovah the God of Israel, because He has turned His attention and performed deliverance toward His people. And He has raised up a mighty Savior for us in the house of David, His servant.”
See also: Luke 2:11; Ephesians 5:23; 2 Timothy 1:10; 2 Peter 1:11; Hebrews 2:10.
Jesus Christ Becomes the Savior of the New World of Righteousness
John 4:42 “We do not believe any longer on account of your talk; for we have heard for ourselves and we know that this man is for a certainty the Savior of the world.”
1 John 4:14 “We ourselves have beheld and are bearing witness that the Father has sent forth His Son as Savior of the world.”
All Salvation Depends upon Jesus Christ
Acts 4:10, 12 “That in the name of Jesus Christ… there is no salvation in anyone else, for there is not another name under heaven that has been given among men by which we must get saved.’
God’s “Means of Saving”, the Ransom Sacrifice of the Man Jesus, Must Be Accepted
Luke 2:27-30 “And as the parents brought the young child Jesus … he [ Simeon] himself received It into his arms and blessed God and said: ‘Now, Sovereign Lord, You are letting your slave go free in peace according to your declaration; because my eyes have seen Your means of saving.’ “
Luke 3:6 “All humanity will see the salvation of God.”
Acts 28:28 “Be it known therefore to you, that the salvation of God is sent to the Gentiles. They will also listen.”
Mark 10:45 “For even the Son of man came, not to be ministered to, but to minister and to give His soul a ransom in exchange for many.”
Salvation a Goal to Be Attained —Not ‘Once Saved Always Saved’
Philippians 3:12-14 “Not that I have already received it or am already made perfect, but I am pursuing to see if I may also lay hold on that for which I have also been laid hold on by Christ Jesus. Brothers, I do not yet consider myself as having laid hold on it; but there is one thing about it: Forgetting the things behind and stretching forward to the things ahead, I am pursuing down toward the goal for the prize of the calling above and which God extends in Christ Jesus.”
If ‘Once Saved Always Saved’, Why Did God Reject Israel Whom He Saved from Egypt?
Jude 5 “I desire to remind you, despite your knowing all things once for all time, that Jehovah, although He saved a people out of the land of Egypt, afterwards destroyed those not showing faith.”
Hebrews 3:17 “Moreover, with whom did God become disgusted for forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose carcasses fell in the wilderness?”
Salvation to Life Involves Time and Is Not Completed When Cue Becomes a Christian
1 Corinthians 1:18 “For the speech about the torture stake is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is God’s power.”
2 Timothy 4:7, 8 “I have fought the right fight, I have run the course to the finish, I have observed the faith. From this time on there is reserved for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will give me as a reward in that day, yet not only to me, but also to all those who have loved His manifestation.”
Follow in the “Way of Salvation”
Acts 16:17 “These men are slaves of the Most High God, who are publishing to you the way of salvation.”
Full faith in Jesus as Ransomer necessary
1 Peter 1:8, 9 “Though you never saw Him, you love Him [Christ Jesus]. Though you are not looking upon Him at present, yet you exercise faith in Him and are greatly rejoicing with an unspeakable and glorified joy, as you receive the accomplished end of your faith, the salvation of your souls.”
Growth to salvation necessary
1 Peter 2:2 “And, as newborn infants, form a longing for the unadulterated milk belonging to the Word, that through it you may grow to salvation.”
Soundness of mind and godly devotion necessary
Titus 2:11-14 “For the undeserved kindness of God which brings salvation to all kinds of men has been manifested, instructing us to repudiate ungodliness and worldly desires and to live with soundness of mind and righteousness and godly devotion amid this present system of things, while we wait for the happy hope and glorious manifestation of the great God and of our Savior Christ Jesus, who gave Himself for us that by a ransom He might release us from every kind of lawlessness.”
Endure tribulation
2 Corinthians 1:6 “Whether we are in tribulation, it is for your comfort and salvation.”
Embrace the good news as power for salvation
Romans 1:16 “For I am not ashamed of the good news; it is, in fact God’s power for salvation to everyone having faith, to the Jew first as well as to the Greek.”
Share in making a public declaration of the good news
Romans 10:10 “For with the heart one exercises faith for righteousness, and with the mouth one makes public declaration for salvation.”
Pray for salvation
Philippians 1:19 “For I know this will result in my salvation through your supplication.”
Romans 10:1 “Brothers, the goodwill of my heart and my supplication to God for them are, indeed, for their salvation.”
Obedience to Christ necessary
Hebrews 5:9 “He became responsible for everlasting salvation to all those obeying Him.”
Repentance necessary for mistakes made
2 Corinthians 7:9, 10 “Now I rejoice, not because you were just saddened, but because you were saddened into repenting, for you were saddened in a godly way, that you might suffer no damage in anything due to us. For sadness in a godly way makes for repentance to salvation which is not to be regretted.”
Keep Awake as Salvation Nears
Romans 13:11 “Do this, too, because you know the season, that it is already the hour for you to awake from sleep, for now our salvation is nearer than at the time when we became believers.”
Keep Shielding the Mind with Hope of Salvation
1 Thessalonians 5:8 “But as for us who belong to the day, let us keep our senses and have on the breastplate of faith and love and as a helmet the hope of salvation.”
Ephesians 6:17 “Also accept the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, that is, God’s Word.”
Work Out Salvation with Fear and Trembling
Philippians 2:12 “My beloved ones. . . now much more readily during my absence, keep working out your own salvation with fear and trembling.”
Study of Scriptures Necessary for Salvation
2 Timothy 3:15 “From infancy you have known the Holy Writings which are able to make you wise for salvation through the faith in connection with Christ Jesus.”
Self-Salvation or Self-Righteousness Impossible, a Fallacy
Romans 3:10 “There is not a righteous man, not even one.”
Luke 16:15 [Jesus speaking to the pharisees] “He said to them: ‘You are those who declare yourselves righteous before men, but God knows your hearts; because what is lofty among men is a disgusting thing in God’s sight.’ “
God Reproves Job for Self- Righteousness
Job 32:1; 40:6, 8 “So these three men ceased to answer Job, because he was righteous in his own eyes.” “Then Jehovah answered Job out of the whirlwind, and said,… Will you condemn Me, that you may be justified?”
Salvation or Righteousness by Works of Character Development Impossible. This Is Hypocrisy
Matthew 23:27, 28 “Woe to you, scribes and pharisees, hypocrites! because you resemble whitewashed graves, which outwardly indeed appear beautiful but inside are full of dead men’s bones and of every kind of uncleanness. In that way you also, outwardly indeed, appear righteous to men, but inside you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.”
Salvation or Being Declared Righteous by the Law of Moses Impossible
Romans 3:19, 20 “Now we know that all the things the Law says it addresses to those under the Law, so that every mouth may be stopped and all the world may become liable to God for punishment. Therefore by works of law no flesh will be declared righteous before Him, for by law is the accurate knowledge of sin.”
Universal Salvation Unscriptural, a Fallacy. No salvation for the wicked
Psalm 119:155 “Salvation is far from the wicked; for they do not seek Your statutes.”
Oblivion for the wicked
Proverbs 10:7 “The memory of the righteous is blessed; but the name of the wicked shall rot.”
Proverbs 21:16 “The man that wanders out of the way of understanding shall rest in the assembly of the dead.”
Salvation’s being a matter of mercy, God extends it only to those He desires
Exodus 33:17, 19 “And Jehovah said unto Moses,… I will make all My goodness pass before you, and will proclaim the name of Jehovah before you; and I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy.”
Jesus’ ransom only for the “many”, not for everyone who has lived
Matthew 20:28 “Just as the Son of man came, not to be ministered to, but to minister and to give His soul a ransom in exchange for many.”
Only those exercising faith in Jesus will be saved
John 3:16 “For God loved the world so much that He gave His only-begotten Son, in order that everyone exercising faith in Him might not be destroyed but have everlasting life.”
The nonbelievers, the “goats”, destined for everlasting death, annihilation
Matthew 25:45, 46 “Then He [Christ Jesus] will answer them [the goats] with the words: ‘Truly I say to you, To the extent that you did not do it to one of these least ones, you did not do it to Me.’ And these will depart into everlasting cutting-off, but the righteous ones into everlasting life.”
Chasm of unalterable judgment separates the righteous from the irreformable wicked
Luke 16:26, 31 “And besides all these things, a great chasm has been fixed between us and you people, so that those wanting to go over from here to you people cannot, neither may people cross over from there to us…. If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, neither will they be persuaded if someone rises from the dead.”
Salvation for “men of all kinds”, not every last one who has lived
Romans 5:15, 18 “But it is not with the gift as it was with the trespass. For if by one man’s trespass many died, the undeserved kindness of God and His free gift with the undeserved kindness by the one man Jesus Christ abounded much more to many. So, then, as through one trespass the result to men of all kinds was condemnation, likewise also through one act of justification the result to men of all kinds is a declaring of them righteous for life.”
False teaching of universal salvation voids doctrine of Christ’s ransom
Hebrews 10:29 “Of how much more severe a punishment, do you think, will the man be counted worthy who has trampled upon the Son of God and who has esteemed as of ordinary value the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and who has outraged the spirit of undeserved kindness with contempt?”
Makes void the purpose of preaching the good news
Romans 10:13-15 “For ‘anyone that calls upon the name of Jehovah will be saved’. However, how will they call upon him in whom they have not put faith? How, in turn, will they put faith in him of whom they have not heard? How, in turn, will they hear without someone to preach? How, in turn, will they preach unless they have been sent forth?”
Makes void God’s appointment of preachers, ministers
1 Corinthians 9:16 “Really, woe is me if I did not declare the good news!”
Ezekiel 3:18, 19 “When I say unto the wicked, You shall surely die; and you give him not warning, nor speak to warn the wicked from his wicked way, to save his life; the same wicked man shall die in his iniquity; but his blood will I require at your hand. Yet if you warn the wicked, and he turns not from his wickedness, nor from his wicked way, he shall die in his iniquity; but you have delivered your soul.”
Makes void the need to walk circumspectly in the way of salvation
1 Corinthians 9:26, 27 “Therefore, the way I am running is not uncertainly; the way I am directing my blows is so as not to be striking the air; but I browbeat my body and lead it as a slave, that, after I have preached to others, I myself should not become disapproved somehow.”
No universal salvation, because God’s power to be displayed in destruction of the wicked
Romans 9:17, 22-24 “For the Scripture says to Pharaoh: ‘For this very purpose I have let you remain, that in connection with you I may demonstrate My power and that My Name may be published throughout all the earth.’ If, now, God, although having the will to demonstrate His wrath and to make His power known, tolerated with much longsuffering vessels of wrath made fit for destruction, in order that He might make known the riches of His glory upon vessels of mercy, which He prepared beforehand for glory … what of it?”
No universal salvation, because Sodom and Gomorrah eternally destroyed
Jude 7 “So, too, Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities about them, after they in the same manner as the foregoing ones had committed fornication excessively and gone out after flesh for unnatural use, are placed before us as a warning example by undergoing the judicial punishment of everlasting fire.”
2 Peter 2:6 “Turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah into ashes, condemned them to destruction, having made them an example to those who would live ungodly.”
No universal salvation, because unrighteous doomed to be cut off in death
2 Peter 2:9 “Jehovah knows how to deliver people of godly devotion out of trial, but to reserve unrighteous people for the day of judgment to be cut off.”
No universal salvation, because wicked angels are doomed to destruction
Jude 6 “And the angels that did not keep their original position but forsook their own proper dwelling-place, He has reserved with eternal bonds under dense darkness for the judgment of the great day.”
2 Peter 2:4 For if God didn’t spare angels when they sinned, but cast them down to tartarus, and committed them to pits of darkness, to be reserved to judgment.”
No universal salvation, because satan himself is to be destroyed
Hebrews 2:14 “Therefore, since the ‘young children’ are sharers of blood and flesh, He also similarly partook of the same things, that through His death He might destroy the one having the means to cause death, that is, the devil.”
See also: Ezekiel 28:14-19.
Salvation is contrasted with destruction, thus demonstrating universal salvation not true
Philippians 1:28 “And in no respect being frightened by your opponents. This very thing is a proof of destruction for them, but of salvation for you; and this indication is from God.”
God selects those who receive salvation. Others have no hope of life
2 Thessalonians 2:13 “We are obligated to thank God always for you, brothers loved by Jehovah, because God selected you from the beginning for salvation by sanctifying you with spirit and by your faith in the truth.”
1 Thessalonians 4:13 “That you may not sorrow just as the rest also do who have no hope.”
Paul Refers to a Salvation from a Sea Disaster
Acts 27:34, 44 ” ‘Therefore I encourage you to take some food, for this is in the interest of your salvation; for not a hair of the head of one of you will perish.’ . . . And thus it came about that all were brought safely to land.”
Prepare Now for Salvation from the Greatest Impending Disaster of Armageddon
Zephaniah 2:2, 3 “Before the decree bring forth, before the day pass as the chaff, before the fierce anger of Jehovah come upon you, before the day of Jehovah’s anger come upon you. Seek Jehovah, all you meek of the earth, that have kept His ordinances; seek righteousness, seek meekness: it may be you will be hid in the day of Jehovah’s anger.”
Matthew 24:8, 13 “All these things are a beginning of pangs of distress. But he that has endured to the finish is the one that will be saved.”
Salvation from Armageddon Disaster Based on a Baptism into Christ Jesus, the Greater Noah—Good Conscience Necessary
1 Peter 3:20, 21 “Which had once been disobedient when the patience of God was waiting in Noah’s days, while the ark was being constructed, in which a few people, that is, eight souls, were carried safely through the water. This is a symbol of baptism, which now saves you (not the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the request made to God for a good conscience,) through the resurrection of Jesus Christ.”
To Jehovah the Savior-God Belongs All Credit for Salvation from Disaster and Salvation to Life
1 Timothy 1:1 “Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus, under command of God our Savior and of Christ Jesus, our hope.”
Revelation 7:10 “And they keep on crying with a loud voice, saying: ‘Salvation we owe to our God, who is seated on the throne, and to the Lamb.’ “
Revelation 12:10 “Now have come to pass the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of His Christ.”
Revelation 19:1 “Praise Jah, you people! The salvation and the glory and the power belong to our God.”
For more details or any questions on this topic, don’t hesitate to contact us.
© All Rights Reserved