S A L V A T I O N ((((1/2))))
Upon asking many people in the world today, "Are you saved?", most will reply with an automatic, "Yes"; but if we ask them what they are saved from, most of them will have no idea what we are even talking about… Salvation is deliverance. It is being rescued from something. It is something that is done by one who has the strength and power to save, for someone who has the need and desire to be rescued.
Salvation in the New Testament is spoken of in two tenses:
1.) Salvation from the bondage of sin, so that a person can be changed from a sinner into a saint (all Christians are saints), and have the power to live a holy life free from the bondage of sin (present tense)…
2.) Salvation from the wrath of God Almighty [Jesus Christ] which is to come (future tense) by living in the power of the gospel of Christ, and keeping oneself free from sin until the day of judgment.
Paul taught it this way in Romans 5:9,10:
"Much more then, being now (present tense) justified by his blood, we shall be (future tense) saved from wrath through him. For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled (present tense), we shall be saved (future tense) by his life."
SALVATION FROM THE BONDAGE OF SIN
"Verily, verily I say unto you, he that committeth sin is the servant of sin." (John 8:34)
We are not sinners because we sin; we sin because we are sinners.
This statement is true of all who are not in Christ by the gospel of the New Testament. Every man and woman ever born (except the Son of God, whose Father was not a man), was born under the curse of sin that Adam brought upon himself and his seed. Man is a sinner. That is why he sins. He must sin. He is a bondservant. He was born that way and cannot help it, much in the same way that a baby born from a mother addicted to crack cocaine is born addicted to crack cocaine when he has never personally used it. It is not fair; he was just born that way.
That is why God came in the flesh as the last Adam, to "undo" what the first Adam did in the beginning. Jesus Christ, the Son of God, came into the world, never sinned, and became the perfect sacrifice to pay the death penalty that every person on earth deserved.
"For all have sinned, [That includes you] and come short of the glory of God…" (Romans 3:23)
"The wages of sin is death…" (Romans 6:23)
"The soul that sinneth, it shall die." (Ezekiel 18:4)