We run our website the way we wished the whole internet worked: we provide high quality original content with no ads. We are funded by your direct support for ReKnew and our vision. Please consider supporting this project.

The Full Meaning of Salvation
Many view salvation as a legal transaction, which means that it’s a mere acquittal from the consequences of sin. While forgiveness of our sin is certainly involved, the NT view of salvation goes far beyond this when it proclaims that Jesus came to save his people from their sins (Mt. 1:23)—not merely the consequences of those sins. In fact, in expressing God’s perfect, self-sacrificial love on Calvary, Jesus saved us from the ultimate power of sin, which is Satan and the Powers.
The theme is emphasized throughout the New Testament. For example, the message Paul received when he first encountered Christ was that he was being sent to the Gentiles
… to open their eyes so that they may turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God, so that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me (Ac 26:17-18).
Through Paul, God was going to free people from the power of Satan, the “god of this age” who “blinds the minds of unbelievers” (2 Cor. 4:4) and bring them into the power of God. Because of this, they would be in a position to “receive forgiveness of sins” as well as a place among the community of God’s people. It’s clear that salvation includes forgiveness of sins, but it even more fundamentally includes freedom from Satan’s destructive grip.
So too, Scripture teaches that salvation is about escaping “from the snare of the devil, having been held captive by him to do his will” (2 Tim. 2:26). It is about being “set free from this present evil age” (Gal 1:4) and liberated from our “enslavement to the elemental spirits of the world” (Gal 4:3,cf. Rom 6:18; 8:2; Gal 5:1; Col 2:20; Heb 2:14-15). It’s about being freed from the Accuser, knowing that on Calvary Jesus disarmed the Powers and made a mockery of them (Col. 2:14-15). And it’s about being “enabled … to share in the inheritance of the saints in the light” by being “rescued … from the power of darkness and transferred … into the kingdom of his beloved Son” (Col 1: 12-13). This inheritance involves receiving “redemption, the forgiveness of sins” (Col 1:14), but we have this inheritance only because we’ve been “transferred” from one domain to another.
In Christ, we see, God did a whole lot more than save his us from the consequences of our sin. He freed us from our enslavement to sin and the evil one who ultimately empowers it.
Yet, as marvelous as all this is, it still doesn’t exhaust the New Testament concept of salvation. For the ultimate purpose of the freedom Christ wins for us is to allow us to share in the wholeness of a marriage-like relationship with God. We are saved from sin and the diabolic Powers in order to participate in the eternally full life of the triune community.
Our marriage to God includes being “seated with Christ … in heavenly places” (Eph. 2), made participants in the divine nature (2 Pet. 1:4) and blessed with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms (Eph. 1:3). We are given a new identity in Christ that replaces our old identity that was conformed to the pattern of this world. Through the gift of the Spirit, God’s own Life is placed in us and wells up within us like a fountain of living water (Jn. 7:39).
Moreover, having been freed from the blindness induced by the “god of this age,” our minds are now empowered to experience the true God in all his glory and to be gradually transformed into this glory (2 Cor. 3:17-4:6). Through the on-going work of the Spirit in our life, all the qualities that belong to God by nature are gradually imparted to us by grace—love, joy, peace, patience, etc. (Gal. 5:22-23).
God rescues us from sin and Satan in order to share his blessed Life with us in a marriage-like relationship that will never end. This freedom from bondage and the wholeness of this relationship is encompassed by the New Testament’s concept of salvation.
Photo credit: DavidCampbell_ / Visual hunt / CC BY-NC
Category: General
Tags: Forgiveness, freedom, Salvation, Sin, Warfare Worldview
Related Reading

When Repentance is No Longer Possible
A concerned follower of ReKnew recently asked me to explain a puzzling passage, and since I am asked this question with some regularity, I thought I’d share with all of you. Here is the passage in question: Hebrews 6:4-6. For it is impossible, in the case of those who have once been enlightened, who have…

How the Cross Erases Your Sin
In Colossians 2:14, we read how God canceled the charge of our legal indebtedness which stood against us and condemned us. That word “canceled,” means to wipe out, to erase, or to abolish. By means of the cross, God wiped out our indebtedness to the law that stood over us that Satan used to condemn…

How can I feel secure in my salvation?
Question: I constant worry about whether I’m saved or not. Do I lose my salvation every time I sin? How can I feel secure that I’m saved? Answer: It seems to me you’re framing your “salvation” within a legal paradigm rather than a relational paradigm. It’s like God is an angry judge and your a…

How People Misunderstand Open Theism
Open theism holds that, because agents are free, the future includes possibilities (what agents may and may not choose to do). Since God’s knowledge is perfect, open theists hold that God knows the future partly as a realm of possibilities. This view contrasts with classical theism that has usually held that God knows the future exclusively as a domain…

Podcast: What Does it Mean that God No Longer Counts Our Sins Against Us?
Weights and Measures and Merciful Pleasures. Greg discusses divine math. http://traffic.libsyn.com/askgregboyd/Episode_0392.mp3 Painting: Tea Party By: Andrei Ryabushkin Date: 1903

The Warfare Worldview: What Would You Tell the Younger You?
Aftab Uzzaman via Compfight Jessica Kelley has been fleshing out the Warfare Worldview on her blog in a series of posts using the lens of the death of her child, Henry. Jessica is a beautiful writer, and her reflections are powerful and tender. You’re going to want to be listening to her. Her voice is an…