SALVATION

A Review of Last Week In God’s sovereignty and to deal with our sin, He ordained that the shed blood of a fitting sacrifice, not only cover sin, but cleanse us from sin and open a doorway to forgiveness, freedom and right standing before Him. God planned that He would send His Son, Jesus Christ as the perfect sacrifice for sin, taking upon Himself our sin and doing away with it once and for all, by His death on the cross. When Christ came 2,000 years ago, He came to bear sin through His sacrifice on the cross, but that when He comes again, He will come to bring salvation.

“Let us make humankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.” (Genesis 1:26) We were originally created to reflect God’s sovereignty – His rule - over the created universe. When sin entered into our human experience, it began to cloud our ability to reflect clearly God’s image to the world around us. We are created in His image nonetheless. As we experience life and sin becomes more of a reality in our lives, the defacing of our ability to reflect God’s image continues.

To understand salvation, we must recognize what we are saved from and one of the things we are saved from is a purposeless existence. “For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made …” (Psalm 139:13-14) You were created with intent and purpose, but sin skews that intent and purpose. The salvation that Jesus offers involves restoring in us our purpose, our ability to clearly reflect God’s image to the world around us.

Jesus and “Gehenna” For those whom sin has gripped and for whom repentance has not been an option, Gehenna, the burning garbage dump, is their eventual destination. We must recognize what we have been saved from. The reality presented in Scripture is that our sin earns us death and the hell that accompanies it and the only way around this is salvation by Jesus Christ. In extending to us salvation, Jesus rescues us from this reality and offers us an entirely different eternity – eternal life, life everlasting in God’s presence

We are not only saved from something, but we are saved for something. We often speak of “life in heaven” when we talk about eternity and eternity is depicted in popular culture as either little cherubs floating on clouds, while playing little harps or as some vague, mysterious utopian Paradise. We see something very different explained in Scripture. An Adventure in Revelation: (Revelation 4:2-8) The most common cultural understanding of heaven is that when all is said and done, we somehow are transported there to live forever with God.

Eternity Remixed: Revelation 21-22 “Then I saw “a new heaven and a new earth,” for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. ‘He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death’ or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.” He who was seated on the throne said, “I am making everything new!” (Revelation 21:1-5)

“The throne of God and of the Lamb will be in the city, and his servants will serve him. They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. There will be no more night. They will not need the light of a lamp or the light of the sun, for the Lord God will give them light. And they will reign for ever and ever.” (Revelation 22:3-5) The reality Revelation presents us with is that God comes to us with a new eternal home – a new city where He will be forever present with us. You see, never at any point do the Gospels or Paul say Jesus has been raised, therefore we are we are all going to heaven. They all say, Jesus is raised, therefore the new creation has begun, and we have a job to do.

We have tremendous purpose as followers of Jesus, right now and in eternity! “For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do”. (Ephesians 2:10) Jesus came to offer Himself as a sacrifice “so that we may serve the living God” (Hebrews 9:14). We are saved for a purpose, serving God in ways He prepared in advance. One is to reclaim our created purpose of reflecting God’s glory to the world around us.

The Apostle Paul in 2 Corinthians 13, talks about how in the new covenant established in Christ’s blood, our faces are unveiled and “reflect the Lord’s glory, [being] transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord”(2 Corinthians 3:18). The salvation Jesus extends to us restores to us our ability to fulfill our created purpose – to reflect God. And this reflecting is something that can happen right here, right now.

There is an eternal purpose to our salvation. God also has tremendous purpose for us in eternity. Revelation 22:5 indicates that His servants will “serve” or “worship” Him. We are permitted to fulfill our calling and our purpose perfectly and eternally in Jesus. What are you reflecting today? When people look at you, do they catch enough of a glimpse of Jesus to pique their interest? If we fail to reflect Jesus clearly to the world around us, it has eternal impact in the lives of others.

Let us seek to fulfill our created purpose, now that we have encountered the tremendous salvation offered to us through Jesus Christ. And let us do this boldly, knowing that our security – the final S of our series – is not something in and of ourselves, but is in something far greater - the shed blood of Jesus Christ.