About Salvation

 There is a distinct difference between what is called "justification" and the salvation taught and preached by Jesus Christ and His Apostles. Justification, theologically, is basically full and total forgiveness of all of a person's wrongdoing and mistakes. But the Lord, in the Scriptures, already says that all a person need do is to turn away from them and turn to Him and He will forgive and wipe clean. He says this in Ezekiel 18 and John says it in 1 John 1:9, and this was true prior to Christ's crucifixion. Even before Christ was crucified, both He and John preached for people to repent, or turn away from one's mistakes and wrongdoings, this repentance being made public by the act of being ritually cleansed in water (something which was  a common practice in 1st century Judaism and was necessary even to just enter the Temple grounds; thus the pools at the entry to the Temple), and people would be forgiven.

     But the salvation which was taught by Jesus Christ and His Apostles was about a total change in behavior. Rather than being concerned with forgiveness for wrong behavior, His salvation was concerned with the behavior itself and its root cause. This salvation was brought about by being joined to Jesus Christ himself in His death and resurrection, and voluntarily coming under the control of His Holy Breath, Energy, or Spirit so that He becomes the source of our behaviors, words, and thoughts, and not the malfunctioning soft tissues of our brains. This salvation is a deliverance from "sin" itself, in cooperation with the Spirit of Jesus Christ, and not just its consequences.

     This is why the Scriptures speak of being saved by faith through grace freely, and not from anything we have done. And yet at the same time speak of needing to endure with Christ, to suffer with Him, to put off the old man and put on the new, and why James speaks of faith without works being dead, and asking if such faith can save you. Christ died for the ungodly, so that the ungodly might be made right, and made to do the things which please God, but these things can only be done by the Spirit of Christ through us, because the malfunctioning soft tissues, the "flesh" which isn't working the way it was supposed to, can't do those things which please God. It was never meant to be a "spiritual righteousness" before God, but a literal one because of Him acting and speaking through us as we "enslave" ourselves and submit to His Spirit rather than our own malfunctioning brains.

     How can a person profess to believe in Jesus Christ, and yet do nothing which He says? How can a person profess to be a Christian or follow Christ and not reflect Him in any way? Such a person is deceiving himself, talking a good line but having no evidence of the life of Christ manifest within him. Such a person is, as Jesus taught, like a man who builds his house in a place everyone knows is prone to flash floods. Is that person embracing the Salvation which He taught? Or will he be told by a sorrowful and confused Jesus, "I'm sorry, I don't know who you are." no matter what pastoral position, what theological position, or what great things people believe he has done for God. Jesus reiterated this again and again in His teaching that producing the fruit which His salvation brings is the indicator that this salvation has actually taken hold and is functioning. And He was clear and plain that we needed to stay put in Him in order to produce any fruit, and those who didn't dried up and were tossed out.

     We cannot use "salvation by grace through faith" as an excuse for casual or overt disobedience to the Gospel which Jesus Christ preached. We cannot use Christ's cross as insurance against torment when we decide we disagree with or just don't care about anything He said, much less what His Apostles said. That is not believing in Jesus Christ. That is not faith, no matter how you spin it. That is blasphemy.