The Doctrine of Redemption

What must someone do in order to be saved?  We are saved by grace through faith.  So what is faith?  It is believing that Christ is who He says He is [regardless of its rationality, evidence, or its view by the world’s standards].  It is taking God at His word.  Saving faith, then, is to believe correctly about God based upon what He has said in His Word, and nothing more.  DTS requires their students to believe seven things in order to attend the Seminary:

1. The Trinity
2. The Full Deity and Humanity of Christ
3. The Spiritual Lostness of the Human Race
4. The Substitutionary Atonement and Bodily Resurrection of Christ
5.  Salvation by Faith Alone in Christ Alone
6. The Physical Return of Christ
7. The Authority and Inerrancy of Scripture [1]

I would modify the third item to say that our bodies are corrupted as well and we are in need of both spiritual and physical redemption.  I would also add that we are saved by grace through faith to the fifth item.  Of the seven statements above, only four are a necessary part of salvation.

To be saved, one must have a Trinitarian understanding of the concept of God.  If God is not seen in a Triune way, then the god being seen is not the God of Christianity.  One must also believe in the full deity and humanity of Christ.  If Christ did not become human He could not have been the sacrifice necessary for our redemption.  Third, one must understand in the lostness of mankind.  If we are not lost, there is no sin; if there is no sin, Christ would not have had to redeem us.  Finally, to be saved, someone must believe in the Penal Substitutionary Atonement and bodily resurrection of Christ.  If Christ did not die as a substitute for the sins of all of mankind, then His death was in vain.

Furthermore, if Christ had not risen from the dead, then God would not have accepted His sacrifice and we would still be under the Law.  If this had been the case, all of us would be condemned to Hell. 

If one does not believe these things, then one does not believe in the Christ of the Scriptures and neither does that person have any part in the Kingdom of God .  This is why it is so important when we give our testimonies to tell people what we believed and not just how we came to believe.  With this in mind, let us now begin to examine the nature of redemption.

The Death of Christ

There are several views concerning the meaning of Christ’s death on the cross.  Some believe that His death was an accident, and thus was no different than the death of any other man.  Some believe Christ was nothing more than a martyr who only died for the principles he taught, once again, as no more than a man.

Then there is the Moral Influence Theory, stating that Christ died to show us that we should be better moral individuals.  This view teaches that we don’t have all the answers and neither did Jesus, but if we just hang in there and do what is right, then after a time our lives will end and it will all be over.

The fourth view is the Governmental View, which states that God made Christ an example as a token ransom for sin.  This was done in order for us to have more respect for God’s Law.  Christ couldn’t take care of all of our sin, but by seeing what happened to Jesus we should be compelled to repent.  This was the view taught during the second Great Awakening; it and the Moral Influence theory are still commonly held today.

To say the least all four of these views are heretical.  What, then, is the correct view about the meaning of Christ’s death on that "bloody and brutal cross?"

The Biblical view encompasses four things:

1. Redemption
2. Propitiation
3. Concept of Substitution
4. Reconciliation

Redemption is the deliverance of something or someone by means of paying a price.  It is our delivery from sin (Romans 7:14, Romans 3:24, Eph. 1:7, 1 Peter 1:18-19).  Ex. 12 teaches that the blood of the Passover Lamb removed the first-born in a home from receiving death on that frightful night.  This is a picture of what Christ would eventually do (1 Cor. 5:7).

Propitiation is another term for the word “satisfaction.”  It means that Christ as our propitiation has satisfied all the attributes of God in His death.  God cannot look upon sin because He is Holy and He must hate sin.  God is also merciful and gracious.  God wanted to keep fellowship with man, but could not look past man’s sin, so Christ died on the cross as a sinless sin offering in our place.  Sin was punished and grace was given in the fact that we may now have fellowship with God.  God sees us through the blood of His Son (Is. 53:4-6, Rom. 3:25, 1 John 2:2).  In the days of the Mosaic Law, the priests would sprinkle blood on the ark as a covering for sin.  In Hebrews 9:5, the word translated as “mercy seat” is translated as “propitiation” elsewhere.  This means that the blood on the ark covered sin until Christ came and took sin away.  The Sacrifice of the Messiah is what protects man from the wrath of God, and anyone who has not accepted His Atoning work still dies in their sins, even though Christ’s blood would have taken them away had they accepted Him (John 8).

This brings us now to the concept of the Substitution, which is the death of an innocent victim in the place of a guilty sinner.  There was a penalty paid for sin, by Christ, on the cross.  He took on all the sins of the world and became sin on our behalf.  This could be the cup He refers to in John 17.  This substitution on the cross caused a momentary break in fellowship between the persons of the Trinity, where Christ actually separated Himself from Himself.  This is unfathomable for us (1 Peter 2:24, 3:18, 2 Cor. 5:21).  1 John 1:9, however, teaches that if we ask Him to take away our sin, God is faithful to do it every time, and He is just for doing it on the basis of His Son, Jesus Christ.

The fourth and final concept is Reconciliation.  Christ’s death terminates the enmity between God and Man caused by man’s sin.  We were once enemies of God, but through Jesus Christ, we have now been brought back into right fellowship with our Creator (Rom. 5:10, 2 Cor. 5:18-20, Col. 1:20-21).  Following conversion, the Holy Spirit empowers us through His indwelling presence in our life to live in such a way that we can spend our days in fellowship with God.

How Has Redemption Been Brought About?

In Genesis 12 and 15, God promises Abraham that He will make Him a great nation.  Then in Galatians 3, Paul teaches us that as believers, we are now the Israel of God.  We are the spiritual seed of Abraham, having been grafted into God’s Chosen people by Jesus Christ.  The Church is the continuation (not the replacement) of Israel through belief in Jesus Christ.  Jews who reject Christ are cut off from Israel and are no longer part of the Israel of God.   We are all saved by one faith; Romans and Hebrews teach us that the Jews and Gentiles are saved and have always been saved by the same faith.  Our faith comes through Jesus Christ and always has.  Abraham and the other Old Testament Saints looked to the coming Messiah for Salvation, while we as New Testament Saints look to Jesus, the Messiah who has already come.

What is the Result of Salvation?

Salvation results in the redemption of our bodies and souls, and the working out of our sanctification through the indwelling of the Spirit.  This redemption will be made complete in the Eternal State when every believer receives a new, incorruptible body.  One may still wonder if someone gets saved and then, as a second step, decides whether or not to become a disciple, or if the terms Christian and Disciple are synonymous?  Both views exist.

The first view basically teaches that someone may be genuinely saved by accepting Christ as Savior, but either reject Him or ignore Him as being the Lord of his or her life.  They do not believe that confessing Jesus as Lord is necessary to the life of the believer.  They say that only a universal lordship, not a personal Lordship is required for Salvation.  I do not understand how someone can say that Christ is universally in control of Heaven and earth and yet believe that He has no say so in the lives of individuals.  This makes no sense.  These individuals believe that repentance is required but it is more of an acknowledgement of sin than something played out in people’s lives by experience.  To them a saved person may not show a change in character immediately or long term, they may even fall away.  They believe that an unbelieving person becomes a Christian by faith and that a commitment to live for Him is not required.

This idea may be refuted by simply looking at Scripture (Acts 11:26, Luke 14:25-35, Mark 10:17-31, Matthew 19:16-29, Luke 18:18-30, Matthew 28:19-20, and Mark 16:15).

If commitment was not required, why then did Jesus turn away the rich young ruler?  The Disciples were also called disciples before they were called Christians.  In the early church, Christians defended the Gospel by calling on the world to assess its truthfulness based on observation of how Christians lived their lives.  This was one of the strongest points for Apologists in the Second Century.

Faith includes repentance and commitment.  As Baptists we believe that believers cannot lose their salvation; this is known as perseverance of the saints, and the word persevere means to continue in your faith in the way in which you live your life.  Disciple and Christian are therefore synonymous terms.  This falls in line perfectly with the Great Commission, where we learn that we are to make disciples of all men.  A disciple is someone who follows Christ.  This includes the good times and it also includes times of tribulation and persecution (1 Peter 2:21), but we should rejoice at this.  Though the world may hate us, Christ has overcome the world, destroyed the power of sin, and sent us His Holy Spirit as a pledge for the redemption of our bodies.  The Spirit empowers us and He allows us to take a stand against sin, against a fallen state of being, and He gives us the power to live our lives as unto God, not to please man.  This is truly good news.  This is the result of salvation.  Praise God.

Application:

As we understand the truths of salvation properly, we are ready to begin evaluating art that deals with this and related concepts in a particular work of art.  If spiritual salvation is discovered or found in something other than Christ, the art may be educational in terms of understanding fallen mankind, but it is not something we can support as a believers.  Be careful though, as the word “save” can have many meanings, and it may not refer to spiritual matters each and every time it is used.  Often times the term is used in a romantic way, or in an adventurous sense.  When this is the case, we should not be too quick to write off the art as something which undermines the Word of God.

[1] http://www.dts.edu/aboutdts/whatmakesdallasdifferent/missiondoctrinalstatement.aspx.