GOD'S PATTERN OF SALVATION

John H. Stoll, Ph.D.
Executive Director, ASK, Inc.

The Hebrew and Greek words for Salvation imply the ideas of deliverance, safety, preservation, healing, and soundness. Salvation is the great inclusive word of the Gospel, gathering into itself all the Redemptive acts and processes:

  1. Justification---Declaration of Righteousness
  2. Redemption---To buy back by paying a price
  3. Grace---God's favor to mankind without merit
  4. Propitiation---To actually care for sin, and appease God's wrath against sin.
  5. Imputation---To reckon, or put to the account of.
  6. Forgiveness---To absolve from sin and forget
  7. Sanctification---To set apart positionally, and progressively in behaviors
  8. Glorification---To perfectly conform the believer to God's moral attributes in the future.

Salvation is in three tenses:

  1. The believer has been saved from the guilt & penalty of sin. Luke 7:50; I Cor. 1:18; II Cor. 2:15; Eph. 2:5,8; II Tim. 1:9.
  2. The believer is being saved from the habit and domination of sin. Rom. 6:14; Phil. 1:19; 2:12,13; II Thess. 2:13; Rom. 8:2; Gal. 2:19,20; II Cor. 3:18.
  3. The believer will be saved in the sense of entire conformity to Christ. Rom. 13:11; Heb. 10:36; I Peter 1:5; I John 3:2.

Salvation is by grace through faith, is a free gift, and wholly without works. Rom. 3:27,28; 4:1-8; 6:23; Eph. 2:8. The divine order is first Salvation then works. Eph. 2:8-10; Titus 3:5-8.