From: heb_roots_chr@mail.geocities.com
Sent: Friday, June 20, 1997 12:29 AM
To: Hebraic Heritage Newsgroup
Subject: Salvation -- Part II
From: drleves@ibm.net
To: heb_roots_chr@geocities.com
Subject: Chapter 1 part 3
FIVE TYPES OF SALVATION
(3) Saved in Tribulations and Afflictions. (rhoumai)
Paul uses this Greek word (rhoumai) which means to be rescued, to write
about how he and his fellow-workers were afflicted in Asia, how they
were weighted down exceedingly beyond their strength, and that they even
despaired life. They had the sentence of death within themselves. Paul
wrote, "Who delivered us out of so great a death, and will deliver: on
whom we have set our hope that he will deliver us" (2 Cor. 1:10).
God had delivered them in the past, and He will yet deliver them in the
future. David wrote "The angel of God encampeth round about them that
fear him, and delivereth them" (Psalm 34:7) God will order His angels to
encamp around those who fear Him and will Deliver them out of their
afflictions. Again Paul writes:
"I was delivered out of the mouth of the lion. The Lord will deliver me
from every evil work" (2 Tim 4:17-18). All these scriptures are
references to our being saved out of tribulations and afflictions.
(4) Saved in our soul.
Human beings are made up of three parts: Spirit, soul and body (1 Thess.
5:23). Our salvation, therefore, reaches into each of these three areas.
The Spirit is the Spirit of Life that God breathed into the nostrils of
man, and man became a living soul. (Gen. 2:7) Adam's soul was filled
with the breath of God (Spirit) and his soul was full of life. When Adam
sinned, his soul, being separated from the Spirit of life, was dead in
sin and although the Spirit of life was still part of his being, his
soul would not benefit of life, only his body would live, according to
the will of God. At the point of regeneration, the soul once again would
benefit from this Living Spirit of God. It would be joined this time,
and never again be separated. The Scriptures tell us that "He that is
joined unto the Lord, becomes one Spirit" (1 Cor. 6:17). The Greek word
is KALLAOM, which means a joining like a sexual union between a man and
a woman, who when they are joined together they become one flesh.
Now the Soul which is also spirit, which contains emotions, desires and
intelligence, is made up of two parts; the will and the heart. We are
told by the Word of God to "Love the Lord our God with all our hearts,
soul, and might" (Deut. 6:5). This speaks of loving God with our whole
being. What is the heart? Many people believe the heart spoken here
means the physical organ that we refer to as the heart. Not so. The
heart in the scriptures refers to the will, our desires and freedom of
choice. It is located on our forehead in what is called the
frontal-lobe, which is the seat of our will. The Soul will always exist
either in Heaven, or in the lake of fire, the place of eternal
punishment. The Soul is the seat of personality, knowledge and emotions.
The Lord said "Whosoever would save his life (Soul) shall lose it: and
whosoever shall lose his life (Soul) for my sake shall find it" (Matt.
16:25). The word "save" here does not point to eternal salvation, since
the salvation spoken of here is not something given according to faith.
The salvation before us here requires a cost--the soul shall be saved by
losing and sacrificing itself. A saved person who is willing to deny
himself, to take up the cross and follow the Lord, and to be willing to
sacrifice his life and live for the kingdom sake, shall enter the
millennial kingdom and rejoice with the Lord (Matt 25:21-23). He will
inherit all things, and also receive the "Birthright" which we will
cover in the following chapters.
The Soul is the site of man's feeling, whether joy or pain. If a person
endures pain, and sacrifices temporary pleasure, for the Lord's sake, he
shall inherit the joy of the Lord at His coming. The Soul of man is his
own self. He who is willing to lose his own self today for the sake of
God, shall be given what is really his in the future (Luke 16:11-12).
The Bible tells us that the "BACKSLIDER IS FULL OF HIMSELF" (Pro 16:16),
he is full of himself, rather than being full of God's Spirit.
If today we sacrifice the soul and its pleasure for the Lord's sake,
our soul will gain special rewards in the future kingdom, because we
shall reign with the Lord and inherit His joy in the Glory of His saints.
"Whosoever shall seek to gain his life {Soul} shall lose it, but
whosoever shall lose his life {Soul} shall preserve it" (Luke 17:33).
People who seek to gain their souls with all its pleasures in this life
shall lose all pleasures during the kingdom age. But all who lose their
souls and its pleasures in this world for the sake of the kingdom shall
have their souls saved and shall enjoy greatly in the kingdom, ruling
over those who lost that right, "He that endureth to the end, the same
shall be saved" (Matt 10:22). "In your patience ye shall win your souls"
(Luke 21:19). Believers who shall endure persecution to the end shall be
rewarded by the Lord.
"We are not of them that shrink back unto perdition, but of them that
have faith unto the saving of the soul" (Heb 10:39). The "faith"
mentioned here is the faith we exercise after we have believed in the
Lord Jesus. It is not the faith for seeing the Kingdom of God, but the
faith to enter into it. "Receiving the end of your faith, even the
salvation of your souls" (1 Pet 1:9). The word faith here is again the
faith we exercise after we are saved; James speaking about the faith by
which we are to live. Without works we have not faith. Such faith will
preserve us through difficulties and trials, and will prepare our souls
to receive the salvation which shall appear at the second coming of the
Lord. "Putting away all filthiness and overflowing of wickedness,
receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your
souls (James 1:21). The salvation of the Soul is different than the
salvation of the spirit. In the latter case nothing is required of us
except to believe and to receive it. In the former situation, however,
we are asked to put off all filthiness and overflowing of wickedness and
to receive with meekness the implanted word of God. The salvation of the
soul, means that now one is born-again; he can SEE the kingdom of God,
his soul being delivered he can now ENTER into the kingdom of God.
5) Saved in our physical body. (Soteria) fem.
The Greek word here is the feminine of a derivative of a noun; which
denotes rescue or safety (physically or morally): At the second
coming of the Lord our body shall be redeemed, transformed, and
conformed to His glorious body (Phil 3:21). This too is called
salvation. It is the salvation of the body. We "ourselves also, who
have the first-fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within
ourselves, waiting for our adoption, to wit, the redemption of our
body" (Rom. 8:23). This is immediately followed by "For in hope where
we saved" (v.24). The word "saved" in verse twenty-four refers to "the
redemption of our body" in verse twenty-three. Since the redemption of
the body is to be brought to pass at the second coming of the Lord, we
must therefore hope for it. At the time we first believed in the Lord
we received eternal salvation and our spirit was quickened; even so,
our body is still groaning and travailing in pain in the old creation
because it is still subject to the bondage and corruption and the
pains of sickness, and the aging of our bodies. When the Lord returns
He will redeem this body of ours, which, as a part of the old creation
is subject to bondage, and will transform it and lead it into the
glorious liberty of the new creation. "Now is salvation nearer to us
than when we first believed" (Rom. 13:11). This also points to the
salvation of the body. Our spirit is saved when we first believe: but
our body is yet to be saved. Once we have believed, the time of the
salvation of our body draws nearer and nearer to us.
The requirements of salvation
The requirements of salvation are very simple. In fact they are too
simple for the human mind to comprehend with its works related
dialectic. John wrote "But as many as received Him, to them He gave
the right to become children of God, even to those who BELIEVE IN HIS
NAME" (John 1:12). Some even insist that you must be baptized by
water to be saved, using a scripture out of context that reads, "He
who believes and is baptized will be saved." They completely ignore
what this whole verse is saying, by not finishing the sentence, which
reads "but he who does not BELIEVE will be condemned." (Mark 16:16)
Some will even go as far as to say that you must speak in tongues to
be saved. These are all systems of works. Salvation is given freely,
not by works. Mark means that once a person is saved by belief he
will want to identify with the Lord's burial and resurrection. Baptism
alone will not save him. Romans 10:13, gives us the criteria of
salvation, "For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall
be saved." Once someone has HEARD the Good News, his FAITH CALLS
upon the Lord, and he is SAVED by Grace through faith, and not by any
works. Paul again writes in Titus 3:5, "Not by works of righteousness
which we have done, but according to his mercy He has saved us. A
situation at Corinth caused the Apostle Paul to write the first letter
to the Corinthians. We read about a man who was living with his
father's wife. The letter instructs the believers at Corinth to
"Deliver such a one unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that
the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus." Paul was
telling them not to fellowship with this individual and not to pray
for him, that Satan could afflict his flesh and notice that "his
spirit could be saved." So far we have learned that salvation is not
earned by works, but is given to us, not because we are good, but
because of His Grace. So the question arises, "If we don't have to
work for it, can we lose it, or like some say, throw it away?" Jesus
instructs us in John 10:28, "And I give them eternal life, and they
shall never perish; neither shall anyone snatch them out of My hand.
My Father, who has given them to Me,is greater than all, and no one
is able to snatch them out of My Father's hand." Notice that no one is
able to snatch them out, they shall never perish. These are amazing
truths. Paul says in Romans 8:38 "For I am persuaded that neither
death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things
present, nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other
created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which
is in Christ Jesus our Lord." Notice that "NOTHING PRESENT" is
mentioned. NOTHING also means sin, because the blood of Jesus Christ
has taken care of this issue once and for all on the cross.
Not a license to sin
By this time probably some of you are thinking, that this gives people
a license to sin. Paul was also accused in Romans 3:8 of giving the
people a license to do unrighteousness. In 1 Cor. 3:15 the Word
explains what happens to the works of man (sin). "If any man's work
shall be burned, he shall suffer loss, but he himself shall be saved;
yet so as by fire." This is saying is that the works of sin in our
life will be burned, but we will be saved through the fire. What if
however someone did a terrible thing, by murdering someone, and died
before ever saying he was sorry and repented? I call this the "What
if? theology," which is a very shallow understanding of the Gospel.
Let's deal at this point on what sin is. As a little boy I was taught
that there were two kinds of sin; small and big. The big ones got you
into hell, but God probably winked at the small ones. Later on after
reading and being instructed in the Word I found that there is no
degree of sin. Sin is simply sin, there are no degrees of sin. If we
break one tittle of the law, we break the whole law. Therefore no one,
no one living is without sin. If that is the case, we Christians are
all sinners, no better in the flesh than the nonbeliever. For that
reason we are told not to judge anyone. The first commandment
instructs us to love the Lord our God with all our hearts, with all
our might, (Deut. 5, Exo. 20). I believe that this is one commandment
that is broken every single day by everyone, thus none of us is
without sin. James tells us that everything that is not of faith is
sin. Paul in Romans 7 tells us of that struggle with the flesh, "For
what I will to do, that I do not practice, but what I hate, that I do,
then, I do what I will not to do, I agree with the law that it is
good, but now, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in
me." (Romans 7:15-17). This means that there is a nature within
everyone that wills to do contrary to what the Spirit of God would
want us to do, and Paul concludes this Chapter by thanking the Lord
Jesus Christ for the grace of no condemnation.
Backsliding and its consequences
At this point the man of God has come to realize that religious
goodness is all dung (lightly said). There is nothing of himself that
is good. Holiness is not measured in what I wear, how I dress, if I
speak in tongues, if I work miracles, or if I prophesy. It is only
measured in love, that is, spiritual love, only to be given by the
Holy Spirit. No, I don't believe you can lose your salvation, or give
it away. We are told that we are sealed by the Holy Spirit until the
Day of redemption, and no one, not even Satan has the right to remove
this seal except Him for whom we are sealed, the Lord Jesus Christ.
Again some may continue to argue asking, what about Hebrews Chapter
Six, Doesn't the Bible warn us about backsliding? Also in 2 Peter
2:22, "A dog returns to his own vomit," and Hebrews 10:26. These are
honest questions and they deserve an honest answer. The next chapter
will be devoted to answering these prevailing questions.
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