Where the river flows life abounds. Ezekiel 47:9
Up River Salvation Doctrine
(Summary)
Salvation is by grace alone thorough faith alone in Christ alone to the glory of God alone. God chose a people for Himself in His son before the foundation of the world (Eph 1:3-4). The Son lived and died to atone for the sins of those whom God has chosen (John 10:29). The salvation that Christ accomplished by His death and resurrection is applied to His people by the Holy Spirit of God, the third person of the Godhead. The Holy Spirit regenerates those for whom Christ died bringing them from death to life (John 3:5). All those who are born again by the Spirit of God come to trust in Christ and are united to him by faith alone. When a sinner is united to Christ by faith, he is justified, set apart, and adopted as a child of God. Everyone who is united to Christ will be glorified when he dies or when Christ comes again on the last day.
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The Salvation Story of God’s Gospel
Salvation is of grace by faith in Jesus Christ alone, for the glory of God alone.
Why are we (people) so different than everything else on this earth, even this universe? Why am I here?
What is my purpose in life?
What’s the emptiness I can’t fill?
Why can I achieve goals only to realize that wasn’t enough?
Why is there so much hate and evil in the world?
Why does the world seem to be spiraling downward?
Why are so many people religious?
Why are there so many religions?
Why do some say “there is no god “?
Why do Christians have hope?
Why is it that some people who claim they are “Christians” seem no different than anyone else? Why did this Jesus have to come and die, die on a cross, die a sinner’s death?
The answers have been revealed “In the beginning…” and continued to be answered throughout the Scriptures.
Grasping the reality of the righteous judgment that all mankind will face has to be looked at from the beginning, the created beginning. (Revelation 20:11-15; John 3:18; Hebrews 9:27; Romans14:12)
Man was created in the beginning in God’s image that he might image forth God’s glory. Of all the created, man made in the image of God had a unique relationship with the Creator. Man’s willful worship to glorify God in personal relationship, with trust and faithful obedience, was to be a reciprocal love to and from our Creator that mankind was to be fully satisfied in Him. All mankind who possess and understand the gift of salvation through faith in Jesus Christ have a unique relationship with the creator. All things created are for God’s delight-His glory. (1Corithians 10:31; Matthew 5:16; Psalms 148).
However, by his free choice, man went against (sinned) God. Man brought sin into the human race; sin as an entity, sin as a nature, sin as an infection of all creation, not sin as just a single act of transgression. Adam was not the originator of sin (1John 3:8), however, through the temptation of Satan, man transgressed the command of God and fell from his original innocence by which all future generations inherit a nature and an environment inclined toward sin and evil. Adam, the first man, was and is the original mankind. Mankind lost their liberty to choose good or evil. Mankind now chooses only evil continuously. (Genesis 6:5; Romans 3:9-20; Jeremiah 17:9; Psalm51:5; Romans 3:23)
Adam’s willful act to go against God has impacted the whole human race. (Genesis 3; Romans 5:12-14) (see Man/Sin doctrine)
God is and is all things righteous and holy, totally set apart from all unrighteousness, ungodliness, and evil. When man went against God (sin), man put himself in wrong relationship with his Creator. “…but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.” (Genesis 2:17; Habakkuk 1:13, 2:20; 1Samual 2:2; Revelation 4:8)
The serpent convinced Adam that God was holding back on both him and the woman, his wife. “…You won’t surely die…you’ll know what God knows…” Adam and the woman believed Satan. They both put trust in Satan. They no longer trusted God; they believed there was something better for themselves rather than what God told them. They didn’t believe God. When Adam and the woman stopped trusting God by listening to, believing in, and trusting the serpent, they were heaved into depravity: sin, sorrow, shame and death. Believing is following. Believing is being committed. Adam and the woman did not believe God. (Genesis 3:1-6)
Then the Lord God cursed the serpent, and to the woman He cursed the woman’s childbearing with pain. She will desire to lord over her husband, but she is to be subject to her husband.
And to Adam He said, “Because you have listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten of the tree of which I commanded you, ‘You shall not eat of it,’ cursed is the ground because of you; in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life;…” Man was to labor hard for everything unto his death. (Genesis 3:14-19)
14 The Lord God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this, cursed are you above all livestock and above all beasts of the field; on your belly you shall go, and dust you shall eat all the days of your life. 15 I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.” Gen 3:14-15
After cursing the physical serpent, (Gen 3:14) God, the promise keeper, turned to the spiritual serpent, the deceiver, Satan and cursed him with a promise “…he shall bruise your head…” (Gen 3:15b).
After being cursed by God, Adam responds to the Lord God by naming his wife Eve, which means “life” or “life giver”. Adam puts faith in God that the woman will have a seed (“He”) to crush the serpents head, ultimately rescuing humanity from Satan. Adam now believes God. Adam trusts God at His Word. This is a pure act of faith. At that time no one had been born from reproduction. Both man and woman exist because they had been created: man, from the earth and woman from the man. (Genesis 2:7, 21-23; 3:20; 3:15b)
In essence, Adam has faith in the unseen Christ. Adam did not have New Testament accounts of Jesus Christ, nor did he have the Old Testament prophesies. All Adam had to hope in was what God said, and Adam fully trusted. Adam is faithful in trusting God that Eve will have a seed to crush the enemy. (Hebrews 11:1)
Adam no longer believed Satan and now trusts God fully, which completely encompasses repentance. Adam knows Satan is a deceitful liar seeking to destroy. (1Peter 5:8)
Adam and Eve have a penitent faith; there is a brokenness, a fear, a sadness, and despair in the hearts of Adam and Eve for believing and following Satan. Therefore, they turn from following deception and towards God with full desire to trust in His spoken Word.
“…the Lord God made for Adam and for his wife garments of skins and clothed them”
God acts in grace towards the unworthy couple for He had already told them “…for in the day you eat of it you shall surely die.” Instead of physically killing them both, immediately He covered them. Covering the sinner with innocence is first seen in Scripture here with the death of innocent life for the covering (atonement) of the guilty, providing satisfaction of God’s own required justice: death for sin with a substitute. This act is the first death in the entire created world. Never before had there been a death. At that very moment in created history, God gives the purpose of animal sacrifice as a picture that innocent life has to be given to cover sinners. “for the wages of sin is death” (Genesis 3:21; Romans 6:23)
“Then the Lord God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of us in knowing good and evil. Now, lest he reach out his hand and take also of the tree of life and eat, and live forever—” Genesis 3:22 God has a far better plan for the redeemed sinner. God sent Adam and Eve from the garden so that they would not live eternally in their fallen cursed state of sin, an act of mercy. God secures His people. He preserves the lives of the saints. He delivers them from the hand of the wicked. (Genesis 3:22-24; Psalms 97:10; Lamentations 3:22-24)
On the east side of the garden, God placed the cherubim (angel from God) and a flaming sword to guard the way to the tree of life.
One can be sure that every day Adam recalled communing with God in the cool of the day (in Hebrew it reads literally wind of the day). As the sun set in the west you can imagine Adam looking back towards the garden with hope in his heart that one day the “He” of Eve’s offspring will indeed “…bruise the head of the serpent.” (Genesis 3:15b, 24; Romans 16:20 “crush”)
Why would God want man to live in hope?
Hope is the perfecting ground. Hope sanctifies. Life lived in hope cultivates holiness. (Psalm 16:9, 119:114; 1John 3:3)
As the earth filled with people from Adam and Eve, just as God had commanded “be fruitful and multiply” (Genesis 1:28), the entity of sin and the curses from sin also filled the earth. The very next generation after Adam and Eve tell of the murder of Abel by the hand of his brother Cain. The wickedness (evil) of man continually filled the earth, and every intention of the heart was evil. (Genesis 6:5)
Eventually, God would call out a chosen people to build His kingdom of faithful followers through Abram & Sarai, later named Abraham & Sarah. God told Abraham that he would have offspring as numerous as the stars (at the time Abraham and Sarah were childless). Abraham believed God and it was counted to him as righteousness. Abraham, in the face of what most would call an impossibility-for he was an old man and Sarah’s womb was also dead, lived a faithful life according to the promise God made with him. Now the promises were made to Abraham and to his offspring. It does not say “to his offsprings,” referring to many, but referring to one, “and to your offspring,” who is Christ. (Galatians 3:16 and 19) Paul, the writer of Galatians, is quoting Genesis 12:7. “Offspring,” the singular form of the Hebrew word, like its English and Greek counterparts, can be used in a collective sense. Paul’s point is that in some Old Testament passages, “offspring” refers to the greatest of Abraham’s descendants, Jesus Christ.
Abraham was justified by faith. Abraham was given righteousness because of faithfulness. (Romans 4:18-22; Genesis 15:5-6) Abraham was gifted God’s righteousness 430 years before the law was given. (Galatians 3:17) “…the righteous shall live by faith.” (Galatians 3:11) One hundred years after the law was given Scripture is teaching, “…but the righteous shall live by his faith.” (Habakkuk 2:4)
What is the purpose of the law?
• The Ceremonial law was to isolate Israel, God’s chosen people, so to not interact with the pagans (followers of false gods and religious mysticism).
• The sacrificial law pointed Israel to a redeemer.
• The moral law established the nature of God. The moral law was sent to reveal sin and unrighteousness and convict (Galatians 3:19a). The moral law was to show that man cannot redeem himself. Salvation by faith alone was NEVER replaced with the law. The Law still stands exposing sin. Do we keep on sinning relying on God’s grace? No! Living a set apart life for God is to be pursued, however, not an achievement in this life. (Romans 3:8; Romans 3:20; Romans 3:28; Acts 13:39; Romans 3:31; Romans 6:1-16; 2Peter 2:19)
*note: to a Jew, the ceremonial, sacrificial, and moral Laws are all inclusive and are simply referred to as The Law
The greatest law, “Love the Lord your God with all of your heart, soul, mind, and strength” convicts all. No one can do that. Therefore, the whole world is found guilty, which is the purpose of the law, to reveal holiness and expose sin and to point all mankind to their need of the Savior, Jesus the Christ. (Deuteronomy 6:5; Matthew 22:37)
The “He” God spoke of in Genesis, the seed of Abraham, Immanuel (God with us) that the prophets spoke of, would eventually come into the world. He came and lived exactly the way God’s Word, the Scriptures, foretold that He would, completely innocent of sin. Jesus Christ was conceived by the Holy Spirit in the womb of the virgin Mary (Luke1:35; Isaiah 7:14) and born of a woman (Galatians 4:4-5), so that two whole, perfect, and distinct natures, the Holy and the human, were joined together in one person, without confusion, change, division, or separation. Therefore, He is fully God and fully Man, yet one Christ, the only mediator between God and mankind. (1Timothy 2:5)
(see Triune God doctrine God the Son)
Jesus Christ fulfilled the Scriptures in His coming, His living, His dying, and His resurrection. The “seed” came and His heel was bruised on the cross, but the serpents head was crushed at the physical dying and bodily resurrection of Jesus. God the Father confirmed His Son Jesus Christ’s deity in the resurrection from the grave. God has accepted the atoning work of Jesus Christ on the cross. Jesus’s bodily resurrection is also the guarantee of a future resurrection life for all believers (John 5:26-29; 14:19; Romans 1:4; 4:25 6:5-11; 1Corinthians 15:20-23).
What does it mean to have saving faith?
Romans 3:9-31 reveals numerous truths. The following are six of them:
1. There is no one righteous before God. No one does good.
2. It doesn’t matter if you have the written law or not. It doesn’t matter if you’ve followed the law or not. The truth is, through the law we become aware of sin. vs.19-20
3. Righteousness comes from God apart from the law vs.21
4. God presented Him (Jesus) as a sacrifice, a sacrifice of atonement/payment for sins through faith in his blood. vs.25
5. This righteousness comes through faith in Christ to all who believe vs.22
6. God’s righteousness is through faith apart from man. No man can take pride in achieving God’s righteousness, because there is nothing we can do to obtain it: No moral deeds, no acts of kindness. You cannot offset your bad with good. You cannot please God with anything.
Isaiah 64:6 “All our righteous deeds are like filthy rags.”
Romans 1:18 “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.”
The righteousness we need and the atonement we need comes through faith, faith in Jesus Christ and in his shed blood. When we say, “the believer is saved,” (Romans 1:18 and 2:5) we recognize that the believer is saved from God’s wrath. He is the God of, and creator of all. We all fall short of His glory. He is a good judge who does what good judges do. He is just to Himself, his Word, and to us. He can only be with those who have a righteousness from God that comes through FAITH-SAVING FAITH-It’s FAITH ALONE. (Romans 3:21-24)
Hebrews 11:1 tells us, “…faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction or certainty of things not seen.”
Hebrews 11 is considered the “Hall of Faith.” Here we are told:
-By faith we understand that the universe was created by the Word of God.
-By faith Abel offered a more acceptable sacrifice than Cain.
-By faith Enoch was taken up so that he should not see death. Vs.6 says, “without faith it is impossible to please God.”
-By faith Noah constructed the ark to save his household and become an heir of the righteousness that comes by faith.
-By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to receive a place of inheritance.
- “By faith Sarah herself received power to conceive, even when she was past the age, since she considered him faithful who had promised. Therefore, from one man, and him as good as dead, were born descendants as many as the stars of heaven and as many as the innumerable grains of sand by the seashore.” Hebrews 11:12-12
-Vs.17: by faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and He (Abraham) who had received the promises was in the act of offering up his only son, of whom it was said, “through Isaac shall your offspring be named,” he considered that God was able even to raise him from the dead…”
Abraham was about to sacrifice his only son, a sacrifice God told him to make, the son through which he was told the promise of descendants would come, but by faith Abraham had trust in God that somehow He (God) would still keep His promise even to the point of bringing Isaac back from death.
Saving faith produces a new birth in the believer. This same new birth casts out the spiritual death and he/she becomes a new creation. The sinner has a new heart. We need to understand that even the re-born Christian is still a sinner. God’s righteousness is now upon the believer. As God looks at the spiritually re-born in Christ, he doesn’t see our sin, he sees Himself. Jesus paid the high price for our sins so that we are justified or covered by a sacrifice that not only is from God, but also is God, through His Son. This is imputed righteousness. (John 3:1-7; Romans 6:6; 2Corinthians 5:17)
The re-created heart looks to King Jesus with joy because he or she knows Him as savior.
It’s an embrace of Jesus with all the sinner is-handing over and committing himself to all Christ is. Accordingly, saving faith is a central, elemental, and fundamental commitment of all of you, to all of Jesus Christ. That is to say that the believers mind, heart, and will cling to Jesus as Savior.
Saving faith consists of knowledge-which is the mind, the heart, and trust or the will.
Knowledge is the first and basic element of faith. Secular thoughts or views on faith say, “faith is what you need in the absence of knowledge.” It’s not uncommon to hear, “I can’t really know, but I just believe it.” However, the Biblical concept of faith is not “a leap in the dark” nor “a plan for the worst and hope for the best” kind of faith. True faith is based on knowledge. True faith has its foundation laid in the knowledge of revealed truth. The Bible often shows that knowledge of particular truths is the cause of faith.
Romans 3:20 and Galatians 2:16 tell us that faith in Christ for salvation is foundational in “knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law but through faith in Christ Jesus.”
We have to come to the knowledge that we need a savior (Luke 5:32). If we didn’t have knowledge, we wouldn’t know that our works are like filthy rags (Isaiah 64:6). If we didn’t have knowledge, we wouldn’t know that our efforts of being moral and self-righteous make God store up His wrath (Romans 3:11-12; 2:5). If we didn’t have knowledge, we wouldn’t know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God. The Scriptures describe the unrighteous and ungodliness as the sexually immoral-that includes everyone from pornography to sex outside of marriage, to the perverting of the genders, male and female, idolaters, adulterers-including both the physical act of adultery and adultery in your heart, those who practice homosexuality, those in a frenzied and joyless grab for happiness, those with god(s) as defined in their own minds instead of the God of the Bible, magic show religions, those with jealousy, fits of anger-rage, rivalries, strong disagreements, divisions, envy, drunkenness, and orgies.
If we didn’t know all these truths, then why would we need a savior? (Genesis 1:27; 5:2; Mark 10:6; Matthew 19:4; 1Corinthians 6:9-11; Romans 1:18-32; 1Thessalonians 4:3-8)
It’s because we know our sin separates us from God. It’s because we know our works of righteousness do not justify. The start of salvation is the coming to the knowledge of this truth that we believe in Christ for salvation.
Similarly, Paul grounds the believer’s faith in his future resurrection on the knowledge of Christ’s resurrection. Romans 6:8-9 says, “Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we also live with Him. We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him.” This passage and others like it, show that Biblical Faith and knowledge of truth are not alien to one another, rather, knowledge is foundational to faith.
To exhibit this:
-One must believe that Jesus is God. (John 8:24) -One must believe that Jesus is one with the Father and that he is Messiah and Son of God who was sent from the Father and that He died for sins and rose from the grave. (Romans 10:9-10,13; 1 Corinthians 15:1-4) -One must believe that God exists and rewards those who seek him and that sinners are saved from his wrath by grace through faith alone. (Hebrews 11:6)
Romans 2:5 and 10:14 and 17 show us we have to hear this Gospel to believe. It cannot be watered down nor perverted. Truths cannot be trimmed off to make the bride of Christ more appealing for carnal man to accept. Don’t listen to the serpent as Adam and Eve did “…You will not surely die…” Don’t dismiss the vengeance of God. (Genesis 2:17; 3:4) He is patiently holding back and storing up His wrath. (Romans 2:5)
Know the Truth: God is Holy; Sin has penalty; Jesus is the savior and He has accomplished what the Father sent him to do.
The heart element of the believer’s faith is as follows.
It is absolutely possible to know something but not believe it. It is possible to know all the biblical truths but not embrace them. Many people understand the truths of the Gospel:
-Man is guilty before God
-Christ died on the cross to take our punishment and arose from the grave.
- Salvation is received by faith apart from works, yet fail to repent and trust in Him.
Faith has an emotional element, the heart, as well as an intellectual element, knowledge. Faith not only knows the Truth, it also embraces the Truth. This is evident in the writer’s emotions in Hebrews, “The assurance of things hoped for, the conviction (confidence) of things not seen.”
Hebrews 11:27, “By faith he left Egypt (Moses) not fearing Pharaoh’s anger; for he persevered as seeing Him who is invisible.” Moses not only knew the life given to God was more valuable than staying in Egypt with Pharaoh, but it was assured in his heart to be true. One must realize that they are completely helpless on their own, for their spiritual condition and the heart cries out to Christ, the One they know who saves.
There’s something more to faith than just knowing and embracing truth. There’s a third element to Saving Faith, the will.
James tells us that even the demons know and believe the truth. “You believe that God is one; you do well. Even the demons believe and shudder!” (James 2:19)
Judas was convinced that Jesus was the Christ. He was under Christ’s teaching-the best teacher there ever was and will be. He was one of the 12. Yet, he did not possess saving faith.
Faith starts with knowledge, but is not Saving Faith until it is of the heart and will’s reliance on Jesus Christ for salvation. Faith cannot stop short of commitment to Christ. Paul tells us that those with saving faith put no confidence in the flesh (Phil 3:3). Paul says he was a Pharisee of the Pharisees; in other words, the best of the best from under the best teachings. He was circumcised on the eighth day; he was of the people, Israel; he was of the tribe of Benjamin and righteous and blameless to the Law. He goes on to say, “Whatever gain I had; I count it as loss for the sake of Christ.” This means it was all for nothing. For us Gentiles (non-Jews), we would word it something like this,” I grew up in church; I raised my hand to have Jesus come into my heart; I went to the front of the church during an alter call; It was an emotional moment for me; I was very sincere when I said the sinner’s prayer; I’ve been baptized; I try to follow His commandments; All of that is loss for the sake of Christ!”
This self-deception is especially evident of the one whose life is the same after these so-called conversion experiences as it was before. Saving faith is a rebirth. A death to sin and a life in Christ. For the re-born Christian, sin against Christ now cuts you deep. It hurts you to know you have sinned against Him. You now hate what you once loved and love what you once hated. You want to know your creator, your savior. You want to abide in Him, and in His Word.
There is a radical change in character from self-centeredness to God-centeredness.
The only sacrifices God desires and accepts are a broken spirit and a broken/contrite heart. “These O God you will not despise” (Psalm 51:17; 1Samuel 15:22; Deuteronomy 6:5; Matthew 5:3-6)
“The Lord is near to the broken hearted and saves the crushed in spirit.” Psalm 34:18 (Psalm 51:17, 147:3; Isaiah 57:15; 61:1, 66:2; Matthew 5:3)
“Broken hearted” and “crushed in spirit” are graphic expressions of dependent disciples of God.
You are not saved by the alter call, the sinner’s prayer, nor the emotional tears. You were justified with Christ in spite of those things If you turn (repent) from sin and follow God with knowledge, heart, and trust-FAITH. (2 Chronicles 7:14; 1 John 1:9; Acts 3:19; Proverbs 28:13; 2 Peter 3:9; Matthew 9:13; Luke 15:7; Romans 3:10)
Men and woman of the Old Testament were justified with God the same way New Testament Christians are saved, through faith alone. In essence, Old Testament Saints looked forward to the finished work on the cross, and we, New Testament Saints, look back with the very same faith.
Salvation is easy enough for a child to receive, but so complicated only God could design and give it.
To understand Easter, you must understand Christmas, and to understand Christmas, you must understand the beginning.
Turn from your sins and follow Christ in Faith. A faith that is a gift from God. (Romans 1:17; Ephesians 2:8-9; Hebrews 11:6; Romans 9:16)