Functions of Deity: Soteriology 2: The Scope of God’s Salvation

A sermon by Nate Wilson for Christ the Redeemer Church, 23 May 2010 & 9 Jun 2024

Scripture from Isaiah, Matthew, Deuteronomy, and 1 Chronicles was translated by Nate; the rest was adapted by Nate from the ASV.

REVIEW

Contrasts between Secular Humanism and Biblical Christianity

	Secular Humanism	Biblical Christianity
How to tell if something is True	Human senses	God’s Word
Information mostly found in	News	Bible
What is Wealth	Material	Blessing
How is Culture developed?	Popularity	God’s Character
Ruled by	Democracy	Law
Motivation	Glorify Self	Glorify God
Basis of Ethics	Man’s Opinion	God’s nature
Highest good	Recreation	Worship
What’s wrong with the World?	Poverty	Sin
First response to threat:	Dial 911	Pray
How is Justice achieved?	Revenge	Providence
Who saves?	Man	God
How is salvation accomplished?	Works	Grace

One of the functions of deity is to save you from what is bad and keep you secure. So whatever you look to when your safety and security are threatened is a god in your life.
This is necessarily related to ethics because God also decides what’s wrong with the world. And no matter what religion you’re in, what’s wrong with the world is that it is not properly related to whoever fulfills the functions of deity. In other words, salvation and security are about having a right relationship with God.
Defining the problem is half the solution. Solve the wrong problem, and the root problem will still be there.
- Illustrate with Comic Strip about the boy who built a snow fort to protect himself from snowballs, but hadn’t reckoned on being hit by a snowball thrown by his buddy from inside his fort!
- Most people’s solutions have to do with the lack of temporal things, such as getting more knowledge, money, friends, or accomplishments, but the problem is not physical, it is spiritual:
- Isaiah 59:2 “…your iniquities have become causes for separation between yourselves and your God, and your sins have caused [His] face to hide from you…” (cf. Jer 5:25)
- Hosea 14:1 “…turn to Jehovah your God; for you have fallen because of your sin.”
- Some of my former associates in the world of economic development wrote, “Poverty is rooted in broken relationships, so the solution to poverty is rooted in the power of Jesus’ death and resurrection to put all things into right relationship again… Jesus’ work focuses on reconciliation… None of the foundational relationships can experience fundamental and lasting change without a person becoming a new creature in Christ Jesus. …we cannot hope for the transformation of people without the involvement of the local church and the verbal proclamation of the gospel that has been entrusted to it.^¹”
However, there are physical aspects to salvation. In order to be effective, salvation must solve every issue in the physical and spiritual dimensions. The salvation that the Bible teaches is that kind of full-bodied salvation, thus it has both physical and spiritual components.

Components of Salvation in the Lord’s Prayer:

Let’s begin with the list of things in the Lord’s Prayer. When Jesus’ disciples asked Him to teach them how to pray, He offered this template which addresses all four functions of deity:

Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy Name: What is the ultimate source of truth? Our heavenly Father-God, so we first ask for His name – and all that is associated with the person of God – to be honored.
Let Thy kingdom come: Then what should come into being in this world? The kingdom of God. So let that be the focus of what we want to see come into being.
Let Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven: What should be done in this world? The will of God, so we ask for that next. It is God’s will that defines ethics: what should be done and not done on this earth as it is in heaven.
Next, how can we be safe from the effects of having done what is not God’s will? We ask Him to provide for our needs despite the curse of sin (“give us this day our daily bread”), we ask forgiveness for our disobedience (“forgive us our debts”), and we look to God for protection from further violations of His ethics (“lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil”).

The Lord’s prayer gives us three points concerning soteriology/salvation/being safe from evil:

Provision – of food and physical necessities,
Propitiation – Forgiveness, salvation from being punished for our particular sins, and
Protection – Peace, deliverance from evil into eternal life.

Let’s look at each of these components in turn:

1. Provision

In this life, we all face the threat of death due to starvation (or dehydration), exposure, sickness, or war. According to Genesis 3 & 4, each one of these threats came into being as a result of sin against God:

It was only after Adam and Eve disobeyed God that God decreed that competing plants like “thorns” would threaten our food supply so that we would have to work for it by the “sweat” of our “brow.”
It was also after Adam and Eve sinned that God covered the originally-naked man and woman because, from there on out, exposure would become a threat to them. This was true not only in a spiritual and judicial sense, but also in a physical sense. One of the many consequences of sin was that man and woman would need protection from very hot or very cold weather which would become dangerous to them.
Furthermore, part of the curse of sin was that God placed enmity between the serpent and the woman, not only representing spiritual enmity, but also spreading the physical harm of sin to all the animals, such that snakes and wild animals started killing people, and parasites and bacteria also became at enmity with mankind and began killing people through diseases.
Mankind also became corrupt with sin and started killing each other, beginning with Adam and Eve’s own son Cain who killed his brother Abel out of envy.

God nevertheless gave mankind the command to preserve life against these threats through the institution of work.

God instructed Adam (and mankind through him) to do the sweaty labor it would take to grow food, despite the thorns. (Gen. 3:17d “through toil you must eat of it”)
And throughout the Proverbs, God warns against laziness and refusing to work (Prov. 10:4 “He who works with a slack hand becomes poor...” cf. 12:27; 26:15; Ecclesiastes 10:18).
Likewise, God commends the making of clothes and building of houses to protect ourselves from exposure:
- Many women are honored throughout the Bible for making clothes, such as the Proverbs 31 woman in the O.T. and Dorcas in the N.T.
- And building houses is also commended throughout the Bible
  Proverbs 24:27 says, “get your fields ready, then build your house”
  And Jesus taught about how the wise man built his house on the rock in Luke 6:48.²
God’s word also instructs us to take precautions against the threats of disease and of human enemies:
- Jesus said that the sick need a doctor (Matthew 9:12; Mark 2:17; Luke 5:31),
- and when He sent His disciples into dangerous territory, He told them to carry swords (Luke 22:36-49 “…If you don’t have a sword, sell your coat and buy one…”).
So, the value of the work of farming, clothing manufacture, home-building, and medical, government, and military service is affirmed in the Bible, because they are forms of labor which preserve life in the midst of a world made lethal by our own sin.

However, in this sin-corrupted world, we cannot be entirely safe from these threats no matter how hard we work to protect ourselves.

No matter how hard farmers work, a drought or unseasonable freeze or some new pest can stop food from growing, and there’s nothing we can do to control the weather.
We simply cannot control every factor that threatens our livelihood.
No matter how hard a government and an army works to protect its citizens, no amount of control can end crime once and for all.

And this is where God’s providence shines. As we faithfully obey His command to work, He also works to provide for our needs and to protect us from enemies. God says this in His word:

Proverbs 16:7 “When a man's ways please Jehovah, He [that’s God] makes even his enemies to be at peace with him.” God can control the factors that we can’t control in order to keep our enemies at peace with us!
Psalm 127:1 “Unless Jehovah builds the house, the laborers labor in vain that build it.” There you have human laborers working to build a house, but they can’t be successful unless God is also building it.
Deuteronomy 11:13-15 says, “…[I]f you really heed my commandments… to love Jehovah your God, and to serve Him with all your heart and with all your soul, then I will give the rain of your land in its season… so you will gather in your grain, and your new wine, and your oil. And I will give grass in your fields for your cattle, and you will eat and be full.” That rain and weather that we can’t control, is under God’s control to provide for our needs.

So, ultimately, God is our provider for our “daily bread,” even though we work for it too. It is because of this that we must not depend on ourselves or upon other people – or even upon other spirits – to preserve our lives through the various threats we face. We must work in obedience to God, but trust Him to provide for all our needs, and when He does provide, we should thank Him for His provision.

Notice that I didn’t mention whether or not you should install fire alarms or take out insurance policies.

That’s because it would be making up legalistic, man-made rules for me to do so.
This is where you must exercise wisdom in faithfulness to God.
If these security measures are really a replacement for God’s sovereign control of the additional circumstances you can’t control, then they may be idols that need to be removed from your life.
If, however, those things are called-for to labor in wisely building your house and putting food on the table, then use them as gifts from God, but never let them become the thing you are counting on for security. Ultimately you must rest upon God.

Take for example, David: “Now, when the Philistines heard that David had been anointed to be King over all Israel, all the Philistines went up to try to get David... Then David enquired with God, saying, ‘Shall I go up against the Philistines? And will He give them into my control?’ And Yahweh said to him, ‘Go up, and they will be given into your control.’ So they went up to Baal Perazim, and David made a strike there. Then David said, ‘God burst through my enemies by means of my hand just like the bursting out of water!’” (1 Chronicles 14:8-17) Notice that David had worked on the resources of his own fighting skills and had mobilized an army, but he didn’t hurry to save himself; he inquired of God before doing anything, and he waited on God’s instruction. Then he did the work of a bloody war when he knew God would be with him. And finally, when he was victorious, did David say, “Wow I am pretty good at this war business!”?? No! He gave the credit for salvation to God! “God has broken through my enemies…” Likewise, it is right and good for us to give praise to God for physical deliverance even when it came ostensibly from our own labor.

Let me make one final point about God’s provision: If God is ultimately the one who provides for needs, He also is the one who can make the ultimate decision not to provide. We must therefore accept whatever He sovereignly determines, even if it appears to be to our harm or even leading to our death. Jerry Bridges wrote concerning this, “An attitude of acceptance says that we trust God, that He loves us, and knows what is best for us. Acceptance does not mean that we do not pray for physical healing, or for the conception and birth of a little one to our marriage. We should indeed pray for those things, but we should pray in a trusting way. We should realize that, though God can do all things, for infinitely wise and loving reasons, He may not do that which we pray that He will do… How do we know how long to pray? As long as we can pray trustingly, with an attitude of acceptance of His will, we should pray as long as the desire remains.^³”

2. Propitiation

This part of salvation – forgiveness of our sins through Jesus’ appeasement of God’s wrath – is something I covered in my previous sermon, so I won’t go into depth on this point now. But let me give a quick summary on the propitiation aspect of salvation:

Romans 3:10-12 Quoting Psalm 14 & 53, the Apostle declares, ‘There is none righteous, no, not one. There is none that understands, none that seeks after God. They have all turned aside; they are together unprofitable. There is none that does good, no, not, so much as one.” God has set His standard of good and bad, and we are all in violation of it.
God has decreed that “The wages of sin is death” (Rom 6:23) – both physical and spiritual death. So the sentence of this punishment of death has been handed down against every one of us.
1 Timothy 1:15 “Faithful is the saying, and worthy of all acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners…” God sent His son Jesus into the world, who, being God Himself, was able to perfectly fulfill God’s standards of doing what is right and not doing what is wrong. Jesus offered Himself to die (spiritually and physically) on the cross to suffer the punishment we had incurred. God then raised Jesus from death to show that He had made an acceptable payment for us. This also showed His power over death (for death is not God, it is merely a tool, a pawn of God which He instituted at creation as a punishment). Now, on the basis of Jesus’ death on the cross, we can ask God to forgive our offenses against Him.

3. Protection – Peace, deliverance from evil into eternal life

God provides salvation from physical threats to our life (through our work and His providence) and also from His punishment against our sin (through Jesus’ propitiation). He also provides protection from all the threats that we don’t see yet.

Some of these are due to our own sins that we might commit in the future:
- I think Psalm 66:9 refers to this: “God… holds our soul in life, and does not allow our feet to stumble.”
- ILLUSTRATION: When my sister was little, she was climbing on the railing of the deck behind my parents’ house. The top of the rail was a good 10 feet above the ground, so she wasn’t supposed to climb on the rail. But she was climbing on the rail, anyway, and before long, she fell off. I remember running to the spot where she landed on the ground. She was lying flat on her back on the ground, and her head was mere inches away from an upturned garden rake. I remember being horrified to think that if she had fallen just a few inches further, the back of her head would have landed with enough force to drive the rigid tines of that rake right into her brain, and she would have died. But even though she disobeyed our parents, God kept her from dying.
- Have you ever had an experience when God protected you from falling into a sin that would have been devastating? Praise God for His protection!
- Psalm 121:3-8 “He will not allow your foot to be tripped up: He who keeps you will not fall asleep... Yahweh will keep you from all evil; He will keep your soul. Yahweh will keep your going out and your coming in from this time forth and for evermore.”
Another one of these unseen threats come from Satan and his unclean spirits:
- The word “the” occurs before the word “evil” in all the ancient Greek manuscripts of the Lord’s Prayer from which our English versions are translated, so most English translations say, “deliver us from the Evil One.”
- We need deliverance from Satan because, as the Apostle Peter wrote, “Your opponent, the Accuser, goes around like a lion, roaring, seeking for someone he might swallow down..” (1 Peter 5:8b) He presents a deadly threat to mankind, but our Father in heaven is able to deliver us from Satan’s malevolent power.

The fact that God can protect us from dangers we can’t even see or anticipate should give us great peace. David expressed this over and over again throughout his Psalms. Let me repeat just a smattering of those Psalms from the 50’s and 60’s, which many scholars believe were written while David was hiding out in the desert to escape King Saul and his army which were trying to hunt him down and kill him:

Psalm 57:1-3 “Be merciful to me, O God, be merciful to me, for my soul takes refuge in You. Yes, in the shadow of your wings will I take refuge until these calamities have passed over. I will cry to God Most High, to God who works out all things for me. He will send from heaven, and save me when he that would swallow me up reproaches. God will send forth His lovingkindness and His truth.” What a picture of safety and peace!
Note however, that this position of salvation calls for exclusive trust in the one true God. Those who “diversify their portfolio” when it comes to security are not promised this peace: Psalm 62:5-8 “Wait, my soul, in silence for God only, for my expectation is from Him. He only is my rock and my salvation. He is my high tower; I shall not be shaken. With God is my salvation and my glory. The rock of my strength and my refuge is in God. Trust in Him at all times, people. Pour out your heart before Him. God is a refuge for us.”
In Psalm 61:1-4, David prayed, “Hear my cry, O God; Attend unto my prayer. From the end of the earth will I call to You, when my heart is overwhelmed: Lead me to the rock that is higher than I am. For You have been a refuge for me, a strong tower from the enemy. I will dwell in your tent forever; I will take refuge in the covering of your wings.”
Doug Stringer comments on this Psalm, “What do we need when we are overwhelmed? We need to go to the Rock that is higher than we are, where we can see above the confusion and the chaos and get a heavenly perspective… In His final days on earth, Jesus spoke at great lengths to His followers about the days to come. In John 16:33, He told them, “I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world."
“As long as we live on this earth, we will have trouble. There will be days of shaking ahead. But the voice of Jesus gives us peace! He wants us to know that even though there is trouble all around us, we belong to the One who has overcome the world. We are His children and He wants to carry us on His shoulders. Peace is something we all need. When catastrophes strike, we need peace. When the economy fails, we need peace. When we face an uncertain future, we need peace. When everyone around us is fearful, we need peace. Jesus said in Luke 21 that men’s hearts would fail them from fear and expectation of the things that were coming on the earth. Fear, anxiety, stress, and sorrow will overcome many. But for those who know their Father, who are lifted up and carried in His arms, there is nothing to fear…^⁴”
Isaiah 52:7 ‘How fitting are the feet of an announcer upon the mountains, causing peace to be heard, announcing goodness, causing salvation to be heard, saying to Zion, ‘Your God reigns!’”

CONCLUSION

This is the kind of salvation God offers to us, and it is so comprehensive that I am going to have to give at least another whole sermon on it to do it justice, so I look forward to overviewing the theology of salvation next time we get together!

But for now, let us focus on appropriating God’s comprehensive salvation for ourselves!

Receive God’s providence for your earthly needs by

Working diligently in the vocation God has given you,
Wisely using this fallen world’s resources as gifts from God to preserve life,
Trusting Him for the outcome of your labor and asking Him to provide your daily bread,
Giving thanks and praise to God for the food on your table and for the health and safety you experience,
and also praising and trusting God when He sovereignly sends scarcity, sickness, and danger your way.

2. Accept the good news of Jesus’ propitiation for your sins,

Recognizing that you “have not done good” and that “the wages of sin is death,”
yet that “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners” by suffering the wages of sin in your place on the cross,
and calling upon Jesus to save you, asking God to forgive your offenses in the name of Jesus.

3. And depend upon the Lord’s protection from all spiritual and moral evil

“Take refuge... in the shadow of [His] wings... in [His] lovingkindness... the rock that is higher that” you are.
Trust in Him “only... at all times”
And bask in the peace that comes from knowing that the Almighty God is your “keeper” who will keep your “feet from stumbling” and who will guard you against all the dangers you can’t even see or anticipate.