Functions of Deity: Soteriology 3 - Blessings of Being Saved by God

Sermon by Nate Wilson for Christ the Redeemer Church, Manhattan, KS, 30 May 2010 & 16 June 2024

Opening Illustration: Grass Eater Joke

Thank God for all the rain we’ve had this spring after two years of drought! Everything – especially the grass – has been growing great guns! It reminds me of a story about a poor man who was given a very promising offer. You see, he was so poor that he had nothing to eat, so one day, in desperation, he started trying to eat some grass as he sat with his family by the side of the road. A big black limousine came cruising by, then screeched to a halt and backed up to where the poor man sat. The power window purred down, and a man in a fine suit leaned out and asked, “Why are you eating grass?”

“I don't have any money for food,” the poor man replied.

“Then, please come to my house!”

“But sir, I have a wife and four children...”

“Bring them along!” the rich man said.

So they all climbed into the back seat of the limo. Once underway, the poor fellow said, “Sir, you are too kind. Thank you for taking all of us in.”

The rich man replied, “No, you don't understand. The grass at my house is over three feet tall!”


You see, the rich man wasn’t really offering any kind of salvation at all for the poor family, only longer grass to try to eat at his house! That’s the predicament in which we often find ourselves when we grasp at human solutions that promise to save us. They turn out to be very disappointing, but that is not the way it is with the salvation offered by Jesus in the Bible. God’s salvartion turns out to be better and richer than we could dream of!

Ordo Saludis1:

In the last sermon we looked at the Lord’s Prayer and considered God’s Providence and Protection in salvation. Continuing the theme of the full-bodied-ness of the salvation God offers in the Bible, I want to look more in-depth at the Propitiation aspect of His salvation, surveying the various words used in the Bible to describe salvation. Systematic theologians have cataloged these words describing the process of salvation and called it the ordo saludis, which is Latin for the “order of salvation.” While there is some logical order to it, my main point in going into this list of words is to show how great and multi-faceted is the salvation that is offered in Biblical Christianity - and also to show how much initiative God Himself has taken to save us, for it is His very nature to save.


The first two Biblical words in the logical order of God’s salvation are His:

1. Election & Calling


The next words describing salvation that I want to look at in the Bible are closely-related in meaning:

2. Expiation, Propitiation, & Atonement

Noah Webster's 1828 Dictionary defines propitiation as “1. The act of appeasing wrath and conciliating the favor of an offended person; the act of making propitious. 2. In theology, the atonement or atoning sacrifice offered to God to assuage his wrath and render him propitious to sinners. Christ is the propitiation for the sins of men.” Webster then cites:


“Expiation” is a related word which means pretty much the same thing as propitiation, except it has more of an emphasis on the offender offering a gift to make things right with the offended party.


Atonement fits alongside Propitiation and Expiation, for Atonement focuses on bringing together as one two people who had been enemies, by “covering over” the problem so that it disappears.


So our God has made arrangements ahead-of-time to save us through His Elective choosing and His Calling, and by His arrangement of Atonement by Jesus’ Propitiation and Expiation. The next group of words gets to our change of status in salvation:

3. Redemption & Adoption

Redemption is paying out one thing in order to get something else back. The Greek word “ex-agora” literally means “out of the marketplace.”


In salvation, not only is there a payment for sin that changes our ownership and relationship to God, there is also a change that is created in our hearts to save us. That is what the next set of words describe as we look at more Biblical words that describe salvation:

4. Regeneration, Conviction

The Bible speaks of certain changes that have to take place in us before we can respond in faith and receive the redemption of Christ and the adoption as children of God. This also is part of the operation of God to save us. He regenerates our hearts and minds through His Holy Spirit to make us spiritually alive and able to respond to Him, and He convicts us of our sins so that we will want to repent of them:


When that change of regeneration has been wrought in your heart, then you can respond with the next set of things described in the Bible as grounds of salvation:

5. Repentance, Conversion, & Faith

When God calls us and the Holy Spirit makes us alive spiritually and convicts us of sin and makes us want to be saved, we respond to the call of God with two things: repentance and faith.


To everyone who repents and believes, God promises a few more things that are synonyms for salvation in the Bible. The first is:

6. Justification

Justification has to do with being recognized as being in the right. The same Greek root word is used in the New Testament both for “righteousness” and “justification.” When I am justified, I am made “just-as-if-I’d” never sinned.

7. Sanctification

Sanctification comes from the Latin root sanctus which means “holy.” So all who are saved are also called “saints” (1 Cor. 1:2), because we have been set apart in a special relationship with God.


There is one more word for salvation I want to cover, although I’m sure there are more. That word is:

8.Glorification

The Solas

In 16th Century Europe, Ulrich Zwingli, a pastor in Switzerland, summarized the values of the church reformation of his day with five slogans of exclusivity that we continue to uphold today. They were originally in Latin, which was the common language used by scholars across Europe: Sola Scriptura, Solo Christo, Sola Gratia, Sola Fide, Soli Deo Gloria. Solo/Soli/Sola means “only.” So in English it would go: “Only Scripture, Only Christ, Only by Grace, Only through Faith, and Only to God be glory.”

Conclusion

1I am grateful to Dr. Denny Prutow, who taught the soteriology class I took at Sangre de Cristo Seminary. I’ve used notes from his class especially in this section.

2κλησιν καὶ εκλογὴν – NASB: calling and choosing

3cf. Luke 1:68, 1 Cor. 1:30

4Ephesians 2:1 tells us that we are naturally “dead in trespasses and sins,” so that we are not grieved over offending God, and we are not responsive to spiritual things.

5Also see cf. 1 Cor. 6:11 & Heb. 10:10-29.

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