The following information will help you understand what salvation is and how it happened. It also highlights why salvation is important and necessary, and why it doesn’t make sense to think it can be lost.
Why is salvation necessary?
But the Lord God warned him, “You may freely eat the fruit of every tree in the garden— except the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. If you eat its fruit, you are sure to die.”
Genesis 2:16–17 (NLT)
“You won’t die!” the serpent replied to the woman. “God knows that your eyes will be opened as soon as you eat it, and you will be like God, knowing both good and evil.” The woman was convinced. She saw that the tree was beautiful and its fruit looked delicious, and she wanted the wisdom it would give her. So she took some of the fruit and ate it. Then she gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it, too.
Genesis 3:4-6 (NLT)
So the Lord God banished them from the Garden of Eden, and he sent Adam out to cultivate the ground from which he had been made. After sending them out, the Lord God stationed mighty cherubim to the east of the Garden of Eden. And he placed a flaming sword that flashed back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life.
Genesis 3:23-24 (NLT)
Man died spiritually before he died physically, so the spiritual precedes the physical.
Through Adams action, he was “set loose”; he had turned his back on God.
He therefore lost his place.
Death is separation from the source of something.
God is a spirit, so when he was speaking to Adam, he was speaking to his spirit (the core), not his body.
Man in his fallen state is weak and depraved, destitute without God.
This wasn’t God’s doing, but the choice of Adam.
Just as sin entered the world through one man, and death resulted from sin, therefore everyone dies, because everyone has sinned. Certainly sin was in the world before the Law was given, but no record of sin is kept when there is no Law. Nevertheless, death ruled from the time of Adam to Moses, even over those who did not sin in the same way Adam did when he disobeyed.
Romans 5: 12-14 (ISV)
The issue wasn’t sin itself, but the death that it brought.
Death began to dominate man.
Even if you didn’t sin like Adam, as long as you were in this world, you were dominated by death.
Good works can’t save you; you are subject to death.
Live in me, and I will live in you. A branch cannot produce any fruit by itself. It has to stay attached to the vine. In the same way, you cannot produce fruit unless you live in me.
“I am the vine. You are the branches. Those who live in me while I live in them will produce a lot of fruit. But you can’t produce anything without me. Whoever doesn’t live in me is thrown away like a branch and dries up. Branches like this are gathered, thrown into a fire, and burned.
John 15:4-6 (GW)
A branch can’t produce fruit unless it remains connected to the vine.
Man was dead inside because he was cut off from God.
How was Man to Regain Access to God the Father?
Jesus stated his mission clearly: continuously talking about how he was the life.
The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.
John 10:10 (NKJV)
Jesus said to him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.
John 14:6 (NKJV)
There was a separation, and Man had to be reconnected or reconciled.
There is one God and one Mediator who can reconcile God and humanity—the man Christ Jesus. He gave his life to purchase freedom for everyone. This is the message God gave to the world at just the right time.
1 Timothy 2:5–6 (NLT)
To reconcile means “return to favor with”.
When the Bible says, “By his stripes we have been healed,” it means we have been united as one again.
Not just physical healing (the lesser is included in the greater). You now have access to healing because you have been reconnected with God.
Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes ye were healed. For ye were as sheep going astray; but are now returned unto the Shepherd and Bishop of your souls.
1 Peter 2:24–25 (KJV)
Righteousness means “the state of him as he ought to be,” a condition acceptable to God.
So you were removed from sin and restored to the state that you ought to be in.
By His stripes, we were united, made one again, and made whole.
Then he says,
Hebrews 10:17-20 (ERV)
“I will forget their sins and never again remember the evil they have done.”
And after everything is forgiven, there is no more need for a sacrifice to pay for sins.
And so, brothers and sisters, we are completely free to enter the Most Holy Place. We can do this without fear because of the blood sacrifice of Jesus. We enter through a new way that Jesus opened for us. It is a living way that leads through the curtain—Christ’s body.
God has nothing against you.
His flesh was torn to give us access.
The gospel, the good news of God’s favor, is what brought us back to God.
So God is not against you.
And all of this is a gift from God, who brought us back to himself through Christ. And God has given us this task of reconciling people to him. For God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself, no longer counting people’s sins against them. And he gave us this wonderful message of reconciliation. So we are Christ’s ambassadors; God is making his appeal through us. We speak for Christ when we plead, “Come back to God!” For God made Christ, who never sinned, to be the offering for our sin, so that we could be made right with God through Christ.
2 Corinthians 5: 18-21 (NLT)
2 Corinthians 5:18-19
Man went away from God, but God went after him.
He divorced God, but God went after him because he hates divorce.
He’s after you to save you, and after you get saved, he keeps helping you.
Don’t run from God.
God isn’t against you; if he were, Jesus would not have come.
God loves you.
If you believe this, you have received life and are saved.