God's Greater Part In Salvation

If someone asks about the ""plan of salvation,"" most of us reel off H-B-R-C-B: hear, believe, repent, confess, and be baptized. We would be right in that this summarizes the proper response to the gospel of Jesus Christ. Yet this is only part of the story, and not the most important part.

As important as is the response of obedient faith, divine revelation emphasizes what God did to rescue us from sin. The vast majority of Scripture is taken up with explaining the ""plan"" from the divine standpoint, encompassing the whole process from sin to salvation in which God acted to save humanity from sin. In the end, God's part in salvation is the message of the Bible that has three primary features.

Sin and its Effects (Genesis 1-11). God created a good world, pristine and perfectly constituted to fulfill His purpose. Adam and Eve marred God's good creation by sin. The world would not be the same, and is still reeling from sin's effects. By sin, man damaged his relationship with God and with other people, and distorted his own existence in the world. From Cain's murdering Abel, to evil in Noah's day, to the prideful ploy at Babel, the opening chapters of Scripture document an avalanche of sin and its destructive nature. Humanity would have destroyed itself by sin long ago if it were not for the gracious intervention of God. God mercifully acted to save man from himself.

Promise and Law and Their Purposes (Genesis 12 - Malachi). God would not allow man to make a name for himself at Babel, but instead chose Abraham promising to make him a nation and a name, and through his seed to bless the world (Genesis 12:1-3). Primarily, the Old Testament documents God's dealing with Abraham's descendants. God multiplied Abraham's seed, developed his family into a nation, delivered them from slavery, revealed a law to regulate their lives and relationships, gave them a good land, patiently bore with them in their sin, and disciplined them for their good. Every action was that God might have people for whom He was their God, that through them all people would be blessed.

We might wonder why God didn't skip the Law of Moses and send Jesus immediately following the sin in the Garden. Why Israel and the Law of Moses? Israel's Law served to define sin, explain a means for forgiveness (i.e., sacrifices), and set forth the terms of proper relationship with God. God did not immediately send Jesus because He knew it was necessary for man to realize his own sinfulness and recognize his inadequacy and inability to deal with it (see Galatians 3:19-24).

God graciously dealt with humanity by sending Adam and Eve out of Eden so they would not live forever in their new condition damaged by sin. God recreated the world through Noah; He chose and blessed Abraham. In these acts and others like them, God graciously kept people from destroying themselves by sin, but the avalanche of sin continued. Law's design is to help people see sin for what it is and to know how much they need to be rescued from it. God chose a people and took them through the whole process of deliverance, provisions, guidance, discipline, forgiveness, and restoration to bring the world to One who could deal with sin completely.

Salvation in Christ and its Promises (Matthew - Revelation). ""But when the fulness of the time came, God sent forth His Son ... in order that He might redeem those who were under the Law, that we might receive the adoption as sons"" (Galatians 4:4-5). Christ came to fulfill the law (Matthew 5:17) by keeping it perfectly, fulfilling its types and prophecies, and drawing out its intended meaning. He would pay the penalty for lawbreaking by bearing its curse in Himself (Galatians 3:13), and in one great act of redemption accomplish and offer salvation to all.

The message of the New Testament is that Jesus, through His life, death, and resurrection, accomplished salvation and made it available to everyone. Only in Jesus Christ are sinners saved and right with God. Jesus is the only answer to the problem of sin. Our response of faith is to H-B-R-C-B, but we must be sure to understand that this is divinely-prescribed way of being in Jesus Christ, the only Savior. The greatest part is what God did through Him to rescue us from sin.