THEME OF SALVATION 1

After the fall of Adam and Eve, God had three choices to do with them
and with all humanity as well.
1. He could have let them die. This would have been righteouness without
mercy.

2. He could have simply forgiven them. This would have been mercy
without justice.

But because God is not only just but also merciful, He chose third option;

3. He combined justice and mercy in Christ at the Cross _(Psalms 85:10

Mercy and truth are met together; righteousness and peace have kissed
each other. 11 Truth shall spring out of the earth; and righteousness shall
look down from heaven.)_

By condemning sinners to death, God is just, while by dying the sinners

death in the person of Jesus Christ, God is merciful. *What a matchless
love-John 3:16!!!*

We are sinners only saved by grace through faith, and spared by mercy!!!
*￥=====================￥*

*THEME OF SALVATION 2*
Through faith we accept God's gift of salvation. *Faith is the hand of the
believer that accepts this gift.* Faith is the means that God has chosen to
impute to us - that is, to put to our account - Christ's righteousness.

*What is Christ's righteousness?* This is Christ's perfect, sinless life and

His death. Therefore, when I say Christ's rightousness is imputed to us I
mean that:
>His life iscounted as our life,
>His good deeds are counted as our deeds,
>His death is counted as our death.

*Qstn: Is there anything we have to do to receive this?* Emphatically

YES, we have to accept by faith. We cannot add anything to Christ's
righteousness, but we have to simply take hold of it.

*Qstn: How do we indicate our willingness to accept it?* This is done

only through Confession and Repentance (1John1:9).
 If we genuinely repent, we will receive this God's gift of Christ's
righteousness. The wonderful news is that even our repentance is the
work of God in us (Rom 2:4).
*￥=======================￥*

*THEME OF SALVATION 3*

The plan of salvation has three crucial elements of Christian experience

in the attaining of our full or *complete righteousness* (perfection):
*Justification, Sanctification and Glorification.*

*Justification* is Christ's work for us on the cross and in the heavenly

sanctuary. It is a work done outside us; it's a change of status: we become
children of God because Christ's righteousness which we receive by faith
would have been imputed to us.

*Justification* basically answers the Questin: *How do we become

children of God?* The answer: "It's a gift of God through faith in Jesus!"
Technically, in our Justification, we obtain a righteous experience that is
limited to God's declaration that our past sins have been blotted away; we
are no longer accountable for them. Justification, therefore, makes our
past blameless and righteous because of Christ who accepted our past
wrongs and died for them. And if this makes the past right, we also need
to have our present and future secured, thus, Sanctification follows.

*Sanctification* is Christ's work in us through the Holy Spirit.

Sanctification changes our Character, our Habits, our Desires. In this
process Christ re-creates us from within and makes us fit for heaven.
*Sanctification* answers the Question: *How do we remain children of
God?* The answer: By obedience through Jesus. He works in us and for
us. This is where the good fight of faith is fought; where the battle
between the spirit and the flesh, the old and new natures, takes place, not
to achieve SALVATION, but to hold on to it.

"The righteousness by which we are justified is imputed; the

righteousness by which we are sanctified is imparted. The first is our title
to heaven(-children of God), the second is our fitness for heaven(-holy)"
E.G.White: MYP p.35.

*Justification and Sanctification* are two equally important components

of salvation. Whomsoever God justifies He also sanctifies. One without
the other is impossible. In other words, we are saved by faith alone, but
faith that saves is not alone, because it produces fruits of righteousness, or
good works -obedience to God's commandments.
*"Once saved, always saved"* is not a biblical teaching. Once we are
forgiven, once we are children of God, we have to hold on to the gift of
righteousness because we can lose it again since the battle between the
spirit and the flesh has begun.

When we have hold on fast to our rightouesness of Christ, sanctification

remains progressive. We are ever changed to the righteous nature of
Christ...that is, we become perfect, holy, without any spot, wrinkle or
blemish... In true essence we can now walk in white together with Christ
for He is not ashamed to call us: Brethren. (Hed 2:11). Lawkeeping is
now the believer's delight as he walks and lives in harmony with Christ
while bearing the fruits of the Holy Spirit. In this case our faith is not
dead but it works in that we respond positively to the revealed law and
promises of , or simply to the Word of God without arguing with/on it.

What is left for us is to be clothed with celestial bodies without

corruption and immortality. This is *Glorification* when we now have
the heaven stature of Christ. This is the granduer state of perfection in
christian experience which I myself desire and strives to attain. This state
is only reached at Christ's second come when the righteous dead and the
living will be raptured to go to their heavenly home.
*My admonition is that we work our our own salvation through fear and
trembling for it is God, who lavished to usward His _grace that bringeth
salvation and teaches us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we
should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world; Looking
for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and
our Saviour Jesus Christ;_ who works in us to will and to do according to
His own good pleasure through the Agent of the Holy Spirit.*
God bless you all. AMEN.