We are sinners. It’s not a new statement, it’s literally thousands of years old. As Christians, we believe that all are sinners (Romans 3:23), and no one is good (Romans 3:10). With this in mind, we look upon God. God is holy and righteous, which basically means He’s the opposite of sin. He cannot sin and is perfect. He is also a just God who, when he sees sin, wishes nothing more than to throw the perpetrator into Hell. He hates sin. He becomes angry at sin. He cannot stand the sight of it. What needs to be done is that someone needs to be punished for sin. The person who obviously deserve the punishment is the sinner. In that case, we all deserve Hell. But wait! There is one more thing about God that needs to be said. God is loving. The Bible goes so far to say that “God is love” (1 John 4:8). This loving God “wants all to be saved” (1 Timothy 2:4). While all are not saved (we’ll get to that), we know that God does save. He sent his perfect Son, Jesus, to live a sinless life and a die a perfect death, that atonement could be paid for the elect (again, we’ll get to that).
We call this the Gospel. That a just God would love us to the point of sacrificing his Son so that people might come to a relationship with the Father. What happens when God so moves in the life of people is they become “saved” as we have come to call it. They have experienced salvation. What becomes the questions of almost every Christian is, “What now?” What does a Christian do now that they are “saved”? I believe that every Christian first needs to learn exactly what Salvation is. What this great mysterious wonder that changes lives, saves lives, is. We need to tell them of the love the Election, the life-changing power of Regeneration, the guiltless feeling of Justification and so on. And that’s what I want to do. To explain what I believe salvation is.
The order of salvation is called Ordo Salutis in Latin. The Ordo Salutis is one of the most important doctrines of Christianity because It tells what being a Christian means. There are differing opinions on how the Ordo Salutis is in sequence. Historically this has been the subject of much debate. Here at Proclaiming His Glory, we will be following Wayne Grudem’s explanation in his Systematic Theology.
1. Election (God’s choice of people to be saved)
2. The Gospel Call (proclaiming the message of the Gospel)
3. Regeneration (being born again)
4. Conversion (faith and repentance)
5. Justification (right legal standing)
6. Adoption (membership in God’s family)
7. Sanctification (right conduct of life)
8. Perseverance (remaining a Christian)
9. Death (going to be with the Lord)
10. Glorification (receiving a resurrection body)
In the next ten weeks on every Friday I want to take time for us to study and fully understand what each of these means for us. I want to end this introduction with something to keep in mind as we study these topics: this is all about Jesus. The whole reason God became a man and lived a perfect life and then died a sinless death was for His glory. We are here to proclaim His glory, and what better way to do that than remember his most amazing and awesome act, the Gospel and the salvation it brought. Never forget that God didn’t die for us, but for his glory. We are saved only to worship his almighty name. Let the ransomed sinners rejoice. Our God is a saving God.
-The Ransomed Sinner
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