Jude 1:3-4 ESV
“Beloved, although I was very eager to write to you about our common salvation, I found it necessary to write appealing to you to contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints. For certain people have crept in unnoticed who long ago were designated for this condemnation, ungodly people, who pervert the grace of our God into sensuality and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ.”
What is Our Common Salvation?
There are many different ideas these days on what
constitutes salvation from sin and what doesn’t. Who is right and who is wrong?
Well, the Scriptures are right, but they must be taught in the whole context,
for many false doctrines have stemmed from removing Scriptures from their
context and twisting them to say whatever someone prefers to hear other than
the truth. But we can’t “cherry-pick” the Scriptures we think say what we want
to hear while we ignore the rest of the Scriptures which teach differently.
When I was a young woman back in the late 60s and 70s we
were taught a formula gospel which quoted multiple Scriptures out of their
context to build a particular doctrine of salvation which we were encouraged to
share with others. It is what we were taught in our church gatherings, and so
that is what we followed. I think it might have been called “The Four
Spiritual Laws,” but I also think there were other such gospel tracts going
around, too. We were to use this formula to lead people to faith in Jesus
Christ.
But as I matured in my walk of faith in the Lord Jesus, and
as I began to study the Scriptures on my own, I began finding discrepancies between
what I had been taught early on and what the Scriptures actually teach. And I
began to realize that I had been taught many Scriptures outside their context
and that I had been taught them wrongly. So began my search for truth, for I
wanted to believe what the Scriptures taught, not what someone else told me
they taught.
And what I learned is that our salvation is not going
through some formula for how to get saved and to have eternal life with God and
then we are good to go until Jesus returns. What I learned is that our
salvation has a beginning when we first believe in Jesus, if our faith is
genuine, but that it continues all throughout our lives until Jesus comes to
take us home… but provided that we do not continue in deliberate and habitual sin
and provided that we now walk in obedience to our Lord and provided that we
continue in that walk of faith steadfast until the very end, or we don’t have
salvation.
[Jn 8:31-32,51; Jn
14:15-24; Jn 15:1-12; Rom 2:6-8; Gal 6:7-8; Rom
6:1-23; Rom
8:1-14,24; Rom 11:17-24; Rom 13:11; 1 Co 1:18; 1 Co 15:1-2; Col 1:21-23;
2 Tim 2:10-13; Heb 3:6,14-15; Heb
5:9; Heb 9:28; 1 Pet 1:1-5; 2 Pet 1:5-11; 2 Pet 2:20-22; 2 Tim 1:8-9; Matt 7:21-23; 1 Jn
2:3-6,15-17,24-25; 1 Jn 3:4-10,24; 1 Jn 5:2-3; 2 Jn 1:6; Jas 1:21-25; Eph
4:17-24]
The Faith Delivered to the Saints
So, what is this
faith delivered to the saints? Well, we learn in the Scriptures that not one of
us can come to faith in Jesus Christ unless God the Father first draws us to
Christ, i.e. unless God the Father persuades us as to his holiness and
righteousness and of our sinfulness and of our need to be turned from darkness
to light and to now walk in his holiness and righteousness. Also, Jesus is the
author and perfecter of our faith, so that faith is going to align itself with
God’s holiness and righteousness.
We also learn that
this faith is something that must be put into practice in our daily lives and
that it involves walks of obedience to our Lord and to his word and it involves
daily dying to sin and to self and walking in holiness and righteousness. For
if we say we have fellowship with God but we walk (in conduct, in practice) in
deliberate and habitual sin, we are liars and the truth is not in us. And if we
say that we know God/Christ but we do not obey his commands, in practice, then
we are liars who do not live by the truth.
And then we learn
that a mere profession of faith in Jesus Christ is not enough to secure us
forgiveness of sins, salvation from sins, and eternal life with God. We must no
longer walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit, for if we walk (in
conduct, in practice) according to the flesh it ends in death not in life in
eternal with God. And if we keep on in deliberate and habitual sin, we will not
enter into God’s heavenly kingdom no matter what we profess with our lips or
think we have believed in our hearts.
[Eph
2:8-10; Heb 12:1-2; Jn 6:44; 2 Pet 1:1; Lu 9:23-26; Rom 1:18-32; Rom 6:1-23;
Rom 8:1-17; Eph 4:17-24; Tit 2:11-14; 1 Jn 1:5-9; 1 Jn 2:3-6; 1 Jn 3:4-10; Gal
5:16-21; Gal 6:7-8; Rom 2:6-8; 1 Co 6:9-10,19-20; 2 Co 5:10,15,21; Eph 5:3-6;
Col 3:5-11; Jn 14:23-24; Heb 10:26-31; Matt 7:21-23; Jn 15:1-11; Rev. 2-3; Rev
18:1-6; Rev 21:8,27; Rev 22:14-15]
Those
Who Pervert God’s Grace
We read in Titus
2:11-14 that God’s grace, which brings salvation, instructs (trains, teaches)
us to say “No!” to ungodliness and fleshly and worldly lusts and passions, and
to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives while we await our Lord’s
soon return, which is when our salvation will be complete, provided that we
continue in such walks of faith. For Jesus Christ “gave himself for us to
redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own
possession who are zealous for good works.”
But those who pervert
the grace of God into sensuality teach a diluted and altered gospel message
which makes no requirements for putting sin to death in our lives nor for
walking in obedience to our Lord in holiness and righteousness. They teach that
we can just “believe” in Jesus, although most do not teach what it means biblically
to believe in Jesus. And then they tell them that God has forgiven all their
sins and now heaven is guaranteed them when they die and that nothing can take
that away from them.
And so we have many
people professing faith in Jesus Christ, at least here in America, whose lives
did not change, or only slightly. For they are still living in deliberate and
habitual sin against the Lord convinced that their sins are forgiven them and
that they are on their way to heaven based on a one-time decision they made in
their lives to “believe” in Jesus. But it is not biblical faith. It is
man-created faith which does not conform to the Scriptures and which does not submit
to Christ as Lord (Owner-Master) of our lives.
So, we need to be
those who know the truth of the gospel, who are applying the truth of the
gospel to our every day lives, by God’s grace and in his power, who are no
longer walking in sin but now in holiness and righteousness in obedience to our
Lord to the glory of God. And then we need to be spreading the truth of the
gospel to as many as possible, for far too many people are believing the lies
which are sending them to hell on the promise of heaven when they die. So,
please tell them the truth.
By Charles H.
Gabriel, pub. 1888
There’s a call comes
ringing o’er the restless wave,
“Send the light!
Send the light!”
There are souls to
rescue, there are souls to save,
Send the light! Send
the light!
We have heard the Macedonian
call today,
“Send the light!
Send the light!”
And a golden
off’ring at the cross we lay,
Send the light! Send
the light!
Let us pray that
grace may everywhere abound,
“Send the light!
Send the light!”
And a Christlike
spirit everywhere be found,
Send the light! Send
the light!
Let us not grow
weary in the work of love,
“Send the light!
Send the light!”
Let us gather jewels
for a crown above,
Send the light! Send
the light!
Send the light, the
blessed Gospel light;
Let it shine from
shore to shore!
Send the light, and
let its radiant beams
Light the world
forevermore!
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