Faithbase

Hello and welcome to Thinking About the Bible and this is the beginning of our new series Thinking About Salvation. In fact, I came back to record this introductory video after recording I think five or six of the other videos because I decided that I needed to have more of a introduction to salvation. Now the rest of the videos develop the details, you might say, the things that need to be understood, the things that need to be embraced in the process of salvation, but I want to give you a brief outline or a basic outline to start with. And so the first thing I think I should point out is that salvation is about deliverance. We are saved from something into something else and the Bible says we're saved from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of light. We are saved from a rebellion against God to fellowship with God and that is something that only happens by the power of God. It's not something that we can do, it's not something that we can work our way to in any way shape or form. Any religion is looking for some kind of salvation, looking for deliverance from a hopelessness to hope and what-have-you, but it's only salvation in Jesus Christ that provides that. Now the reason that we need this salvation is because we are sinners. We've sinned against God, we've sinned against our fellow man. Sin is rebellion against God, we'll develop that in some detail as well, but the fact of the matter is all of us have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. It is only God who is holy and just and it is only he who can provide a way to be forgiven and to be extracted from that life of sin. So without that plan of salvation of Almighty God, our destiny is death. The Bible says that the wages of sin is death and so without salvation we are destined for death. In God's plan of salvation it is God himself, the Eternal Son Incarnate, Jesus Christ, who provides that salvation. His plan is the only plan and Jesus Christ offered himself as a perfect sacrifice in our stead. We deserve to die for our sin. Jesus was perfect. He was willing to die in our place. He was not beholden to the penalty of death because he had never sinned and therefore he was the perfect sacrifice. He was the only one who could have died in our stead. So Jesus Christ fully paid for our sins and opened the way to relationship with God in Jesus Christ. So the way that that takes place, well when Paul was asked what must I do to be saved by the Philippian jailer, he said believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved, you and your household. So the way to enter this plan of salvation, God's plan of salvation, is to believe, is to believe that Jesus Christ is Lord and Savior and that's really the only way that it happens. We're going to talk about all the details, all the things that need to be understood and need to be embraced in this whole process but this is the basic plan of salvation that everyone's a sinner, everyone is in need of salvation, the only means of salvation is through Jesus Christ himself and we come to embrace that salvation through belief, the belief that is given us by the Holy Spirit. So that's a brief outline and as I say in the rest of the series we'll be developing that, fleshing that out and giving some background to all that. So think about salvation today, think about your salvation in Jesus Christ.