Salvation And The Knowledge Of It (Part 1)

Luke 1:77

Salvation! - What a blessed, blessed word! God’s servants are not sent to save, or to persuade you to be saved, or even to get people saved, but “to give knowledge of salvation.” We do not preach to you a possibility of salvation, but the fact of it. We do not tell you how salvation may be accomplished, but how that it has been accomplished by Christ. All the watchmen of Zion see eye to eye in this matter. They all lift up their voices together as one, and “publish salvation” (Isa. 52:7-8). This is what God commands all his servants to do (Isa. 40:1-2).

Salvation is that vast, indescribably glorious thing accomplished by the Son of God as the sinners’ Substitute. It is the deliverance of our souls from all our enemies, from sin, death, hell, and the grave. Yet, it is much, much more. Salvation is the destruction of all our enemies and his by his own omnipotent arm. Still, there is more. Salvation is deliverance from all sin and all the consequences of sin by Christ; and it is the deliverance of our souls into the full, perfect, “glorious liberty of the sons of God” by his sovereign grace. Salvation includes all that God has done for us, all that he is doing in us, and all that he shall do with us in Christ by his almighty grace. When our Lord Jesus Christ entered into heaven with his own blood, he obtained eternal salvation for us” (Heb. 9:12). He obtained, by the merit and virtue of his precious blood all that is involved in the deliverance of our souls into his heavenly kingdom in perfect righteousness.

This salvation is God’s work alone. It was planned and purposed by God the Father. It has been purchased and obtained by God the Son. It is effectually executed and applied to the hearts of chosen sinners by God the Holy Spirit. It does not, in any measure or to any degree, depend upon us. It is not, in any measure or to any degree determined by us. “Salvation is of the Lord!” While all three Persons in the Holy Trinity are united in the affair of salvation, be sure you understand this - The Triune God devised a plan and purposed a method of salvation that was designed to give all the glory, honor, and pre-eminence to the God-man Mediator, our most glorious Lord Jesus Christ. It is the purpose of the Triune God “that in all things Christ should have the pre-eminence” (See Psa. 25:1).

The burden and responsibility of the work of salvation was laid upon the back of our Savior. He agreed to it as our Surety in the covenant of grace. The Father trusted him as our Representative to accomplish it. The Holy Spirit prepared a body for him in the womb of the virgin in the incarnation in which to perform it. When he came into the world, just as he had done before the world began, our great, glorious Savior avowed that he would “save is people from their sins” (Matt. 1:21; Psa. 40:6-8; Heb. 10:5-7, 10). Either he did what he came to do, or he was a fake, a charlatan, an impostor. There is no middle ground. This is the teaching of Holy Scripture: Jesus Christ is Salvation! He has saved all his people from all their sins!

Don Fortner