Advent: Saved from Sin - The Work of the Savior
Matthias Haeusel
Part of Advent 2024—The Savior is Here
December 12, 2024

Introduction

All religions offer salvation the question is from what and by what means.

  • Buddhism - Salvation is reaching Nirvana, a state of complete liberation from suffering. This is achieved through the 8-fold path that is designed to help you cease all desires. (Right understanding, thought, speech, action, livelihood, effort, mindfulness, and concentration.)
  • Islam - Performing the 5 Pillars of Islam: Prayer, charity, fasting, pilgrimage, declaration of faith.
  • Hinduism - salvation = moksha - achieving liberation from the cycle of reincarnation through meditation, yoga, ethical living, devotion to a deity.
  • Confucianism - education, reflection, moral living
  • New Age - realize all is god and be unified to the divine, etc.
  • Judaism - living according to the Thorah

Christianity is the only system that clearly states that you cannot save yourself, but that salvation is through Jesus Christ alone who is the only savior.

You cannot save yourself:

  • Romans 8:23
  • Ephesians 2:8-9
  • Proverbs 14:12

God alone is Savior:

  • Isaiah 43:11
  • Isaiah 45:21
  • Isaiah 49:26
  • Matthew 1
  • Luke 2:11
  • Psalm 25:5,/li>

Salvation is the application of the work of Christ to the life of the individual. —Millard Erickson

God initiates salvation, accomplishes salvation, and invites each one of us to be saved!

  1. Election - chosen by God
  2. Regeneration - Spirit makes us alive and able to respond to the Gospel
  3. Gospel Call - we hear the Gospel articulated
  4. Conversion - faith and repentance of the individual
  5. Justification - declared righteous, just as if we had never sinned
  6. Sanctification - becoming increasingly more like Jesus
  7. Glorification - new bodies for the new earth

The Atonement

What did Jesus accomplish?

The Cause of the Atonement:

  • God’s love and God’s justice
  • Sin = Death (Romans 3:23)
  • Jesus work = Life (John 3:16)

In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. —1 John 4:10

The Necessity of the Atonement:

  • God did not have to save anyone (2 Peter 2:4)
    • God could have let us experience the consequences of our sin
    • But God chose to save some!

To fulfill the character of God - righteousness and love - Christ had to take our penalty upon Himself

The Nature of the Atonement:

  • Christ obeyed for us
  • Christ suffered for us
  • Christ took our penalty and died our death
  • Christ reconciled us to the Father

Two Pictures of the Atonement
1. Passover Lamb
2. Day of Atonement: Scape Goat


The Great Exchange:

For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. —2 Corinthians 5:21

How is the Atonement applied to us?

Christ died in our place for our sin bearing the punishment that should have been ours, appeased the wrath of God, and effected reconciliation between God and humankind.

How can we become partakers of this work of atonement?

We are called

  • Matthew 11:28
  • Acts 16:14

Repentance

  • Ezekiel 18:30-32
  • Acts 3:19
  • Acts 17:30

Faith

  • Believe
  • Trust
  • Laying a hold of the promises of God

Application:

Repent and believe!