Someone writes: "I believe that salvation is totally God's gift of grace, and that we do not merit or earn any of it. However, I think we may truly say that baptism is the condition on which a person receives salvation as a free gift."
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When the New Testament writers wish to express the result of God's favor to us in Jesus Christ, they borrow metaphors and figures from "all over town" -- the courthouse and the cemetery, the baths and the birthing-place, the slave market and the orphanage and the homestead. God pronounces us "not guilty" and we are acquitted (Rom. 5:18). God resurrects us and we are no longer dead (Eph. 2:1-6). God washes us and we are clean (1 Cor. 6:9-11). God begets us and we are born (John 1:13). God redeems us and we are freed from slavery (Eph. 1:7). God adopts us and we are his children (Eph. 1:5-6). God reconciles us to himself and we are no longer estranged (2 Cor. 5:18).
These New Testament pictures of salvation all portray our helpless condition. They all present God's one-sided intervention on our behalf. They all declare a radically wonderful result. But not one of them involves someone saying to another, "If you will do thus-and-so, I will bring about this result which you still will not deserve." The New Testament never once uses the metaphor of someone giving another person a present which involves conditions for receiving it. Such language is common today, but it does not come from the Bible.
God performed all these mighty deeds nearly 2,000 years ago, in the person and through the work of Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus did not live and die for his own sake, but for the benefit of all those who finally will be saved (Isaiah 53:10-12; John 6:38-40). All that Jesus did, he did for sinners, whom God treats as if they had done it all themselves. The gospel does not tell us how to bring about our own salvation; it announces a salvation which God has accomplished already. God "saved us and called us with a holy calling" (2 Tim. 1:9). Christ reconciled sinners to God (Col. 1:20-22). He made purification for sins (Heb. 1:3). The gospel is "the good news of your salvation" (Eph. 1:13). It is not a do-it-yourself salvation kit.
Someone writes: "I believe that salvation is totally God's gift of grace, and that we do not merit or earn any of it. However, I think we may truly say that baptism is the condition on which a person receives salvation as a free gift."
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If Christ accomplished salvation rather than merely made it a possibility, does that mean that every human being without exception will finally be saved. No, for Scripture and experience alike reveal that some individuals reject God's gift of salvation, although it is freely and genuinely offered to all. It is possible to love darkness rather than light -- and to choose condemnation (John 3:17-19). Some who hear God's word repudiate it, and thereby judge themselves (Acts 13:46). Sadly, one may disbelieve the gospel and be condemned (Mark 16:16). God does not make anyone say "No" to salvation, and he is not responsible for any person who does. Every "Yes," on the other hand, is itself evidence of God's grace -- and he is due all the credit for making it possible (2 Cor. 4:6).
We receive God's salvation, as Luther put it, with "the empty hands of faith." Yet our faith does not make salvation any more real than it was before. Our faith is no part of the work which accomplished salvation. Faith enjoys the salvation which Jesus had perfected -- and nothing other than faith -- because faith means acknowledging the reality which as yet remains invisible, the reality that in Jesus the Father has atoned for sin and has conquered death. Faith does not create that reality, or contribute anything to it. We do not exchange God our faith for his gift of salvation. Strictly speaking, faith is not a "condition" of salvation although it is the means for experiencing its joys. No one enjoys God's gift of salvation now apart from faith, for the faithless person denies its reality and refuses to enjoy the benefits it includes.
Jesus also commanded that those who believe the gospel should express their faith in baptism (Matt. 28:18-19; Mark 16:15-16). In baptism, we remember, reenact and express faith in the saving deeds of Jesus Christ on our behalf (Acts 22:16; Rom. 6:3-4; Col. 2:12; Titus 3:4-6; 1 Pet. 3:21-22). However, our believing the good news does not make it a reality, and neither does our responding to it in baptism. God accomplished the saving work through Jesus Christ long before the news about it ever reached our ears. What God did in Jesus Christ, and that alone, must be the only subject of our boasting and the only ground of our hope (1 Cor. 1:30-31).
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