What Really Happens When We're 'Saved'

After this past weekend churches across the nation including our own have countless beautiful stories of people encountering Jesus in a fresh way, and many for the first time in their lives. Now that we're on the 'other side' of the Easter season this year we're entering a lovely time where new things grow, the air fills with a tingling warmth, and it feels as though green life itself starts over after the bleak gray of winter. 

 

With all these new salvations, people being recreated and rebirthed by Almighty God, I thought it might be helpful to review for a minute what all happens when we accept Christ. Here in the west we tend to think of salvation quite often as a contract (we do this with most things.) Sign here, on the dotted line - the straight and narrow, the way, the truth, the life, etc., then you're in. The truth is so much bigger and earth shattering than that. But I think sometimes it can be easier (and less messy) to communicate a contract than a covenant (which most of us simply aren't familiar with or understand.)

 

Long story short, I'm convinced that there was a very real spiritual death that happened in the garden, and a very real spiritual birth that happens when Christ gives his life to us. The epistles paint a pretty convincing picture of death to life, one step - out of darkness into his marvelous light.

 

So as the autumn leaves fall, meditate on some of what follows and spend some time thanking Jesus for giving his life to you, Holy Spirit for filling you and always always always being with you, and the Father for spiritually birthing you, brand new, with His DNA running through you, one with Christ, perfected for all time. Meditate on what this truth of your identity as saint means for your thought life, your hope tomorrow, your plans next week, your excitement about next month, and the joy of stepping into a deeper revelation of what God thinks of you throughout the rest of this year.

 

Our Death and Resurrection With Christ

At the moment of salvation, this is what happened to us:

 

 

We took up our cross

 

  • Then Jesus told His disciples. “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.” –Matthew 16:24

 

We were crucified

 

  • We know that our old self was crucified with Him. –Romans 6:6

  • I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. –Galatians 2:20

  • And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. –Galatians 5:24

 

We died

 

  • Do you know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? –Romans 6:3

  • We have been united in a death like His. –Romans 6:5

  • Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with Him. –Romans 6:8

  • The old has passed away. –2 Corinthians 5:17

  • For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. –Colossians 3:3

 

We were buried

 

  • We were buried therefore with Him by baptism into death ­–Romans 6:4

  • We were buried with Him in baptism. –Colossians 2:12

 

We were raised from the dead/resurrected

 

  • Just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. –Romans 6:4

  • We shall certainly be united with Him in a resurrection like His. –Romans 6:5

  • God raised us up with Christ. –Ephesians 2:6

  • You were raised with Jesus through faith in the powerful working of God, who raised Him from the dead. –Colossians 2:12

  • If then you have been raised with Christ (and we have), seek the things that are above. –Colossians 3:1

 

We live/are new creations

 

  • Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with Him. –Romans 6:8

  • So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. –Romans 6:11

  • Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. –2 Corinthians 5:17

  • If we live by the Spirit (and we do), let us also walk by the Spirit. –Galatians 5:25

  • Even when we were dead in our trespasses, God made us alive together with Christ. –Ephesians 2:5

  • God made us alive together with Christ, having forgiven us all our trespasses. –Colossian 2:13

  • When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with Him in glory. –Colossians 3:4

 

We are seated in heavenly places

 

  • God made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—and raised us up with Him and seated us with Him in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. –Ephesians 2:5-6

 

"I question whether the defenses of the Gospel are not sheer impertinences. The Gospel does not need defending. If Jesus Christ is not alive and cannot fight His own battles, then Christianity is in a bad state. But He is alive and we have only to preach His gospel in all its naked simplicity, and the power that goes with it will be evidence of its divinity." C.H. Spurgeon


Nic Payne