The Nature of Our Salvation

P.T. Forsyth writes, “The absolute nature of our salvation brought to our faith can only be secured by the absolute nature of him who brought it.” (From The Person and Place of Jesus Christ). 

To many professing Christians, the nature of salvation is contingent. It is contingent on their own performance, on their own measuring up to their own standard of holiness and righteousness. Now you may be thinking, “Oh no, it is not my standard of holiness and righteousness that I must live up to, it is God’s.”

But how can such a thing be? For to truly “see” God’s righteousness and holiness is to also truly “see” that we can never attain (nor maintain) that which is God’s and God’s alone. With Isaiah we must cry, “Woe is me, I am a man of unclean lips” (Isaiah 6:5). With Peter we must cry, “Go away from me Lord, for I am a sinful man!” (Luke 5:8). 

If we must live according to our own efforts, if we must base our sense of righteousness on our own behavior – then we must conjure up our own set of standards, for God’s Law is designed to bring us to our knees in repentance, confession, and to an utter realization that in and of ourselves we can produce nothing acceptable to God (Romans Chapter 3). It is a fool who makes the nature of his salvation contingent upon himself. 

On the other hand, if God was made flesh and lived among us, and if that same God died to bring us back to Himself, and if that same God called us to Himself – then the nature  of our salvation is the nature of God; in completeness, in assurance, in certainty, in essence. Indeed, our salvation is “secured by the absolute nature of him who brought it”.