SALVATION - Introduction to Salvation

It was God’s intent from the beginning to have a direct personal relationship with man. It was also God’s intent for this relationship to be eternal. Shortly after the creation of mankind, sin entered this perfect world and a universal curse was set in motion. Death came into this world and in a blink of an eye, what was eternal became temporal. What was immortal became mortal. Adam and Eve were driven from away from the presence of God because of their single act of disobedience. Because God is a holy God, and cannot stand in the presence of sin, mankind lost the personal and sinless relationship that they enjoyed with God. In Romans 3:23, it states, “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” Adam and Eve were the representatives of the human race and they acted on our behalf when they sinned. Many have raised the question, “I wasn’t the one that sinned back in the Garden of Eden. It was Adam and Eve, not me!” Well, I’m sorry to say that given the same circumstance, you and I would do exactly the same thing. That is what we call, human nature.

Another question is raised then. Why let Adam and Eve sin if God knew that they were going to? The answer lies in something we call ‘free will’. When God created man, he gave him a will, or freedom of choice. Man was given the ability to think and reason, and thereby being able to make his or hers own choices. If free will were not part of our human nature, then we would simply be like any other creature or just some very sophisticated organic and biomechanical creation. We would be like robots, with no ability to make up our own minds or make our own choices. It is not what God wanted to create. God wanted man to love him and choose to have a relationship with him by their own free will or choice. Of course, with this simple factor in our genetic makeup, the possibility of man choosing not to love God nor have a relationship with him became possible. And that, my friends, is exactly what happened with Adam and Eve back in the beginning. Adam and Eve made a choice and unfortunately, it was the wrong one. Still, if they made the choice, why are we paying for it? Believe it or not, because sin entered the world through one man, salvation also was able to enter this world through one man also!

Enter into the picture, a man named Jesus. God, from the beginning, had a plan for the salvation of the human race. He provided a way for man to reestablish the relationship that had been broken before. Through Jesus Christ it is now possible for anyone to have a personal relationship with God! But, we still have to make it our own choice. Free will is still in play and we now have the same scenario that Adam and Eve had in the Garden of Eden. We now have an opportunity to make things right for our own selves. Why should we pay for someone else’s mistake and bad choice? I agree! You and I now have a chance to make that choice! It’s called, accepting or rejecting the salvation that God has provided for all of us!

2/1/2008
James