THE SALVATION PUZZLE 1

The Bible has a glorious theme that runs throughout its 66 books. Each of these books is like a piece of the puzzle, that when you place the them all together you can see the "big picture." The "big picture" theme is "The Reconciliation of God and Man through Jesus Christ." Our central figure is Christ and He is the only one that can bring mankind back into a proper relationship with God.

Now, while the act of "saving" originates with God, He does work through agents. Agents are defined as, "a natural force or object producing or used for obtaining specific results" (dictionary.reference.com/browse/agents). The "specific results" that we are trying to obtain is that saving grace. So, some of the action is on God's part (grace), while some of the action is on man's part through agents (faith, obedience). Salvation does require the cooperation of both God and man. I cannot be saved without God and God will not force me to be saved if I am not willing.

I want to look now at what God's Word tells us that saves us. Throughout this article I want you to study this with an open mind and an open Bible. I am not going to give you my opinion about what saves us but what God says saves us. Some of these the religious world will agree while others the religious world will not. Also, you cannot go to just one verse that tells you that something saves you and end your search. This is to leave God's pattern for salvation as an incomplete puzzle. According to Milton Terry in his book entitled "Biblical Hermeneutics" he writes, "general harmony of fundamental doctrine which pervades the entire Scriptures. It assumes that the Bible is a self-interpreting book, and what is obscure in one passage may be illuminated by another. No single statement or obscure passage of one book can be allowed to set aside a doctrine which is clearly established by many passages." I know a lot of words to say one important thing, and that is each of us must read more than one passage in order to find out God's complete message.

Let us examine more that just one or a select few verses and pinpoint the complete message about how to be saved.

The first piece of the puzzle is "belief saves." John quotes Jesus in John 3:16, "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life." Now the only problem that so many in the world seem to be faced with is that this is their only piece of the salvation puzzle. But belief is not all that saves us. There is another verse in the Bible that tells us that "belief saves." That verse is found in Mark 16:16, "He who believes and is baptized will be saved; but he who does not believe will be condemned." Yes, without a doubt belief saves but not belief alone. More on Mark 16:16 later, so we have to search out the other pieces.

Next, is the piece found in Revelation 1:5. The apostle John writes, "and from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn from the dead, and the ruler over the kings of the earth. To Him who loved us and washed us from our sins in His own blood." So the next salvation piece is the that the "blood saves." This is stated in the verse that the blood "washed us from our sins" which is salvation.

This is not the end. But this is to be continued on to the next article. God bless you as you minister the message.