When mankind was deceived and pride induced them to try and understand good and evil, they separated themselves from God and therefore subdued their spirit as their fleshy carnal soul veered away from God’s spiritual truth and life force. In other words, when we try to understand what is right and wrong on our own, thereby excluding God who is the essence of divinity, holiness, and righteousness, we separate ourselves from Him because we take it upon ourselves to be righteous, and by implication, we do not need Him, even though we might not even consider such a thought or idea. We can relate to this if we consider a parent and child situation where the child leaves home to be on their own for whatever reason. What we do not realize as children, whether God’s children or human being’s children, is that we do not really understand what is right and wrong because the desires of the flesh through the five senses (carnality), decide based on its own agenda, and no wonder the world is in turmoil because everyone has subtle differences in understanding of right and wrong. That’s why differences in religions create wars as people oppose each other, but God is not schizophrenic and thus did not create many religions but one, because God’s love and ways are consistent in knowledge and righteousness across cultures and nations. Even within Christianity, we have many denominations that create strife within, and that should not be so, i.e. there should not be many denominations, but evil through misunderstanding and differences of opinion lends itself to breaking God’s people into factions thereby rendering Christianity less effective. You will notice that other religions do not have many denominations because evil spirits do not have to split that which is not of God, as there is no danger to evil spirits or fallen angels in those religions, so a split will be very seldom unless it is for the power of controlling the religion.
God used animal sacrifices to reconcile man back to God, but these did not clear man’s conscience from sin so they had to repeat the sacrifice each year, however, Jesus was the one and final sacrifice to redeem man (Hebrews 10:1-10), whereby He did it once for all people forever, regardless of gender, race, nationality, and sinful nature. Salvation through Jesus allows us to see (understand) and enter (experience) the Kingdom of God (John 3:1-5) here in this physical life so that we can walk in peace, love, joy, etc, with God, see Romans 14:17 and Galatians 5:22-23.
To see and enter the Kingdom of God in this life, our corrupted/dormant human spirit needs to be regenerated or born again, see John 3:1-5. Believing in Jesus without being born again is good but does not enable us to understand and experience the Kingdom of God that is within us in this physical life, and problems become difficult to overcome without God’s assistance and love. The Holy Spirit is necessary for this regeneration and to seal our human spirit from getting subdued once again, see Ephesians 1:13. When we are therefore “born again” we receive the indwelling Holy Spirit commonly referred to as the Christ (anointing) who assists us in the renewal of the heart through the Word of God. Then, when we receive the Holy Spirit upon us we are ready for service to God. This is indicative of Jesus’s life who was born with the indwelling spirit to mold His character and assist in knowledge, and then He received the Spirit upon Him through John’s baptism to make Him ready for service which was at the age of 30 according to the law. It is clear that John’s baptism was for Jesus to fulfill all righteousness (Matthew 3:15) because man could not, and therefore Jesus stood in the gap between man and God and fulfilled all righteousness so that man could live by faith in what Jesus did, and thus be righteous in the eyes of God, even if man never fulfills all righteousness according to the law. Please note that Jesus had no sin and thus did not really need John’s baptism but He did it for the sake of the world and for the Holy Spirit to come upon Him to provide the power for ministry. If Jesus had not fulfilled all righteousness of the law, we could never have received grace through faith in His righteousness.
Grace and faith
Faith in Jesus Christ and what He did for mankind, and not our own works of righteousness, is the catalyst for man to be righteous in God’s eyes and to be saved. Trying not to sin through the law is actually a lack of faith in God based on what He did for us, i.e. a person who walks by the law so that they can appear good in the eyes of others becomes a curse unto themselves because they cannot fulfill the entire law of Moses (Galatians 3:10), and are ignorantly rejecting Jesus’s work on the cross that brings salvation because they think they have the ability to fulfill the law by themselves.
We all know that it is impossible for people to fulfill the law by themselves and thus God gives us grace in the transient period, that is, from the day our salvation begins to the day we die or the day we receive our glorious bodies when Jesus reappears. If you think you are good enough or do not sin, you are a liar (1 John 1:8-10). However, those who have faith in Jesus’s faithfulness through God’s grace in this life will experience the kingdom of God as the Holy Spirit sheds love, joy, and peace in their hearts. God provides the grace where His forgiveness removes guilt because of sin, and we exercise our God-given faith by allowing the Holy Spirit to change our hearts over time as we experience His love because it is through love and God’s goodness that we repent and fulfill the law (Romans 2:4, Romans 13:8-10). Any work that we do to gain righteousness comes against us because it is not of faith and therefore does not please God (Hebrews 11:6). Grace and faith were a free gift so that we can walk in righteousness through faith in Jesus’s faithfulness, so no one can boast about their own righteousness (Ephesians 2:8-9). Laws have no ability to change hearts, only to grow egos, but the Holy Spirit can do all things if we allow Him. It is the love of the Holy Spirit that has been changing my heart over time that makes me desire to not sin, not my own works in trying to fulfill the law.
Salvation is for everyone no matter what race, gender, nationality, or sinful nature we have. God knows that we all sin and that’s why he gives us grace to approach Him even when we continue to sin out of weakness. In other words, God’s grace gives us the benefit of being forgiven every time we confess sin (1 John 1:5) as we gradually make progress in our character by studying and learning the Word of God until we become perfect and achieve the stature of Christ, see Ephesians 4:11-14. I am not saying that confessing sin is what makes us right with God because we are right with God through faith in Him, but rather, that confession releases our soul from the wrongs we did and closes the door to evil spirits that take opportunities when we do sin. The confession of sins is therefore important to counter the forces of evil but we must understand that God has forgiven us regardless of sin, except for the sin of rejecting God or His Word, and also the blaspheming of the Holy Spirit. Do all of us achieve the stature of Christ through studying and doing the Word of God? No, because sin is addictive and many of us fall short of God’s will out of weakness, but as long as we maintain our faith in Jesus Christ and continue to do His Word we will be raised with Christ on the last day, see John 11:20-26, i.e. we will receive our glorious bodies and inherit the Kingdom of God. To see and enter the Kingdom of God takes place in this physical life on earth in our mortal bodies, but to inherit the Kingdom of God is to possess it permanently after our mortal bodies have been transformed into immortal glorious bodies (1-Corinthians-15-50).
What is salvation?
Salvation is not about believing in Jesus so that we can go to heaven upon death because believing in Jesus does not necessarily guarantee qualification for heaven. Romans 10:10 says that we must believe with our hearts unto righteousness and with the mouth we speak unto salvation. We must therefore ensure that we believe with our hearts which has the effect of giving us the desire to transform our character by learning and doing the Word of God, even though we might miss the biblical direction on a regular basis, as it takes the heart many iterations of doing the Word for it to fall from our mind into our heart. We must also confess with our mouth which is the action that reflects the belief in our heart, which is basically faith as per James 2:18. Many Christians merely voice the fact that they believe in Jesus, however, their lifestyle continues to be based on the carnal world with no desire to learn or have a relationship with God, meaning that they do not believe with their heart and thus salvation might not be attained. God is not like a religious guru or a magic wand that gives us our carnal heart’s desires just because we voice belief in God. The intentions of the heart must resonate with our words for the process of salvation to be initiated, failing this, many Christians will miss the point of salvation by thinking they are saved when they are not. The same is true in worshipping God or anything we may ask of God according to His Word because we must do it in spirit and in truth which comes from the heart (John 4:24).
Believing in Jesus and inheriting the Kingdom of Heaven is only the final aspect or end product of our salvation, and many Christians miss the opportunity to walk with God here on earth in peace, love, joy, etc, see Galatians 5:22-23 and Romans 14:17. Therefore the purpose of salvation is not only about inheriting heaven upon death, or getting caught up (raptured) on the last day, but also includes many other benefits because we need more assistance in this physical life (in this age) than in the next life (the next age). There are three main stages to salvation:
- to regenerate the human spirit – commonly known as “born again by the spirit” after it was subdued by the carnal soul which seared or hardened our conscience (1 Timothy 4:2). The human spirit consists of three aspects 1) the conscience, 2) the intuition, and 3) the fellowship.
- to save our soul from carnality by renewing our mind and the spirit of our mind by the Word of God, see 1 Peter 1:7-9. The soul consists of three aspects, 1) the mind, including both conscious and subconscious minds, 2) the will, and 3) the emotions.
- to save our bodies from ongoing disease, and then eternal death at the second appearance of Christ when we receive our glorious bodies, see Philippians 3:10, 1 John 3:1-2, and Hebrews 9:28.
Christian salvation is holistic and therefore involves all three aspects of the human being comprising of spirit, soul, and body. Salvation is, therefore, an ongoing process until the last day of our physical flesh and blood life here on earth. The regeneration of the human spirit must come first because it works in conjunction with the Holy Spirit (comforter, helper, advocate, teacher) to aid the soul through the Word of God and to accomplish our purpose on earth. In other words, the soul is dependent on the spirit for salvation but it also has free will, where we choose to follow the spirit or our carnal nature.
The salvation of the soul must come second so that eternal life can be acquired for the body, though not all people will have their souls or bodies fully saved because not all will be around on the last day when we receive glorious bodies, which is the third and final aspect of salvation. When the spirit and soul are in sync, or in alignment, regarding understanding and doing God’s Word, we have attained perfect faith and thus our souls are saved. Scripture however indicates that salvation of the soul will only come after the appearance of Jesus Christ in His Kingdom, see 1 Peter 1:17-9.
The body however requires ongoing attention where healing might be necessary until the day we die or it gets transformed into a glorious body where it becomes fully saved. The mind (soul) plays an important role in the ongoing healing of the body where faith is essential as our thoughts can either retard or improve our healing process. I believe the mind (soul) is the major contributor to mental and physical disease due to negative emotions and feelings such as stress, strife, anxiety, rage, etc. This does not mean that we will miss inheriting heaven if the soul and body are not fully saved because we can only be fully saved when Jesus reappears. God also knows that human beings have weaknesses and thus our continued faith by grace still saves us on the last day, see 2 Timothy 4:7-8. Note that this scripture only pertains to those who are waiting for Jesus’s appearance because they have kept the faith until the end. It’s only when we lose faith, thereby rejecting God, or go back to our life of perpetual sin that we run into losing our salvation.