Addition or Subtraction?

What is biblical salvation? Is salvation a matter of addition or subtraction? Most people in our culture think of salvation as:

Me + Jesus = salvation (happiness)

Freedom from the punishment of our sins is important and most people associate salvation with this result. Thus, salvation brings them happiness. Happiness is what is sought after. But when you think about the equation, other things bring us happiness also. We could substitute money, stocks, boats, cars, girlfriends (boyfriends or husbands or wives), promotions, a particular sin, and any number of other commodities into the equation which would bring us the end product of happiness. Jesus becomes interchangeable, expendable or only necessary in case of emergency. He becomes no more than one toy in a stuffed toy box. We see life as really all about me and what makes me feel good or happy. I’m going to be happy not going to hell; I’m happy not getting the punishment I deserve; I’m happy receiving God’s grace and mercy; I’m going to be happy living in a mansion for eternity, etc. So, while I’m living my life here and now, Jesus gets my attention, sometimes, but practically I live as a hedonist and/or atheist. This is a common mindset in America and especially among the younger generation. There is a major problem with this view. Jesus said, “No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other: or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other.” Matt 6:24. God said it a different way in Exodus 20:3, “Thou shalt have no other gods before me.”

Biblical salvation is more accurately viewed as:

Jesus – me = Righteousness

Biblical salvation is when I’m taken out of the equation. I have nothing to add because in me dwells no good thing (Rom 3:10-12). Jesus is everything and I’m nothing. He is not just a toy, or stock, or insurance policy. Furthermore, salvation is more than freedom from the penalty of our sin. It is also freedom from the power of sin (Rom 6:2); freedom from the future presence of sin (Rev 22:14-15); freedom to serve God (Rom 6:13); freedom to worship God (Jn 4:24; Phil 3:3); freedom to have a relationship with God (Jn 1:12-13); freedom to be in a right relationship with God because of the completed work of the Lord Jesus Christ on our behalf (2 Cor 5:21). Righteousness is a matter of being right with God. Only when I come to God in humility, recognizing my total inability to please him because of my sinful and desperate condition, can I then embrace the righteousness which Christ gives freely as my Savior – for the purpose of me being in a right relationship to God the Father. “Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” Matt 5:3. Happiness is then the byproduct and result of being in a right relationship with God, but not what is primarily sought. The tax collector as recorded in Luke 18:14 had the right approach when he said, “God be merciful to me a sinner.”

What does this short mathematical lesson mean? It means we live in an idolatrous country. We have numerous gods. Like the residents of Athens in Acts 17:23, we have many gods and worship ignorantly, but we do not worship the true God. Who we worship is who we obey; who we obey is who we love; who we love is who we serve; and who we serve is our god. Many people who think they are Christians have a god in their lives of their own making, but it is not the God of the Bible. Like King Saul of 1 Samuel, they are wise in their own eyes and have selectively chosen to construct a religion and a god which benefits them. Jesus is no more than just one of many additions in their life for the end purpose of some advantage for themselves. The believer's mission is to influence those around them to “love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.” (Matt 22:37).

In our evangelizing and discipleship we must be holding forth the word of life (Phil 2:16), confronting the world with the true God, and persuading men of a subtraction equation!