Back to the Bible Radio Transcript Series: The Joy of Certain Salvation Program Title: The Basis of Our Salvation Dr. Woodrow Kroll Woodrow Kroll: Can you lose your salvation? You know, once saved, always saved. That's right. Well, that's a topic of great discussion, and we're going to look at it today here on Back to the Bible. Hi, I'm Woodrow Kroll. Welcome to the program. Tami Weissert: And I'm Tami Weissert, and you've picked a great day to tune in because it's a "hot button" topic today, Dr. Kroll, and I have to get this out right away. Woodrow Kroll: OK. Tami Weissert: Can we lose our salvation? Woodrow Kroll: No. Tami Weissert: Well, great. You know, then I'm glad we got right to that point because the program's over. Let's talk about tomorrow. Woodrow Kroll: Now wait a minute. There's a lot more to it than that. This really is a significant issue. This troubles a lot of people. What we want to do is what we do every day here at Back to the Bible: say "What does the Bible say?" We find our answer right in God's Word. We're going to do that today as well. Tami Weissert: What are we supposed to do if we're talking to another Christian and we disagree on this issue? How do we respond? Woodrow Kroll: Smack them around is one possibility (laughter) but not the good one. The good one is to recognize there are good people who disagree on topics like this. And you may not agree with what I have to say. What I want to do is present to you what I think the Bible says about the topic of eternal security. Now I think the Bible has a lot to say. In fact, before we finish this week we're going to go to 1 John and look in that tiny little letter at 20 evidences that you can have in your life that you're born again. Well, let's talk about this, first of all the general topic of our salvation and what it means to be saved. Ask anybody on the street how they're going to get to heaven, and most of them will say, "My good works are going to outweigh my bad ones." That's the dumbest idea I've ever heard. And yet that kind of pervades all of our thinking--always has and maybe always will. Remember the Philippian jailor [Acts 16:25-34]? When the Philippian jailor asked the apostle Paul, "What must I do to be saved?", he was thinking. Do, do, do--i have to do something. Paul said, "Believe and you are saved." Remember that rich young ruler that came to Jesus and said, "Good Teacher, what shall I do that I might inherit eternal life?" Again, the thinking process is to do--you do it and you're saved. But the Bible never says you do it and you're saved. 1
Paul Fordyce was an automobile dealer in the state of Virginia. He was at a conference I was speaking at a few years ago. When I finished, he came to me and he said, "What do I have to do to go to heaven?" It was my great joy to tell him what Paul told those who asked him and what Jesus told those who asked Him. It's not what you and I do that matters in our salvation. It's what Jesus already has done for us. Salvation is a matter of belief in what Jesus did at the cross of Calvary. So today, in order to think about what salvation means for you and me, we have to think about what it meant for Jesus. What did Jesus do at Calvary that enables us today to confidently talk about our salvation? Well, that's our subject, and we want to ask questions like: Why did Jesus go to the cross? What happened when He went to the cross? What would have been the case if He hadn't gone to the cross? I think all of those are very significant questions with regard to our salvation. Let me lay out a word for you right now. It's the word sacrifice. It is the key to understanding what Jesus did at the cross. Jesus was our sacrifice. He died in our place. You know, God always demanded a blood sacrifice for sin, right from the git-go, right after Adam and Eve sinned. It was in that Garden. You could almost picture yourself there that day when you heard the squeal of an animal that gave its life to make the coverings to cover the naked Adam and Eve. From that first squeal of an animal, God has always proven to us He demands blood as a sacrifice for sin. All the way through the Old Testament the same thing is true. Habakkuk 1:13, one of my favorite passages in the Bible, says of God, "You are of purer eyes than to behold evil, and cannot look on wickedness." Now that's a problem, because if I'm a sinner--and I am--and God cannot look on my sin because I am a sinner, I have a problem connecting with God. And so do you. And that's why God's plan to bring salvation to us is such an incredible plan. Now all these days we're going to talk about two things. We're going to talk about a principle in the Word of God, and we're going to talk about the proof of the Word of God for that principle. First of all, here's the principle: God is sinless. You are not. You have a problem. If God is sinless and you and I are not sinless--if we are filled with sin--then the only way for us to enjoy the presence of God is to be like Him. That can't happen--that's just not going to happen. There aren't enough good deeds I can do to make that happen, nor are there for you. But here's the good news: God did something about it anyway. Because you and I could not go to Him, He came to us in the person of His Son, Jesus. As a result of that, the proof of God's Word is that God sent His Son to die and pay the penalty for my sin and your sin, and now I don't believe what I do makes me born again. I believe what He did opens the door for me to trust what He did to allow me to be born again. Now here's the proof. Always proof. If you're going to make a principle, you have to have a proof. You'll hear me say again and again when I talk about the proof, "This is what the Bible says." Here is what the Bible says. The Bible says that Jesus was delivered up for our offenses. That's Romans 4:25. Now that word [term] "delivered up," by the way, that's the word that you would use when you handed over a criminal to the justice system. You deliver him up. You just 2
handcuff him and you turn him over to the law. "He was delivered up because of our offenses." By the way, that is exactly the same word used in Ephesians 5:2 of Christ when it says that He "has loved us and given Himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God." So here's the principle: If I want to go to God's heaven, I have to go in God's way. And God makes a way for me to go to His heaven, but it's not by what I do. It's by what Jesus did for me. And the end result of that is I have to believe that what Jesus did at Calvary is all that God required to pay the penalty for my sin. When I believe that, the door is opened, then, for me to have the sacrifice of Christ applied to my life, and my future changes entirely. Now in just a minute I want to come back and talk with you about the word substitute. See, Jesus was our sacrifice. Oh, the love that drew salvation's plan! Oh, the grace that brought it down to man! Oh, the mighty gulf that God did span at Calvary!* That's sacrifice. But I want you to see also that Jesus was a substitute for me. He didn't just die. He died so I wouldn't have to. We'll be back in just a minute to talk about that. Woodrow Kroll: Well, a few minutes ago I said that God always demands a blood sacrifice for the atonement of sin. You can see that anywhere in the Old Testament. You see it all the way through the Book of Leviticus. You can see it in the sacrifice of Isaac on the top of Mount Moriah. You can also see it in the story of the Lord Jesus. Jesus was God's blood sacrifice for our sin. But there's more than just a blood sacrifice here. Jesus not only sacrificed His life at Calvary, the second word that's important in our understanding of salvation is not just "sacrifice" but "substitute." See, I belonged there; He went there. We don't want to miss that. Now here's the principle. Again, we're going to work from a principle and a proof from God's Word. The principle is this: Since I am not capable of redeeming myself--i'm not capable of providing my own sacrifice because I'm sinful--that would imply to me, then, that something needs to be done to provide a sacrifice for me. I have to find someone capable of being an adequate sacrifice. So I looked around through all my family--and you know, my family is not filled with a bunch of criminals. The way they treated me when I was a kid may have been criminal (laughter). No, no, I'm kidding. I looked around my family; I didn't see anyone adequate to be my eternal sacrifice. You look around your church--do you see anybody adequate? Look around the government-- well, forget the government (laughter)--just look around the world and see if you can find anyone who is an adequate sacrifice for your sin. The answer is that you won't find one, unless of course, you come to God's Word--because God not only tells us that Jesus provided a sacrifice; He provided a substitute for us. And that's an important principle too. Jesus made Himself available to do for me what I could not do for myself--and that is, pay the penalty for my sin by providing Himself as an acceptable substitute for me on Calvary's cross. 3
Bernard of Clairvaux, great hymn writer, great Medieval Latin poet, church father--bernard of Clairvaux wrote some words that eventually became a hymn, the hymn that we sing "O Sacred Head, Now Wounded." Listen to these words. He said, What Thou, my Lord, hast suffered Was all for sinners' gain: Mine, mine was the transgression, But Thine the deadly pain. What Jesus suffered was for me. The pain that He received was my pain. What He went through, I was supposed to go through. Now if He did it for me, that makes Him my substitute. He did it in my behalf. So the sacrifice that's provided for me is not just a simple sacrifice, but it is a substitute for me. Now if you want to read more about that, go to the Book of Hebrews. Hebrews 9 talks all about the substitutionary death of Jesus in your behalf and in my behalf. He obtained an "eternal redemption," verse 12 says of Hebrews 9, when He "offered Himself without spot to God," verse 14, so that by the blood of Christ He has put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself. There it is in a nutshell. Hebrews 9 is a wonderful descriptive passage of why Jesus went to the cross. He went there so you wouldn't have to. He went there so I wouldn't have to. Now the Bible doesn't leave any room for, oh, I don't know, "adjustive" interpretation here. You can't say, "You know, it was a great idea for Jesus to die and I really appreciate that. But it wasn't necessary." Or, "If I just lived a little better life, He really died in vain." There are people who believe that Jesus went to the cross as a fine example of the way to give yourself for another person but it has no bearing on your eternal destiny. Now, bless their hearts, that's not at all what the Bible says. If you want to know what the Bible says, you have to read the Bible. Here's what the Bible says. The Bible doesn't leave any room for adjustive interpretation here. It says the basis for our salvation is none other than--not what we think and not what we do and not even what we perceive to be the case--the basis for our salvation is everything Jesus did in our behalf. So He became a sacrifice for us--that's the basis for my salvation. He became my substitute on the cross. I should have been there; He was there--for me. That's the basis of my salvation. So before we can talk about all the things that salvation means for us, we have to talk about what does salvation bring to us. What is the basis by which we even believe anything about salvation? Here it is: The basis for your salvation and the basis for mine is what Jesus did, not what I do. It's faith in what He did, not faith in what I can do. It's not my ongoing attempt to balance the works of my life so good ones outweigh the bad ones or so, you know, I don't do too many bad things that'll keep me out of heaven. The fact of the matter is, I was born sinful and that'll keep me out of heaven. The other fact of the matter is, Jesus is perfect. He provides for me His own sacrifice, His life as a sacrifice. Of the words we've seen today, two of them are extremely significant: sacrifice 4
(necessary for your atonement) and substitution (necessary for someone to get the job done to be your sacrifice). Now there is another one, and the other one is extremely important as well. We'll come back in just a minute before we wrap up our study for today. I want to come right back to this last issue about what is the basis for your salvation. See, if you don't have a basis for salvation, it's not because God didn't provide it. It's because we haven't discovered it. What we want to do here is discover what God says is the basis for your salvation. We'll be back in just a minute to do that. Tricia: Wood, I'm thinking that in some of the other pagan religions that were around when Israel--you know, back in the day when Israel was becoming a nation--they sacrificed animals too. So what is the difference between what they did and what God asked these people to do? Woodrow Kroll: Very good question. Why is Israel taking a lamb and sacrificing that lamb any different from a Moabite sacrificing his lamb or a ram, or in the case of the Moabites, a child? The difference, I think, is not in the act of sacrifice; the difference is in the ethics of the God who asks for the sacrifice to be made. Israel is doing a sacrifice because God said, "I am going to provide for you a sacrifice; and until I do, I want you to be reminded of my promise to you that I will provide a sacrifice." Isn't this exactly what the whole story of Isaac and Abraham on Mount Moriah was all about? They didn't understand this. Abraham had no clue what God was doing in his life, but he was obedient to God. The guy I really feel sorry for is Isaac, because he's the one asking all the questions--and also the one laying on the altar. But the very fact that that is an example of a God who will make a substitute for us, is so different from the pagan religions around them--because the pagan religions around them didn't look for a substitute; they went out and just sacrificed and sacrificed and sacrificed to their gods. The difference between the two is the person who asks for the sacrifice. This is a God who is going to provide a Savior. Every time a sacrifice was made, it was an illustration to His people that God will keep His promises. God only has three kinds of promises, you know: those He has already kept, those He's keeping today, and those He will keep in the future. Well, today we're looking at the basis for our salvation. You know, this whole week we're interested in how do you know you're really saved. If you start on the wrong foot, you're going to end up at the wrong place. So we're starting in God's Word to understand that the basis for our salvation is not what we do, not what we think, not the good things we can do, not the way we conduct our lives. The basis for our salvation is the sacrifice of Jesus Christ at Calvary. Now I've already looked at two words, very important. One of them is sacrifice and the other is substitute. Jesus was our sacrifice; but as important as that is, He substituted Himself where we should have been the sacrifice. He became the sacrifice for us so we would not have to be our own sacrifice. Now why doesn't He want us to be our own sacrifice? Because He knows we can't be a sacrifice for sin--it takes a perfect sacrifice, a perfect gift to God. We aren't and He is. So in the great plan of God, even before there was need for a sacrifice, it was decided Jesus would be it. 5
Now, "sacrifice," "substitute," that leads me to the third thing we have to base our salvation on, and that is Jesus is in fact our Savior. Remember the story of the angel coming to Joseph and telling Joseph, "Joseph, you know that girl that you're so much in love with. Well, she's pregnant, and you're not the father. I know that's a problem to you, Joseph. But I want to calm your nerves and I want to let you in on a little secret: that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit of God" (see Luke 1). Now that's significant news! He also goes on and tells Mary, on another occasion, "Call the name of this child Jesus, because He will save His people from their sins. Call Him 'Savior,' because He will be the Savior." Now see, that's what's so important about knowing that Jesus is the basis for our salvation--because if there are other options, hey, pick any option you want! If there are other ways to get to God other than Jesus, it doesn't matter that Jesus was a sacrifice or that He claims to be our substitute. So the principle is this: Jesus always was God. But there came a day when He became our Savior. See, it wasn't who He was that made Him our Savior. It wasn't that He came to earth that made Him our Savior. It wasn't that He lived a good, holy life that made Him our Savior. It wasn't that He healed blind people and raised the dead. It wasn't that He would feed people that made Him our Savior. What made Jesus our Savior was that He died on the cross for us. See, He always was God. He became our Savior on that day. Well, there are three words that are significant for our understanding of where salvation comes from. If your salvation comes from any other place than this, then you have good reason to question your salvation. Your salvation comes from a sacrifice, a perfect sacrifice. Your salvation comes from a substitute, a substitute who took your place--did for you what you could not do. Your salvation comes from a Savior. You've heard me say this before--and I'll say it as long as God's gives me breath--this world has many religions; there still is only one Savior. If your faith is in what that Savior did, that's the appropriate biblical basis for your salvation. Mark. Mark: Dr. Kroll, I was interested when you were talking about substitution--jesus was a substitute for our sins but He also gave us righteousness. He put righteousness to our account as well. So in that way, is He also our substitute in that way as well? Woodrow Kroll: Yes, we get the good and get rid of the bad when you get a substitute, you know. If you're playing in a basketball game and you're just dead tired, and you're taking shots all over the court and you're not making any of them, the coach is probably going to pull you out and put a substitute in. Well, then he puts in an MBA player and he's making shots everywhere. Somebody got in the game who can actually make a point! I think that's true for Jesus too. When He gets in our game, the point is made all the time. When He gets in our game, things turn around dramatically for us. So it's not being substituted simply so that we cannot provide salvation--we can't--but it's so we have Someone in there who can provide salvation. Only Jesus can do that for us. 6
Tami Weissert: Well, Wood, as I've been sitting here listening to the teaching today, it kind of struck me, I don't know how many hundreds of times we have talked about witnessing on this program, and this message today really laid out for us just the way to go out there and be an effective witness. I mean, if we listened at all, we should be able to go out there and tell people. So number one, go tell people. Number two, at the start of the program today, I asked you about what if other Christians disagree, is this something that we should fighting about? I want to go back to that, because I have relatives and I have friends that believe that they can lose their salvation. Is it really worth going up that battle hill on this? Or should we really just be focusing on the witnessing part? Woodrow Kroll: You know, you don't ever fight battles you don't have to fight. But then again, I always tell people who want to battle me, "Look, it doesn't matter what I think. In fact, it doesn't matter what you think either. What matters is what does the Word say?" That's why here at Back to the Bible we're so intent on telling you, "This is what the Bible says." You can argue with me. What you cannot argue with is what God says in His Word. What we want to do is tell you what the Bible says so you know what the proper basis for your salvation is. Tami Weissert: OK. Well, today we saw the basis; tomorrow is really important as well, because this is really the means--let's talk about that. Woodrow Kroll: Yes, it's not only what you do; it's how you do what you do. It's not only the basis of our salvation, but how does that salvation come to us? What is the means by which God brings salvation to us? You know, do you have to do certain things? Do you have to jump through certain hoops in order to get salvation? What does the Bible say? Well, tomorrow we're going to explore the flipside of the basis of our salvation, and that is: How do we get it? What's the means by which God brings it to us? Plan to join us, won't you? I'm Woodrow Kroll. Have a good and godly day, for of what lasting value is a good day if it's not also a godly day? * "At Calvary" hymn, words by William R. Newell, 1895. Copyright 2009 The Good News Broadcasting Association, Inc. All rights reserved Back to the Bible P.O. Box 82808, Lincoln, NE 68501 1-800-759-2425 backtothebible.org 7