Salvation And The Knowledge Of It (Part 2)

Luke 1:77

Like John the Baptist, every true messenger of God is sent to give knowledge of salvation accomplished by Christ. In preaching the gospel, we are not offering good advice, but proclaiming good news. To preach the gospel is to declare that the Lord Jesus Christ accomplished the salvation of his people. By his obedience and death as our Substitute, the Son of God satisfied the justice of God for the sins of his people. He has, “magnified the law and made it honorable.” Salvation is not something yet to be done, but something already done by Christ. It is yet to be experienced and known by some for whom it was done; but it is already done. Peter tells us that it is yet to be revealed to us all; but it is already done (Gal. 3:13; Col. 2:13-15; Heb 1:3; 10:11-14). The incarnate God, our Savior, has recovered for his people all that we lost, all that we justly forfeited by the sin and fall of our father Adam. He has obtained for us, by his own mighty arm alone, that glorious inheritance to which we were predestinated from eternity. He has done so equally and fully for everyone of his people. Not only has he redeemed us from the curse of the law, he has robed us with perfect righteousness. Not only has he redeemed us and robed us, he has been received up into glory for us. Yonder, he sits possessing and holding for his redeemed ones, holding by legal right, all the glory of heaven itself in the perfection of that glorious righteousness and holiness to which we were chosen from eternity. This salvation holds within its embrace eternal life here and eternal glory hereafter. It includes all the fullness of grace here and all he fullness of glory hereafter forever. Salvation is the perfect, full, complete restoration of sinners to God in holiness, happiness, and blessedness forever, by Christ alone (1 Pet. 1:3-9). So complete, so thorough is his salvation that God sees no sin in Jacob and no perverseness in Israel (Num. 23:21). He sees no sin in us because Christ has put away our sins (1 John 3:5; Jer. 50:20). Our Redeemer’s name is Jehovah-tsidkenu, THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS; and we are the righteousness of God in him (Jer. 23:6; 33:16). This glorious salvation is, in all its fullness and entirety, the present and everlasting possession of every believer. This salvation is the present possession of every sinner who trusts the Lord Jesus Christ. With him, because we are in him, we have it in full possession presently! The weakest, most insignificant believer lacks nothing. All that Christ did and experienced, he did and experienced as our Representative and Substitute before God. Because he did it as our Surety and Substitute, we did it in him. It is as though we did it personally. Christ did not obey the law for himself. He obeyed it for us; and we obeyed it in him. He did not die for his own sins (He had no sin!), but for our sins; and we died in him. He did not rise from the dead for himself, but for us; and we rose in him. He did not enter into heaven and take possession of it for himself, but for us; and we ascended into heaven and took possession of it in him (Eph. 2:6; Heb. 6:20.)

Don Fortner