How my understanding of salvation has changed over the years

The sovereignty of God in our salvation

I am writing this for several reasons. Firstly, I want to help order my thoughts on this issue. I have often struggled with different aspects of it but feel that, over the past two years my understanding has increased and my sense of unsettledness has decreased. At different stages, I have felt revelation from God on the issue. I am so appreciative of that and want to write what I have leant and felt down so that it is not lost.

Secondly, I know that this issue is one that is unclear in the minds of many people, including myself. Even though I am no expert, I feel that I have revelation to share. What I feel God has given me is not meant to be contained. I really believe that it is good news. What I have heard and learnt is humbling but empowering. Love kindling and intellectually satisfying (although not water tight and clear cut by any means-what you would expect of an infinitely complex God). More than anything, I really believe it is true to God's revealed expression, the bible. At the end of the day, that’s what’s important.

Lord, You’ve given us the revelation of truth in the bible and your Holy Spirit to enable us to see that truth. Have mercy on me if any of the conclusions I have drawn do not bring you the glory due your name. I am young and hardly know that weight of the glory I am speaking of. Still, I feel that you can speak to the young so I write this in faith that you have revealed to me truth, or at least a dim reflection of it, and that I should share that truth. Guard me from any arrogance or pretense or conceit. I have already had to fight this off. May this be for your glory alone.

Lastly, I am writing this because it is my joy to delight in the truth of the word which ultimately reveals God. Thus, it is my joy to delight in God! This is not dead doctrine. These are realities which, when seen with the eyes of the heart, reveal more than just spiritual laws and facts. Ah...these truths speak of his great love for us! They show me the depth of my need and the total dependence that I have on him! They show me how he care for me and the lengths that he went to to bring me into his family!

Lord, your steadfast love is better than life, and so the more I see it the better life is. Writing these feelings down leaves me more convicted of the truth and more besotted and enthralled by you. Lord, come and take your truth deep into my heart so I can see you and your works for what they really are. Then my soul will feast!


What is man’s attitude toward God apart from salvation?


1) Dead in our sins: Ephesians 2:1-3

And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience—among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.

2) Lost, going our own way

For you were straying like sheep, but have now returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls.
1 Peter 2:25

All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.
Isaiah 53:6

3) All enemies of God

And you, who once were alienated and hostile in mind, a doing evil deeds, he has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death, in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before him

Colossians 1:21-22

For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life.

Romans 5:10
4) Haters of God

And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. Though they know God's decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them.

Romans 1:18-32
5) Lovers of the darkness

And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil.

John 3:19

6) We despised Him

He was despised and rejected by men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not.


Isaiah 53: 3

What did our will want?

These descriptions of our hearts, desires and natures prior to salvation are really quite amazing. Modern man (and much of modern christianity) often depicts itself as those who, realizing their predicament, choose to cry out to a God for help. That, at least, was my understanding for many years, even after becoming a christian. Sometimes we humans are compared to those who are drowning in sin (a cliche, I know), yet crying out for a saviour.

But is this really the case? Is this what man truly wills? Is it true that humans are all searching for God because they really want to know him and glorify him? Does man sincerely want to be saved from his situation prior to salvation? At the heart of the question is this: Does any man's (or women's) will stir him or her to seek God? The answer from these texts is a shockingly clear. As the psalmist says,

God looks down from heaven
on the children of man
to see if there are any who understand,
who seek after God.
They have all fallen away;
together they have become corrupt;
there is none who does good,
not even one.
Psalm 53:2-3

Well, it seems that these texts give the bible's answer to that question. What does man really will or want or desire? Words such as "hate", "despise" and "hostile" describe the human race's attitude toward God. It seems that if there is something that man really does ultimately desire or will, it's definitely not God or any sort of relationship with him. What becomes clear is that our our will drove us away from God, not towards him.

Now the reason I say this is shocking is that if you look at the world of religion, it seems that man, since the beginning of civilization, has been seeking God. Count the number of religions that exist. Are they not all attempts at finding God? Well, it seems that the answer from the bible is that they are not. It appears that these passages of scripture teach that man, with all his religions, is not seeking God. He may be seeking god, a god of his own psychology that makes sense of his culture and experiences. But what about God. Not the subjective notion of God that people create in their minds, but the objective reality of God.

In essence, it seems that the scriptures teach that mans will is in no way inclined to the loving or desiring or honor of God. Rather, it repeatedly makes plain that man rejects God and this is something that involves his will. It's not only a matter of ignorance of the Objective reality of God. It's a matter of rebellion and enmity!


How could God bring salvation to us?

Now, if salvation requires that we be beings that delight and cherish and enjoy and seek God, then how can any be saved? As we have seen, the scripture teaches that no man on earth, no matter what religion or culture, seeks the true and living God. Beings will according to their natures and the biblical description of our nature is own that will in favor of God.


Now here is the aspect of the biblical description of salvation that is most offensive to man and his pride. If God wanted to save he would have to act in a way that changed our will and our wishes (which were clearly not desiring God). He would have to infringe on our "free will" to save us because we did not want him to save us. We delighted in sin and encouraged others to do the same. Yet God had a will-He willed, before the creation of the world, that I be saved and, because of His great love for me, God did not hold in ultimate regard my free will. He broke into my life with an act of power. He made all things new. He didn't force me against my will but rather worked at a deeper level. He powerfully, against the will of my nature, changed my will by giving me a new nature! This is what the bible calls being born again. Spiritually we become new creations when God speaks his transforming word. He gave a new spirit. One totally different to the old nature. One that delights in the Creator. A nature with new eyes, eyes that have the capacity to see his glory and respond to it with love and joy unspeakable!

This realization changed my understanding of salvation completely. Previously I viewed salvation primarily as a choice. I thought I had chosen life and God had graciously granted my request to be saved. What I have seen since then is that grace is much more radical than that. Yes, salvation involves a choice but in it's essence, salvation is something that happened to me. The primary will behind what happened to me was not mine but God's. Autonomy is ultimately a realty, but it's not our autonomy, its Gods autonomy.

Our God is in the heavens; he does all that he pleases!

God didn't love and choose me because I first loved him. Grace chose me, despite my hostility, before I ever conceived of choosing Him!
In love he predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved.

I thank God for this!

What about our “free will”?

If God had not vetoed our “free will” we would be for eternity where we wanted to be, according to the bibles description of our nature and desires. We would be away from God. We would be in Hell. It is because God loved us and bore in love our resistances that we will find ourselves in heaven, seated at the throne of God. Therefore, let us not entertain that we, out of our own free will chose God. “For you did not choose me, I chose you” said Jesus. No, We love God because he first loved us. He took divine initiative in our lives and gave us a new spirit that cries, “Abba, Father!” not because it chose to before salvation (an hence we would deserve at least some credit), but because through salvation it was created to! He created in us a new spirit that can now respond to God with love. When we were saved he placed his Spirit in us. And this is why through the centuries, there have been those that have maintained that we are saved by grace and grace alone. For it was sheer grace that we received this new heart. not because we earned it or even desired it. Luther said that we make no contribution to our salvation but the sin which nailed Jesus to the cross. I thank God that he didn't give me over to my own will prior to salvation!

What then are our human decisions to follow God?

I believe that these are indispensable and inevitable expressions of our salvation. Without them we show that a new creation has not happened. When we choose Christ (initially and everyday), we are expressing what God has already done for us and in us. Obedience and joy in God are now expressions of our new nature. Our decisions are meaningful because they come from our will. Yet our will has only God to thank for it's orientation. He chose us before the creation of the world for salvation. Our salvation is not based on upon our decision but on God’s will, his purpose in election. Let this kindle your heart with love toward Almighty God. Before the creation of the world, He had already decided that he would, though the sacrifice of Christ, rescue you from the inevitable consequences of your own nature and will. From eternity past, he had his eyes set on you, to the praise of his glorious grace. And this he did with the terrible pain of the cross in mind. He made you alive through His death and resurrection. All we can do is stand humbled and in awe! This is how he sets love ablaze in our hearts. When we really see the greatness and sacrifice of the gospel. Praise his holy Name forever and ever and ever!