This is a response to the question: What does it mean ‘to be Saved’?
“Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”
-Romans 10:13
And everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.’
-Acts 2:21
And everyone who calls on the name of the LORD will be saved;
-Joel 2:32
We, human beings, exist as spirit. We got it as a gift from God during Creation. After God created the universe, He created us. He loved us so much that He made us in His own image and He breathed in us His Spirit.
Then the LORD God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.
-Genesis 2:7
As creatures within God’s creation, we are all subjected to the laws of God. The situation is straight forward, God is perfectly Holy and in His holiness no evil, no darkness, and no sin can exist in His presence without being nullified. Let’s just say that darkness dies when light comes. The two cannot exist together, in this way, sin cannot be where God is. (This explains why God has to put a veil over Moses’ face and why God has to use messengers or appear in disguised forms in dealing with us. Out of mercy He will not show Himself to us sinners lest His holiness consumes us.)
This brings our attention to the gravity of Adam and Eve’s action when they disobeyed God in The Garden. Before Adam and Eve sinned, they can walk and talk freely with God. But the moment they disobeyed and sinned against The Holy One, they were at once kicked out of the Garden which they have been enjoying since the beginning. Since this mishap, God who is perfectly holy cannot be with the sinful blood of man. We have sinned and we are therefore rebels and exiles before The Holy God. We cannot be with Him. This separation from our Creator is the cause of all of creation’s pain and suffering.
And unto Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life;
-Genesis 3:17
Man has sinned before a perfect and Holy God. We are therefore sent away from His presence; thus, we are living a life that is destined for pain, punishment, death, and even of hell. No one is free from Sin. There is no one then who is free from death and eternal damnation. We, as creatures in His image, need to be with Him, we need to be with our Creator; but we cannot. Not with our sins and with our imperfections
Thankfully, God, who is all holy is also all loving. And he cannot accept man’s futile destiny. He loves us so much that He cannot see His Creation suffer – especially not His prized creation which contains His Spirit. God Almighty then made a way to save us from this eternal torment that we have created for ourselves. And this one and only way for Salvation is for God send His one and only Son to this world to pay for our sins.
Jesus Christ had to hang on the cross to die for our sins. To die in our place, to suffer in our place. Jesus Christ saved our spirits from death and from eternal exile and torment. Jesus’ life and sacrifice overly paid for our sins that He didn’t just save us from death but he also made us to be children of The Most High God.
This is what being saved means. That we were once sentenced to death and eternal damnation but Jesus Christ paid for the price with His very own sinless life. Because of His death on the cross, we are no longer debtors to our sins and its consequences. To be saved is to no longer experience our death in hell. To be saved means that we will return to our Father in heaven when we leave this earth.
All of these are made possible because of Jesus Christ’s sacrifice on the cross. Jesus Christ saved us from our sins, and He saved us from death and eternal damnation. All we have to do is to believe in Him and what He has done for us.
This is Salvation. This is the Good News. This is the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ.