Salvation Is Needed
Robert Meredith
The greatest need that anyone has is to be saved. God created man in His own image (Genesis 1:26-27). God is a Being of choice and created man to be one as well. Because of this fact, man can choose to be faithful to God or to disobey Him. The Apostle Paul informs us that all people, in time, choose to disobey the loving Creator. He declared, “For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). This disobedience causes the violator to be separated from God. In Isaiah 59:1-2 one can read, “Behold, the Lord’s hand is not shortened, that it cannot save; neither His ear heavy, that it cannot hear: But your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid His face from you, that He will not hear.” This separation from God is spiritual death (Romans 6:23 and James 2:26).
Notice from Ephesians 2:12 what the Apostle Paul said about the Gentile condition before the gospel had been taken to them, “That at that time ye were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world.” When an individual is outside of Christ, he has no hope of salvation and is without God. The reason he is without God is because he has been separated from Him by his sins (Isaiah 59:2). However, there is a way for man to be reconciled to God. Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by Me” (John 14:6). Because of Jesus Christ, one can once again be back in proper relationship with God. Paul wrote, “And you, that were sometime alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now hath He reconciled in the body of His flesh through death, to present you holy and unblamable and unreprovable in His sight” (Colossians 1:21-22). Salvation is needed because of sin, and Christ’s sacrifice for sin has made it possible for mankind to once again stand in God’s sight and be considered holy, unblamable and unreprovable. Paul points out this wonderful grace in Romans 3:24-26, and proclaims that God can now be just (the penalty for sin has now been paid) and the justifier of mankind by the fact that Jesus’ sacrifice for sin paid the penalty.
In every dispensation of time man has always accessed God’s grace through an obedient faith (Romans 5:2 with Romans 1:5 and Romans 16:26). Today, it is no different. Paul, after saying that man could be holy because of Jesus’ sacrifice (Colossians 1:21-22), said, “If ye continue in the faith grounded and settled, and be not moved away from the hope of the gospel, which ye have heard…” (Colossians 1:23). The word “if” shows that salvation is conditional. If one continues in the teachings of Christ, then he will stand before God holy, unblamable and unreprovable. If he does not continue faithful, then he will be unholy, blamable and reprovable, thus lost and separated from God forever in a place prepared for the devil and his angels (Matthew 25:41).