Q&A – WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO BE “SAVED?” - 6

WBS.268

Q&A – WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO BE “SAVED?” - 6

Ephesians 2:8  For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of IAUE:    

I suppose many people who would endeavor to answer our question, “What does it mean to be saved?” would begin with this verse.  The problem with starting here is that it would not break you free from the traditional western Christian mindset to enable you to see the broader picture of what the Scriptures really declare. I have heard scores of teachers and preachers begin with this verse and add to it “Ye must be born again,” and conclude that salvation is a “free gift” that is an eternally secure ticket to Heaven. One must simply “accept Jesus as your personal Lord and Savior,” and you will be born again, and Heaven-bound.  This mindset is alien to the Scriptures and to those who penned them.

Christianity has become so divorced from its Hebrew root that most people sitting in church pews every Sunday have never even had a fleeting thought about the fact that IAUE sent His Son to die to deliver us from continuing to live in sin, not simply to forgive us of sin. Because of this Gentile Christian theological mindset, one can read the New Testament regularly for the rest of their life and never recognize the relevance of the constantly repeated exhortations to the believer to walk in the light, to cease the works of the flesh, to lay aside the sin that so easily besets us, to replace pride with humility, to have no part with the unfruitful works of darkness, etc. 

Let’s take a closer look at this verse that most Christians can quote in a sing-song manner without even thinking of what it really says.

Ephesians 2:8  For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of IAUE:    

First, we are saved by grace.  What is grace?  Have you bought into the western Christianity definition that it is “unmerited favor?” It is much more powerful than that. Grace is power.  More specifically, it is the power that IAUE gives that enables man to do His will. Apart from this power of IAUE upon our lives we can go through the motions of obedience, but it will be a work of the flesh, rather than a fruit of the Spirit. Grace makes obedience effortless.  It can be illustrated by a vacuum cleaner.  If you run a vacuum cleaner over the floor, it will not pick up the dirt leaving you with a clean floor no matter how hard you work at it; but when you turn the power on the unit, the vacuum cleaner does what it is supposed to do effortlessly.  The power is what enables the vacuum cleaner to do what it is designed to do.  Even so, grace is the power that IAUE gives us that enables us to do what we are designed to do…the will of our Father. It is what enables us to live our lives without the dirt.

Secondly, we are saved by grace THROUGH faith.  Faith (Greek: pistis) means “conviction that comes from having been fully persuaded.” Its root (peitho) means “to persuade.”  Faith, then, is a belief upon which our lives rely and depend without question or doubt because we are fully persuaded. This faith is the catalyst that produces the grace by which we are saved. Faith must come first.  Grace follows.  Salvation is what that produces; and THAT is a righteous life, a life lived free from sin, doing the will of IAUE effortlessly.

Thirdly, this process is not something we can work or do of ourselves.  Only IAUE can make it happen.  No one comes to Messiah but that the Father first reveals His Son to them.  No one can live free from sin, apart from the faith that brings us the grace by which we are empowered to live righteously. All such efforts to please IAUE by our works is nothing more than sweeping with a vacuum cleaner with the power turned off. The dirt remains.

Romans 1:16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Messiah: for it is the power of Elohim unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek.

17 For therein is the righteousness of IAUE revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, The just shall live by faith.

The gospel is the message that “persuades” man to have the belief, the conviction and the confidence that Yahushua is the Son of IAUE, that he died to remit the penalty of our sins, to bring us into relationship with IAUE; and to position us to receive the grace of IAUE unto a life lived in righteousness.  Our faith must be in Yahushua for this to occur.  Herein is the main problem of western Christianity.  Once a person prays “the magic prayer” and is born again; we are told, “Now that you are born again, you are saved,” and almost immediately our confidence is removed from the person of Yahushua and is placed upon the subjective experience of the new birth.  This is misplaced confidence; and the Father does not pour out his grace upon one whose faith is in having been born again; and it is by grace that we are saved. Faith in Yahushua places us in the river of IAUE’s grace.  Faith in the new birth does not.

Galatians 5:4  Messiah is become of no effect unto you, whosoever of you are justified by the law; ye are fallen from grace.

This is a perfect illustration of what it means to move one’s confidence in Yahushua alone to something else. Here it was a belief that if they kept the law of Moses, they would be justified, that they would be made righteous.  Notice that it is being made righteous that was their objective. Paul tells the Galatian disciples because their faith was moved away from Messiah; they were removed from the flow of IAUE’s grace, the ONLY thing that empowers man to live righteously before IAUE.  You cannot walk in the light.  You cannot walk uprightly before IAUE apart from the provision of His grace; and you are not a candidate for His grace if your confidence is in anything other than His Son, Yahushua Messiah.  It is for this reason that we see such exhortations in the Scripture:

2 Corinthians 13:5 Examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith; prove your own selves. Know ye not your own selves, how that Yahushua Messiah is in you, except ye be reprobates?

Romans 11:19 Thou wilt say then, The branches were broken off, that I might be grafted in.

20 Well; because of unbelief they were broken off, and thou standest by faith. Be not highminded, but fear:

21 For if Elohim spared not the natural branches, take heed lest he also spare not thee.

22 Behold therefore the goodness and severity of Elohim: on them which fell, severity; but toward thee, goodness, if thou continue in his goodness: otherwise thou also shalt be cut off.

Hebrews 3:12 Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief, in departing from the living Elohim.

13 But exhort one another daily, while it is called To day; lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin.

14 For we are made partakers of Messiah, if we hold the beginning of our confidence stedfast unto the end; 

Colossians 1:21 And you, that were sometime alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now hath he reconciled

22 In the body of his flesh through death, to present you holy and unblameable and unreproveable in his sight:

23 If ye continue in the faith grounded and settled, and be not moved away from the hope of the gospel, which ye have heard, and which was preached to every creature which is under heaven; whereof I Paul am made a minister;

The writer of the book of Hebrews provides us with another interesting take on how we can miss out on the provision of the grace of IAUE (by which we are “saved”).

Hebrews 12:14  Follow peace with all men, and holiness, without which no man shall see the Master:

15 Looking diligently lest any man fail of the grace of Elohim; lest any root of bitterness springing up trouble you, and thereby many be defiled;

A root of bitterness can defile one’s faith in Messiah and cause him/her to step out of the river of IAUE’s grace.  If we contemplate that, we can imagine that whatever can make one bitter probably is based on blaming IAUE or Yahushua for some hardship or injustice.  The flesh reacts to it, blames IAUE, and faith in Messiah is halted (at least for the time being).  Without present continuous confidence and reliance upon Messiah, we cease being recipients of IAUE’s grace.  Our deliverance from a life of unrighteousness is absolutely dependent upon this grace by which we are empowered to walk uprightly.

Romans 1:18 For the wrath of IAUE is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness;

Being born again equips us to walk in grace through faith in Messiah.  It is not an end in itself. We can look at it as the installation of a transformer that receives the power/grace of IAUE and enables us to convert that flow of power into an effortless obedience to His will.  IAUE is looking for a righteous people, not just a born-again people.  We are born again UNTO a righteous life.

This misunderstanding of what it means to be saved is the foundation for the sinful lackadaisical condition of contemporary Christianity.  Churches are filled with people who believe that having prayed “the” prayer, they are going to Heaven; that they are “saved.”  Being saved means we have been delivered from all that has prevented us from walking righteously before IAUE, and we are responding to the grace that IAUE gives us because we trust in, rely on, and have confidence solely in His Son, our Messiah.