61. Is salvation only pardon and assurance?
No. By regeneration, God renews us in righteousness through Jesus Christ, by the power of the Holy Spirit.
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The gospel announces God’s provision for our deliverance from the twin problems that have beset human beings—our alienation from the life of God through disobedience and the deformation of our very nature in consequence of that alienation. Thus the forgiveness of sins is just the negative aspect of salvation—what God delivers us from. There is also a positive aspect what God delivers us for; namely, our transformation from the inside out so that we reflect God’s righteous character and walk in line with his holiness. Salvation looks for a greater and fuller work of God in us than simply pardon: it is the result of justification, regeneration, and sanctification.
This might involve a shift in thinking for many people who are accustomed to speaking about how they “got saved” when they accepted Jesus as their Savior. It is far more biblical to speak about looking ahead to salvation as we follow Jesus our Lord along the whole way that he leads us since the time we took that first step with him (see, for example, how the early church leaders speak about “salvation” in Rom. 5:9–10; 13:11; Phil. 2:12–13; 1 Thess. 5:8; 2 Thess. 2:13; Heb. 1:14; 9:28; 1 Peter 1:5, 9; 2:2).
The inaugural moment in the new life for which we were saved is called “regeneration” or “the new birth.” God changes our very nature from that which had been created in the likeness of Adam—“spiritually dead, dead to God, wholly dead in sin,” as Wesley described it (“The New Birth” I.4)—to that which is now re-created in God’s own image, such that we have the capacity to reflect God’s holiness and goodness. As Charles Wesley put this in the words of a verse typically omitted from “Hark! the Herald Angels Sing”:
Adam’s likeness now efface,
Stamp Thine image in its place;
Second Adam from above,
Reinstate us in Thy love.
This “new birth” fulfills God’s long-standing promises—the promise in Ezekiel of a “new heart” and “new spirit” that will be inclined to obey God (Ezek. 36:26–27) and the promise in Jeremiah not only that God will put our sins out of his remembrance but also that God will write his law upon the heart so that obedience from the heart follows (Jer. 31:31–34). The latter is explicitly called the “new covenant,” and this is precisely what Christ inaugurated and the Spirit makes possible.
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“I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws.” (Ezek. 36:26–27 NIV)
You were taught to put away your former way of life, your old self, corrupt and deluded by its lusts, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to clothe yourselves with the new self, created according to the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness. (Eph. 4:22–24)
But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that being justified by his grace we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life. (Titus 3:4–7 ESV)
See also 1 Cor. 2:14–16; Gal. 2:20; 5:16–25; Eph. 2:1–5; 2 Peter 1:4; CoF IX
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This is an excerpt from Christian Faith and Doctrine: An Annotated Catechism for the Global Methodist Church. Seedbed is pleased to partner with The Global Methodist Church to offer this companion resource to A Catechism of Christian Faith and Doctrine for the Global Methodist Church.
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