This is the Essential Bible Studies Podcast. My name is Tim Young. And my name is Rob Alexander. Rob, I think this may be a first. Recording a podcast on an airplane? Remind me again why we're up in the air? I just thought it would be the best way to get a lesson across on salvation. Seems a bit extreme. By the way, where are we? Well, right now we're flying over the Canadian Arctic. Far from beautiful downtown Ancaster, Ontario, Canada.
Well, no wonder it looks so barren and cold out there. Yep, it's well below freezing. You continue to amaze me. I didn't even realize you knew how to fly an airplane. No, this is the first time I've ever flown an airplane. What? Uh-oh, that's not good. Music. For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing, it is the gift of God. Ephesians 2, verse 8. This is the Essential Bible Studies Podcast. My name is Tim Young. And I'm Rob Alexander.
Rob, you okay after that crash? I should have worn long-sleeve shirts. You've been saved from the wreckage, it looks like, so you're back here at the podcast recording studios after that plane flight. Yeah. We're going to talk about why we started off that way. But in this episode, we're going to to talk about salvation. We're going to talk about being saved. And why are we talking about this? Well, usually it comes from sort of a little spark in my life or something I've run across.
And I was on the internet one day, and you know how they have these little short things on YouTube? They're kind of like TikTok videos. They're only like a minute long. And I ran across one by a fellow named Frank Turek, who has a ministry called Cross-Examined. And it kind of captured me because it was basically saying, is baptism essential for salvation? I got a minute. I can listen to that and kind of surprised me. So here it is. I'll play it for you.
And this is what he says in response to a question from the audience. Okay. Be interesting to hear. I just kind of had a quick question regarding baptism. Do you believe it's a command? Is it optional? Oh, it's certainly a command. Go, therefore, baptize in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen. And lo, I'm with you always, even to the end of the age. That's a command. Yeah. The question that more people ask is, is it required for salvation?
While water baptism is a command, if for some reason you don't get water baptized, you can still be saved. How do I know that? Well, there's a couple of ways you can know it. First of all, Paul says in 1 Corinthians 1, baptism isn't part of the gospel. He came to preach the gospel. And in Romans 1, he says, the gospel saves. So that would tell me that baptism is not part of the gospel.
It's a command you follow after you have become saved. It's a witness to everyone, but it doesn't get you saved. It's just an indication that you are saved. So there you go. You got just that small snippet. And when I watched, I said, oh, that really surprised me because my belief is that baptism is necessary for salvation, but kind of listen to what he said. And I realized that, you know, it's only 52 seconds. You can't really say too much in 52 seconds.
It's a little chopped up. That's the downside of short little snippets. You get enough to pique your interest, but it's not necessarily the full picture. So then it's like, as often happens on the internet is go following and searching, like, does he have more on this? So that I can kind of give him a little more balance and kind kind of where he's coming from. And he does. He had a full podcast episode saying seven reasons why water baptism is not essential for salvation.
So I listened to that whole thing. And he talks a lot about Acts 2 and verse 37, 38, when they hear Peter's speech and they say, men and brethren, what must we do? And Peter says, repent and be baptized. So he's trying, it's an apologetic ministry. So he's trying to explain how that means baptism is not essential for salvation, even though when you read it, it really seems like... That seems pretty straightforward. Yeah.
And when he's going through it, I realized this, and you can hear it in that short video clip, is that the reason he's trying to put this forward is because he doesn't have a right idea about salvation in the scriptures. Right. So, he's trying to say, when are you saved? And he's trying to get like a specific point in time, like the millisecond in time that you believed and then you were saved. Because rightly so, faith is essential for salvation.
And he says, that's the point you're saved. So, baptism is just an outworking of that, a work that's done. And we're not saved by works. Right, sort of a perpetual exercise, something you can do to reinforce the fact that you recognize there's a point in time in which faith has saved you. Yeah. Sounds a little bit like one saved, always saved.
It's exactly that. So it's a very popular belief that a lot of Christians hold is that they were saved at one particular point in time, and that one time they were saved, they're always saved. So no matter what happens after that, I'm saved. It only depends upon that one moment in time. Right. Now, I think we have to get a fuller understanding from Scripture. There's a lot of portions of Scripture that you might turn to that give you
a different perspective. Yeah. And just kind of look at this differently because as we've seen, if it's going to affect how you view baptism as how you're viewing salvation, it's important to get these basics correct because it leads you into other areas that are not correct. I don't think so. Yeah, no, I mean, the verse that popped into my mind is this idea of once saved, always saved.
It's sort of how Paul opens up in Romans 6 when he says, you know, shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? I mean, if there's no limitation, then if you're guaranteed salvation. But it's interesting, that very chapter where he opens with that question is all about baptism. So, I think it's a worthwhile exercise to go through and dig a little deeper into. Yeah.
We had a podcast back in season chapter two where we talked a lot about baptism and the meaning of baptism and the importance of baptism. But right now we're going to talk about salvation because I think that's really where the crux of the problem is. Lies and getting a correct understanding about salvation. And if you do have this idea of I've been saved and once saved, always saved, it's a very important point in your life.
But let's just balance this out with the rest of scripture. It's what we want to do here. And I think your idea of when you are saved has different applications. It really depends on the context of what's written and how it's written and what it means at that moment in time. There's that past, present, and future aspect of it. But actually, it was a book called Rested Scriptures. It was written by Ron Abel.
Yeah, terrific book. Yeah. And he actually uses the example of the plane crash, which is obviously the segue to the- Okay, this is where it comes in. Exactly. This is where it comes in because it's a really emphatic picture that gives you an idea of these different aspects of how you see salvation and when are you actually saved as he rolls this thing out. So if you want to indulge me, I'm just going to read the section that's painting the picture.
It's sort of filling in the little bit of the airplane story here. Because he says, imagine a downed bush pilot in the Canadian Arctic, desperately attempting to maintain his body heat in minus 60 degree Fahrenheit weather. So that obviously was pre the conversion to centigrade. So I'll let you convert that to Celsius. But he's weakened by loss of blood and broken bones. The cold of the icy blasts drive like nails through the folds of his anorak.
At night, the circle of half-starved wolves become increasingly brazen. But suddenly, in the few hours of daylight, a noise is heard out of the skies, and overhead, a rescue plane is seen coming in the direction of the downed craft. craft. Thank God I'm saved, cries the bush pilot. But he is not completely out of danger. The rescue craft may be unable to land on the rough ice surface.
And by the time a rescue team travels several miles, the pilot may perish from loss of blood or fall victim to the wakeless sleep of the Arctic cold. But even when rescued by the team and placed in the rescue aircraft, he's not saved in In the strict sense of the term, the rescue craft may lose a ski on a protruding chunk of ice, or it may itself be ruined from carburetor icing or a downdraft. Not until the bush pilot is safely back at base, fully recovered from his ordeal,
can he be said in the fullest sense to be saved. Right. Similarly in the Bible, and this is where Ron turns to scriptures and saying, is there any kind of perspective that we might apply to this story of the bush pilot? And it says Jude states that God, having saved the people out of the land of Egypt, which he did. Afterward, destroyed them that believed not. And that's from Jude 5. Having saved then is not used in the ultimate sense of eternal salvation.
Right. That's really the perspective we want to get here is that this is a process. Right. Starts at a point in time. He saw the plane. Saw the plane coming. I'm saved, but not yet. I mean, he has that hope of being saved because now we've seen that they've been recognized and do whatever you can, mark off SOS in the snow or or start a fire. But like you say, then the process starts. Then they have to get to them. Yeah. And that's a process of our life, yeah, being saved out of this world.
Right. And that's the means of salvation, whether it's a snowmobile, or whether it's a team of sled dogs, or whether it's the airplane. I mean, there's a whole bunch of things that might be put in place, but obviously, there's then these steps that you have to go through to ultimately get to a point where you now can be recovered of your injuries. Hopefully, in that whole process, You haven't lost enough blood or you haven't died of your injuries or whatever happens or died of cold.
But then ultimately, and that's what Ron says in this story, is you're not saved until truly you are saved from what it is that you want to be saved from, which I guess that's – we want to be saved from death. We want to be saved from the grave. We want to be given eternal life. That's truly when we are saved is at the end of that process. So that's after the judgment seat of Christ, when he says, well done, thou good and faithful servant. Well, exactly.
Exactly. I mean, that's where salvation does come into process. Yeah. So it can't really be said we're saved until we reach that point. Yeah, because if you think that, it does raise the question of why stand before Christ then for judgment? Yeah. Yeah. That's another question. Yeah, that's another question. There'll be another future podcast. Yeah. I think that maybe we can think of verses that we rely on to say, no, that's not the case. We're once saved, always saved.
But what we're going to try to do here is talk in... The whole picture, because we want to get the full kind of testimony of the Word of God, right? Well, and that's what's really important. A 52-second snippet of a couple of verses that, you know, even without getting into that, you've got to ensure that you've got the context right, your answer to the question is the right answer to the right question.
And it's the full scope of Scripture. You want to look at a whole balance of the Word in order to get a fuller understanding of exactly what those verses say. Each individual verse in isolation, sometimes you can unpack it and you can discover a lot of things and other things you need to join and link things together to get that fuller picture. So what we're going to do right now is just look at some verses that use different tenses, verb tenses.
It gets a little kind of into the grammar. A lot of people might not be interested in that, but of course, like verbs, right? You have in English, we can talk about something that's in the past, something that's in the present, and something that's in the the future. And the Greek's very similar. It's not a one-to-one correspondence in grammar, but you do have that ability in your verbs.
And salvation or being saved is one of these words that in the Greek can have these tenses, these verb tenses. So there's what they call an aorist tense, which is more lines with our past tense in the English. They also have a present tense or a continuous tense, which we say is like right now, what's happening right now, right? And then they have a future tense, like we have a future tense, like the idea of he might have ran somewhere, he's running somewhere,
or he will run in the future, right? We can get that sense. So when we look at this word saved, which is Strong's number 4982, if you're looking this up is a Greek word, sozo, it is used in all three tenses, which is interesting. So when you come to say, are we saved? Great. What's the tense? What's the tense? Yeah. Can you find verses that say we are saved? Yes. Right. Are we being saved? Can you find verses that say that? Yes. Are we going to be saved? Right. In the future?
Yes. You can find verses that say that too, right? So So it's just kind of flowing through with all these verses. So let's look at a couple of verses that talk about us in the past as having been saved. We're going to look at 2 Timothy 1, verse 9 as an example, our first example. Okay. Mm-hmm. 2 Timothy 1, I'm going to read from verse 8 and 9.
Therefore, do not be ashamed of the testimony about our Lord, nor of me, his prisoner, but share in suffering for the gospel by the power of God, who saved us and called us to a holy calling, not because of our works, but because of his own purpose and grace, which he gave us in Christ Jesus before the ages began. So there you go. That verse is in the past tense. The error is tense. Who saved us and called us to a holy calling. So what he's referring to Jesus Christ who saved us.
He's provided that means of salvation. We take advantage of that. And he's brought us out of sin and death in that way. Like the children of Israel out of Egypt, They were saved out of Egypt. Christ Jesus has, in the same way, saved us from sin and death. We're on that process, right? Right, right. Well, even the context of who has saved us and called us with a holy calling. I mean, there's a connection there to that past tense. There's that holy calling that has saved us. Mm-hmm.
I just put that out there because that might come up a little bit later, you know, with this aspect of the holy calling. Yes. Yeah, so along those lines, there actually is another verse which has that same past tense perspective in Titus, looking at Titus 3 and reading verses 4 and 5.
Just one book over in Titus. But after that, the kindness and love of God our Savior toward man appeared, not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit. I like this verse, not only because it talks about the past tense of him saving us, and obviously by his grace and his mercy, but also by this idea of the washing of regeneration. Yeah, what does that remind you of? Exactly. Exactly.
It's not the word baptism or baptizo in the Greek, but it's the idea of being fully bathed, like it's full immersion. And in the context, and clearly here, the context is the baptism of regeneration. So now we are, again, we're connecting this, but according to his mercy, he saved us by baptism, if you want to call it that, by regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit.
Yeah, no, I don't think that's a far cry because in Acts, when Paul was told to get baptized, he then said, wash away your sins. He was associating baptism with washing away of sins, and there's that aspect of it. And that's that same word. And that comes up here, right? So, definitely, you're getting the echo and the connection there with baptism that he saved us by the washing of regeneration. Yeah. So there it is in the past tense. I don't think that's too surprising.
So it's very fair to say, yeah, we've been saved. We've been saved, yeah. We've been saved. You can find passages that talk about that. And going back to that airplane, I mean, there's the plane that's flying overhead. We've been saved. We've been spotted. There's something that's happened in our lives. In this case, it's the downed bush pilots looked up at the plane in the sky and says, yes, I now see that I'm saved. I'm saved, right. But not yet. But not yet.
Yes. And so, there are passages that talk about salvation in the present tense, this continuous sense that it's occurring now, that we're under a process of salvation. And so, we have a couple examples of this. The first one is in 1 Corinthians 1, verse 18. 18. And there it says, for the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved, it is the power of God.
And that's the ESV translation. Right. That's where the King James doesn't pick up the tense, because it just says, are saved, it is the power of God. Like you say, in the Greek, it's a continuous sense. Yeah. And there are tools. I mean, if you're really interested in the tenses of the Greek, there are online tools. You can go to the Blue Letter Bible, and if you break down the verse using that online source, it'll tell you the tenses of the verbs.
And so even in the King James, even though it is in the past tense, every modern translation you look out there, it is in the present tense because that's what the word is in the Greek. CB, It's an interesting passage because it's right after the one that's mentioned in the video. Well, that's right. I just noticed it. That's exactly what he's quoting from in verse 17. Yeah, so it's right afterwards, kind of ironically, right? It mentions that we're not saved. We are being saved.
Right, right. This is Paul saying in verse 17, For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel, and not with words of eloquent wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power. So he uses that to say that baptism is not the gospel. But I think we have to understand the context here. Right. This is the answer, but what's the question?
What is the question? Again, this is where you kind of have to get above and look at the whole context and realize there's an argument being made that who baptized you is important. You know, I'm of Apollos or I'm of Cephas. And Paul goes now to great lengths to point out that has nothing to do with the gospel in terms of who baptized you. Yes. And that's when he says, you know, I'm glad that I didn't baptize anyone but two, Crispus and Gaius.
Yeah, he actually says he did baptize. He did baptize. Absolutely. And that's the other point. He did baptize. So the answer to the question, the question is, does it matter who I'm baptized by? Yes. By Apollo or by Paul or by Peter. Yes. Exactly. So it's important to ask the right question. Right. Exactly. Why is he actually saying this? Yeah. He's saying, I've just come to preach the gospel. It doesn't matter who baptizes you. Right.
Exactly. Exactly. So not in any way saying it's not important. You shouldn't be baptized. It's just it doesn't matter who baptized you. Right. Yeah. Yeah. That's interesting then when he turns in the very next verse to say, to us who are being saved, it is the power of God. Right. And he's including himself. Paul's including himself that I'm being saved. Yeah. But he says us. So if anybody's been saved, it's of course been Paul, but he doesn't always use that language.
It depends on the context of what he's trying to emphasize. In this case, he's trying to emphasize this continuous aspect of our continued belief and holding on to those. Right. Well, that will also suggest that there is a condition in a sense, that it's not automatic. It's not like once you're saved, always save. But there's this continuing process of being saved.
And that's where just further on in the letter and towards the end in chapter 15, you get this conditional statement being made by Paul. And it's in 1 Corinthians 15, verse 2. Why don't you just read from verse 1 and 2? Yeah, you want to do that for context? Yeah, just to give the context. Sure.
Moreover, brethren, I declare unto you the gospel which I preached unto you, which also ye have received, and wherein ye stand, by which also ye are saved, if ye keep in memory what I preached unto you, unless ye have believed in vain. So let's again, that's a King James Version you're reading from there. Yes, so. Can I read it from the ESV? You can do that, yes. I just noticed the difference here.
Now, it would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, and by which you are being saved. If you hold fast to the word I preached to you, unless you believed in vain. So there again, it's very slight. Yes. But it's an important little distinction there that that is an example of the Greek word saved being in the present tense. You are being saved. Right. And I like looking at the words around it too,
because it says it's keeping in memory. That's the King James Version. I think you said. Hold fast to the word. Hold fast to the word. Hold fast to the gospel word. Yeah. Yeah. So you've heard the gospel, but now you need to keep the gospel. There's a process by which you are going to be saved. So again, the downed bush pilot, there's a whole string of events that need to occur before he actually winds up in the base ready to be cared for and cured of his wounds.
So, you know, there's the snowmobile and the dog sleds and the airplane taking off and landing. There's all these things that have to happen in between. And at any point in time, it could fall short. It could suddenly not end the way you would like it to end. And it's very much our work in the truth. We recognize that there's the gospel. There's the holy calling. We see that we're saved, that God's provided through his grace and opportunity.
And now we have this continuous process in our lives where we're trying to keep the word, keep it in memory. So being saved by holding fast. And there's some other verses we can look at there too. That word if, the conditional if you say that. Exactly. I like to say is one of those big little words in scripture. It turns the whole thing, right? Yes. It's like a word you want to circle just so you emphasize it. And I did, actually, in my Bible. Have you? Yeah. I circled it.
I'll do that right now. And it speaks to the judgment seat again. When you're standing, it's if ye, because it's not for us to decide if we've kept it in memory. It's not up to us to decide if we've done those things to be saved. It'll be when we stand before our judging king. If you want to circle the word if in a couple of other passages—, Some other ones would be Colossians 1, verse 23, and Hebrews 3 and verse 14.
And just look in the context there. We won't turn them up, but if you want to take a little diversion, the word if becomes a very big word in those passages as well. That's important as well. It's just not one occurrence. There's more than one, and they're all in the same context and meaning. Right. So we are being saved, but then there's the ultimate aspect of being saved in the future.
And probably one of the most key verses comes right from our Lord Jesus Christ in Matthew chapter 10 and verse 22. Basically, in the context, he's going through several trials that they're going to face at a certain time. But he says at the end of verse 22, but the one who endures to the end will be saved. Yeah, that's powerful. That's a very powerful run. And so there's this idea of endurance again that we're talking about that's important so that he says,
we will be saved. That's a future tense right there, right? For those that endure to the end. To the end. And so he gives several examples in that context of those who do not endure to the end. They fall to the different temptations and trials that come along in life. Yeah, this aspect of endurance is definitely very important. Actually, 1 Timothy 4, verse 16. So, this is our second example of the future tense for the word saved. Right. And this is instructions of Paul to Timothy. Yeah.
Obviously, he had a very close affiliation. I mean, even at the beginning of Timothy, he calls him my son in the faith. Right. And so, in verse 16 of chapter 4 of 1 Timothy, Right. He instructs Timothy first to take heed unto thyself and unto the doctrine. So obviously the word, continue in them. So there's that idea of continuance and being persistent. For in doing this, thou shalt both save thyself and them that hear thee. So here's something. I mean, Timothy was right next to Paul.
For all intents and purposes, he had heard the gospel. He's motivated to follow the gospel. He's saved. Yes. And yet Paul's saying, well, not yet. Take heed to thyself, endure to the end, and keep the doctrine, keep the word.
I mean, that's the other thing that just a good instruction to all of us is to be diligent in our study and understanding and not be going down too many rabbit holes, as it were, or misinterpreting, understanding context and not getting swayed by arguments that at the end of the day, when you really look into them, don't start to make sense. So even Paul's saying to Timothy, you're not saved yet. Take heed to thyself, continue in the doctrine.
And in doing this, you save thyself and those that hear thee. Right. If you think of anybody besides Paul who would be saved, it would be Timothy. Yeah, exactly. And if it was one saved, always saved, he wouldn't say, you will save yourself and others. Yep. So I think that's very helpful. And we get an example here of salvation being both used in the past tense, present tense, and in the future tense. So it gets us back to that question again, what is salvation? What saves you?
Is it just one moment in time that you're only saved by your your faith. We can delve into this a little bit more. I think it's going to be helpful to find that, yes, we are saved by God's grace through faith, but then that leads us to obedience. Which the first act is baptism, and that leads us to leave a fruitful life, a life of holiness before God. And all of these together are important for salvation.
They're a chain, they're a growing process that if we become stunted in any one of these aspects of our life, we are in danger of not being saved in the ultimate sense. Let's go through these passages about salvation. The first one is Ephesians 2, verses 8 and 10. And this is the one that's, I think rightly so, usually stated first as an aspect of salvation. And this is the one that's emphasized by people who want to believe in once saved, always saved. Right.
Let's look at this, and there's no doubt about it. it. This is Ephesians 2, starting at verse 8. For by grace you have been saved through faith. This is not your own doing. It is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast of, For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. So we start right there. This is the first point, and I think this is the emphasis, is that salvation starts with God.
It's his calling. It's his grace. It's his gift. And this is the emphasis that Paul wants to put upon it, and I think we should in our lives too, is that we didn't initiate this. We didn't initiate that plane flying and actually discovering us, right? Right, exactly. It came, and it's up to us to respond to that, to wave our hands and say, here I am, save me, and send up the SOS signals. But we can't say it's anything that we've done.
Absolutely. God didn't create the world to save us, as per se. I mean, but he understood the situation that we're in, that we're condemned to death by the reason of our sin. And so he's now provided that mechanism. He's provided that plane, but he's provided the gospel. but he's provided his son, the Lord Jesus Christ, so that through faith we can be saved.
And even within this passage, there's that transition from the faith that we have in this grace that's been extended to us that now manifests us in our walk. That we then, it says that we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them. Yeah, yeah. I mean, there's the instruction. Now you have that faith, and now there's a progression. There's some extra steps.
And actually- if you just look at it in isolation, it doesn't talk about baptism. In fact, it just talks about professing. So yeah, so Romans 10 and looking at verse 9, that if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. And absolutely true. But the scriptures do not hang on that verse or your salvation does not hang on that verse to say, well, that's all you have to do.
Because again, that's where we We can get off track if we think that all we have to do is confess with our lips and believe with our hearts. Important first steps, important continuance in that, yes. Exactly, exactly. Very important. And that's where he continues to write, and actually in verse 13 he says, For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. So it's continuing along the same lines. But again, I also like to look at verse 17 because we talk about the grace that's
being offered. We talk about the faith that we have to have. And Paul, in this same chapter, in chapter 10, is also saying, well, how does that actually come about? How do we get to that point? Because it shouldn't be a blind faith. Yeah. It's a call to understand, and that's what he's bringing out in verse 17. He says, so then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. That aspect of hearing, it's an active word. It's not just listening. Yeah.
I can listen to a lot of things, not paying attention, not doing anything about it. Or you can listen to them and understand and it just doesn't impact you, right? So you just disregard it. Exactly. I think that word really in Scripture, when it comes to the full sense of it, in the Hebrew especially, not just means to listen, but also to obey. There's an aspect of obedience in this listening. It's that motive,
yeah, once you've heard it. Yeah. So this really comes out in another passage we bring out here about salvation in Hebrews 5 and verse 9. Speaking about Jesus, I'll start in verse 8. Let's see, Hebrews 5, verses 8 and 9. Although he was a son, talking about Jesus, he learned obedience through what he suffered. And being made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation to all who obey him. Right. So there's another connection there, right? Salvation is for all those who obey him.
Eternal salvation, not just some sort of saved from a plane wreck, but eternal salvation, eternal life is based upon obedience. Jesus Christ had to learn obedience. So if we're following that example of the Lord Jesus Christ, we're going to be obedient. So is it important, the command to be baptized? Right, which wasn't disputed. It is a commandment. It is a commandment. So can you be saved by not following through on the commandments?
Right, right. Well, this verse would seem to indicate, no, you have to obey as well, and that will be the true outcome of our faith. Exactly. And that connection to then baptism is that commandment, is that act. Yeah, I guess it was the first act of obedience, right? And it's interesting how when Peter is talking about baptism, he's talking about how important it is.
And he brings an example for it, and this is that 1 Peter 3, verse 21, which again was referred to at the beginning of the podcast here. But it's interesting even just the context. Yeah, because of all the examples, Peter wants to talk about the importance of baptism. Yeah. So he says, okay, so of all the things that have happened in the past recorded in Scripture, what's the one piece of evidence or instruction or support that I would want to turn to?
And he chooses Noah and the ark. Yeah. You know, so- Because it involves water, yeah. Yeah, it involves water, and he's very specific to link it to how important baptism is. He says in 1 Peter 3 and verse 21, but I'll read verse 20 for context. Text. He says, "...while sometimes were disobedient, when once the long-suffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was a-preparing, wherein, that is, eight souls or lives were saved by water.".
The like figure, whereunto even baptism doth also now save us. So, you know, there's that present tense. There's a present tense, yeah. Not the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience towards God by the resurrection of Jesus Christ. So, the thing that struck me is, if baptism isn't essential for salvation, why would Peter choose Noah and the ark as the example?
When I don't think Noah had a choice that once he believed in what God was said, I'm going to destroy this earth with water, but hey, it's up to you whether you build the ark or not. You're saved. I don't think that was the message. He expected Noah to be motivated to work out his own salvation with fear and trembling to build the ark and to save his family and to put themselves in the ark and God closed the door.
I don't know how you could not see that it was a commandment. It was essential, yeah. Exactly, exactly. Exactly. So our faith, our true faith is going to motivate us to do something. In Noah's case, it was to build the ark, saved him. In our case, it's to undergo baptism. Yeah. It's not an option. Yeah. That one's very hard to get around, right? So I've never heard anybody really try to get around this, but it says baptism, which now saves you. Right.
So there's that aspect I'm just thinking right now of the words of the Lord Jesus Christ in Mark 16, verse 16. Yes. He very pointedly said, he who believes and is baptized shall be saved, and he who believes not shall be condemned. So he links those two things together, belief and baptism, for salvation, and that is the future sense, will be saved. But you can't really disconnect the two and say salvation is any point in that time.
It's a continuum of all of these things together in consistency, in a life of consistency. Right, right. No, absolutely. And there's lots of other scriptures where, again, there's that very clear commandment of repent and be baptized. Yeah. I'd made a couple of quick notes, but John 3, 5, except a man be born of water and of the Spirit. So, again, it just reinforces that there's lots of scripture and evidence that concludes that baptism is a very important critical step.
It's that act of obedience that we were talking about before. Yeah. You know, there's that continuous sense of working towards our salvation. And I think that's probably really where the hang-up is, is because he says it's not by our works. It's by the grace of God through faith. He's really just saying at the beginning point of where everything starts, don't put works before grace. Exactly. There's an order.
There's an order here. He's created you for good works, but that's after his grace has called you to repentance and to be baptized and then to follow through with works. So, our works are important. They do matter for salvation. Yeah, absolutely. But you don't start there, right? No, and that is what some people would think. Well, I'm a good person. I do good works. Yeah. Right? And therefore, I will be saved. Right. As if God owes you something, right? Right, right. That's not the way it is.
I've got to check the ledger, and I think I've got a lot of pluses on this. Or we can boast about it, saying, yeah, look at all the great stuff I've done, because we really still all believe it's God working through us. And one verse I love in this regard is Philippians chapter 2, in verses 12 and 13. So when we talk about working for salvation, this passage here always makes me scratch my head, but I think it's beautiful on how it really kind of balances it.
Here's what it says. Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now not only as in my presence, but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. For it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure. Interesting. So the King James actually isn't as emphatic. It says to do of his good pleasure rather than to work. Yeah.
So when we talk about our own works, he's saying we have to work out our own salvation, but we're not doing this alone, for God is working in us. It's teamwork together. So open up your heart, soften your heart, keep that attitude of repentance in your life. Always, right? That's allowing God to mold you so that you bring forth these fruits. If we harden our hearts, if we are deceived by sin, God's going to be able to work with that, and there's going to be that if statement, right?
Right, right. If, yeah, you haven't endured to the end. Right. So there's always that danger of falling away from where we stand in this grace. And not to say that it won't ever happen, that we fall away from time to time or we fall down, Yeah, but we always, you know, God's there to forgive us. We pick ourselves up, and that's that aspect of a continuing process of working out our own salvation. Yeah, it's all part of growing, yeah. I think that's where we leave it, right, Rob?
That we have to understand salvation in this aspect of, yes, we have been saved. We are being saved. We will be saved. And that salvation really incurs the grace of God. It has to do with our faith, of course. It has to do with belief, has to do with obeying. Yes. And that first of all has to do with baptism. It's a commandment. You have to do it. It's tied into it. Right. And bringing forth fruit and holiness unto God's name.
It's all there. So hopefully we get a bigger picture, a more fuller sense of salvation and what it means to be saved. Yes. No, absolutely. Very strong. Thanks for the journey. I can't say I enjoyed the plane ride with you. Ha ha ha. Yeah, but we made it, at least to this point. Up to this point, yeah. We're not completely saved yet, but we are looking forward to the return of Christ and to stand before him and ultimately be saved, be closed with immortality and receive eternal life.
All right. Thanks, Rob. That was fun. Yeah, absolutely. Thank you for inviting me. Music. Rob and I are so glad you've taken the time to study God's Word with us. Join us again next week when Jay Mayock will be here to talk about the ages of the Spirit. This is a study into the powerful and miraculous Holy Spirit gifts of God. At what times in history were they given and how are they relevant to us today?
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