I'm Basically A Good Person

"I'm basically a good person and try to keep the 10 commandments"

When talking about the subject of salvation, it is very common to hear a person express their feeling in a way very similar to the quotation above.

The statement shows that most people understand the term "salvation" to be somehow related to the concept of "judgment." It is, in fact, a kind of preliminary defense used to express their hopeful good treatment in any such trial.

It is only to be expected that judgment is brought up since it is, after all, that very same judgment that the person is hoping to be "saved from."

Those who believe in this idea of judgment, and salvation as the hopeful outcome of it are victims of what Dr. Dwight Pentecost calls:

"a mischievous habit" that has led the Christian world to speak of the judgment as being one great event taking place at the end of the world, when all human beings, saints, sinners, Jews and Gentiles, the living and the dead, shall stand up before the great white throne and there be judged. Nothing can be more wide of the teaching of the Scriptures."

(quoted by C. I. Scofield in Rightly Dividing the Word of Truth, The Five Judgments, chapter 5)

Counteracting this "mischievous habit" (actually it is a Great Lie) will be a central goal of this study. The means of correcting it will be by presenting God's truths pertaining to the facts and mechanics of the Salvation Process.

That is not saying it is some kind of "scientific" explanation. It would not be rational to attempt to apply scientific principles to explain spiritual truths. The two are simply unrelated. Science is a part of the physical realm and can not explain the things belonging to the spiritual realm.

At the same time this is not principally an academic or theological explanation of salvation (called Soteriology from the Greek words for "save" and "word" or study). Hopefully it will be a very practical guide to understanding the truth about the great salvation that has been made available to us through the sacrificial work of Jesus on the Cross.

The study of Salvation will include such topics as:
Religion, Revelation, The Nature of Man, Salvation, Judgment, Faith, The Cross, Resurrection, and Heaven and Hell.


Read Exodus 20:1-17 to refresh your memory of the 10 Commandments.
Bible reminder tip: 10 (X) + Exodus (X) = 20 (XX)