In the initial stage of God’s full salvation the believers experience God’s calling, the Spirit’s sanctification, their repentance, believing, and being baptized, Christ’s redemption, their union with the Triune God, and the Spirit’s regeneration. Hence, they are saved, that is, they have received God’s eternal salvation. Concerning salvation, the Bible speaks of at least five kinds: eternal salvation, daily salvation, environmental salvation, salvation of the body, and salvation of the soul. In this lesson we will cover only the first kind of salvation, that is, eternal salvation.
We have been saved because of God’s love. God’s love is the source of God’s salvation. If God had not loved us, we would not have received salvation. God’s heart is love, and His heart so loved us “that He gave us His only begotten Son” (John 3:16) to prepare salvation for us. His great love caused Him to love us, who were not only sinners but also dead ones, those who were deeply fallen and were dead in offenses and sins. Thus, He made us alive and caused us to ascend to the heavens together with Christ (Eph. 2:4-6). Therefore, our salvation is because of God’s love.
We have been saved according to God’s mercy (Titus 3:5). According to our true condition, we not only were short of righteous deeds, but we also were full of sins and were therefore unworthy of God’s love. But God not only loves us; He is also rich in mercy (Eph. 2:4). His mercy reaches farther than His love. Because of His mercy, His love was able to reach us and to visit us, the fallen and unbecoming ones, lifting us up from an undeserving position that we might be worthy to enjoy His love. His love prepared salvation for us, while His mercy caused Him to bestow His salvation upon us, the undeserving ones.
We have been saved by God’s grace (Eph. 2:8-9). Because God loves us, He has given us grace. This grace has become the source of our eternal salvation. We have been saved by grace, which comes out of God’s love and which is through His mercy. This grace is not of ourselves; it is the gift of God. It is also not of our works, which have nothing to do with our eternal salvation (2 Tim. 1:9). We were saved apart from our works; in fact, we were saved altogether according to God’s grace, which came to us through the Lord Jesus (John 1:17). By this grace He accomplished salvation for us, performing everything that was necessary for us to be saved. Therefore, we have been saved by God’s grace and not by our works.
The source of our salvation is God’s love, God’s mercy, and God’s grace, while the accomplishment of our salvation is by the Triune God. It is the Triune God who saved us and became our Savior: God the Father planned, God the Son accomplished what the Father planned, and God the Spirit applies to us what God the Son accomplished (Eph. 1:3-14). Therefore, the Bible addresses God particularly as “God our Savior” (1 Tim. 1:1; 4:10) and “our Savior God” (1 Tim. 2:3; Titus 1:3; 2:10; 3:4).
The three parables spoken by the Lord Jesus in Luke 15 unveil and depict the work of the divine Trinity in bringing fallen sinners back, through the Son by the Spirit, to the Father. The Son came in His humanity as the Shepherd to find the sinner as a lost sheep and bring him back home. The Spirit seeks the sinner as a woman seeks carefully one lost coin until she finds it. And the Father receives the repenting and returned sinner as a certain man receives his prodigal son. The entire divine Trinity treasures the sinner and participates in bringing him back to God. Therefore, the Triune God Himself is the Accomplisher of our salvation; He is the One who completed the work of salvation.