Why did God save you?
It’s not a bad question, if you think about it. After all, you were dead in your sins and trespasses (Eph. 2:1). As a descendent of the first man, Adam, you share in the guilt and corruption of his, the first sin (Rom. 5:12–21). You were an enemy of God (v. 10), a sinner brought forth in iniquity (Ps. 51:5), by nature deserving of wrath (Eph. 2:3). You were a sinner who sinned and deserved to die (Rom. 6:23). But here’s the good news for every Christian reading this book: the Bible says that, at just the right time, Jesus Christ died for you (5:8). The Good Shepherd laid down his life for his sheep (John 10:15). Jesus drank the cup of God’s wrath for you (see Mark 10:45). His death on the cross means God is now for you instead of against you (Rom. 3:25; 8:31–39). By faith, through the life, death, and resurrection of Christ, you are a reconciled, justified, adopted child of God. What good news!
But why?
Maybe you’ve thought about how God saves us, or what we must do to be saved, or when you were saved. But have you ever considered why he saved you?
There is more than one right answer to that question. The Bible says God saved us because he loves us (John 3:16). It also tells us that God saved us for the praise of his own name (Eph. 1:6, 12, 14). Those are two of the best answers to the why question.
But there is another answer—just as good, just as biblical, just as important. God saved you so that you might be holy. Pay attention to the purpose statement in this passage from Ephesians:
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him . . . that we should be holy and blameless before him. (Eph. 1:3–4)
God chose us for salvation in eternity past and sent Christ to save us in history and gave us the gift of faith by the working of the Holy Spirit in our lifetimes so that we might be holy.
And notice Paul is not talking about the righteousness of Christ reckoned to our account when we believe in Jesus. I’ll have much more to say about this in the pages ahead, but I want you to see from the outset that Ephesians 1:4 (and there are lots of texts like this one) is talking about a personal holiness that must characterize the life of the believer on the last day and at the present time.1 Paul is setting up the summons to put off the old self and put on the new (4:22–24). He’s thinking of being cleansed by the washing of water with the word (5:26). When God saves us by the righteousness of Christ, he saves us so that we too should be marked by righteousness. As J. I. Packer put it, “In reality, holiness is the goal of our redemption. As Christ died in order that we may be justified, so we are justified in order that we may be sanctified and made holy.”2
Distinctive holiness has been God’s plan for his people in both Testaments:
You yourselves have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles’ wings and brought you to myself. Now therefore, if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession among all peoples, for all the earth is mine; and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. (Ex. 19:4–6a)
Do you see again the reason for divine deliverance? God saved the Israelites unto holiness. God set them free from slavery to the Egyptians so they might be free to walk in his ways. They were to be a nation of people so set apart, so sanctified, so holy that they might as well have been priests—every last one of them. Every Christian in every church ought to live out this same priestly identity (1 Pet. 2:9). It’s the reason God has rescued us:
The Bible could not be any clearer. The reason for your entire salvation, the design behind your deliverance, the purpose for which God chose you in the first place is holiness.
Not only is holiness the goal of your redemption, it is necessary for your redemption. Now before you sound the legalist alarm, tie me up by my own moral bootstraps, and feed my carcass to the Galatians, we should see what Scripture has to say:
There are literally hundreds of verses like these. In 1990 John Piper wrote a long letter everyone should read. It’s called “A Letter to a Friend Concerning the So-Called ‘Lordship Salvation.’”5 Back then there was a big debate about whether you could have Christ as Savior without having him as Lord. John MacArthur wrote The Gospel According to Jesus to help people see that the only way to truly follow Jesus is to follow him as Savior and Lord.6 After another minister questioned Piper’s support for the book, Piper wrote this “Letter to a Friend.” Following the letter itself is an appendix which lists “Texts That Point to the Necessity of Yielding to Christ as Lord in Order to Inherit Eternal Life.” It’s a long list. Piper mentions six passages that speak to the necessity of doing good for eternal life, thirteen passages on the necessity of obedience, two on the necessity of holiness, two on the need to forgive others, four on the necessity of not living according to the flesh, two on the necessity of being free from the love of money, fourteen on the need to love Christ and God, and six on the necessity of loving others. There are dozens of other verses on the need to love the truth, be childlike, bridle the tongue, persevere, walk in the light, repent, and fight the good fight. In other words, the child of God must be holy.
Let me be clear about something from the very beginning: stressing the necessity of personal holiness should not undermine in any way our confidence in justification by faith alone. The best theologians and the best theological statements have always emphasized the scandalous nature of gospel grace and the indispensable need for personal holiness. Faith and good works are both necessary. But one is the root and the other the fruit. God declares us just solely on account of the righteousness of Christ credited (imputed) to us (2 Cor. 5:21). Our innocence in God’s sight is in no way grounded in works of love or acts of charity. Whereas a Catholic might answer the question “What must I do to be saved?” by saying, “Repent, believe, and live in charity,”7 the apostle Paul answers the same exact question with, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household” (Acts 16:31). Getting right with God is entirely and only dependent upon faith.8
But there’s more we need to say about this faith. The faith that joins you to Christ and makes you right with God is a faith that works itself out in love (Gal. 5:6). On the last day, God will not acquit us because our good works were good enough, but he will look for evidence that our good confession was not phony. It’s in this sense that we must be holy.
There is nothing un-Protestant about stressing the need for personal holiness. For example, the Belgic Confession (1561) says, “we do not base our salvation on [good works].” We are justified by faith alone, apart from works. But the Confession also says, “it is impossible for this holy faith to be unfruitful in a human being, seeing that we do not speak of an empty faith but of what Scripture calls ‘faith working through love.’”9 Likewise, the Heidelberg Catechism (1563) teaches that only true faith in Jesus Christ can make us right with God. All we need to do is accept this gift of God with a believing heart. And yet there is no hesitation later on to underline the necessity of holiness: “Can those be saved who do not turn to God from their ungrateful and impenitent ways? By no means. Scripture tells us that no unchaste person, no idolater, no adulterer, no thief, no covetous person, no drunkard, slanderer, robber, or the like is going to inherit the kingdom of God.”10 Statements like these could easily be multiplied by looking at almost any official doctrinal statement that has come out of the Reformation.11
In all this it bears repeating that God is the one working in us, giving us the desire and ability to obey. We earn nothing. We are promised everything. But don’t be so scared of works-righteousness that you make pale what the Bible writes in bold colors. We are saved by grace through faith (Eph. 2:8). And we were created in Christ Jesus for good works (v. 10). Any gospel which purports to save people without also transforming them is inviting easy-believism. If you think being a Christian is nothing more than saying a prayer or joining a church, then you’ve confused real grace with cheap grace. Those who are justified will be sanctified.12
There can be no denying or doubting what God has said. It’s plain on almost every page of the Bible: we are commanded to be holy, saved to be holy, and, in fact, we must be holy if we are to inherit eternal life.
1Peter T. O’Brien, after arguing that Ephesians 1:4 looks forward to the final acquittal on the last day, adds, “But this is not to suggest that there is consequently no concern for holiness and blamelessness in the here and now. The ‘holiness without which no one will see the Lord’ (Heb. 12:14) is progressively wrought within the lives of the believers on earth by the Spirit, and will be consummated in glory at the parousia, the time of the ‘redemption’ anticipated in Eph. 1:14; 4:30. And the clear implication for believers is that even now they should live according to the divine intention” (The Letter to the Ephesians [Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1999], 100).
2J. I. Packer, Rediscovering Holiness: Know the Fullness of Life with God (Ventura, CA: Regal, 2009), 33.
3John Piper finds eleven evidences for the new birth in 1 John. I’ve included some of them in the following sentence. See Finally Alive (Fearn, Ross-shire, UK: Christian Focus, 2009), 125–128.
4See Jerry Bridges, The Pursuit of Holiness (Colorado Springs: NavPress, 2006), 31–39. Likewise, Peter O’Brien writes, “How then can we pursue what are already God’s gifts to us? The proper response is that they should be worked out concretely in our lives as believers” (The Letter to the Hebrews [Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2010], 472). Later he says, “All believers must press on to the consummation, their perfected holiness, which is indispensable for seeing God” (473).
5http://www.desiringgod.org/resource-library/articles/letter-to-a-friend-concerning-the-so-called-lordship-salvation. Accessed June 25, 2011.
6John MacArthur, The Gospel According to Jesus: What Is Authentic Faith? (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2008).
7Peter J. Kreeft, Catholic Christianity (San Francisco: Ignatius, 2001), 130.
8This does not mean faith is the good work that saves us. Faith is only the instrumental cause of our salvation. It is the means by which we are joined to Christ and partake in all his benefits (Eph. 1:3; 2:8–9).
9Belgic Confession, article 24.
10See Heidelberg Catechism, Q/A 60, 61, 87.
11See, for example, The Epitome of the Formula of Concord 4.1 (Lutherans); The Westminster Confession of Faith 13.1 (Presbyterian/Reformed); and Article 13 of Thirty-Nine Articles (Anglican).
12In the next chapter I talk about the difference between definitive and progressive sanctification. In one sense those who are justified have already been sanctified (definitively). But it’s also right to say that those who are justified will be sanctified (progressively).