There are (and have been) a lot of different interpretations of 'how' a person is saved and what they are being saved from and why
Salvation in Christianity - Wikipedia
Recapitulation theory
Ransom from Satan
Satisfaction
Penal Substitution (I have only skimmed, but I am going to guess this might be the one the OP agrees with the most)
Moral government...
... and many more.
Some similar, some radically different
You can get an overview of them in the wiki-link above.
I personally, might just check "all the above"
If you ask a OSAS (Once Saved Always Saved) non-denominational they will say "Jesus saved me"
If you ask a Eastern Orthodox or Roman Catholic they may say "Jesus is in the process of saving me"
I think of it a little like this:
A man is wandering in the dark, blindfolded.
Suddenly someone (not the man, but the agency of God, often acting through other Christians, the scriptures, the Church and the Holy Spirit) removes the blindfold.
The man sees light, real Light, for the first time
With this also comes revelation of his condition
"I'm saved!" he says
"Follow me" the Light says, "and I will grow in you as you do"
John 1:19:21
19 This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. 20 Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed. 21 But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what they have done has been done in the sight of God.
To me, the use of the term, "salvation" has always been a curious thing. I'm going on 65, and have been around Christian missionaries (mostly "Bible Church" type fundamentalists and Bible all my life).
When people say, "I got saved", I think they usually mean to refer to what is actually simply regeneration (If they are regenerated) but even then sometimes, though regenerated, their mind is on the conversion and their worldview is still centered on
their activity,
their mind,
their duty and benefits, though they may have a much more nebulous sort of reference in mind. Saved from sin? Saved from the effects of sin? Saved from the power of sin? Saved from the penalty of sin? All these are different views of "saved": in one view, we aren't saved except in the mind and choice of God, until the 'moment' we are in Heaven --yet to me that is as secure and sure a thing as the fact that we are regenerated (if indeed we are). To me, the other views are integral to regeneration, we are given a new heart and mind, to be able to serve Christ and escape the captivity of sin --in this regeneration we are saved from sin and its effects and its penalty.
To me, OSAS is misleading, though true in its barest logic. It is not a safe way to look at things. It makes more sense to look to Perseverance of the Saints (in the Reformed "TULIP") than OSAS, or maybe better yet, to look to God's election of the saints, for he will indeed accomplish whatever he sets out to do.
How I look at it, though it is unavoidable, is irrelevant to the facts. But I like to look at the Gospel in its barest sense --the mere Gospel: One way I do that is to consider how a clinical idiot --let's call him Kip-- so severely retarded that he is unable to think or perceive concepts by any means but instinctive. He may even have a more pure realization of the distance between himself and God than we do; by God's grace come to deeply desire to be with God, and to KNOW that God has made a way for him. He may never have heard the name, Jesus Christ, nor wondered if Yeshua is more accurate; he may never have understood the virgin birth, he may never have heard a cogent description of sin and its enmity with God, nor even of Heaven and its benefits. I can bet he never debated whether it was by the work of God or the will of man that he came into the light. He may never have considered the three persons of the Godhead, nor the individuality of the person of the Son as different in any way from the Father. I bet he never after his rebirth considered the question of whether he is a separate entity from Christ, in and of himself a complete individual, as though he had only his part to play and God had his, as though he must (and therefore is able by God's help to) fulfill some requirement to be worthy access to God.
We, however, possessed by the mixed blessing of [a mediocre] intelligence, are given more facts to blind us and to open our eyes. Our gospel is really no different from Kip's, yet we have much more to consider. It is easy to mix causes with effects, individual response by the Spirit of God within vs self-generated meeting of a requirement. Kip never heard of regeneration, and all he knows, perhaps, is the joy and delight and gratefulness of being in Christ and the pure love and admiration for the One who fills his heart.
Yet we require so much of a convert! We focus on HIS ACCEPTANCE instead of on Christ himself, his work and his love for us. We don't talk about Election, nor about WHY (besides some nebulous notion of divine love for the creature) would God do any of this. Does nobody know that God does all this FOR HIS OWN SAKE? How much more confident then can we be that he will indeed accomplish everything he set out to do? What can be more satisfying in this life than to KNOW that God is supremely pleased with his plan, and that he will be completely satisfied with the result?
That's rather pathetic. IMO
Saint Steven said:
↑
Are you saying that Jesus died to save us from God?
It's just a shortened, and perhaps clever, way of pointing to the reality of the enmity between God and the sinner. Why does it bother you?
