The Gospel must be preached in its proper order. That is, the first message of the cross must be proclaimed, its demands, or what the Bible calls God's Holy Law. Men do not need to be converted; they need to be slain. They have to die in order to be saved. That is exactly so! The Gospel must also be preached in its purity. We have a statement from the Apostle Paul in Romans 1:16: "For I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ; for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek."
That word salvation, what is it? What is God's great salvation? Somebody says, "Brother Barnard, we already know about that." But it is my deep conviction that many of us do not. This old preacher believes that long since we lost the Bible meaning of words like this. In humility and holy boldness, I trust, if I can with the Holy Spirit's anointing, I want to approach the subject of what salvation is. People say, "Well, I am saved." What do they mean by that? What do you mean when you say, "I am a Christian"? This is very important. What is the salvation that the Gospel of Christ is the power unto? If a man says, "I am saved," what is he saying according to the Bible?
WHAT IS SALVATION? My text is in Psalm 45:6-7: "Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever; the sceptre of Thy kingdom is a right sceptre. Thou lovest righteousness, and hatest wickedness: therefore God, Thy God, hath anointed Thee with the oil of gladness above Thy fellows."
These words are God's words to His only begotten Son. In these verses, I believe we find the key to the Bible teaching of what salvation is made up of, what it consists of. What is God's purpose to accomplish through His only begotten Son? What did God have in mind to bring to pass in the giving of His only begotten Son to be hanged on a cross and be raised and enthroned in Glory? Here in Psalm 45 we have it. "Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever; the sceptre of Thy kingdom is a right sceptre. Thou lovest righteousness, and hatest wickedness; therefore God, Thy God, hath anointed Thee with the oil of gladness above Thy fellows." This is quoted in Hebrews 1:9. This is the Father's Word to His Son, and this is the Father's description of His Son: "Thou lovest righteousness, and hatest wickedness, and because You do, Thy God hath anointed Thee with the oil of gladness above Thy fellows." The biography of the Lord Jesus Christ in one single verse is what the Holy Spirit has been pleased to give here. This is a perfect description of Jesus Christ. He perfectly loved righteousness, and He perfectly hated wickedness. You cannot love and not hate. You cannot hate and not love. One is the opposite of the other. God hates the enemies of the truth. Jesus Christ, the only perfect human being, perfectly loved righteousness and He hated wickedness. You hate sin in the proportion that you love righteousness, and you love righteousness in the proportion that you hate sin.
THE BIBLE TEACHING OF WHAT SALVATION IS, is nothing more nor less than God reproducing the perfect character of Jesus Christ in a human being, or God picking him up out of his sinful condition and making him like the Lord Jesus Christ. I know of nothing that would help us more than to get this truth before us. I believe with all my heart that the vast majority of honest, sincere church people honestly want to believe in Christ, but I don't think they have ever been able to do it. I do not believe that a person is a child of God unless day by day the character of the Lord Jesus Christ is being more and more reproduced in his daily living. For I know that salvation is nothing more nor less than God reproducing His Son in the lives of men and women, boys and girls. That is a long way from the modern-day conception of what salvation is.
God has but one measuring rod and He does nothing except for one purpose. That is wrapped up in the Lord Jesus Christ. The only reason God saves anybody – it is not to keep that fellow out of hell, but to bring glory to His only begotten Son. That's right. We have quit believing that, and we thought we loved souls more than God did, so we perverted the Gospel and used some man-made methods to talk people into making a profession that they had accepted Christ. Now our motive was that we loved them and we wanted to see them saved, but that is the wrong motive, that is not the Bible motive. The Bible motive is that we long to see Christ glorified. That's so – for Christ's glory. Isaiah 53:11: "He shall see of the travail of His soul, and shall be satisfied, by His knowledge shall My righteous Servant justify many; for He shall bear their iniquities." Satisfied; in human language He was able to say, "I'm sure glad I died for them."
That is fundamental, but away back yonder we threw that out the window, and now we pride ourselves on what a tremendous love we have for people. And while we were doing that, we lost the glory of God, because we had put the cart before the horse. We did not remember what 1 Corinthians 10:31 says: "Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God. "Whatever we do, whether we do personal work, or preaching, or whatever it is, do everything for what? For the salvation of souls? NO. NO. "For the glory of God!" That will change your message and your method, and God knows it needs to be changed. God might begin to bless us if we start paying attention to His teaching and obey Him.
Salvation is what? It is the reproduction of Christ a human life, and it must have a beginning. Baptists to believe in what we call being "born from above," and that is a miracle that only God Almighty can perform. If that ever happens to you, you will hate sin and love righteousness. 2 Corinthians 5:17 says: "Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature; old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new." There was a time when you couldn't become a member of a church without giving a creditable experience of being changed, of submitting to a new Master and a wholehearted desire and determination that the will of God should be the first thing in our lives. That time is long since gone, and OH HOW WE DO NEED TO RETURN TO IT.
This salvation has to have a start, and it starts with a miracle where Christ comes inside. A Christ not in you is not yours, but the Scriptures speak of Christ in you in Colossians 1:27-28: "To whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory: Whom we preach, warning every man, and teaching every man in all wisdom; that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus."
This salvation has to have a progress. It has to continue, and the Scriptures tell us how that takes place – this is true of every child of God – 2 Peter 3:18: "But grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. To Him be glory both now and for ever." Titus 2:11-14: "For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men, teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world; Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ; Who gave Himself for us, that He might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto Himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works."
The Apostle Paul tells us how we make progress in becoming like the Lord Jesus Christ in 2 Corinthians 3:18: "But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord." How does a child of God spend his time? He spends his time beholding the glory of God in Jesus Christ. We must feed on the Lord Jesus Christ, and as we do we are being changed from glory to glory into the image of the Lord. Measure yourself by what they call being a Christian today, and be honest one time and compare that with the declaration of the Word of God. How does a child of God spend his time? A child of God spends his time looking at the Lord. Hebrews 12:2: "Looking unto Jesus the Author and Finisher of our faith; Who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God. "He first got acquainted with Him by a look; there is life in a look! Isaiah 45:22: "Look unto Me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth: for I am God, and there is none else. "And the child of God spends his time beholding His glory.
Then this salvation has to have a consummation. It has to come to full fruition and that is also brought to pass by a look. We are told in I John 3:2-3, "Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when He shall appear, we shall be like Him; for we shall see Him as He is. And every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as He is pure." We look at Him now as through a glass. We don't see Him in all of His glory – our eyes can't see that good – we have to have glasses – our view is pretty dim. But one day everybody who got in on this by being born again and by a look at Christ and now spends his days in beholding the glory of Christ – one day with undimmed view we shall see the Lord Jesus Christ, and that look shall get the job done and we shall be saved.
Salvation is making men and women to be like the Lord Jesus Christ. That is what salvation is all about. A man needs to be dead certain about two things: First, that his start introduced him to the Lord of Glory, and secondly, that his daily walk is spent beholding the glory of the Lord of Glory. And if those things be true, bless God, in God's good time, we shall see Christ with undimmed view, and that will finish the job, and we shall be like Him.
I praise God for this, for out of Adam's ruined and fallen world of sinners, God Almighty through the Lord Jesus Christ has eternally determined to make some people like His Son. There is my hope. Praise the Lord, He is a God Who never goes back on what He sets out to do. He will do exactly what the Scriptures said He would do. I shall be one of the company of people who when God gets through with us, praise God, we shall be conformed to the image of His dear Son, the lovely Lord of Glory, Jesus Christ. Isn't that wonderful? Now that's what salvation is!
The Scriptures tell us that before the foundation of the world, God had a purpose and part of that purpose is to redeem a people and make them exactly like His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. That's God's eternal purpose in the matter of salvation. Romans 8:29-20: "For whom He did foreknew, He also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren. Moreover whom He did predestinate, them He also called; and whom He called, them He also justified: And whom He justified, them He also glorified."
Now five times in the Scriptures this eternal purpose of Almighty God is described. In 1 Corinthians 2:7: "But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, even the hidden wisdom, which God ordained before the world unto our glory." The Gospel is not the wisdom of men. It is the eternal creation of a Holy God, Who wrought it out on purpose, and no wonder that good news is the power of God to accomplish salvation to every one that believeth! Always in the Bible, the five times that God uses this word "ordain," He speaks of persons, never of things and never of circumstances or events. Never does He speak of predestinating a happening, but always He predestinates about persons. The Gospel was foreordained and predestinated and worked out by Almighty God. The only way this can be explained is "Christ is the Gospel and the Gospel is Christ."
Thank God, five times in the Bible we have this blessed word that God Almighty fixed it out, marked it out, deter-mined that it would take place, and every time it means the same thing, that those people whom He would save, their salvation was said to be determined, and that He would make them like the Lord Jesus Christ. That is the heart of the Gospel.
Now because this word is abused so and the preachers make so much fun of it and laugh at the Word of God, it is necessary that we stand for the truth and expose error. Nowhere in the Scripture does it say that God predestinates this fellow will be saved, and that fellow will be damned. The Bible doesn't use that kind of language. Nowhere in the Bible does the doctrine of election speak about the damnation of anybody; it just speaks about the salvation of somebody. And it is a glorious truth to a saved child of God. Many people in their willful, sinful ignorance are going around blaspheming the Word of God by their mouthings, and they don't know a thing about what they are talking about. If you want to fight the Bible teaching of predestination, for God's sake, find out what it is, then if you want to fight it, you are welcome. But when you fight it, you are fighting the part of God's Word that tells us what salvation is.
In Romans, chapter eight, and Ephesians, chapter one, four times God is said to predestinate somebody, not some happening. I hear people that can tell you all about the Bible, but they never read it, and of course they hate the truth, because they live unholy lives and want to claim to be Christians. And their ignorance is willful because they are striking at what salvation is, and they don't want to face the fact that salvation is not a way to keep out of hell merely, like most everybody hopes it is, and let you live on as you please. NO! Salvation is making you like Christ! And of course people will buck that, and if you want to buck it, you are welcome. The way to stop people's mouths is by telling them that predestination is simply this: That God Almighty has determined that everybody who is able to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ shall be made exactly like Christ before God gets through with him. God has determined that and everybody that is a Christian is going to be made like Christ, and if you are not being made like Christ day by day now, you are not a Christian.
No wonder this generation of church members are so ignorant of the truth! Methodists used to believe this, way back yonder Baptist churches were started on these great truths, the confessions of faith taught this. Some of you folks fight it because you hate holiness, but if you are interested you will keep your mouth shut and let God teach you. That would be wonderful.
In Ephesians, chapter one, God plainly tells us twice of His predestination. Anything that the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ does is bound to be all right, so we are going to read what He has done. Ephesians 1:3-4: "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, Who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ: According as He hath chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love." If you can get to Christ, you can get in on this, because it is in Him. He did that before the foundation of the world, so it must be in the depths of the heart of God. It must be something God did Himself because He purposed to do it. He did all of that, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love. That is this awful teaching of election that so many preachers hate so much. Then He tells us what predestination is in verses 5 and 6: "Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, wherein He hath made us accepted in the Beloved." Predestination is not election. It isn't deciding that you are going to be saved. No. No. It is deciding what your salvation is and God has determined that this is it. Most of the Baptist churches, the Methodist churches, and the Presbyterian churches hate this doctrine now. Presbyterians used to believe it, but now they are getting a new confession. They are going to throw out these old doc-trines. But Baptists don't have that courage. It used to be that in order to be a member of a Baptist church, you had to subscribe to a covenant. You covenanted with one another to do some things. But not anymore. There is a message for all of God's children in Jude, verse 3: "Beloved, when I gave all diligence to write unto you of the common salvation, it was needful for me to write unto you, and exhort you that ye should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints."
God Almighty has determined that salvation is not just making a profession of faith, and that's all there is to it. Salvation is to be brought to Christ and made a new creature in Christ, to look unto Him and walk with Him in loving obedience till you see Him as He is – and then you will be made exactly like the Lord. This is the heart of the Gospel. Now in love having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to Himself, and He did that according to the good pleasure of His will. Then in Ephesians 1:11-12 we read, "In whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of Him Who worketh all things after the counsel of His own will: That we should be to the praise of His glory, who first trusted in Christ." In other words God said, "I'm going to have some people, and I am going to be proud of them." He can say, "Look what My love did; look what My grace did." Listen to this:
Mercy is God's favor that holds back from us what we deserve.
Grace is God's favor that gives us what we do not deserve.
Oh, what a wonderful Lord God we have. Psalm 103:8: "The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and plenteous in mercy." Every old sinner that God finds in the pit of his own rebellion, and puts His everlasting arms underneath him and draws him and saves him, and one day transforms him into the very likeness of Christ – that will be to the praise and the glory of Almighty God! Sure this is a battleground, because we want to glory in ourselves, so we've got to get rid of the Bible. Now in Romans eight, two times we find this terrible doctrine of predestination. I believe in this doctrine, and you do too, if you are a child of God. Oh, yes, you do! If you don't believe this, you brand yourself as being a hater of what salvation is. Verse 28: "And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to His purpose." That doesn't mean some terrible thing out there that happened to you is working for good. NO. NO. The next verse tells us exactly what it means – what God did in the next verse is what makes everything turn out right. God did these things for those who love Him and are called according to His purpose. Verses 29-30: "For whom He did foreknow, He also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren. Moreover whom He did predestinate, them He also called: and whom He called, them He also justified; and whom He justified, them He also glorified." Foreknow – that's election. Verse 31 then says, "What shall we then say to these things? If God be for us, who can be against us?"
A Christian may say to these things, "Hallelujah, Praise the Lord!" The Lord said, "I will never leave thee nor forsake thee." There's my hope. Praise the Lord.
What does salvation mean? Bless God, it means salvation is God making men and women like the Lord Jesus Christ. He is promoting righteousness in you, and a forsaking of wickedness in you, and one day you will be exactly like the Lord Jesus Christ. There are so much sorrow, sickness, and deaths in this life; but God's children can rejoice in this promise in 1 John 3:2-3: "Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that when He shall appear, we shall be like Him: for we shall see Him as He is. And every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as He is pure." He will strive after holiness, for he understands that salvation is being made like Christ, and the deepest pant of his soul is to be more and more like Him. That's what salvation is.
This terrible doctrine of predestination is nothing but God's determination to make the people whom He saves exactly like the Lord Jesus Christ. Isn't it amazing how they lie about it? God's people should start shutting the mouths of these ignorant malicious devils that are making fun of the heart of the Gospel. In the entire Bible you find this word predestinate only five times, and every time it talks about persons, not happenings. He didn't predestinate that you would cross the street and get killed. He predestinated that if He saved you, He would adopt you into His family and make you His son. If He saved you, it would be to the praise of His glory. Hallelujah!
I remember years ago a preacher got on the radio and he said, "Brothers and sisters, I have got a broken heart this morning; you know these damnable doctrines of election and predestination are creeping into our Baptist churches." Wouldn't that be awful if the old Bible wasn't made fun of in our Baptist churches? Wouldn't it be awful if these holy doctrines that promote what salvation really is, and insist on the holiness of God and what it means to be a Christian – wouldn't it be terrible if they got back in our Baptist churches? Oh! I hope they do! I hope you young men will support this pastor and start shutting the mouths of these ungodly people fighting the heart of the Gospel. This is worth fighting – not to prove a doctrine, but to tell men the truth that a Christian is somebody that's being made like the Lord. He can't glory in anything he does; it is all of the Lord.
There isn't any hope of any person keeping out of hell, unless God Almighty lays hold on you and stays with you till one day He will make you exactly like His Son. That's our hope. A man or woman is in the way of salvation when he has been brought to the place where he wants to be joined to that company of people whom God hath determined to make like His Son. What does it mean? According to the Bible, it means, "I want this business of being made like Christ to get started in my life." For years it has been taught in America that salvation was some sort of joke that we decided by making some sort of decision, but it didn't have anything to do with our daily living or our panting after holiness. But true Bible salvation is becoming like the Lord Jesus Christ.
"Brother Barnard, I want to be saved." What do you mean? "Well, I don't want to go to hell when I die." That's not the Bible way. "I want to he done with sin and I want to be made like Christ" – that's the Bible way of wanting to be saved. The old grey-headed daddies and mothers heard the old preachers and they said a man had true Gospel faith when he came to the Lord and said, "I want to be holy. I want to be made like the Lord. Here I am: I turn myself over to You to make me what You want me to be." That is the language of a person that truly wants to be saved.
I was in Texas speaking to some young pastors, and the Dean of the Bible College was one of the speakers. He came to me the last day of the meeting and said, "Brother Barnard, only God knows how this generation of professing Christians need a Bible vocabulary. They need to be taught like the Bible talks." Wouldn't it be wonderful if it was crystal clear what salvation means, and this was taught in the churches? This preacher will say, "If you just accept Jesus as your Saviour, He will save you." Another one says, "If you believe this Bible verse and repeat the sinner's prayer, you'll be saved!" These statements are lies out of hell, and a deception to all that believe them!
Why don't we come back to the Bible? I know I am telling you the truth – this is Bible language – this is using Bible words: "Christ being formed in you." Galatians 4:19: "My little children, of whom I travail in birth again until Christ be formed in you." That's what Christianity is. Oh, young people, men and women, you've lived all the days of your life in a generation where we have used our language instead of the Bible's; where the word saved doesn't seem to mean much now, for all of us seems to be so dead in tradition and in sin till there is not much sign of life in us.
I call you to witness now that the purpose of God in saving a man is the reproducing of the Lord Jesus Christ in him. And instead of fighting this, I thank God that He is determined to bring it to pass. I look men and women in the eye and tell you that Gospel faith is coming with a thirsty appetite to be made like the Lord Jesus Christ.
I was in Huntington, West Virginia, in a Bible Conference and my hotel phone rang one day. A pastor some miles away asked, "Brother Barnard, what are you teaching tonight?" I said, "They asked me to expound the teaching of the Bible on predestination tonight. I will be teaching what the Bible says about that." He said, "A man is here that I have witnessed to and been praying for – and I believe God is dealing with him – I thought we would come and hear you." So he brought this unsaved man with him to the meeting that night. So I just taught what this wonderful determination of God is, and how there is hope in it. If you believe what God says, and you are not trusting what you can do; just trust what God set out to I do. I tell you now, I've got more confidence in Him than I have m you or me either. I don't know whether I can do what I set out to do or not, but if GOD is determined that this be brought to pass, I've got some hope. And after the service the pastor brought the man around and introduced him, and we visited a little, then they left because they had to drive some 30 or 40 miles.
The next day that pastor called and told me what happened after the meeting. They got about five miles out of the city and the unsaved man was driving; he parked on the side of the road because he could not see, his eyes were so full of tears. He turned the switch off and said to the preacher, "Did that man tell the truth tonight?" He said, "Yes, I believe he did. I believe he told what the Bible teaches." Then the man said, "Oh, Preacher, I wish I could be holy. I am so tired of the filth that I've lived in. I wish I could be made holy." And the pastor led him to the Lord. Anybody that wants to be made holy, it is just like feeding milk to a baby to get them to Christ. They want to be made holy, for God has done His work in them. That is what it is – true Gospel faith is coming to Christ with a thirsty appetite: "I want to be made holy, I want to be made like the Lord." Hallelujah, Thine the glory! God has determined to bring it to pass in every person He saves. That's what salvation is! We are all eternity-bound men and women, and unless God Almighty is pleased to perform a miracle in you and reveal Christ in you, you are doomed for hell (John 17:3; Matthew 11:27; Luke 10:22). Read it!