Articles by: Kenneth J. Ester
The Truth of Salvation
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Whether one believes salvation is through faith, by grace, through works, baptism repentance or whetever, there is one thing that the vast majority of Christians seem to agree on. Salvation is the forgiveness of our sins, right? Jesus died so we could be forgiven for our sins because sin cannot enter heaven.
I want to ask you a simple question. From the days of Adam until Jesus was born, a period of nearly 4,000 years, when newborn babies died, where did they go? Keep in mind that these are not children but newborn babies. They had never even had the opportunity to sin much less known the difference between right and wrong, when they died. Did they go to heaven when they died? Jesus says they did not.
John 3:13 (NASB)
13 No one has ascended into heaven, except He who descended from heaven: the Son of Man.
At the time Jesus said this, He was the only one who had ever ascended to heaven. This means nobody else, not even the newborn babies that had died had ever gone to heaven. Everyone had gone down to Hades at this point. But if it is unrepentant sin that sends us to hell, why didn't the babies go to heaven? They had not sinned. Why weren't they allowed to enter heaven?
Before your head has a chance to stop swimming over that one, I want to throw another curveball at you. Did you know that God had already been forgiving sin even before Jesus died on the cross?
All you have to do is look up the word "atonement" in any Bible app. You will find the old testament is filled with scriptures of God demanding His people to sacrifice animals to atone for their sins. Here are a couple to get you started...
Exodus 29:36 (NASB)
36 Each day you shall offer a bull as a sin offering for atonement, and you shall purify the altar when you make atonement for it, and you shall anoint it to consecrate it.
Exodus 32:30 (NASB)
30 And on the next day Moses said to the people, “You yourselves have committed a great sin; and now I am going up to the Lord; perhaps I can make atonement for your sin.”
Now admittedly, atonement is not the same as forgiveness. The definition of atonement is the action one takes to right a wrong in hopes of forgiveness. But I ask you, why would God command the slaughter of innocent animals to atone for sins that He is not going to forgive? In fact, there is even one verse where God says He will forgive them.
Leviticus 4:20 (NASB)
20 He shall also do with the bull just as he did with the bull of the sin offering; he shall do the same with it. So the priest shall make atonement for them, and they will be forgiven.
Yet we are often taught that Jesus died so we could be forgiven for our sins. Even though God was already forgiving sin in the Old Testament. Actually, Jesus was forgiving sin even before He died on the cross. First there was the case where they lowered the paraplegic down through the roof for Jesus to heal...
Luke 5:19-20 (NASB)
19 But when they did not find any way to bring him in because of the crowd, they went up on the roof and let him down through the tiles with his stretcher, into the middle of the crowd, in front of Jesus. 20 And seeing their faith, He said, “Friend, your sins are forgiven you.”
Then when a woman washed Jesus feet....
Luke 7:47-48 (NASB)
47 For this reason I say to you, her sins, which are many, have been forgiven, for she loved much; but the one who is forgiven little, loves little.” 48 And He said to her, “Your sins have been forgiven.”
If Jesus died so we could be forgiven for our sins, then why was he forgiving sin before He died? Why was God already forgiving sins in the Old Testament? If it was unrepentant sin that sends us to hell, why didnt the newborn babies who died go to heaven?
As you can see, something is obviously not adding up here. These are the types of questions I ran into as I studied the Bible. Most people tend to brush them aside and something too far above them to figure out. They will blindly believe what their pastors or family or friends taught them, even when scripture is clearly saying it is wrong. Because people will brush these questions aside, they never fully learn the truth.
I like to refer to myself as a truth seeker. When I came across these things, I could not brush them aside. I had to know the answer. I needed to know the full truth of salvation. Not just what churches were teaching today. I dont care about man's interpretation of the Bible. I care about the truth. God's truth!
Let me give you a scripture that will at first seem like it has nothing to do with this subject...
Romans 8:7-8 (NASB)
7 because the mind set on the flesh is hostile toward God; for it does not subject itself to the law of God, for it is not even able to do so, 8 and those who are in the flesh cannot please God.
What this is saying, is that before we are saved, when we are in our sinful state, it is impossible for us to turn to Christ by or own merit. Now, typically I use this scripture when explaining how predestination works. It makes no difference if you believe in predestination or not though. The point here is to make you ask, "why" cant we choose God? The answer to that is because our souls are corrupted from birth.
Psalm 51:5 (NASB)
5 Behold, I was brought forth in guilt, And in sin my mother conceived me.
Psalm 58:3 (NASB)
3 The wicked have turned away from the womb; These who speak lies go astray from birth.
Ephesians 2:3 (NASB)
3 Among them we too all previously lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, just as the rest.
When Adam sinned, it did more than just upset the Lord. It corrupted him. I like to explain sin as being a spiritual cancer. It corrupts what it touches and it never heals on its own. Left alone, it will only continue to grow worse and worse. Adam sinned but it was just one sin. As generations passed, sin grew worse and worse until it became so rampant that God had to wipe out the population and start over from one righteous family. Then as time has passed again, it has grown worse and worse again. Sin is corruption!
The problem is, once Adam sinned, and he was the only male alive at the time, it meant that every person ever born through his seed, would be born with a soul that is already corrupted by sin. Because the soul is in the sperm of the male. Not the woman. The only damage Eve's sin did, was to her own soul. Adam's sin corrupted all of mankind.
When Moses was up on the mountain, he asked God to show him His glory. This was part of God's reply...
Exodus 33:20 (NASB)
20 He further said, “You cannot see My face, for mankind shall not see Me and live!”
Why couldn't man see God and live? Because his soul was corrupted by sin. And God is so perfectly pure and holy, that sin cannot exist in His presence when in His full glory. So if God was to allow anyone to enter heaven, where He resides in His full glory, their soul would have been utterly destroyed. God was not going to destroy the souls of the godly people of the earth!
As I have shown you, God was forgiving sin in the old testament, and yet that forgiveness of their sins did not save them. It did not allow them to go to heaven. That is because the forgiveness of sin is not what saves you. It allows your relationship with the Lord to grow. What saves us from hell and gives us access to heaven is the washing of our souls.
There is only one true God. There are many false gods created by man, but there is only one true God, who reveals Himself in three distinct persons. God the Father, God the Word, and God the Holy Spirit. If you do not believe in the Holy Trinity, I would ask you to read my article about it. The Holy Trinity
According to John 1:1-3, the Word of God was with God in the beginning and He was God. Everything that was ever created, was created through the Word.
The Word loved His creation of mankind so much that He would not allow mankind to be lost to Him. So He took on flesh and blood and was born fully human. They named Him Jesus. This literally made Jesus the only begotten Son of God. He was born from a virgin and this is extremely important, because it means He was not born through Adam's seed. He was not born with a corrupted soul. He was born perfect!
When Jesus was in the garden praying, He asked the Father to take His cup away, that He would not have to go through with what was coming. He prayed so hard, His sweat came out as drops of blood. This is a real medical condition called 'hematohidrosis'. It is a rare condition when someone is under extreme distress and their blood vessels rupture allowing the blood to excrete through the sweat glands. Jesus knew very well how He was going to die, the suffering He would go through and when it would happen. He really did not want to go through this suffering, and yet, when He was done praying, He told the Father, let His (the Father's) will be done, and not His own. So even though he was so stressed out over what He would go through, He was still willing to do it.
When the soldiers came to get Him, His disciples drew swords and attacked the guards to defend Him, but Jesus stopped them and even healed the secretary of the Jewish High Priest. Then He went with the soldiers quietly. That Jesus knew what was going to happen, and the action of stopping His disciples from defending Him and going quietly, literally changed what was happening from a man being taken and killed as a martyr, to Him willingly sacrificing Himself to save us.
Jesus died on the cross, He was more than just a man dying for us. He was the only begotten Son of God. He was God in the flesh. He was the only sacrifice that could ever possibly be pure enough, and holy enough, to not only allow us to be forgiven for our sin, but to allow our souls to be washed clean as well.
Ephesians 2:8-9 (NASB)
8 For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; 9 not as a result of works, so that no one may boast.
Many put their focus on the grace in this verse. I am going to break this entire verse down however so you can truly understand what is happening here.
8 For by grace you have been saved through faith; --- The definition of the word "grace" is basically "goodwill" or "kindness". Grace is not how we are saved. It is why Jesus died for us. Because of His goodwill/kindness. The 'how' we are saved is through faith. Believing in Jesus as Lord.
and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; --- There is nothing of what we do that saves us. It is strictly a gift of God. If we had to do anything for it, it would no longer be a gift, it would be a reward. A gift is always free.
9 not as a result of works, so that no one may boast. --- HE does not mention any tupe of works here because it doesnt matter. We are not saved by any kind of works on our part. If one does something intentionally, it is considered a wrk and we are not saved by that. For if it was, we would then be able to boast that we saved ourselves. So long as it is truly a free gift of God, then we have nothing we can boast about on our own part.
The real key to this at this time however, is that it is a gift from God. This means that everyone is not automatically washed clean. As with any gift, it is never yours until you first accept it. I could hold out a gift of a thousand dollars to someone and no matter how long I held it there, it is still going to be mine and not theirs, until they finally accept it. However, the cleansing of our soul is not physical gift. You cannot reach out and take it. Our souls are spirit, so the washing of our souls are spiritual gifts. How does one accept a spiritual gift? By believing in their heart it is real! That is why Jesus tells us this...
John 3:18 (KJV)
18 He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.
By believing in Jesus in your heart, truly believing, you accept His gift of salvation. This verse by the way is what I refer to as a Primary Scripture. If you do not know what a Primary Scripture is, I would now advise you to read this short article to understand how important they are. Primary Scriptures
Overall, I have found a total of 19 Primary scriptures that tell us specifically 'how' we are saved. All 19 of them clearly tell us that we are saved by believing in Jesus. Not one of them says we are saved by any other means. Most doctrines in the Bible have one or two primary scriptures supporting them. Salvation has 19 of them! Obviously, God wanted to make sure He was being clear on what was important. You can read all 19 of them here... Primary Salvation Scriptures
However, the most common argument made at this point would probably be "Even the devil believes. Is he saved?" Knowing quite well the devil is not saved. The Bible is very clear the devil will suffer forever in the Lake of Fire. The answer is quite simply, "No", the devil is not saved.
First off, salvation is not offered to angels and other spiritual beings. It is offered to mankind! Since the devil is exempt from this offer, it doesn't matter what he believes. This goes for his demonic angels as well.
Secondly, if you go through all 19 verses on salvation, you can break what exactly one must believe down to these details...
1) We must believe that Jesus is the only begotten Son of God.
2) You must believe that Jesus died for us, and that God raised Him from the dead.
3) You must believe in Jesus as your Lord and Savior.
4) You must believe it in your heart and not just your head. You must believe it enough that you are willing to confess to others that Jesus is Lord.
Even if salvation was offered to the devil and his angels, they would never accept that Jesus is their personal Lord and Savior. Believing that He was real, simply is not enough.
Summary
We must truly believe that Jesus is the Son of God and that He died for us and God raised Him from the dead. We must believe in Jesus as our Lord and Savior. As long as we believe that, we will be saved.
After that, nothing else is about salvation, but is about our personal relationship with the Lord. Getting baptized by water, refraining from sin, doing good works, they are all about growing closer to Him in our relationship. And that is so very important. More important than most understand. I would advise you to read my articles...
Your Personal Relationship with God & The Consequences of Sin.
I have backed everything up with scripture. I have even done something that very few pastors can do. I have explained salvation in a way that is also very logical. Yet there will still be many who will want to hold onto the scriptures they were taught that prove salvation by other means. If you are one, then I would ask you to pick your argument from below and read that article as well. There is a very good chance it will include your scripture.
There is a good chance that you will look at my interpretation of your scriptures on these doctrines, and claim I could be wrong. Who is to say whether my interpretation is wrong or yours, right? However, I also gave you 19 Primary scriptures on salvation telling us clearly how we are saved. Your interpretations would be contradicting those verses. Which verses are my interpretations contradicting?
Changing what you believe can be a hard thing to do. The question however, is what is more important to you? To believe in God's truth, or to satisfy your pride and believe what you thought was true?
False Doctrines on Salvation:
Saved by Works
Saved by Water Baptism
Saved by Repenting of Sin
Whether one believes salvation is through faith, by grace, through works, baptism repentance or whetever, there is one thing that the vast majority of Christians seem to agree on. Salvation is the forgiveness of our sins, right? Jesus died so we could be forgiven for our sins because sin cannot enter heaven.
I want to ask you a simple question. From the days of Adam until Jesus was born, a period of nearly 4,000 years, when newborn babies died, where did they go? Keep in mind that these are not children but newborn babies. They had never even had the opportunity to sin much less known the difference between right and wrong, when they died. Did they go to heaven when they died? Jesus says they did not.
John 3:13 (NASB)
13 No one has ascended into heaven, except He who descended from heaven: the Son of Man.
At the time Jesus said this, He was the only one who had ever ascended to heaven. This means nobody else, not even the newborn babies that had died had ever gone to heaven. Everyone had gone down to Hades at this point. But if it is unrepentant sin that sends us to hell, why didn't the babies go to heaven? They had not sinned. Why weren't they allowed to enter heaven?
Before your head has a chance to stop swimming over that one, I want to throw another curveball at you. Did you know that God had already been forgiving sin even before Jesus died on the cross?
All you have to do is look up the word "atonement" in any Bible app. You will find the old testament is filled with scriptures of God demanding His people to sacrifice animals to atone for their sins. Here are a couple to get you started...
Exodus 29:36 (NASB)
36 Each day you shall offer a bull as a sin offering for atonement, and you shall purify the altar when you make atonement for it, and you shall anoint it to consecrate it.
Exodus 32:30 (NASB)
30 And on the next day Moses said to the people, “You yourselves have committed a great sin; and now I am going up to the Lord; perhaps I can make atonement for your sin.”
Now admittedly, atonement is not the same as forgiveness. The definition of atonement is the action one takes to right a wrong in hopes of forgiveness. But I ask you, why would God command the slaughter of innocent animals to atone for sins that He is not going to forgive? In fact, there is even one verse where God says He will forgive them.
Leviticus 4:20 (NASB)
20 He shall also do with the bull just as he did with the bull of the sin offering; he shall do the same with it. So the priest shall make atonement for them, and they will be forgiven.
Yet we are often taught that Jesus died so we could be forgiven for our sins. Even though God was already forgiving sin in the Old Testament. Actually, Jesus was forgiving sin even before He died on the cross. First there was the case where they lowered the paraplegic down through the roof for Jesus to heal...
Luke 5:19-20 (NASB)
19 But when they did not find any way to bring him in because of the crowd, they went up on the roof and let him down through the tiles with his stretcher, into the middle of the crowd, in front of Jesus. 20 And seeing their faith, He said, “Friend, your sins are forgiven you.”
Then when a woman washed Jesus feet....
Luke 7:47-48 (NASB)
47 For this reason I say to you, her sins, which are many, have been forgiven, for she loved much; but the one who is forgiven little, loves little.” 48 And He said to her, “Your sins have been forgiven.”
If Jesus died so we could be forgiven for our sins, then why was he forgiving sin before He died? Why was God already forgiving sins in the Old Testament? If it was unrepentant sin that sends us to hell, why didnt the newborn babies who died go to heaven?
As you can see, something is obviously not adding up here. These are the types of questions I ran into as I studied the Bible. Most people tend to brush them aside and something too far above them to figure out. They will blindly believe what their pastors or family or friends taught them, even when scripture is clearly saying it is wrong. Because people will brush these questions aside, they never fully learn the truth.
I like to refer to myself as a truth seeker. When I came across these things, I could not brush them aside. I had to know the answer. I needed to know the full truth of salvation. Not just what churches were teaching today. I dont care about man's interpretation of the Bible. I care about the truth. God's truth!
Let me give you a scripture that will at first seem like it has nothing to do with this subject...
Romans 8:7-8 (NASB)
7 because the mind set on the flesh is hostile toward God; for it does not subject itself to the law of God, for it is not even able to do so, 8 and those who are in the flesh cannot please God.
What this is saying, is that before we are saved, when we are in our sinful state, it is impossible for us to turn to Christ by or own merit. Now, typically I use this scripture when explaining how predestination works. It makes no difference if you believe in predestination or not though. The point here is to make you ask, "why" cant we choose God? The answer to that is because our souls are corrupted from birth.
Psalm 51:5 (NASB)
5 Behold, I was brought forth in guilt, And in sin my mother conceived me.
Psalm 58:3 (NASB)
3 The wicked have turned away from the womb; These who speak lies go astray from birth.
Ephesians 2:3 (NASB)
3 Among them we too all previously lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, just as the rest.
When Adam sinned, it did more than just upset the Lord. It corrupted him. I like to explain sin as being a spiritual cancer. It corrupts what it touches and it never heals on its own. Left alone, it will only continue to grow worse and worse. Adam sinned but it was just one sin. As generations passed, sin grew worse and worse until it became so rampant that God had to wipe out the population and start over from one righteous family. Then as time has passed again, it has grown worse and worse again. Sin is corruption!
The problem is, once Adam sinned, and he was the only male alive at the time, it meant that every person ever born through his seed, would be born with a soul that is already corrupted by sin. Because the soul is in the sperm of the male. Not the woman. The only damage Eve's sin did, was to her own soul. Adam's sin corrupted all of mankind.
When Moses was up on the mountain, he asked God to show him His glory. This was part of God's reply...
Exodus 33:20 (NASB)
20 He further said, “You cannot see My face, for mankind shall not see Me and live!”
Why couldn't man see God and live? Because his soul was corrupted by sin. And God is so perfectly pure and holy, that sin cannot exist in His presence when in His full glory. So if God was to allow anyone to enter heaven, where He resides in His full glory, their soul would have been utterly destroyed. God was not going to destroy the souls of the godly people of the earth!
As I have shown you, God was forgiving sin in the old testament, and yet that forgiveness of their sins did not save them. It did not allow them to go to heaven. That is because the forgiveness of sin is not what saves you. It allows your relationship with the Lord to grow. What saves us from hell and gives us access to heaven is the washing of our souls.
There is only one true God. There are many false gods created by man, but there is only one true God, who reveals Himself in three distinct persons. God the Father, God the Word, and God the Holy Spirit. If you do not believe in the Holy Trinity, I would ask you to read my article about it. The Holy Trinity
According to John 1:1-3, the Word of God was with God in the beginning and He was God. Everything that was ever created, was created through the Word.
The Word loved His creation of mankind so much that He would not allow mankind to be lost to Him. So He took on flesh and blood and was born fully human. They named Him Jesus. This literally made Jesus the only begotten Son of God. He was born from a virgin and this is extremely important, because it means He was not born through Adam's seed. He was not born with a corrupted soul. He was born perfect!
When Jesus was in the garden praying, He asked the Father to take His cup away, that He would not have to go through with what was coming. He prayed so hard, His sweat came out as drops of blood. This is a real medical condition called 'hematohidrosis'. It is a rare condition when someone is under extreme distress and their blood vessels rupture allowing the blood to excrete through the sweat glands. Jesus knew very well how He was going to die, the suffering He would go through and when it would happen. He really did not want to go through this suffering, and yet, when He was done praying, He told the Father, let His (the Father's) will be done, and not His own. So even though he was so stressed out over what He would go through, He was still willing to do it.
When the soldiers came to get Him, His disciples drew swords and attacked the guards to defend Him, but Jesus stopped them and even healed the secretary of the Jewish High Priest. Then He went with the soldiers quietly. That Jesus knew what was going to happen, and the action of stopping His disciples from defending Him and going quietly, literally changed what was happening from a man being taken and killed as a martyr, to Him willingly sacrificing Himself to save us.
Jesus died on the cross, He was more than just a man dying for us. He was the only begotten Son of God. He was God in the flesh. He was the only sacrifice that could ever possibly be pure enough, and holy enough, to not only allow us to be forgiven for our sin, but to allow our souls to be washed clean as well.
Ephesians 2:8-9 (NASB)
8 For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; 9 not as a result of works, so that no one may boast.
Many put their focus on the grace in this verse. I am going to break this entire verse down however so you can truly understand what is happening here.
8 For by grace you have been saved through faith; --- The definition of the word "grace" is basically "goodwill" or "kindness". Grace is not how we are saved. It is why Jesus died for us. Because of His goodwill/kindness. The 'how' we are saved is through faith. Believing in Jesus as Lord.
and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; --- There is nothing of what we do that saves us. It is strictly a gift of God. If we had to do anything for it, it would no longer be a gift, it would be a reward. A gift is always free.
9 not as a result of works, so that no one may boast. --- HE does not mention any tupe of works here because it doesnt matter. We are not saved by any kind of works on our part. If one does something intentionally, it is considered a wrk and we are not saved by that. For if it was, we would then be able to boast that we saved ourselves. So long as it is truly a free gift of God, then we have nothing we can boast about on our own part.
The real key to this at this time however, is that it is a gift from God. This means that everyone is not automatically washed clean. As with any gift, it is never yours until you first accept it. I could hold out a gift of a thousand dollars to someone and no matter how long I held it there, it is still going to be mine and not theirs, until they finally accept it. However, the cleansing of our soul is not physical gift. You cannot reach out and take it. Our souls are spirit, so the washing of our souls are spiritual gifts. How does one accept a spiritual gift? By believing in their heart it is real! That is why Jesus tells us this...
John 3:18 (KJV)
18 He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.
By believing in Jesus in your heart, truly believing, you accept His gift of salvation. This verse by the way is what I refer to as a Primary Scripture. If you do not know what a Primary Scripture is, I would now advise you to read this short article to understand how important they are. Primary Scriptures
Overall, I have found a total of 19 Primary scriptures that tell us specifically 'how' we are saved. All 19 of them clearly tell us that we are saved by believing in Jesus. Not one of them says we are saved by any other means. Most doctrines in the Bible have one or two primary scriptures supporting them. Salvation has 19 of them! Obviously, God wanted to make sure He was being clear on what was important. You can read all 19 of them here... Primary Salvation Scriptures
However, the most common argument made at this point would probably be "Even the devil believes. Is he saved?" Knowing quite well the devil is not saved. The Bible is very clear the devil will suffer forever in the Lake of Fire. The answer is quite simply, "No", the devil is not saved.
First off, salvation is not offered to angels and other spiritual beings. It is offered to mankind! Since the devil is exempt from this offer, it doesn't matter what he believes. This goes for his demonic angels as well.
Secondly, if you go through all 19 verses on salvation, you can break what exactly one must believe down to these details...
1) We must believe that Jesus is the only begotten Son of God.
2) You must believe that Jesus died for us, and that God raised Him from the dead.
3) You must believe in Jesus as your Lord and Savior.
4) You must believe it in your heart and not just your head. You must believe it enough that you are willing to confess to others that Jesus is Lord.
Even if salvation was offered to the devil and his angels, they would never accept that Jesus is their personal Lord and Savior. Believing that He was real, simply is not enough.
Summary
We must truly believe that Jesus is the Son of God and that He died for us and God raised Him from the dead. We must believe in Jesus as our Lord and Savior. As long as we believe that, we will be saved.
After that, nothing else is about salvation, but is about our personal relationship with the Lord. Getting baptized by water, refraining from sin, doing good works, they are all about growing closer to Him in our relationship. And that is so very important. More important than most understand. I would advise you to read my articles...
Your Personal Relationship with God & The Consequences of Sin.
I have backed everything up with scripture. I have even done something that very few pastors can do. I have explained salvation in a way that is also very logical. Yet there will still be many who will want to hold onto the scriptures they were taught that prove salvation by other means. If you are one, then I would ask you to pick your argument from below and read that article as well. There is a very good chance it will include your scripture.
There is a good chance that you will look at my interpretation of your scriptures on these doctrines, and claim I could be wrong. Who is to say whether my interpretation is wrong or yours, right? However, I also gave you 19 Primary scriptures on salvation telling us clearly how we are saved. Your interpretations would be contradicting those verses. Which verses are my interpretations contradicting?
Changing what you believe can be a hard thing to do. The question however, is what is more important to you? To believe in God's truth, or to satisfy your pride and believe what you thought was true?
False Doctrines on Salvation:
Saved by Works
Saved by Water Baptism
Saved by Repenting of Sin
