“…the gospel of the glory of the blessed God…”
1 Timothy 1:11
We’ve been asking, “How are we to praise God for who He is, if all we understood about Him is what He has done.” And in answering that we looked at the story of Nicky Cruze, a New York gangster who was saved in a miraculous way.
Follow with me now the logic of salvation and you’ll see how it all leads us right back to the blessed God, using four circles.
Start at Circle 1) Jesus Saved Me
Like Nicky Cruze, we experienced God in salvation. We heard the gospel and accepted it. We became conscious of our sin, and conscious of being saved from sin by Jesus. Where would you go from there logically? What’s the next line of thinking?
Circle 2) We’d naturally then ask, “If Jesus saved me, how did Jesus save me?”
By asking that question you’re moving into another level. And then you’d find the answer in your bible as: through His death and resurrection, Jesus atoned for my sin. My sin was the predicament and Jesus was the answer.
Then where do you go? Logic leads us to the
Circle 3) If Jesus saved me And He saved me in this way, then who must Jesus be?
The only answer that works is that He’s God, fully. But to save me in this way, He’d had have to be man fully as well.
Do you see the circles working? It starts at our experience (salvation), then moves into the action (atonement) , then moves into the actor acting that action (The Son of God Incarnate)
But there’s a 4th circle if we’re going to go all the way. Do you want to go all the way?
Circle 4) If Jesus is divine, as circle 3, showed He was, then who must God be?
If we add “God” to the description of Jesus, then in some way “Jesus” must be added to the description of God.
Our experience of salvation leads us to think on the nature of that salvation which leads us to think on the nature of the savior, which leads us to think on the nature of God, and after while, you realize you haven’t thought about yourself in quite some time because your thoughts have swallowed up in Circle 4, the blessed Triune God.
If we want to understand salvation, we don’t spend all our time engaging with the Circle ...
