The goal of your faith, the salvation of your souls
1 Pet 1:9 for you are receiving the goal of your faith, the salvation of your souls. (NIV)
The goal of our faith? Is this the goal of my faith? Yours?
The salvation of my soul!
SALVATION
Deliverance from the power of sin; redemption.
The need for salvation goes back to man's removal from the Garden of Eden <Gen. 3>. After the Fall, man's life was marked by strife and difficulty. Increasingly, corruption and violence dominated his world <Gen. 6:11-13>. When God destroyed the world with the Flood, He also performed the first act of salvation by saving Noah and his family. These eight people became the basis of another chance for mankind. The salvation of Noah and his family was viewed by the apostle Peter as a pattern of that full salvation which we receive in Christ <1 Pet. 3:18-22>.
The central Old Testament experience of salvation is the Exodus <Ex. 12:40--14:31>. Much of Israel's worship of God was a renewal of this mighty experience that brought them from tyranny in Egypt to freedom in the Promised Land <Ex. 13:3-16>. The mighty saving power of God was demonstrated dramatically as the Israelites formed a holy nation of priestly servants of the Lord <Ex. 19:4-6>. The Exodus became a pattern of salvation by which God's future deeds of redemption would be understood.
But just as the Exodus symbolized their salvation, the Captivity of the Israelites in Babylon was a disastrous return to bondage. The people responded to this plight with expectations of a new and better Exodus <Is. 43:14-16> in which God would forgive their sins and restore their hearts to faithfulness <Jer. 31:31-34>.
This hope for a new Exodus merged with expectation of a full realization of the rule of God <Ezek. 36:22-38>. Since God was Lord and had shown Himself to be righteous and faithful, He must one day overpower His enemies and perfect the life of His people. This hope is expressed through the concept of the "day of the Lord" as described by the Old Testament prophets <Joel 2:1-11; Amos 9:11-15>. But this hope also focused on the role of the Anointed King and the coming of the Messiah <Psalm 2>.
Even Israel's return from the Captivity, however, failed to fulfill all their hopes <Hag. 2:3>. So a new understanding arose: the full realization of God's purpose of salvation would involve the coming of a completely new age <Is. 65:17-25>. This doctrine of salvation reached its fulfillment in the death of Christ on our behalf. Jesus' mission was to save the world from sin and the wrath of God <Matt. 1:21; John 12:47; Rom. 5:9>. During His earthly ministry, salvation was brought to us by His presence and the power of faith <Luke 19:9-10>. Now, our salvation is based on His death and resurrection <Mark 10:25>.
The salvation that comes through Christ may be described in three tenses: past, present, and future. When a person believes in Christ, he is saved <Acts 16:31>. But we are also in the process of being saved from the power of sin <Rom. 8:13; Phil. 2:12>. Finally, we shall be saved from the very presence of sin <Rom. 13:11; Titus 2:12-13>. God releases into our lives today the power of Christ's resurrection <Rom. 6:4> and allows us a foretaste of our future life as His children <2 Cor. 1:22; Eph. 1:14>. Our experience of salvation will be complete when Christ returns <Heb. 9:28> and the kingdom of God is fully revealed <Matt. 13:41-43>.