Salvation: It’s Both Who You Know and What You Know

There is a saying in business, “It’s not what you know, but who you know.” Advancement in one’s career is often linked to the important relationships that helped one climb the ladder of success.

In the business of salvation, advancement is intimately linked to both who and what you know.

First, the who in salvation is God. In every aspect of salvation, as revealed in the Bible, it is God’s exclusive work (Ps 3:8; Jon 2:9; Rev 19:1).

The Bible reveals God in community. There are three Persons clearly revealed, as God the Father, God the Son (Jesus), and God the Holy Spirit. Each person of the Godhead has a functional role in the salvation of people, representative from every nation, tribe, and tongue (Rev 5:9).

God the Father, Yahweh, has predestined some to salvation, by electing them before He created anything of the physical universe (Rom 8:30; Eph 1:4–5). In choosing a definite number, and knowing each by name (Rev 13:8; 17:8), He gave them to His Son (Jn 3:16, 36; 1 Jn 5:12) . We say these people are “in Christ” from before the foundation of the world (1 Cor 1:30).

God the Son, the eternal Christ, is known by the name, “Jesus.” He was sent from heaven by the Father (Jn 3:16), and He took on flesh and dwelt among us (Jn 1:14). This God-man is the Savior of those He came to save (Mt 1:21). He saved us (Titus 3:5). Whereas the Father has chosen a people for His own possession (1 Pet 2:9), it is the Son who has redeemed them from their plight in this sinful, fallen world (Is 49:20; 54:5, 8; 59:20).

Conceived with the original sin of the first man, Adam, each soul is an heir of sin (Ps 51:5; Rom 5:12). In addition, to varying degrees, each earns the wages of sin…death (Rom 6:23). God must judge sinners, in order to maintain perfect justice. No man can save himself because he has no way to pay for his crimes against the Law of God and His righteousness (Jas 4:12).

Christ died for us (Rom 5:8). He bore our sins in His body on the tree (1 Pet 2:24). In love, He laid down His life for His people (Jn 15:13), the sheep of His pasture (Jn 10:11, 15). He saved us (Titus 3:5), and God’s work in Him has reconciled us to God (2 Cor 5:18–19).

God the Holy Spirit is sent from God the Father and God the Son, in order to bring Christ’s merited benefits to God’s chosen people (Jn 14:26; 15:26). The Holy Spirit first indwells the elect soul and gives him or her new life (2 Cor 5:17; Eph 2:5; Col 2:13), by causing the person to be born again of God, in the work of regeneration (Jn 3:1–8; 1 Pet 1:3).

Second, with this new, spiritual life in the individual, we say, “She was made alive in Christ.” The life she now lives, she lives by faith in the Son of God, Jesus Christ (Gal 2:20). Her faith was given to her as a gift (Eph 2:8–9), granted to her by the grace of God (Phil 1:29), in the Spirit. The life of God, in the soul of man, is new, abundant, and eternal (Jn 10:10, 28; 2 Cor 5:17). It is obvious why one believes in Christ, for it is the Spirit of Christ indwelling the Christian (Jn 14:17; Rom 8:9, 11).

The mutual indwelling is “Christ in me, the hope of glory (Col 1:27),” and me, “seated with Him in the heavenly places (Eph 2:6).” This is the epitome of a “personal relationship with Christ.” “Christ is your life (Col 3:3),” when He has taken up residence in the believer’s heart (Gal 2:20), to will and to do His good pleasure (Phil 2:13). To know Him (the who) is to know one’s salvation (the what).

Learning Christ should be every person’s top priority in life. Knowing God exposes the plight of man (Gen 6:5; Jer 17:9; Is 64:6; Mt 25:41, 46; Rom 1:18–32; 3: 10–12, 23; 6:23; 2 Cor 5:10; Jude 7; Rev 20:11, 14–15), which reveals man’s desperate need for someone to save him (Titus 1:4; 2:13; 3:4–6). Knowing Christ, one is familiarized with how God came to save His people from their sins (Mt 1:21).

The Gospel of our salvation is the good news of our triune God, and His decree of our salvation. Everything one could know about salvation (the what) is revealed in knowing the Godhead. God has graciously revealed the mystery of Himself in the incarnate Word, Christ Jesus, who is revealed in the written Word, the Bible.

Therefore, knowing Christ, personally, is to know our salvation because His person and work are inseparable. To know the Bible (the what) is to know Christ (the who), when illumined by the Holy Spirit. To know Christ is to know God, and to know God is to know, with blessed assurance, the great salvation He is to us who believe.

David Norczyk

Spokane Valley, Washington

January 9, 2022