Salvation...

'...the word of faith which we are preaching, that if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved; for with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation. For the scripture says, "Whoever believes in Him will not be disappointed." For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; for the same Lord is Lord of all, abounding in riches for all who call on Him; for "Whoever will call on the name of the Lord will be saved."' Romans 10: 8 - 13 

Over the past weeks while preaching in Cambodia I have watched in wonder as Jesus the Saviour worked. People by the hundreds have been 'saved'.
At the same time my meditation has been on the scripture I have quoted above and in particular the truth of salvation.
Saved? What exactly does it mean to be saved?
I want to share some thoughts I have with you about salvation.

To be saved the Biblical process is preaching, confession, belief.
Confessing His Lordship and believing He is alive.
That's Romans 10: 9.
Romans 10: 10 then tells us that believing results in righteousness and confession results in salvation.
Please note that from verse 9 to verse 10 the order is reversed.
Simply belief in his resurrection means receiving His righteousness.
This is the basis of everything we have in Christ when we believe.
The foundation stone of the New Covenant of Grace is the FACT that we are the righteousness of God in Christ, that He remembers our sin no more, that He has removed our iniquity as far as east is from west. We are righteous in His finished work alone which was finished when He bore our sin, shed His blood, died the death we deserved and completed the rout of the enemy when He defeated death and rose again. He then went into the presence of God with His own blood and was accepted and we are accepted in Him. This is the most important truth because everything hinges on this.What I believe is that without receiving His righteousness we will be unable to receive all that He died to restore to us. Oh yes we are still covered by the blood but it is possible for us to live in constant doubt as to our value and worth to receive the restoration of His bounty and blessing.
As I thought of this my mind went to the children of Israel waiting on God for deliverance from Egypt.
Consider two Israeli houses, both having taken the lamb and applied the blood on the lintel and the doorpost and as the angel comes through town they can hear the anguished cry of the Egyptians as their firstborn are slain. One house rejoices in the great deliverance of their God, the other cowers under their beds fearful of the possibility they aren't righteous enough to receive His favour of salvation. Which house is saved? Both, because both have eaten all the lamb and applied the blood but one is free and rejoicing, the other fearful and bound.
How, then, is this possible when both are 'saved'?

Think then on this; next we see in the passage we quoted above that confession results in salvation. The only conclusion that one can reach is that salvation must be more than just believing because the two sit together in the same verse and there is no error in the word of God. I believe then that we see in this the true wonder of salvation and in this we see the true restoration ministry of Jesus. Adam gave away his place of blessing. Jesus came to restore us our rightful, God-given place plus more.

To illustrate 'salvation' we can then look again at the children of Israel as they are released from bondage in Egypt. You can read all about it in Exodus from chapter 12 onwards. There is quite a bit to read here but there is a Psalm, Psalm 105, that beautifully summarises this shadow of salvation. I won't say a lot but rather give a bullet point summary so you can clearly see God's salvation.

• Psalm 105: 1 - 5 -All praise to Him, 'Sing to Him, sing praise to Him; speak of all His wonders. Glory in His holy name; Let the heart of those who seek the Lord be glad...'
• Psalm 105: 7 - 24 - remember the covenant of grace God made with Abraham and how He has honoured His covenant. The covenant of grace made with Abraham is restored in the New Covenant made by God with man, the Man, Christ Jesus on our behalf and under which we sit if we have believed and received Him.
• Psalm 105: 25 - 37 - God brings release, so much more than our traditional 'view' of salvation, which is being set free from the penalty of our sin
• Exodus 12: 1 - 13 - They take the lamb and apply the blood on the lintel and doorposts of their houses, so much a picture and shadow of our Lord, Jesus Christ.
• They eat the whole lamb; this I think is especially significant. We need to eat the whole truth of Jesus Christ, He is EVERYTHING.
• As the firstborn of Egyptians perish the people take their first step to freedom - salvation.
• As they leave please see how the true immensity of their salvation:
• Exodus 12: 32 - With their flocks and herds,
• Exodus 12: 33 - With their bread unleavened and with their kneading bowls,
• Exodus 12: 35, Psalm 105: 37 - With articles of silver and articles of gold, and clothing,
• Exodus 12: 36 - Favoured, by even the Egyptians to the point that the word says they 'plundered' the Egyptians,
• Exodus 12: 38 - With flocks, herds, 'a very large number of livestock',
• Psalm 105: 37 - Even though they had suffered 400 years of slavery and deprivation having eaten the lamb they went out without sickness or infirmity, 'among His tribes there was not one who stumbled', the Amplified Bible puts it this way, 'there was not one feeble person among their tribes.' Please also see Exodus 15: 26.
• Psalm 13: 21, Psalm 105: 39 - The Lord led them with a cloud by day and a fire by night; as Psalm 105: 39 (Amplified) says 'the Lord spread a cloud for covering [by day], and a fire to give light in the night.' We enjoy His leading day and night, and the covering of His 'cloud' by day and the warmth of His 'fire' by night.
• Exodus 14 - They experienced the might of the salvation of the Lord as He says to them, 'Stand still, be silent and see the salvation of the Lord' as He rolls back the sea and delivers them by His mighty, outstretched hand. It is interesting to me that Moses lifted up the 'rod' and the people were delivered; the rod is a shadow of Jesus, by which we are 'saved'.
• All needs are supplied by the Lord:
• Exodus 15: 22 - 25, Psalm 105: 41 - water. It is interesting that the bitterness of the water was made sweet by the tree; our bitterness is made sweet by the 'tree' of the cross of Jesus Christ.
• Exodus 16: 13, 14, Psalm 105: 40 - meat and heavenly bread. In the evening quail and in the morning the dew would fall and when it evaporated would be bread, manna from heaven. Dew is a shadow of grace; grace covers everything like dew covers everything on a dewy morning and in it is the manna, grace and sustenance in Jesus Christ.
• Exodus 15: 27 - 'Elim where there were twelve springs of water and seventy date palms - 12 speaks of God's government and 70 speaks of human delegation.

I trust you see shadowed in the story of the exodus of the children of Israel from Egypt (a type of the world, and bondage) TRUE SALVATION; set free by the blood of the Lamb; we are to eat it all, the Lord supplies all, not only salvation from sin but salvation to provision, healing, sight, leading, mighty deliverance, daily Bread of Life, Living Water, God's governance and leadership, and our delegation to His salvation.

We declare His mighty salvation as the children of Israel did in Exodus 15: 1 - 18 and the Psalmist did in Psalm 105.

This is salvation, more than just salvation from sin but salvation to the wonder of all the Jesus won for us in His finished work at Calvary.

Receive His salvation, receive Jesus in His fullness; He is the fullness of God and we are complete in Him (Colossians 2: 9, 10).

Blessings.