The Son of God, Jesus Christ, Lord of lords and King of Kings, has come to save us – this is the joyful message of Christmas!
But many of us may not fully understand all the various concepts in ‘Salvation’. Not understanding the meaning and the implications of all these concepts would invariably affect our wholesome applications in our outworking as God’s children.

CONVERSION

Conversion is an entity which has two indistinguishable but inseparable aspects: repentance and faith. Repentance is the unbeliever’s turning away from sin, and faith is his or her turning toward Christ. They are, respectively, the negative and positive aspects of the same occurrence. In a sense, each is incomplete without the other, and each is motivated by the other..

Repentance is godly sorrow for one’s sin together with a resolution to turn from it. It is not enough simply to believe in Jesus and accept the offer of grace: there must be a real alteration of the inner person. If there is no conscious repentance, there is no real awareness of having been saved from the power of sin. There may be a corresponding lack of depth and commitment.

To believe on or in the name of Jesus is to place one”s personal trust in Him. The God in whom we are to trust reveals Himself, at least in part, through communicating information about Himself to which we are to assent and accept.

Conversion refers to our response to God’s offer of salvation and approach to humankind. Regeneration is the other side of conversion. It is God’s doing. It is God’s transformation of individual believers, His giving a new spiritual vitality and direction to their lives when they accept Christ. It restores them to what they were originally intended to be.

JUSTIFICATION

We have noted previously that humankind has a twofold problem as a result of sin and the fall. On the one hand, there is a basic corruption of human nature; our moral character has been polluted through sin. Regeneration reverses the direction and general tendencies of human nature. However, there is the other problem – our guilt or liability to punishment for having failed to fulfil God’s expectations. It is this other problem that justification relates. Justification is God’s action pronouncing sinners righteous in His sight. It is a matter of our being forgiven and declared to have fulfilled all that God’s law requires of us. Justification is the declarative act of God by which, on the basis of the sufficiency of Christ’s atoning death, He pronounces believers to have fulfilled all of the requirements of the law which pertain to them. Justification is a forensic act imputing the righteousness of Christ to the believer; it is not an actual infusing of holiness into the individual but it is a matter of declaring the person righteous, as a judge does in acquitting the accused.

Justification is something completely undeserved. It is not an achievement; it is an obtainment and not an achievement – it is the gift of God – not because of works. Even faith is not some good work which God must reward with salvation – it is also God’s gift – it is not the cause of our salvation,but the means by which we receive it. While it is faith that leads to justification – justification must and will invariably produce good works. If there are no good works, there has been no real faith nor justification.

UNION

The first characteristic of our union with Christ is that it is judicial in nature. When the Father evaluates or judges us before the law, He does not look upon us alone. We are in His sight one with Christ. He sees the two as one and says in effect that they are righteous. All of the assets of each are now mutually possessed – from a legal perspective, the two are now one.

The union of the believer with Christ is spiritual – the union is effected by the Holy Spirit – Christ dwells in us if His Spirit dwells in us, and He dwells in us by the Holy Spirit – the Holy Spirit is the bond of this union.

The union with Christ is not a union of persons in one essence, as in the Trinity. It is not a union of natures in one person, as is the case with the incarnation of Jesus Christ. It is not a physical bonding, as in the welding of two pieces of metal. It is in some way a union of two spirits which does not extinguish either of them. The union produces a new spiritual vitality within the human. The life of Christ actually flows into ours, renewing our nature (Rom. 12:2; 2 Cor. 4:16) and imparting spiritual strength. There is a literal truth in Jesus’ metaphor of the vine and the branches. Just as the branch cannot bear fruit if it does not receive life from the vine, so we cannot bear spiritual fruit if Christ’s life does not flow into us (John 15:4).
Being one with Christ also means that we will suffer – Jesus has told this to His followers – He told them not to be surprised if they encountered persecution (John 15:20).

We also have the prospect of reigning with Him. The final stage of the process of salvation is glorification.

GLORIFICATION

Glorification involves the perfecting of the spiritual nature of the individual believer, which takes place at death, when the Christian passes into the presence of the Lord. It also involves the perfecting of the bodies of all believers, which will occur at the time of the resurrection in connection with the second coming of Christ. It even involves transformation of the entire creation (Rom. 8:18-25). In glorification, there will also be a moral and spiritual perfecting of the individual (Col.1:22; Eph.1:4). When glorified, we will be everything that God has intended us to be.

Indeed, ‘Christmas’ is about His glory; it is about His grace; it is the gift of love our heavenly Father gives us!