Salvation

Full question studies on salvation

• What is repentance in the Bible?

  Scripture describes repentance as turning: a change of mind about sin and about God that turns a person away from sin and toward God, and shows itself in what follows. It is more than regret, since Scripture distinguishes godly sorrow that leads to repentance from worldly sorrow that only produces death, and it is God's gift as well as our act.

• Who is Jesus?

  Scripture introduces Jesus of Nazareth as a real man in real history who is also the eternal Word through whom everything was made. He is the promised Christ of Israel, the Son of God, crucified under Pontius Pilate, raised on the third day, and now confessed as Lord. The Bible never presents him only as a teacher, and it never lets him remain a private opinion. It records him asking his own followers the question and waiting for their answer.

• Is Jesus God?

  Scripture says yes, and it does not say it in one verse only. Jesus is called God directly, is said to have made all things, forgives sins, receives worship, and takes to himself words that the Old Testament reserves for Yahweh. At the same time he prays to the Father, obeys the Father and calls the Father greater. The Bible holds both together without apology, and the reader who wants an honest answer has to read the whole case rather than one proof text.

• Why is Jesus called the Son of God?

  Son of God is first a royal title from Israel's Scriptures, promised to David's heir, and Scripture applies it to Jesus as the true king. In the Gospels it carries more than kingship: the angel uses it of his conception, the Father's voice uses it at his baptism, and his hearers understood him to be claiming equality with God by calling God his own Father. It does not mean that God had a wife, or that the Son began at Bethlehem, or that he is a lesser second god.

• Why did Jesus come to earth?

  Scripture answers this in his own words more than once. He came to seek and to save the lost, to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many, to do the will of the Father who sent him, to bear witness to the truth, to fulfil the law and the prophets, to destroy the works of the devil, and to give life. Not one of those statements is about setting an example only, and every one of them ends up at the cross and the empty tomb.

• Did Jesus really rise from the dead?

  The New Testament says yes and puts the claim in a form that can be tested rather than admired. Paul lists named witnesses and a group of over five hundred still living when he wrote. The accounts describe a body that could be touched and that ate, not a vision. They also record the first alternative explanation, that the disciples stole him, and record who paid for it. Scripture treats the resurrection as the point on which everything stands or falls, and says so in those words.

• What is the Gospel?

  The Gospel is news, not advice. It is the announcement that God became man in Jesus Christ, lived the life we owed, died the death we deserved, rose bodily from the dead, and now freely forgives and reconciles everyone who turns from sin and trusts him. It is something done, reported to us, before it is anything asked of us.

• What does it mean to be born again?

  To be born again is to receive a new spiritual life from God, given by the Holy Spirit, that no amount of moral effort or religious heritage can produce. Jesus told the most religious man in Jerusalem that he must be born again to see the kingdom of God at all. It is not self-improvement. It is a new birth, entirely God's act, that changes what a person is before it changes what they do.

• Why did Jesus have to die?

  Jesus died because sin has a real penalty, death, and God chose to bear that penalty himself rather than simply overlook it. Scripture presents the cross as a substitution: the sinless one carrying the guilt of the guilty, so that God could remain just and still forgive. It was not an accident that overtook him. It was the plan he came to fulfil.

• Why did Jesus rise from the dead?

  Jesus rose bodily from the dead because his death alone would have left the debt of sin paid but not proven, and death itself unconquered. The resurrection is God's public verdict that the sacrifice was accepted, his vindication of Christ's claims, and the guarantee that everyone united to Christ by faith will share the same risen life. Without it, Scripture itself says the Gospel would be worthless.

• What is grace?

  Grace is God's undeserved favor toward sinners, shown supremely in that while we were dead in trespasses and sins, he made us alive together with Christ. It is not a reward for the good we have done or a boost for the good we are trying to do. It is God's own kindness, freely given through Christ, that saves us when we could not save ourselves and keeps teaching us to live for him afterward.

• How do I get saved?

  You are saved by turning from sin and trusting Jesus Christ, believing in your heart that God raised him from the dead and confessing him as Lord. Paul states it plainly: whoever calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. This is not a formula to recite but real faith, a genuine turning to Christ as the one who died for your sins and rose again, and it is offered freely to anyone who will receive it.

• What must I do to be saved?

  Scripture answers this exact question three times, to three different people, and gives the same substance every time even though the words differ. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved. Repent, and be baptized in his name for the forgiveness of your sins. Sell what you have, and follow me. These are not three different roads to God. They are one road described to a jailer trembling before a magistrate, to a crowd cut to the heart at Pentecost, and to a rich man who trusted his own righteousness. Salvation has always come by grace through faith in Christ, and the obedience each person was called to simply showed where their faith already stood.

• Can I lose my salvation?

  Jesus says his sheep hear his voice, he gives them eternal life, they will never perish, and no one can snatch them out of his hand or his Father's hand. Faithful Christians have read the New Testament's warning passages differently for centuries, some holding that a true believer can finally fall away and others that such warnings are God's appointed means of keeping his own. Every tradition agrees that no one drifts into final apostasy by accident, that ongoing repentance and faith are how a Christian actually lives out salvation, and that assurance is meant to be enjoyed, not manufactured by fear.

Reading plans on salvation

Daily readings on salvation

A single morning's reading, if you would rather not begin a whole plan.

See all 26 daily readings

Deep chapter studies to read next

A topic is best learned inside a chapter. These are the full studies published so far.

• Genesis 4 Cain and Abel: the first murder and the heart behind it.
• Genesis 22: The Mountain Where God Revealed the Gospel Obedience, substitution, and the first Father who gave a son
• Psalm 1: The Way of the Righteous and the Wicked Two ways, two influences, two outcomes
• Psalm 23: The LORD Our Shepherd The Shepherd who never leaves His people

Every chapter study

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• Join the Daily Study plan One chapter study a day, keyed to the verse of the day.