So they said, "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved, you and your household." Then they spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all who were in his house. And he took them the same hour of the night and washed their stripes. And immediately he and all his family were baptized. Acts 16:31-33

What must a person do to be saved? First, saved from what? Saved from Sin. Isn’t that what Jesus came to save His people from, according to the angel in Matthew 1:21? What does it mean to be saved from sin? Consider three facets of salvation:

We are saved from sin’s penalty. The saved are saved from the penalty of the second death (Revelation 20:11-15), which is the Lake of Fire, whereas those who are not saved will experience God’s just, eternal, and unmitigated wrath. “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” (Romans 8:1)

We are being saved from sin’s power. From the time we are saved, we are being progressively sanctified, or made more holy. This progress is only accomplished by God’s grace through the power of the Holy Spirit, but we must cooperate with the Holy Spirit—not in order to be saved, but because we have received salvation by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone.

We will be saved even from sin’s presence. When we are glorified, either at the moment we die physically, or when Christ returns (whichever happens first), we will pass from life in this fallen world into the gloriously sinless presence of our Holy God. Heaven is Heaven because God is there, and sin will not be!

That is a simple overview of salvation. Next time, the role of belief in receiving salvation…