In another paper, I have outlined the scriptural proofs against Dispensationalism. I believe they can be clearly seen by anyone who is open to seeing the truth.

What I find, however, is that those who have subscribed to Dispensationalism as a system of Bible "understanding" have defined their core doctrine by it. (I once did myself.) They are so used to looking at scripture through the lens of Dispensationalism that they are lost and frightened and unable to function without it. Dispensationalism teaches them that God has made a Dispensation of Grace, or Church Age, in which saints are uniquely saved by grace through faith, as opposed to other systems or methods in other dispensations; and that this Dispensation of Grace is administered to them via the Apostle Paul. Because of this viewpoint, many Christians are confused about the relevance of non-Pauline writings in describing the salvation that is available to them, and which they have purportedly received.

The idea of salvation presented is basically this. The holy God looked at man in his sinful state and judged him worthy of death; for the wages of sin is death. However, God is not willing that any should perish; and so God the Father sent God the Son (Jesus) to die in place of fallen man so that man could escape the penalty of his sin and go to heaven. There is one condition attached: each man must—in a moment of time—believe in the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, and confess him as Lord, calling upon his name. He is thus saved, born again, and can never lose that salvation under any circumstances.

This is usually presented as the entire gospel, and all that a person must do to be saved and immediately receive eternal life. Indeed, this is the gospel that I believed in since childhood. There are variations on it. Some say that only faith is required, as in Acts 16:31: "believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved." Some say that confession of Jesus as Lord is required as well, as in Romans 10:9-10: "if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved."

The point I want to make here is that not all the fullness of the gospel is present in a single verse or passage of the Bible. John 3:16 says that whosoever believeth would have everlasting life. The same picture is given in Acts 16:31; however, this is not the whole picture. Romans 10:9-10 makes it clear that with the mouth confession is made unto salvation; and in verse 13 of the same chapter, "For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved." There is no way to pull "confession with the mouth" out of either John 3:16 or Acts 16:31; it is omitted. Either these verses represent a completely different gospel, or they simply do not mention everything involved. Clearly, the latter: God doesn't require Nicodemus and the Philippians to believe only, while for some unknown reason requiring the Romans to believe AND confess.

We see this same story throughout the New Testament. The gospel is not present entirely in one verse or chapter, though it is frequently summarized by focusing on specific aspects of it. 1 Corinthians 15:1-4, which the context even says is "the gospel", is often thought to encompass the entire gospel; however, we don't see anything about confessing Jesus as Lord, calling on the name of the Lord, as in Romans 10. Again, this is not the whole picture.

So what am I saying? That we must search through the New Testament, locate all the verses that deal with the gospel, and then glue all the puzzle pieces together so we can come up with the right formula? Not exactly; but that's a start.

The New Testament doesn't give the whole "formula" in one passage because it's not meant to be a formula. We are not meant to repeat a prayer, follow all the right steps, and acquire the eternal salvation of our soul in 5 minutes. It doesn't work that way. Many people think that the gospel is the tiny chunk of the New Testament that we need to secure salvation for ourselves, while the rest of the Bible is totally optional unless we want a good pat on the back and some bonus points in heaven. Again, I say, this is not the case.

The gospel of Jesus Christ is declared, described, explained, and explored throughout the New Testament; and it is prophesied, promised, and prepared for throughout the Old Testament. The gospel is not one of many plans, programs, dispensations, or options God has for mankind; it is God's one and only way of working salvation for mankind, for each individual who will be saved, from the beginning of time until the end of time. There is no other option or program. The prophets of old enquired and searched diligently for this salvation, because they realized that they needed it to be saved; not because they had salvation through some other means, and "grace" would have simply made it easier for them.

It is often said to be such; but God's salvation through Christ is not just a big gift package that God bestows unconditionally on every person who has a moment of intellectual assent to the historicity of Christ's death, burial, and resurrection. It is not God saying, "If you just believe that my Son died for you, I'll turn a blind eye to all your sins and let you have Heaven when you die." This is the explanation of someone who does not understand the gospel.

The gospel of Christ is the power of God unto salvation. It is actually the means through which God saves—not merely the condition on which God bestows salvation. In order to see this, we first have to understand who God is and what he is trying to accomplish.

God is the Creator, and the Lord over his own creation. The scripture says that of him, through him, to him, for him, and by him are all things; and that all things were created for his pleasure. He himself is the original Cause. We exist for him. He does not exist for us. He made us for himself. He did not make us so that he could become our servant and helper, and so that he could find purpose for his existence as being our benefactor. God does not exist for the purpose of serving man and saving him from his self-inflicted destruction. Man was created for the purpose of pleasing God; and by falling into sin, we have failed in that purpose. We have failed God. All we like sheep have gone astray, and are indeed "lost" without him. But we are not merely lost to ourselves, far from our home of safety; we are lost to God. He ought to have one hundred sheep; and without one of us, he has but ninety and nine.

The problem is sin. Jesus said, "Whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin." Again, he said, "No man can serve two masters." God is good, while sin is against him, and evil. By serving sin, we have failed in our obligation and purpose of serving God, of being pleasing and profitable to him, and have become lost to him. As God must be served from the heart, so sin is also served from the heart. The heart, just as its name implies, is the very center of a person's being and will. The problem with a sinner is not only the sins that he commits, but that his sin proceeds from his heart: "For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies..." The sinner is, at his very core, a fountain of sin.

God is not okay with this. He does not want to save sinners, as such, from his wrath against sin. He wants to save sinners from their sins so that they will not have to experience his wrath, which is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men. It is not enough for God to cover the sins of a sinner and hide them from his sight, pretending as though they do not exist, so that sinner can continue to exist for his own agenda. He desires truth in the inward parts; he desires a heart that is clean from sin so that he can dwell in that heart. That is the crux of true salvation. It is not merely the absolution of sin for our sake, but the abolition of sin for his sake.

God wants to make a new heart in man: a fountain which sends forth the sweet water of righteousness rather than the bitter water of sin. He wants to birth a new creature around that new heart: a new man who is created in righteousness and true holiness in his image. God does not want to save the unworthy sinner; he wants to transform that unworthy sinner into someone worth saving. The gospel is the power by which he does just that.

The gospel of Christ is not simply the condition on which God bestows salvation; it IS the power of God unto salvation. It is the means by which God transforms a sinner into a righteous person who can be saved. It is the means by which a person can be, and must be, perfected and completed. That is the end goal.

There are some who will agree that this is the eventual goal; but it must be impossible in this life because of our sinful flesh. Therefore, the gospel is simply about having a moment of true faith, getting your sins forgiven, and waiting around for the coming of the Lord, at which point we won't sin anymore because we will have a new "glorified body" which, unlike our current vile body, will not be capable of sin. This is commonly taught. However, if taken as the entire gospel, this presentation lacks one major element of utmost importance: the heart is not changed, the mind is not changed, and the life is not changed. What happens, if the case be so, when a man with an evil heart obtains a new, sinless body? Déjà vu, of course...

Having made Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden, God looked at his entire creation and found it to be "very good". He did not create Adam and Eve with sinful flesh that unavoidably caused them to sin. He created them with a free will that was fully capable of choosing either God or self, righteousness or sin; and that free will was something that was, in the sight of God, "very good". But then came the test. Adam had to choose whether to please himself according to the lust of his eyes and flesh, or to please God through righteousness by believing his word. In his heart, in the very center of his will, he chose himself over God. Every sinner does the same: not because his flesh gives him no choice, but because his heart is deceitful and desperately wicked, serving self, loving pleasure (the pleasing of himself) more than loving God.

The gospel of Christ is the reversal of this problem. It does not merely make clean the outside of the cup and platter, as did the Pharisees, but it enables cleansing of the inward parts. It is not a step-by-step formula to be rattled off in a prayer during an altar call; it is a multi-aspect work of God that begins at a point in time, and continues working to transform a person's life in a real, practical way, so long as that person continues in God's grace by faith.

This is God's design. It can be seen throughout the scripture—not merely in certain linked-together verses—and does not require any special "lens" (such as that of Dispensationalism) to understand, beyond that of simply believing Jesus Christ and confessing his lordship and authority.

The full salvation of Christ is a process. It begins with repentance toward God, and is sustained by faith until the end, when eternal life is finally realized in the world to come. So long as a person keeps the faith, God will continue working in that person through grace unto salvation. It is the purpose of this article to explain and to prove this process from the whole of scripture; to define the main terms that the scripture uses to describe the aspects of salvation; and to exhort believers in Christ to take earnest heed to the sober warnings of so great salvation, which I have found to be often dangerously neglected.

Repentance: Man, having within his heart acknowledged his past and present sins, and having acknowledged the utter vanity, wrongness, and destruction of sin, chooses to turn from sin to righteousness. This establishes an honest and good heart which is then able to receive the seed of God's word by faith, and keep it. (Job 33:27; 1 Kings 8:47-48; Ezekiel 18:30-32; Daniel 12:3; Matthew 9:13; Luke 8:11-15; Luke 15:7; Acts 11:18; Acts 14:15; Acts 26:20; 1 Thess. 1:9)

Faith: Having turned from the way of sin, man is willing to follow the God of righteousness; he therefore receives and believes the word of God, the gospel of salvation in Jesus Christ, by the hearing of faith. (Mark 1:15; Acts 19:4; Eph. 1:13; Eph. 2:8-9; John 6:29; John 3:16; Rom. 10:8-11)

Spirit: By faith in the operation of God, who raised Jesus Christ from the dead, the believer is made partaker of the Spirit of God. The Spirit begins to renew the mind of the believer, transforming it to the mind of Christ, making him spiritually minded (in Christ) rather than carnally minded (in Adam). The Spirit begins to bear his own fruit in the life of the believer: love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance; the end of which is everlasting life. (John 7:38-39; Acts 10:43-44; Eph. 1:13; Col. 2:12; Rom. 6:22; Rom. 12:1-2; Phil. 2:5-16; Rom. 8:5-6; Rom. 8:14-16; Gal. 3:2; Gal. 5:22-23; 1 John 4:13)

Righteousness: God, having sent forth the earnest of his Spirit into the heart, imputes righteousness: that is, he counts that person to have a righteous heart, though no works have yet been done outwardly. He is justified before God by faith WITHOUT works, becoming an heir of the righteousness of God (his Spirit) by faith. (2 Cor. 1:22 & 5:5; Rom. 1:17; Rom. 3:22; Rom. 4:1-25; Titus 3:5; Rom. 10:10; Heb. 11:7; Phil. 3:9; 2 Cor. 5:21)

Grace: Having believed unto righteousness, man finds grace in the sight of God: which is the favor and blessing of God toward the righteous. "For the righteous LORD loveth righteousness, and his countenance doth behold the upright." Man continues and grows in the grace of God by walking in the righteousness of faith and keeping his commandments. (Gen. 6:8 & 7:1; Job 33:23-26; Psalm 5:12; Psalm 35:27; Prov. 3:3-4; Prov. 12:2; Prov. 14:9; John 1:14-17; Acts 13:43; Acts 15:11; Romans 3:24-26; Rom. 5:21; Rom. 6; Rom. 11:5-6; Eph. 1:6-7; Eph. 2:8-10; etc.)

Good Works: The inner righteousness of the heart is made manifest outwardly in his deeds as the man walks in the Spirit by faith. His faith is made perfect, or complete, as it is fulfilled in his actions. The man is now justified by his faith AND works, and not by faith alone. He not only has righteousness inwardly, but he also does righteousness outwardly. "The just shall live by faith." (Matt. 5:16; Matt. 7:17-20; Matt. 12:33-35; Rom. 8:1-4; Eph. 2:10; Titus 3:8; Heb. 10:38; James 2:14-26; 1 John 2:3-6; 1 John 2:29; 1 John 3:1-24)

Eternal Life: Grace reigns through the righteousness of the Spirit unto eternal life by Jesus Christ. (Matt. 25:46; Rom. 5:21; Rom. 8:10; Gal. 6:8; John 4:14 & 7:38; Rom. 6:22-23; Prov. 11:30 & Rev. 22:14)