The difference in salvation before and after the cross

STATEMENT/QUESTION:

Are you saying that how people get saved today is different from the Bible times? Was it different before Christ came or different before he died? Please explain how this ‘other salvation’ before Christ works?

My assertion is that there is no other salvation and there never was. From Genesis to Revelation salvation has always been through faith in the promised Messiah to come and take away our sins and set us free.

Agreed? Yes or no?

ANSWER:

Regarding your question on previous gospels:

I agree that every gospel is based on faith. If one does not place faith in believing God’s instructions to be saved, then one will not be saved, irrespective of works or not. Thus, irrespective of gospel, faith is required! However, God’s instructions for salvation did not remain the same over time. What God told Noah did not apply to Abraham. What God told Abraham to do did not apply to Peter, James, and John!

Consider Noah. The gospel for Noah was when God instructed him to build an ark. That’s it.

• If Noah did not believe God, then he and his family would die in the flood.
• If Noah believed God but did NOT build the ark, he and his family would die in the flood.
• But Noah did believe God, AND did what God said, —to build the ark, thus he and his family lived.
• So, note in this simple example that Noah had to believe and do work! Show faith and build the ark.

Abraham is the same. He believed God’s instructions and had to do what God told him. However, Abraham did not have to build an ark.

In the Kingdom gospel that Jesus taught, one had to believe that Jesus was the Messiah and Son of God. Then, according to James, one had to prove one's faith with works. James clearly states that faith without works is dead. Just like Noah, these Jews could believe what God said, but if they did not do what God said, they would perish. Thus, in the Kingdom, one had to believe in the identity of Jesus, but one also had to show the works of faith according to the conditions of that gospel; obey the law, get water baptized, get filled with the Spirit, sell one’s possessions and endure to the end.

What about our gospel of Grace? Must we have faith in God? Yes! We must believe in the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ. The cross of Christ is the heart and soul of our justification. But what about works? As with ALL other accounts of God’s good news of salvation, in which works had to be done to prove faith, surely, we must do works too?

Yes or no?

No! We do not have to do works in the grace gospel because the works necessary to prove faith was done by Jesus. He lived a godly and righteous life. He shed His blood as the payment for sins. He died in our place to pay the death penalty for our sins. Jesus did ALL the work we were supposed to do, so there is no more work that we need to do.

But then you might argue, isn’t our faith dead because we did not do works which James demands? Well, the great thing with the grace gospel is that we are not even saved by our own faith. Paul tells us a few times that we are saved by the faith OF Christ. Thus, when we choose to trust in the grace gospel, we are saved by Christ’s faith. It is not our faith, and it is not our works that save us. The faith OF Christ and the works OF Christ is imputed to us freely, having simply trusted in Christ alone. How absolutely marvelous and might is our God to save us by His grace alone. Obviously, this option became available only AFTER Jesus died. Thus, all previous gospels could not draw from Christ’s faith and works and is why people before Christ had to do their own works of faith.