What is Salvation?
Salvation is a broad term used to describe the whole range of God's activity in rescuing people from sin and restoring them to a right relationship with himself. Christianity is the only religion that teaches an exclusive and narrow way for mankind to be saved apart from human effort. Other religions offer some form of human accomplishment whereby mankind can cooperate with God in an effort to earn right standing with the creator, but Christianity is the only religion that says "for by grace you have been saved, through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.? Ephesians 2: 8-9.
So why does mankind need to be saved? What are we being saved from? At what moment is a person saved and how can we tell? While the doctrine of salvation does have a subjective aspect to it, meaning one person's experience will not look like another person's experience, what we do know is that there is an objective aspect of salvation and from God's perspective, it begins with him first. From God's vantage point salvation begins with the election of individuals which is something God determines beforehand. (John 6:37-39, 64-66, Acts 13:48, Romans 9:4, 1 John 4:19, 5:1)
Was Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. a Christian?
