The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom;
        all those who practice it have a good understanding.
        His praise endures forever!  Psalm 111:10 (ESV)  

Of all the religions I know it seems to me that adherents of Christianity approach God, the LORD, in the most light-hearted and casual way of all.  This can and should demonstrate a positive relationship with our loving heavenly Father, who Jesus himself teaches us to approach as Abba Father.  Or, it could, and I fear all too often does, represent a brazen misunderstanding of who God is, that yes, he is our father, but that he is also our LORD.

We in the “Christian” West tend to view God as we view our earthly fathers or as the type of father (or mother) that we ourselves have become.  We love our children dearly, but do we hold them accountable?  Do we discipline them when they need it?  Dare I say it, do we spank them with the rod when young so as to teach them right from wrong? 

A reason exists to explain why most of Christendom (wrongly) believes in a Hell of everlasting torment.  This reason is that God teaches us to fear him before he teaches us to love him.  Fear motivates obedience, while love, absent the balance of truth, teaches us that anything goes, that no judgment will ever come to those who believe in Jesus.  If you need some proof that judgment may indeed come to the believer in Christ, then consider James’ final words:

My brothers, if anyone among you wanders from the truth and someone brings him back,  [20] let him know that whoever brings back a sinner from his wandering will save his soul from death and will cover a multitude of sins. James 5:19-20 (ESV) 

James writes to his brothers, fellow Christians.  He writes concerning fellow Christians who wander from the truth.  Such Christians become sinners, he says.  A brother of this sinning Christian who brings him back to truth from his sinful ways saves this one’s soul from death.  (Note: this is the second death which applies to many Christians.  This is dealing with soul salvation, not the salvation of the spirit)  Bringing a brother back to the truth covers a multitude of sins because it implies that the sinning Christian confesses and repents of his sins, that is, he begins to practice righteousness again.

But, here we see that practicing the fear of the LORD comes even before practicing righteousness.  “Our God is an awsome God,” the song goes, and awesome indeed defines him.  He inspires awe, which Funk & Wagnalls’ Standard Dictionary of 1980 defines as “reverential fear, a dread mingled with veneration.”  Do we see God in this light?  Do we approach God in this fashion?  Or do we assume that God accepts every work, sacrifice, and offering we foolishly place before him, as did Nadab and Abihu?

Now Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, each took his censer and put fire in it and laid incense on it and offered unauthorized fire before the Lord, which he had not commanded them.  [2] And fire came out from before the Lord and consumed them, and they died before the Lord.  [3] Then Moses said to Aaron, “This is what the Lord has said, ‘Among those who are near me I will be sanctified, and before all the people I will be glorified.’ ” And Aaron held his peace.  Leviticus 10:1-3 (ESV) 

Do you consider yourself “near to God?”  How, then, do you sanctify him?  Do you approach him frivolously?  Do you walk in his ways, or do you simply assume that because you claim that you believe in him that you can walk any way you desire?  How could a holy God ever be glorified by a people calling themselves by his name who walk in sin and disobedence to his commands?  Brethren, let us practice the fear of the LORD!  Let us set him apart as holy in our hearts and let us so represent him to those who do not yet believe!

The question is, “Does man possess free will or does he not?”

Jesus, in the Psalms, teaches us that the sum of his word is truth.  We cannot take one bit here and one bit there and think that we possess “the truth.”  “He who thinks he knows,” says Paul, “does not yet know as he ought to know.” 

The world cannot hate you; but me it hates, because I testify of it, that the works thereof are evil. (John 7:7 KJ2000)  Jesus here put his line in the sand.  He directly confronted the religious leaders of his day and judged them hypocrites.  They said and taught one thing and yet did another.  They expected the “laity” to do as they said, but they lifted not a finger to obey the heart of the law they espoused.  And so these leaders accused Jesus of deceiving the people.  They denied the words and works of the Son of God.

But when anyone marveled at his teaching and began to catch a glimmer of the truth therein concealed, he said, ”My doctrine is not mine, but his that sent me. If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God, or whether I speak of myself.” (John 7:16-17 KJ2000)

“If any man wills to do God’s will….”  Strongs makes it clear that this word translated will above and wills at the beginning of this paragraph denotes making an active choice.  It speaks of aligning our will with God’s will.  When we do that, says Jesus, then we will ultimately know or understand his doctrine, his teaching.

Here, then, lies one term in the equation (sum) of truth.  This is the aspect of man’s responsibility to exercise his own will in his creation.  Without this responsibility the Bible would be meaningless.  Indeed, consider the purpose of the Bible.  Most people seem to believe that its primary purpose lies in “getting people saved,” by which they mean getting people to believe in Jesus.  Surely that is one purpose and one main reason, I believe, why God paid so much attention to historical detail throughout the Old and New Testaments.  As I have taught elsewhere, this aspect deals with the salvation of our spirits through faith in the work of Jesus Christ.

The second great reason for the the Bible’s existence deals with the salvation of the soul.  Remember, the soul is not the spirit.  Our soul consists of our mind, our will, and our emotions.  Most of the Bible actually deals with this aspect of salvation because this is the realm, or jurisdiction, wherein God gives man actual authority and responsibility.  Here we see man’s exercise of his free will.  As others have said in recent comments to The Mark of Elohim we cannot effect or have anything to do with our spirit’s salvation.

The problem is that the commentators seem not to understand the salvation of the soul wherein man indeed bears responsibility and blame.  Go back and read Jesus’ parables about the talents and our responsibility to use them.  If, as the commentators claim, we can only do what Jesus specifically empowers us to do, then wherein is my responsibility?  Do you say that the responsibility comes by our willful acting upon the empowerment, the grace?  Then, I say exactly right, and do not understand why you keep arguing with me.  This willful acting to repent and do righteousness exhibits our free will.

Most translations of the Bible usually translate the Hebrew word paniym with some word other than its most common meaning, which is face.  Did you know, for example, that the word shewbread should literally be translated bread of faces?  Shewbread means nothing to us, but the bread (food) of God that, when eaten, will work in us to the salvation of souls does mean something, doesn’t it?  That is the meaning of the bread of faces in the Tabernacle of Moses.  By continuing our study of the word paniym we find this salvation of our souls more fully described in Psalms 42 and 43.

The word paniym occurs four times in Psalms 42 and 43, but most English translations allow you to recognize the word only once.  The other three occurrences remain pretty well hidden, yet those three times comprise the theme of both these psalms.

Why are you cast down
oh my soul,
and why are you in turmoil within me?
Hope in God,
for I shall again praise him,
the salvation of my face…. (Psalm 42:5)

What! bowest thou thyself,
O my soul?
And what! art thou troubled within me?
Wait for God,
for still I confess Him,
The salvation of my face, and my God! (Psalms 42:11)

What! bowest thou thyself,
O my soul?
And what! art thou troubled within me?
Wait for God,
for still I confess Him,
The salvation of my face, and my God! (Psalms 43:5)

Who are you?  Who am I?  What does God see when he looks at us?  What part is it of us that God saves? These verses proclaim that God saves our faces, saves our faces, saves our faces.  Consider the phrase, “so and so did that just to save face.”

You and I are known by our faces.  All of us want pretty, handsome, or likable faces; no one wants to be considered ugly or unfriendly.  Likewise, we want to be seen and known as honorable and trustworthy, not as a cheat, a liar, or as dishonest.

So, consider your face.  You want to look good.  Thus we have hair color, lip stick, eye shadow, hair growing drugs and transplants, wrinkle removers, tooth polishers, and countless other products designed to make us look better.  We comb our hair, brush our teeth, and do many other things that we believe make our face look presentable or attractive.  Some of us put on airs when we go to church or any other place in society,  We are known by our face, and if our face is not quite what we want it to be, we do things to it to make it look like it is.

Most men usually hide their true faces.   So, we have crafted smiles and replies like, “I’m fine, how are you?” to hide the reality of our lives.  And, of course, many of us lead secret lives that we cover with plaster so that no one can see within our shell.  We have become whitewashed tombs of death. We want to look like something we are not.  We hide our true face and pretend.  We become hypocrites.

But God is looking for a man in whom there is no guile, like his disciple Nathaniel.  He looks for a true man, a man unafraid to show his true face.  And so we see that in Scripture, in God’s paradigm, the word face means far more than our mere physical appearance.  Our face represents who we really are. Face thus becomes another word to describe our soul.  Our face reveals our essence and so our face pictures our mind, our will, our emotions, our plans, our dreams, and all our desires.  So examine yourself and consider, what does your face look like?  No, not your natural face.  God is not that interested in how pretty you appear to another.  What does God see when he gazes upon your nakedness, the real you?

Are you cast down?  Wait for God.  Do you realize you walk the road of the hypocrite?  Repent.  God is the salvation of your face, your being, your soul.  Confess and trust in him.  Walk out your salvation in fear and trembling, and he will lift up your face in his great hands until you can, and want to, look into his eyes and see him as he is.

Studying the Hebrew word paniym opens up one of the most interesting concepts in Scripture.   Strong’s concordance says that paniym can be translated as “the face (as the part that turns),” and that the word is ”used in a great variety of applications (literally and figuratively).”  It informs us that the word is translated in the King James Version of the Bible with many different words, including the following:  countenance, face, favour, form, front, presence, and shewbread.

The word paniym first occurs in Genesis 1:2,

In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. (Genesis 1:1-2 KJV)

Paniym occurs 1,890 times in the Old Testament. almost as much as the word Elohim (God or god) which occurs 2,249 times.  In Genesis 1:20 we see that birds shall fly above the earth “on the face of the firmament of heaven.”  In Genesis 1:29 we find every herb which bears seed “upon the face of the earth.”  Genesis 2:6 reveals a mist watering “the face of the ground.”  And, in Genesis 3:8 Adam and Eve hide themselves “from the face of the LORD God.”

And after Adam who next sees God’s face?  Surely the Angel of the Lord appears in the flesh to Abraham, but is it not Jacob who first sees the spiritual face of God? 

And Jacob was left alone; and there wrestled a man with him until the breaking of the day.  And when he saw that he prevailed not against him, he touched the hollow of his thigh; and the hollow of Jacob’s thigh was out of joint, as he wrestled with him. And he said, Let me go, for the day breaketh. And he said, I will not let thee go, except thou bless me. And he said unto him, What is thy name? And he said, Jacob. And he said, Thy name shall be called no more Jacob, but Israel: for as a prince hast thou power with God and with men, and hast prevailed.  And Jacob asked him, and said, Tell me, I pray thee, thy name. And he said, Wherefore is it that thou dost ask after my name? And he blessed him there. And Jacob called the name of the place Peniel: for I have seen God face (paniym) to face (paniym), and my life is preserved.  And as he passed over Penuel the sun rose upon him, and he halted upon his thigh. (Genesis 32:24-31 KJV)

It was on this occasion, where Jacob prevailed in faith, that God renamed him Israel.   Strong’s says that Israel literally means, “he will rule as God.”  This passage, then, shows the metamorphosis of Jacob from a carnal Christian (Jacob means supplanter) to a Christian overcomer.  The overcomers of God will be the first who see him face to face.

As for me, I will behold thy face (paniym) in righteousness: I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with thy likeness. (Psalms 17:15 KJV)

As C.S. Lewis ends his great Till We Have Faces, “I ended my first book with the words no answer.  I know now, Lord, why you utter no answer.  You are yourself the answer.  Before your face (paniym) questions die away.  What other answer would suffice?  Only words, words; to be led out to battle against other words.  Long did I hate you, long did I fear you. I might—-”

As in the beginning God brooded over the face of the waters, so he broods today over our faces, that we might, ultimately and one day, look like him.  In that day we will see him face to face and see him as he truly is.  

And now, little children, abide in him; that, when he shall appear, we may have confidence, and not be ashamed before him at his coming. If ye know that he is righteous, ye know that every one that doeth righteousness is born of him.  Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God: therefore the world knoweth us not, because it knew him not. Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is. And every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as he is pure. (1 John 2:28-3:3 KJV)

What is fire in the Scripture?  What does it represent?  Why did God’s Law demand that certain sinners be burned after they were stoned to death for their sin?  To illustrate endless torture in Hell as most religious people think?  Hardly.

1 This is the blessing with which Moses the man of God blessed the people of Israel before his death. 2He said,

“The LORD came from Sinai

and dawned from Seir upon us;

he shone forth from Mount Paran;

he came from the ten thousands of holy ones,

with flaming fire at his right hand.

3 Yes, he loved his people,

all his holy ones were in his hand;

so they followed in your steps,

receiving direction from you,

4 when Moses commanded us a law,

as a possession for the assembly of Jacob. (Deuteronomy 33:1-4, ESV)

Notice in this passage that “flaming fire” is at, or in, God’s right hand.  Notice also that his “holy ones” are in his hand.  God’s holy ones literally comprise his flaming fire.  These are those who follow in God’s steps.  They know his way.  These are those that receive direction from their LORD.  They respect and obey the law he commanded Moses.

Now consider the book of Daniel.

9″As I looked,

thrones were placed,

and the Ancient of Days took his seat;

his clothing was white as snow,

and the hair of his head like pure wool;

his throne was fiery flames;

its wheels were burning fire.

10 A stream of fire issued

and came out from before him;

a thousand thousands served him,

and ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him;

the court sat in judgment,

and the books were opened. (Daniel 7:9-10 ESV)

Here once again we see God described in terms of fire.  Fire defines his very throne, the symbol of his rule and authority.  So, now let’s consider what Jesus meant when he told his disciples that they must be salted with fire.

43 And if thy hand offend thee, cut it off: it is better for thee to enter into life maimed, than having two hands to go into hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched:  44 Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched. 45 And if thy foot offend thee, cut it off: it is better for thee to enter halt into life, than having two feet to be cast into hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched:  46 Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched.  47 And if thine eye offend thee, pluck it out: it is better for thee to enter into the kingdom of God with one eye, than having two eyes to be cast into hell fire:  48 Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched.  49 For every one shall be salted with fire, and every sacrifice shall be salted with salt.  50 Salt is good: but if the salt have lost his saltness, wherewith will ye season it? Have salt in yourselves, and have peace one with another. (Mark 9:43-50)

Everyone shall be salted with fire.  You and I are no exceptions.  So, then, are we to pluck out our eyes when we look upon anything or anyone with lust?  Are we to cut off our arms or our feet if we find that we sin by using them?  Isn’t this what Jesus tells us to do?  If he does not mean for us to do that, then what does he mean?  Can we follow any instructions that he gives us?  How can we know what to do and what not to do?  How do we know when he speaks literally and when he does not?  How can I know anything!

“The sum of thy word is truth,” declared the psalmist.  Study this word.  Learn it.  Know it.  Obey it.  In Scripture “fire” describes the application of God’s word.  Those who learn to apply it in this life save their souls and become tools in the hand of God.  Those who do not shall have their part in the Lake of Fire.  They too will be salted with fire in due course.  Jesus tells his disciples to apply the word now.  Salt yourself with fire now, while you still have a choice in the matter.

THE THREE SALVATIONS

Do you know what they are?

1. The Three Salvations
2. The Salvation of the Spirit
3. Born of Water
4. The Washing of Water by the Word
5. The Salvation of the Soul
6. The Wilderness
7. Waters of Rest
8. Knowing God’s Ways
9. The Sword of the Spirit
10. “Today” if You Hear God’s Voice
11. Let the Dead Bury the Dead
12. The Defiled Man
13. Salted With Fire
14. The Consuming Fire
15. Till We Have Faces
16. The Salvation of My Face
17. The Third Salvation

We have to come up from here, out of this place of death, in which we live and move.  For where do we really have our being?  Is it not already established in the Kingdom?  Yes, but he who sets his hand to the plow, and looks back, is “not fit for the Kingdom of Heaven.” Remember Lot’s wife!

Oh, the seeming contradictions and puzzles we find in Scripture!

Once saved, always saved.

Not once saved always saved.  You can lose your eternal security and burn forever in Hell.

No, I can’t.

Which is it then?

Both.  “Today,” if you hear God’s voice.  Today.  Today.  Not tomorrow.  Listen today.  Hear today.  Do today.  Do not harden your hearts as have all who have ever rebelled against the LORD Jesus Christ and his word.  Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand!

Repent.  At hand!  Repent!  Kingdom.  Repent.  Gospel.

Jesus says, “Follow me.”

We say, “Lord, let me first go and bury my father.  Let me do all the things of the world that I have in my heart to do.”

Jesus says, “No, let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and preach the Kingdom of God. Unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the Kingdom of God.”

We say, “I can see (the idea of) the Kingdom of God.  I have believed in you, Lord, and I have been born of the Spirit.”

Jesus says, 

If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me. For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: but whosoever will lose his life for my sake, the same shall save it. For what is a man profited, if he gain the whole world, and lose himself, or suffer loss? For whosoever shall be ashamed of me and of my words, of him shall the Son of man be ashamed, when he shall come in his own glory, and in his Father’s, and of the holy angels. But I tell you a truth, there be some standing here, who shall not taste of death, till they see the kingdom of God. (Luke 9:23-27 KJ2000)

The word translated “life” above comes from the Greek word psuche (pronounced psoo-khay’).  The word means “soul” and is to be distinguished from the Greek word pneuma which means “spirit.”

We only lose our souls in this life, thus saving them for the next, when we do things God’s way.  We must wash daily in his holy water of the word.  Then we do what that word says.  This is walking in God’s ways.  This is taking up our cross daily.

But, the dead cannot take up their cross.  They cannot do any work that Christ will reward.  “Let the dead bury the dead,” says Jesus.  ”Let the living follow me….”

Why is it so important to wash oneself with God’s Word?  Because only then can we learn and know God’s ways.  This explains the fundamental reason why God gave us a written Bible.  The Bible witnesses his truth, his ways.  Has the Word of the LORD been revealed to you?  Do you know beyond all doubt that Jesus is God’s Word become flesh?  Make no mistake, you cannot come to know God until the Word of the LORD is revealed to you.  You may know a few maxims of truth, but not the reality of Christ in you….

Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says,
    “Today, if you hear his voice,
    [8] do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion,
        on the day of testing in the wilderness,
    [9] where your fathers put me to the test
        and saw my works
    [10] for forty years.
    Therefore I was provoked with that generation,
    and said, ‘They always go astray in their heart;
        they have not known my ways.’
    [11] As I swore in my wrath,
        ‘They shall not enter my rest.’ ”
    [12] Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God.  [13] But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called “today,” that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.  [14] For we share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original confidence firm to the end.   Hebrews 3:7-14 (ESV) 

Notice the warning again, “if indeed we hold….”  This earth is our testing place, our wilderness.   Will we bend our necks, yoking them with Jesus’, and learn his ways, or not?  Will we choose to wash ourselves with his water (learn and obey the truth found in his Word), eat his bread (learn to hear and obey his truth), and drink his blood (see with Spiritual eyes)?  Or will we go astray into unbelief and sin?

Those who know God’s ways enter into his rest.  These learn to cease from their own agendas.  They drop out of the programmed church life with its myriad of  planned “services” and “good works.”  They have learned to be led of the Holy Spirit.  They quit going from town to town to the next “big event” where God will “certainly do something miraculous.”  No longer do they act as vultures visiting the corpse of the dead body of Christ in their quest for spiritual food.  They’re not looking for the next great prophet because they have become the prophet.  They themselves speak forth the word of God.  They can because they know God’s ways.  And, like lightning, from the east to the west, these proclaim God’s truth to all who will hear.

I do not counsel you with this teaching to leave your present church or fellowship (unless the leaders there follow Satan instead of Christ).  I counsel you to take God’s Word, his rest, and his ways there with you when you go.  By doing this you will become a prophet of God’s truth in the midst of his people.

Recent posts in this series on the three salvations (of spirit, soul, and body) show how the Holy Spirit uses the term “water” to describe the Word of God and how Jesus, as the Word, applies this “water” to us in order to “cleanse our feet.”  This cleansing of our feet deals with our walk in this world.  It directly relates to the salvation of our souls.  Remember that our soul consists of our mind, will, and emotions.  This salvation differs from the salvation of our spirit. 

The salvation of our spirit is a once for all time event which Jesus accomplished for all men by his willing sacrifice on the cross.  Spiritual salvation comes to us by our faith in Jesus as Savior.  This means that the effects of this universal salvation only begin to be seen in our lives once we believe.  This belief, this faith, is what the Bible terms being “born again” or ”begotten of God.”  Once we have been begotten of God we can see the Kingdom of God.  But, we cannot enter that kingdom until a further salvation occurs, the salvation of the soul.  Soul salvation comes by being “born of water,” by allowing Jesus to cleanse our feet with His water of the Word.  This corresponds to Noah’s baptism we see in Peter’s first book.

One of mankind’s favorite psalms describes this process.

The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.  

Jesus, the Good Shepherd, provides for all of our needs.  If we could only believe, we would want for nothing.

        [2] He makes me lie down in green pastures. 

Jesus provides our rest and our food.  Our food is good, here represented by “green pastures” filled with verdant grass for his sheep to eat.

He leads me beside still waters. 

This phrase can be translated as “He leads me beside waters of rest.”  We are now about to begin looking at Hebrews 3 and 4 which deal directly with entering God’s rest and the salvation of the soul.  This verse proclaims that the water of the Word brings us rest.

[3] He restores my soul.

Here we see the application of the waters of the rest to our souls.  The waters bring restoration.  Just as literal, natural water restores every fiber of our bodies, so does the water of the Word restore our souls.

He leads me in paths of righteousness

This shows us the purpose of restoration, the purpose of the washing of the water of the Word.  Once we understand God’s ways (by being washed with his Word), then we will walk his paths of righteousness.

for his name’s sake. 

Have you ever considered how and when a Christian might take the name of the LORD in vain?  Only we take his name upon ourselves by calling ourselves Christians, and then commit all manner of wickedness, perversion, and sin by failing to walk upon his paths of righteousness.

[4] Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil,
    for you are with me;

We journey in the wilderness here on earth.   We constantly walk in the shadow of death, sickness, and dying.  Even so, by faith in our Shepherd, we will fear no evil, for he walks here with us as he walked here before us.

your rod and your staff, they comfort me.

How many of us despise the discipline of the LORD and become vexed and irritated at his rebuke?  We have not yet learned that his rod (of iron), his Law, instructs us in his ways, and that his shepherd’s staff pulls our stiff necks back into his ways, his paths.

[5] You prepare a table before me
        in the presence of my enemies;

Here in the wilderness we live in the presence of our enemies, the children of Satan who do not yet believe the LORD.   We eat here.  God’s table is the table of communion where we eat the body and drink the blood of Jesus.  This metaphor speaks spiritually of bread and wine, which again, speak spritually of truth and the Holy Spirit.   Remember what Hebrews says,

Do not be led away by diverse and strange teachings, for it is good for the heart to be strengthened by grace, not by foods, which have not benefited those devoted to them.  [10] We have an altar from which those who serve the tent have no right to eat.   Hebrews 13:9-10 (ESV) 

you anoint my head with oil;
        my cup overflows. 

Jesus anoints us with the Holy Spirit.  “Be filled with the Spirit!”

[6] Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me
        all the days of my life,
    and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord
         forever.   Psalm 23:1-6 (ESV) 

This shows the promise for those who work out their salvation in fear in trembling.  Let us walk together beside the waters of rest and eat together at the table Jesus has prepared for us!

As one progresses in Christianity he or she must ultimately come to understand that the salvation of the soul is NOT the same thing as the salvation of the spirit.  The two salvations are related in that one cannot begin to save one’s soul until his spirit has been saved.  One’s spirit is saved when he “receives” the Holy Spirit, when he is “begotten” of God.  This comes by faith in Jesus Christ.  God gives the faith itself as a gift, by grace.  You can no more save yourself than can the man in the moon.  God sovereignly acts to bring you new, spiritual life.  It is at this point that you can first “see” the Kingdom of God.

This salvation marks the beginning of one’s spiritual life, but most Christians make it the end, and this is because this is all they believe there is.  This explains why many Christians go to church every week and hear another sermon about “getting saved.”  But, the doctrine concerning spiritual salvation is not even the colostrum, much less the milk or the meat of the Word.  It comes even before that.  The doctrine of the salvation of the soul, however, consists of the meat of the word as we see in Hebrews.

Of whom [Melchizedek] we have many things to say, and hard of interpretation, seeing ye are become dull of hearing. For when by reason of the time ye ought to be teachers, ye have need again that some one teach you the rudiments of the first principles of the oracles of God; and are become such as have need of milk, and not of solid food. For every one that partaketh of milk is without experience of the word of righteousness; for he is a babe. But solid food is for fullgrown men, even those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern good and evil. (Hebrews 5:11-14 ASV)

Only the word, or teaching, about righteousness explains the doctrine of the salvation of the soul.  The entire book of Hebrews gives itself to this task.  First the book introduces us to who Jesus the Christ really is. 

But unto the Son he saith, Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever: a sceptre of righteousness is the sceptre of thy kingdom.  (Hebrews 1:8 KJV)

Verse 1:8 tells us that Jesus is both the Son of God and God Himself.  Further, it describes the sceptre of his kingdom as one of righteousness.  This informs us concerning the identity of the Kingdom’s King and the nature of his kingdom.  Having fully informed us as to Christ’s identity in chapter 1, chapter 2 then begins with the first of Hebrews five warnings to believers, saying,

Therefore we ought to give the more earnest heed to the things which we have heard, lest at any time we should let them slip.  For if the word spoken by angels was stedfast, and every transgression and disobedience received a just recompence of reward; How shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation; which at the first began to be spoken by the Lord, and was confirmed unto us by them that heard him…  (Hebrews 2:1-3 KJV)

In order to understand this teaching, one must see that Hebrews addresses believers, not unbelievers.  We will totally and finally misunderstand this great book if we relegate it to the “unsaved.”   First, note that these hearers have already “heard” many of the things this writer will address.  Second, see that these dwell in danger of letting this teaching slip from their grasp.   Next, become aware that failure to hold onto these doctrines will bring punishment for transgression and disobedience.  Finally, be warned not to neglect this “great salvation!”

What could be clearer?  Hebrews speaks to Christians who live in danger of punishment because they neglect God’s great salvation.  What salvation do they neglect?  They know who Jesus is.  They believe he died for their sins.  They believe he reconciled them to God.  They have received the earnest of the Holy Spirit and have been begotten of God.  So, what is the problem?  We shall see.