How does Jesus save?

There are several theories that aim to answer this question, but the Bible doesn’t offer the same kind of technical explanations. What the apostles preached in the book of Acts seems almost so simple that it’s easy to overlook: “This Jesus whom I preach to you is the Christ” (Acts 17:3). We’re going to take a fresh look to show how Jesus saves not just by what he did, but by what he is going to do.  

You’ve probably heard the popular Christian theory of salvation, that Jesus died instead of us, to take our punishment, or pay the penalty for our sins. Often a courtroom analogy is used, where a judge has given a death sentence to a guilty man, but at the last minute an innocent man rushes in, and the judge accepts his offer to die in the guilty man’s place. This is called the substitution theory.

The issue with this theory is that it paints God as an unfair judge who is satisfied by the death of an innocent person rather than a change in the guilty. If Jesus did die instead of us, then why does it matter how we live if our sins are already paid for, and why was he raised back to life? While substitution theory sounds simple on the surface, the more you dig into it, the more issues that arise.

Instead of starting from sin and death, we need to start from God’s love. The point that the Bible emphasises over and over again is that God loves us and God’s love is at the centre of his plan of salvation for us (John 3:16-17).

Jesus came to save his people from their sins (Matthew 1:21) but our sins are not paid for with death; They are forgiven out of love (Psalm 51:1). Forgiveness is a free pardon and there is just one thing that stands between us and God’s forgiveness, just one thing that God wants us to do:

Repent.

To repent means to turn around, to change direction. God wants us to turn to him with all our hearts: to seek his forgiveness and walk in his ways. That’s it. That is all God has ever asked of his people (Matthew 22:37-40, Micah 6:8, Isaiah 1:11-17, 2 Chronicles 6:36-39).

God has never wanted our death; he wants us to live for him.

Repent! Turn away from all your offenses; … get a new heart and a new spirit… For I take no pleasure in the death of anyone, declares the Sovereign Lord. Repent and live! (Ezekiel 18:30-32)

David expressed the joy that came from having his sin forgiven when he turned back to God. God did not want a sacrifice. God wanted his repentance – a change of heart to acknowledge and be sorry for his sin (Psalm 32, Psalm 51). Genuine faith and repentance from the heart will lead to a change in the way we live. “Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation” (2 Corinthians 7:10, James 2:18).

And this is how Jesus saves – by bringing us to repentance.

Jesus started his ministry by proclaiming, “Repent, for the kingdom of God is near” (Matthew 4:17) and he demonstrated how God truly wants us to live, with love, mercy and kindness, even for our enemies (Luke 6:35).

But this is only half the story. God’s prophets have always preached the message of repentance and people repented and were forgiven even before Jesus came (Jonah 3:4-5, Mark 1:4-5, Psalm 51:1, Hebrews 1:1-2). The second part of salvation is what we are being saved for: “the kingdom of God” (Matthew 4:17).

Jesus was different from all the prophets who came before him bearing the same message, because he is the Christ. ‘Christ’ is the Greek word for ‘anointed one’. It means that Jesus is the one God has anointed, or chosen, to be king. Jesus is the one who will bring in the promised salvation of a kingdom of peace and joy to those who have repented and turned their hearts to God (John 20:31, Romans 1:16).

First however, Jesus was rejected and crucified. Why? This puzzle makes much more sense when we consider Jesus’ death and resurrection together. Jesus died in faith that God would raise him from the dead because he knew that his resurrection would lead people to believe and repent (Luke 18:31-33, Acts 2:22-32). It was Jesus’ resurrection that proved he is the Christ and brought hope and a change of heart to both his followers and sceptics (Acts 2:36-37, 5:30-31, 10:40-43, 1 Corinthians 15:3-7). It is in this sense that Jesus died for us and bore our sins. Instead of becoming king straight away, he submitted to God’s plan and went to this length to first reach out to us (Acts 3:26).

However, Jesus’ willingness to die for us is also what perfected him for his role as king (Hebrews 2:10, 17-18). Right from the beginning God promised a man who would one day overcome and destroy sin (Genesis 3:15). In living a life wholly dedicated to God, even trusting in him to the point of death, Jesus overcame the temptation to sin within himself, and he will remove sin from the world entirely when he returns as king (Hebrews 2:14, 4:15). Jesus has become the righteous and worthy king who will judge with true justice to relieve the oppressed and bring peace and joy to the whole earth. This is the ultimate salvation all the faithful are waiting for (Philippians 2:8-11, Psalm 72, Isaiah 35:10).

God loves us so much and no matter how far we have strayed, God is waiting for us to return to him because he wants to forgive us (Luke 15:10, Romans 8:31-32, 2 Peter 3:9, Isaiah 45:22).

We are called to show our repentance and allegiance to Jesus as the Christ by baptism into his name, symbolically dying to our old way of life and rising to live a new life for God (Romans 6:3-4). Jesus gave us the tokens of bread and wine to remember and proclaim his death and resurrection with fellow believers every week (Luke 22:14-20). The process of becoming a new creation is ongoing within each of us until Jesus returns to give the faithful eternal life, free from sin and death, in his kingdom (Romans 12:1-2, 1 Corinthains 15:50-57, Hebrews 11:39-40).

“God now commands all men everywhere to repent, because he has appointed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by the man whom he has ordained. He has given assurance of this to all by raising him from the dead.”

Acts 17:30-31