The greatest truth of all is our redemption by a loving God; how He made a way for us to return to Him.  For my monthly Topic, I will look at that way which we call salvation.

Entire books have been published on this truth, so I don’t pretend to be able to cover it in one blog post or several.  But I believe I can do justice to the basics by looking at three aspects of salvation:  our need, God’s plan, and Jesus’s fulfillment.  Today I’ll consider the need.

Creation of Man

God is a triune being.  He exists in three persons whom we refer to as the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit; the trinity.  He exists on both the physical and spiritual planes.  When God decided to create man, Genesis 1:26 tells us that He decided to “make man in Our image, according to Our likeness.”  He didn’t make us gods as He is God, but instead made us a type of triune being so we could have fellowship with Him.

We exist with a soul, a body, and a spirit.  Our soul is who we are, our personality, our essence.  Our body and spirit are what we use to relate to or communicate in the physical and spiritual worlds, respectively.  Our bodies allow us to interact with this physical world, and our spirits allow us to have direct fellowship and communion with God.

Fall of Man

God created the first people whole and complete.  Their bodies and spirits were both living and active, and their souls were pure, unhindered by sin.  God placed them in the Garden of Eden and gave them complete freedom.  Their only restriction was that they not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.  If they disobeyed and ate from the tree, the result would be death.

Unfortunately, we learn in Genesis 3, that they did disobey God and ate of the forbidden fruit.  God’s warning came true.  Man’s spirit died immediately, and his body was transformed by sin to slowly decay until it died.  He was no longer perfect.  He no longer had the ability to choose not to sin, and his ability to fellowship with God as he once did was gone.

Man’s tragedy didn’t end with himself.  Due to his fallen condition, his descendants were born with his new likeness.  Since the Garden, all men and women are born with sin cursed bodies and non-living spirits.  They have a propensity to sin and cannot have fellowship with God.

Genesis 2:7 states that God formed man from the dust and “breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being.”  Because of this, man’s soul will never cease to exist.  If his body dies and his spirit is still dead from birth, his soul will suffer what is referred to as “spiritual death” which is eternal separation from God in a place called Hell.

Hope

This brings us to our initial truth, that God loves us and has provided a way for us to be reunited.  Next month we’ll look at His plan to remove our sin, revive our dead spirits, and restore our fellowship with Him.  Hope you’ll stop by.