The Mechanics of Salvation: Spiritual and Physical

When most people become Christians, they refer to it as "converting to Christianity," "being born again," or "being saved."  There are other terms for it, but these are the main ones I hear the most often, and these three are accurate.  Becoming a Christian is simply believing, receiving, and proclaiming.  It's laid out thus in places like Romans 10:

Romans 10:9-13 NRSVue
because if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For one believes with the heart, leading to righteousness, and one confesses with the mouth, leading to salvation. The scripture says, “No one who believes in him will be put to shame.” For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; the same Lord is Lord of all and is generous to all who call on him. For “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.”

1) Believe that Jesus is Lord - Lord literally means Master, and also believe in your heart that God raised Jesus from the dead

2) Confess this belief with your mouth - pray it to God and tell others about it

3) Don't have shame in being a Christian - don't hide it, for "No one who believes in him will be put to shame."  Or as the YLT puts it - "Every one who is believing on him shall not be ashamed."

A lot of people are happy to stop right there. They don't need to know anymore about the mechanics of salvation, for they know it's of faith, and we can't always understand what is of faith.

However, the Bible also says "seek and you shall find."  This is an exhilarating promise for those of us who want to know why and how.  It's not a sin to want to know the why and how of salvation.  Yes, it's faith, but why is it faith, and how does this work?  If you are happy stopping at this base knowledge, then move on - this article isn't for you.  But if you are like me, in which learning more of the whys and hows increases your faith, and makes the Christian Walk so much more exciting and real, then come along for the ride.  Here we go.

What Do We Need to be Saved From?

We see the term "saved" in our above Romans 10 passage, but what are we being saved from?  The surface answer would be hell.  Right?  But why do we need saved from hell?  What's sending us there that we need saved from?  It's our sins.  Our sins send us to hell.  We need saved from our sins.  Where did sin come from?

Most people would say that sin comes from Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden, when they partook of the forbidden fruit, and that is partially right.  What sin was introduced into the cosmos when that rebellion against the command of God took place?  The sins of disobedience.  Right?  Are there any other sins than just disobeying?  Yes, and they entered the world in a different way.

Think about a verse that is mysterious to many, the one in Genesis chapter 6.

Genesis 6:4 NRSVue
The Nephilim were on the earth in those days—and also afterward—when the sons of God went in to the daughters of humans, who bore children to them. These were the heroes that were of old, warriors of renown.

Why should this even be confusing?  There are so many theories as to what it means, but to find out what it's about, we merely need to put ourselves into the mindset of the original recipient at that time.  What did this verse mean to them?  When we read the apocrypha and many of the pseudepigrapha, and other ancient Jewish writings, we see that the ancient Jews viewed this verse as teaching that a group of 200 fallen angels (200 is from 1 Enoch) decided to come to earth and mate with earth women, producing half human and half fallen angel offspring.  

When we pair 1 Enoch and other ancient Jewish writings (including some apocrypha) with Genesis 6, we also learn the names of the leading angels of this group, and the name of one of them was Azazel.  We see Azazel in Leviticus chapter 16.  Some Bibles don't translate the proper name "Azazel," but rather wrongly say "scapegoat."  When using Bible translations such as the NRSVue or the NLT, Azazel is clearly named multiple times in Leviticus 16.  When you read 1 Enoch, you learn more about the Day of Atonement and Azazel.

We also learn from 1 Enoch that Azazel basically lead a School of Sin for the people of earth.  This is where more sin entered the world as taught by demons/fallen angels.  These sin lessons eventually lead to what preceded the global flood, when God saw:

Genesis 6:5 NRSVue
The Lord saw that the wickedness of humans was great in the earth and that every inclination of the thoughts of their hearts was only evil continually.

So we see the Garden of Eden incident introduced disobeying God's direct commands to the world, and then the fallen angels of Genesis chapter 6 (especially Azazel) taught all sorts of sins to the people on the earth, including sorcery.  There was one more doorway that opened to bring in more sin, and that was at the Tower of Babel.

We are all probably familiar with the Tower of Babel incident.  If not, you can read it in Genesis chapter 11.  The sins brought to the world from the Tower of Babel is what we see culminated in Ephesians 6:12

Ephesians 6:12 NRSVue
for our struggle is not against blood and flesh but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.

These "sprirtual forces of evil in the heavenly places" came to be at the Tower of Babel incident.  When you read about the Tower of Babel in Genesis 11, notice that God is talking to others He brought with Him.  This is not the Trinity. He is not talking to Himself.  We learn who God is talking to in another spot in the Bible.  Recall that Genesis 11 is not the only place in the Scriptures that refers to the Tower of Babel and God dividing the people.

Deuteronomy 32:8 NRSVue
When the Most High apportioned the nations, when he divided humankind, he fixed the boundaries of the peoples according to the number of the gods;

These "gods" are called the Divine Council, and they are who God brought with Him, and who He was conversing with at the Tower of Babel incident:

Psalm 82:1-2 NRSVue
God has taken his place in the divine council; in the midst of the gods he holds judgment: “How long will you judge unjustly and show partiality to the wicked?

Not all of God's Divine Council was put over parts of the earth, only some of them were.  Unfortunately, as you'll see if you study the Divine Council in the Scriptures, those who were put over the different boundaries decided to follow after Satan, and they turned away from God.  They became the "spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places" mentioned in Ephesians 6:12.  This brought idolatry into the world, which eventually also lead to all the different religions we see all around us.

To summarize: The Garden of Eden incident brought disobedience; the fallen angels of Genesis 6 taught a school of sin, where humans were taught all sorts of sins, such as vanity, war, and sorcery;  and the fallen Divine Council members from the Tower of Babel division brought forth idolatry and false religions.

In the Scriptures we see that sin does damage.  Sin is neither relegated, defined in, or confined in the 3 physical dimensions, nor in the 4th dimension of Time.  Sin is spiritual, and thus while it can and usually does affect the physical, it does not obey physics or even quantum physics.  It obeys the Spiritual Laws. 

A careful reading in the Bible (especially in the Hebrew) reveals the location of the human soul.  It is in the blood of the person.  This is why Abel's blood cried out.  This is why we read of the blood of the slain crying out for retribution in 1 Enoch.  This why at least twice the Bible tells us:

Leviticus 17:11 Darby
for the soul of the flesh is in the blood; and I have given it to you upon the altar to make atonement for your souls, for it is the blood that maketh atonement for the soul.

Blood cries out, because our soul is in our blood.  Our soul records every thought we've thought, every word we've said, and every action we've done.  All of these, including the sinful ones, do not just dissipate away like the wake behind a boat.  They exist in the aetheric realm until they are dealt with, and since this is spiritual, it has to also be dealt with via the Spiritual Law, not any physical law.

This means doing good doesn't make the bad disappear - it just adds another signal in the cosmos, or in the aetheric realm, if you will.

We see that sin affects the spiritual, but sin also affects the physical.  This includes our bodies.  After sin entered the world, notice that people's lifespans started to rapidly decline, for example.  The physical effects of sin don't stop at the human body.  We see in the Bible that sin affects all of creation.  Animals started behaving differently, thorns and thistles started growing from the ground, etc.  

The physical effects of sin didn't and don't just remain on the earth. Remember, sin itself is not bound by physics, it is spiritual, thus operates under Spiritual Laws.  Therefore, while it affects the physical, the physical cannot stop it or reverse it.  Sin also effected the whole cosmos.  This is why we read in Revelation and the Old Testament Prophets that God will destroy both the earth and outer space (the heavens).

Somehow our faith in Christ saves us from this sin, and makes our inner person born again, making it so that we have a relationship with God, and will later go to heaven.  How does faith do this?  Faith operates in the spiritual realm, and thus is another spiritual law of sorts.  True faith is tested by our intentions.  If our faith in Christ is with the pure intention of loving Him and accepting His sacrifice for us, it is true faith.  If our faith is placed with the intention of physical and/or financial gain, for example, the intention reveals the faith is incorrect, and we are thus not actually saved.

The moment we place our faith in Christ, with true intentions, the blood of Christ places a cancellation signal over all of the sins our blood cries out to the cosmos.  Every sin gets cancelled out by Christ's sinless life on earth in human form and His dying and raising back to life to conquer sin.  

The Spiritual Law that saves us from sin has to redeem not only our inner person, but also our outer person - our bodies, and also the earth and outer space.

The first step was to save our inner person, and that spiritual law came with Jesus Christ and His first incarnate coming to the earth.

Being Born Again

The redemption of our inner person from sin begins first in the spiritual, since sin is in the spirit realm.  The Bible teaches that sin first entered the world through the first Adam, and that the last Adam will fix the sin problem that the first Adam originally introduced.

1 Corinthians 15:45 NRSVue
Thus it is written, “The first man, Adam, became a living being”; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit.

Romans 8:2 NRSVue
For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death. 

As we saw with our first scripture in this article in Romans 10, we are saved/born again via faith in Christ being the Master of our life, and belief in His dying to pay for our sins, and raising again from the dead, 3 days later.  We see this further in 1 Corinthians 15.

1 Corinthians 15:3-7 NRSVue
For I handed on to you as of first importance what I in turn had received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures and that he was buried and that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers and sisters at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have died. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles.

The New Testament over and over refers to Christians as "one."  It explains that this is so via our being part of The Body of Christ on the earth, with Christ being the Head.  It's important to note here that when the New Testament refers to "head" in the symbolic sense, it doesn't have the modern meaning of "authority."  Back then, it symbolized "beginning, source, where something came from."  This is clearly laid out in the LSJ Greek dictionary.   Thus while Jesus is our Lord, which means Master - authority, when it calls him our Head, it means He's the Source of the Church.

We Christians are the Body of Christ on the earth, but we are CHRISTians because of Christ, and He is the Power Source that enables each of us to do our part.  And I do mean Our Part.

The Bible repeatedly teaches that each Christian is a specific body part in the earthly Body of Christ.  Some are a foot, some are a mouth, some are a hand, etc.

When you truly become a real Christian, you become a part of that Body, and become a body part with one or more specific functions.  More on this in a moment.  First, how do we become a part of this Body?

As we saw in the above Romans 10 and 1 Corinthians 15, it is via faith, but how does that put us in the Body?  At the moment of profession of that faith, we receive the Holy Spirit Baptism, which then regenerates our spirit into a New Creature in Christ, and that Holy Spirit Baptism is what puts us into the Body!

1 Corinthians 12:12-13 NRSVue
For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For in the one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and we were all made to drink of one Spirit.

1 Corinthians 12:14 NRSVue
Indeed, the body does not consist of one member but of many.

This chapter, along with Romans 12 and Ephesians 4 lists the different functions of the different parts of the Body of Christ.  Upon the moment of your salvation, you were Baptized in the Holy Spirit, which renewed your inner person - your spirit from the effects of sin, and you became a part of the Body of Christ.  At that very moment, God, through His Holy Spirit, gifted or equipped you with the abilities you need in order to do your function as the part of the Body that you are.

Now to correct a wrong doctrine many churches teach...  Many churches teach that evidence of being Baptized in the Holy Spirit is speaking in tongues.  They largely base this off of Acts 2, 10, and 19, where we see groups of people getting saved, and then they speak in tongues.  

This doesn't mean that all Christians speak in tongues right after they get saved!  We see in Acts chapter 10 a group of people get saved, and not one of them speaks in tongues.  We also see the first genetic gentile getting saved in chapter 10, and he also didn't speak in tongues.

"Tongues" literally means "languages."  In fact, the Greek is γλῶσσα (gloce-sah') which literally means "language."  It only means "tongue" when it's referring contextually to the physical tongue in our mouth, or to something shaped as such.  The archaic word for "language" was tongue.  We still see this in the inquiry of  "What's your mother tongue?"  

Speaking in Languages (more accurate than tongues) is just one of the gifts that God equips certain Christians with, if that's needed for the part of the body that they are.  Not every Christian speaks in tongues, for not all Christians are that body part in the Body of Christ.  

1 Corinthians 12:19-20 NRSVue
If all were a single member, where would the body be? As it is, there are many members yet one body.

Some people think that there are two types of Tongues/Languages - the one that is a gifting as one's part of the Body - only to some people, but the other being a "heavenly prayer language."  They derive "heavenly prayer language" from 1 Corinthians 13:1,where it mentions the tongues/languages of angels that some, such as Paul may have been able or are able to speak.

People call this "heavenly prayer language" their way of "praying in the Spirit.:"

1 Corinthians 14:2 NRSVue
For those who speak in a tongue do not speak to other people but to God, for no one understands them, since they are speaking mysteries in the Spirit.

1 Corinthians 14:14 NRSVue
For if I pray in a tongue, my spirit prays but my mind is unproductive.

It's important to note that Paul is not saying that to pray in the Spirit means you have to have the ability to speak in tongues/languages.  He is saying, however, that some of those who have the gift of tongues/languages pray in possibly the tongues of angels to God, and that is how they pray in the Spirit.

Paul is clear that not all Christians pray or even speak in tongues/languages:

1 Corinthians 14:18 NRSVue
I thank God that I speak in tongues more than all of you;

Now you may look at this and say "ah, Paul just says "more," not saying that some don't or can't.

Okay, but then we also have verse 1.

1 Corinthians 14:1 NRSVue
Pursue love and strive for the spiritual gifts and especially that you may prophesy.

Notice he's saying that if you are pursuing spiritual gifts, the golden one is prophecy, not speaking in tongues/languages.

He also refers to "those who speak in tongues" in this chapter indicating not all do, just as he also mentions in this chapter "those who prophesy," indicating that not all Christians prophesy.  

Speaking in tongues is not the one sign of Baptism in the Holy Spirit.  For those who are gifted with it, this may be, but for those not gifted with that, their manifestation will be different - according to which body part they are baptized into, via their Baptism of the Holy Spirit.

For example, mine was the sudden drive to learn the Scriptures and to then teach them to others.  This is my part and function in the Body of Christ.  Before I was able to start any of that, the Lord had me overcome a learning disability I had struggled with as a child - I had no reading comprehension. Years of Special Ed in public school did not help. The Lord had me cured of that within weeks of diligently trying to read His Word. Since then, my reading comprehension has been stellar, all thanks to God.  My part is to obsessively and deeply study minute details in the Bible, often including in the Hebrew and Greek, which allows me to acurately understand the Scriptures and to teach these details to others, including correcting false doctrines (making me possibly an elbow in the Body of Christ).  Because of this, my gifting also includes teaching and preaching. 

People ask "how do I know if I really got saved?"  My response is 1) Did your life change after you got saved? and 2) Do you know what your gifting is, in the Body of Christ?  If no, what are your talents, what are you driven to, and how do you think that can be used to further the Kingdom?

Baptism in the Holy Spirit is not a separate event from Salvation - it is what occurs during salvation.  It's the redemption of your inner person - your spirit being born again as a new creation in Christ.  It is what puts you into the Body of Christ on the earth.  It is what then gifts and equips you with what you need in order to do the function of the body part that you are.  

Not everyone in Christ is a tongue.

One more question on this subtopic then remains for some - what about praying in the Spirit?  Yes, Paul shows that those who have the God-given gift of speaking in languages/tongues can use that gift to pray in the Spirit via praying in tongues.  This is opposed to the made up "tongues" that some Christians are guilty of - I refuse to judge which is which, because I don't know.  So how does one pray in the Spirit, if they don't have the gift of tongues/languages?

The Bible tells us, but first let's look at a few Scriptures for those who think praying in the Spirit has to involve praying/speaking in tongues/languages:

Ephesians 6:18a NRSVue
Pray in the Spirit at all times in every prayer and supplication.

If praying in the Spirit specifically means doing so in tongues, we have a problem here, because the above says we are to pray in the Spirit in every prayer.  Thus this would mean when we pray aloud, it better be in tongues.  We know that can't be what the above means, because Paul specifically wrote against doing that:

1 Corinthians 14:9 NRSVue
So with yourselves: If in a tongue you utter speech that is not intelligible, how will anyone know what is being said? For you will be speaking into the air.

1 Corinthians 14:16-19 NRSVue
Otherwise, if you say a blessing with the spirit, how can anyone in the position of an outsider say the “Amen” to your thanksgiving, since the outsider does not know what you are saying?  For you may give thanks well enough, but the other person is not built up. I thank God that I speak in tongues more than all of you; nevertheless, in church I would rather speak five words with my mind, in order to instruct others also, than ten thousand words in a tongue.

Thus when we see pray in the Spirit "in every prayer" in Ephesians 6:18, we know that doesn't specifically mean that every single time a person prays, it has to be in tongues.

Here's the other verse to ponder for those who think praying in the Spirit means one must pray in tongues in order to do so:

1 Thessalonians 5:17 NRSVue
pray without ceasing

Did you catch that?  Christians are told to pray all the time - to pray without ceasing.  How is that possible?  This means if you are a Christian reading this right now, you should be praying right now while reading this.  You should be praying when you are sleeping, you should be praying while you are driving, you should praying while you are working, praying while conversing, praying while watching a move, etc.  You are to be praying "without ceasing."

Ask a Christian how this is done, and many will say "this means you are always praying in the Spirit."  I full-heartedly agree.  There is no other way possible to pray without ceasing, unless it is via praying in the Spirit.  But if praying in the Spirit involves having to speak in tongues, we have a problem - you'd never shut up - NEVER.  You'd never be able to have a conversation with someone, because you are too busy praying in tongues.  You'd never be able to sleep, because you'd be praying in tongues.

Thus there must be some way to pray in the Spirit that all Christians can do, regardless if they are gifted with speaking in tongues/languages or not.  And there is.

Romans 8:26 NRSVue
Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness, for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with groanings too deep for words.

You may have done a double-take at the above verse, because this is a major verse that many people quote when defining praying in tongues.  However, the above is saying the opposite of that.  First let's look at the word "groanings."  This word (including in the Greek) is in Romans chapter 8 three times, and it's all in this section, about this very thing.  The first place is in verse 22.

Romans 8:22 NRSVue
We know that the whole creation has been groaning together as it suffers together the pains of labor

Is all creation speaking in tongues?  Is that what the groaning is?  No.  We know for a fact squirrels aren't in our yard tree speaking in tongues, nor is the tree and grass doing so.  These are groanings that we don't hear.

Next is in verse 23.

Romans 8:23 NRSVue
and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly while we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies.

We now have verification that this groaning is not an audible sound. It's an inward groaning, not one that can be heard. It does not involve the movement of our tongues at all.

And our third instance of this word is in our Romans 8:26.

Romans 8:26 NRSVue
Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness, for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with groanings too deep for words.

The Spirit intercedes with groanings.  We now know via context that these groanings are not outwardly audible.  There is no hearing it, and there is no tongue movement involved.  Further, it goes on to say that these groanings are "too deep for words."  

"To deep for words" is translated from one Greek word. That word is ἀλάλητος (al-al'-ay-tos).  As very clearly laid out in the LSJ Greek dictionary, ἀλάλητος (al-al'-ay-tos)  literally means "unspeakable, unutterable."  If you'd like to see this for yourself, click here.  

Thus praying in the Spirit doesn't involve any sound, unless we have the gift of tongues/languages, and they want to pray in the Spirit in those tongues/languages.  Else, praying in the Spirit is literally soundless, and can be done all the time, non-stop.  This is the type of praying in the Spirit that involves:

Ephesians 6:18a NRSVue
Pray in the Spirit at all times in every prayer and supplication.

and

1 Thessalonians 5:17 NRSVue
pray without ceasing

Now we see that the term Born Again is literal.  Our Spirit is literally born again as a new creation in Christ at the moment we are baptized in the Holy Spirit into the Body of Christ, where we become a body part with specific functions that God equips us with giftings in order to accomplish.  

This is the spiritual redemption.  What about the rest of what's been messed up since sin entered our realm?  What about our bodies?  What about earth?  What about outer space?

The Redemption of our Bodies

The first thing redeemed is our spirits upon salvation.  This is what makes us new creations in Christ.

1 Corinthians 5:16-18 NRSVue
From now on, therefore, we regard no one from a human point of view; even though we once knew Christ from a human point of view, we no longer know him in that way. So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; look, new things have come into being!  All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and has given us the ministry of reconciliation;

We receive the Holy Spirit upon the moment of salvation.  Not only is this via the Baptism of the Holy Spirit into the Body of Christ, but we are also sealed with the Holy Spirit, which is a mark of a promise.

Ephesians 1:13-14 NRSVue
In him you also, when you had heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and had believed in him, were marked with the seal of the promised Holy Spirit; this is the pledge of our inheritance toward redemption as God’s own people, to the praise of his glory.

This mark - the seal of the Holy Spirit serves multiple purposes:

1) As we see in Revelation, it provides protection to the Christians during the first half of the Tribulation

2) It's a pledge, or promise that the redemption of our bodies will occur in the future.  This happens in the middle of the tribulation during the seventh trumpet, when our bodies are changed from these bodies affected by sin, into bodies born again (resurrected) as sinless bodies - no longer affected by sin.

1 Corinthians 15:51-53 NRSVue
Look, I will tell you a mystery! We will not all die, but we will all be changed,  in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. For this perishable body must put on imperishability, and this mortal body must put on immortality.

Revelation 10:7 NRSVue
but in the days when the seventh angel is to blow his trumpet, the mystery of God will be fulfilled, as he announced to his servants the prophets.”

Romans 8:23 NRSVue
and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly while we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies.

Thus, our spirits are redeemed when we are born again.  Our bodies will be redeemed at the Rapture, when our bodies are changed or resurrected into imperishable bodies no longer affected by sin.

What about the rest of creation?  What about the earth and outer space?  When will they be redeemed?

The Redemption of the Rest of Creation

2 Peter 3:7 NRSVue
But by the same word the present heavens and earth have been reserved for fire, being kept until the day of judgment and destruction of the godless.

Revelation 21:1 NRSVue
Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more.

This event occurs at the Great White Throne Judgement, where God will deal with every single evil person who ever existed.  Once this is done, the only things left in existence that still have the effects of sin are the earth and outer space.  God will destroy them with His fire, and then recreate them anew, without the effects of sin upon them.

To Summarize

Salvation is all about being redeemed from sin and its effects.  This begins with the person being baptized in the Holy Spirit which puts them into the Body of Christ, of which the fruits of that salvation will be evident in how they live their lives, and in their doing their function as their specific part of the Body of Christ.  This is the redemption of the inner person, and occurs during this age.  

At the Rapture, those who have the redeemed spirits will then receive the redemption of their bodies. They will no longer be in sinful flesh, but in sinless flesh as we were meant to be.

After the Great White Throne Judgement the heavens and earth are recreated anew - this is the cosmic and terrestrial redemption of all of the rest of creation.  Then the beginning has concluded, and eternity takes hold.