Is a tree alive because it bears fruit, or does a tree bear fruit because it’s alive? That seemingly confusing question actually illustrates a profound spiritual truth: as Christians, we bear fruit because we are saved; we are not saved because we are bearing fruit.
In the last three parts of this series, we’ve been looking at the gospel and attempting to understand the biblical perspective on salvation. We have seen the point of salvation – God’s glory; the Person of salvation – Lord Jesus Christ; and the process in salvation – death and resurrection, appropriated by repentant faith. In the final part of this series, let’s explore the power of salvation. We want to see, what does salvation look like?
Sadly, there are many today who claim to have prayed a salvation prayer once upon a time, who claim they once gave their heart to the Lord, but who live lives of immorality and rebellion to God. Their testimony is that salvation does not seem to affect you in your everyday life. But as we will see, true biblical salvation will have such a profound impact on your life that it will be clear that eternal life is inside you.
The fact that a tree bears fruit shows that it is alive inside. The absence of fruit – for a sustainable period of time – indicates the tree is not alive. The tree does not have to keep producing fruit to stay alive – nor do we have to keep doing good works to stay saved. But the absence of them indicates we were never truly saved in the first place.
Jesus spoke of this in His parable of the soils in Matthew 13. There he illustrated the four kind of hearts that respond to the gospel. One kind is indifferent. The hard ground, where the seed did not even penetrate, and the birds ate it up, are hardened unbelievers, rejecting the Gospel and allowing Satan to come and distract them with more lies, lest they give the Word serious thought.
The second kind of heart is impulsive. The seed penetrates into this soil, and there is quick growth. But Christ said the roots are not deep and the sun withers it. This is the person who loves the gospel on the surface. They like the idea of salvation, and of escaping hell. But they do not truly repent and receive Christ – theirs is only a superficial show of interest in God, which dries up when the difficulties come.
The third kind is the infested heart. They too, seem to receive the message, and look like they are really saved. But pretty soon the real state of their heart is revealed – riches, the pleasures and cares of the world are their true priority, and Jesus likens them to thorns choking the Word. But the final heart is the heart with integrity. It truly receives Christ for all He is, and it goes on to produce fruit that remains.
Now, the thing to notice is that Christ was not saying, ‘some get saved and then drop out.’ He was saying that some appear to be saved, and turn out to be false converts. Only one of the four represents true salvation. Christ does not teach that true believers fall back and lose their salvation, nor do any of the New Testament writers. Rather, they teach that false converts show that their faith was never genuine to begin with by dropping out, while true believers persevere, since their faith is a gift from God anyway.
To continue this line of thinking, let’s take a look at the power of salvation. True faith produces works. James is clear on this. James does not say works are necessary to save; he says that a faith without works was never faith to begin with. Rather, it was a devil’s faith – one that believes in God, without true repentance. Real faith has works, like a tree which is alive has fruit.
As we mentioned in Part 1 of this series, God’s purpose in saving us goes far beyond a desire to change our future destination. God is not selling eternal real estate, though many gospel presentations make it seem that way. No, God’s purposes revolve around His own glory. Understanding that, we expect something to occur after salvation in keeping with God’s purposes.
Salvation does have a once-off moment where there is a transaction occurring between God and the sinner, but it nevertheless has an ongoing, present-tense result afterwards. This is the power of salvation. It is the before and after comparison that makes the world say, “Something remarkable has happened in that person’s life!” So what does the power of salvation produce?
…And be found in Him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith: That I may know him, and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being made conformable unto His death; if by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead.
Philippians 3:9-11
In these verses, Paul captures much of what the power of salvation enables – what it looks like. Firstly, Paul states that His salvation experience has enabled him to be found in Christ. He is now hidden in Jesus, clothed behind Jesus, living the life of Jesus. This is summed up by him in the words: ‘not having mine own righteousness, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith.’
Salvation most profoundly brings righteousness. It brings a new way of life. Our words, our thoughts, our attitudes, our actions, our relationships, our habits, our non-verbal behaviour, our ambitions, our plans, our motives, our priorities – all are changed to become increasingly unlike the world, and more like Christ. A salvation that does not change your life has not saved your soul.
This needs to be preached to the many goats that attend church services every Sunday and consider themselves sheep, simply by virtue of their attendance there: ‘if your life has not changed in any way, there is no way you can claim that the supernatural seed of God’s life has been planted in you.’ However small, however tiny, there will be fruit in a believer’s life, or else the tree is dead, and was never alive to begin with.
So profoundly, the power of salvation brings righteousness. What is righteousness? The character of Christ. And it is only through imputed righteousness that we can have fellowship with God. Not only that, but it is as the imputed righteousness is practically worked out in our lives, that we have meaningful fellowship with God.
Consider the following verses Hebrews 12:14: “Follow peace with all men, and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord.” Now remember this is written to believers – and the writer is saying that no Christian will have a meaningful experience of God in this life without holiness of life.
Matthew 5:8 says, “Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God.” Once again, it is clear that righteousness is necessary both to enjoy God in eternity, and to meaningfully fellowship with Him now. The reason so many true believers have such shallow Christian lives, with such an empty or phony experience of God, is because they are not truly pursuing holiness of life.
Because notice the very next verse in our Philippians 3 text: Paul says that being found in Christ with His righteousness by faith will enable him to do verse 10. And what does verse 10 say? “That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings.” In other words, Paul is saying his salvation experience recorded in verse 9, and the way he now lives his life, has opened the way for all that he wants in verse 10.
Verse 10 here is the point of verse 9 – it is Paul’s chief goal, and the simplest definition of the power of salvation. How does Paul live his life now? By faith. You are saved by faith, and you walk by faith. At salvation, you look to God in Christ for all that He promises to be for you regarding your sin problem, and throughout your life, it is the same.
Whether it be another sin, or anxiety, or difficulties, or problems, or disease, or troubles, or calamity, or financial issues, or relationships – whatever the need, we again look to God in Christ for what He promises to be and provide. This is the heart of Christian living – by faith in His grace. Doing this, enables verse 10.
Paul has three things that he says he wants. Let’s read it again. The last phrase is in the past tense: ‘having been made conformable to His death’ by which he means, having been co-crucified with Christ, all of the above is possible. Let’s take them one by one.
1. The power of salvation means the power to know the Person of Christ.
“That I may know Him” – personally. No other religion claims to give its followers the opportunity of a personal relationship with their God. But the God of the Bible not only provides it, He seeks it! He wants to fellowship with us. The power of salvation makes it possible for us to know Him personally. How does this happen?
God becomes increasingly real to the Christian living by faith because of the Word of God. Romans 10:17 says: “So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.” As a saved person reads the Word, a process called illumination takes place. This is also referred to in 1 Corinthians 2:10-16. The process of illumination is available only to those who are saved, where the Holy Spirit takes the written word of God and reveals God to us in it.
It refers to those moments when the light goes on, when you suddenly see God in the passage. He reveals Himself to you. The purpose is for you to be changed into that same image. You see how God is personally, and by faith, embrace all that He promises to be and is. As we yield ourselves to His righteousness, to go out and obey in faith, we are changed into the same image.
No one who saw God’s glory – His Person summed up – remained the same. Moses saw God’s glory and His face was literally shining. So we are to apprehend God’s Person in the Word, as He reveals Himself to us, and grow in a deeper appreciation of Him and what He has done. This deeper appreciation strengthens our faith to go out and obey Him.
And here is the thing: as you go out to obey Him in faith, you create what I call a ‘grace vacuum’ – the opportunity for God’s enabling grace to flood in and empower and reward your obedience. And guess what is happening in those moments? You are getting to know Him better. You thus see God objectively as He is revealed in Scripture. As you obey His commands from Scripture in faith, you know Him subjectively, in His promises coming true, in His grace supplying you with power.
Christianity is primarily a love relationship. Salvation’s power is the power to enjoy such a relationship – an ever-deepening understanding of your Creator and how to respond to Him. Salvation enables us to fulfil the greatest command to love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul and mind. But such love comes by embracing God by faith in the Word, and in obedience. Well, that obedience requires grace, doesn’t it? And that brings us to the next part of Paul’s desire, and that is the power of Christ’s resurrection.
2. The power of salvation is the power to know Christ’s power.
The same power that conquered the ultimate threat – death – is available to the believer. Now, this does not mean, as some think it does, that we now go around commanding and binding everything in creation. Rather, it means that God seeks to manifest His supernatural power in the believer’s life to deal with everyday life situations. We need help from above to love our neighbours, to endure in trying situations, to keep working at a marriage, to raise children in a godly way, to love our enemies, to refuse temptation, and so on.
To imitate the Person of Christ requires the power of Christ. You cannot behave like a supernatural person, unless you are being empowered and enabled by that supernatural person. That is the power of the resurrection – the Holy Spirit giving you all that you need for life and godliness. Make no mistake – resurrection power was triumphant power. God does indeed want His children to rise above life’s circumstances. Not by perfect health and wealth, as some have taught – but by joy, contentment, peace, love and purity in the midst of difficulty.
But here’s the catch. One who seeks very little to be like Christ – to know Him in the Word and in obedience – will receive power proportional to their desire. The Spirit will empower only what you obey. Once again – you need to make grace vacuums in your life to experience the power of the resurrection. You don’t require grace to sin, or to live selfishly. It is a pursuit of holiness that brings the power of the resurrection.
A half-hearted approach to pursuing God in holy living will result in that amount of enablement from the Spirit. Paul’s desire to know Christ was so great that he required God’s power consistently to help him. He so sought to imitate Christ, that God’s power was essential in His life. Let me ask you – if the Holy Spirit were to refuse to empower you today –would it make a big difference to your character and what you do? If we are living in a Christlike way, our day will be impossible without complete dependence on Him.
Here is the third link in the chain. Paul told us in 2 Timothy 3:12: “Yea, and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution.” Jesus Himself told us in John 15:20: “Remember the word that I said unto you, The servant is not greater than his lord. If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you; if they have kept my saying, they will keep yours also.”
So, if I live by faith – I will be increasingly righteous. How? Because I will seek Christ in the Word, and seek to obey Him in life. And as I do this, God provides the grace and power to do so. But, as I do this – I will face trials, difficulties and even persecution. Paul surprises us by saying that he wants to know the fellowship of His sufferings.
3. The power of salvation is the power to know Christ’s pain.
This is the one we don’t really like, which those preaching health and wealth never mention. God says in Philippians 1:29: “For unto you it is given in the behalf of Christ, not only to believe on him, but also to suffer for his sake.” Why? Suffering is part of God’s plan to truly make our heart His. Think about it. There is nothing like suffering to test if your heart is selfish or unselfish. A selfish heart will never willingly allow suffering on itself. But an unselfish heart will permit it for the love of another.
Let’s use an extreme example. Those who were martyred for Christ always had two choices – recant, or be burned. The choice was simple: choose for self, or choose Christ. They chose, often, to not deny Christ. Suffering, in its many forms, is designed to take a believer from the self-centred, unbelieving being they naturally are, to one who’s more and more resembling Christ, the firstborn among many brethren.
Christ unselfishly suffered for God’s glory and for others. How did He do that? Hebrews 12:2 tells us: “Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.” Christ looked beyond the cross to the glory and joy it would bring. Again, there is faith here. Suffering is the purification of our faith – to a place where we are freed from believing in only what we can see and taste and touch and feel and buy and control.
In this way, the believer’s grasp on this world and selfish gain is pried loose through God’s tender use of suffering. In so doing, the believer is freed from the tyranny of self, to truly find an unselfish love for God in faith. There, in the midst of suffering, their heart is undivided – they prove to heaven and to themself that they love God more than self – and that is truly the most blessed place in the universe to be.
There, one’s closeness to Christ is unparalleled. That is why Paul called it the ‘fellowship of His sufferings.’ There is no greater communion with Christ than to join Him in suffering for Him and His glory. There is nothing better for the faith that apprehends God than to have all things that sight walkers need removed, and have only a trust in God remain. Those who do so come upon the greatest experience of God possible – an undiluted experience of God.
God graciously gives His children the power to endure suffering in a Christlike way, which draws them nearer to Himself, and glorifies Him in their testimony. Suffering is God’s ultimate maturing tool.
But the God of all grace, who hath called us unto his eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after that ye have suffered a while, make you perfect, stablish, strengthen, settle you.
1 Peter 5:10My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into diverse temptations; knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience. But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing.
James 1:2-4
Suffering is the way He completes us, both in character, and in resemblance to Christ. As 1 Peter 2:21 says: “For even hereunto were ye called: because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that ye should follow His steps.” The power of salvation is the power to truly live as a citizen of another world, to embrace faith over sight, to be willing to suffer for one we love more than self. The power of salvation enables us to bravely embrace what we naturally avoid – pain to ourselves for the love of another. Thus we resemble Christ.
Here is the progression Paul gives: as we continue to live by faith, we grow in obedience. As we obey, we live in holiness. As we live in holiness, we know Him like never before, for those pure in heart see God. As we obey, we also receive grace – the power of His resurrection, and our faith grows even more, and we love Him even more.
Then, as we obey consistently, we are tried by suffering. Instead of destroying our faith, it has the opposite effect: our faith is further strengthened – we know God even better, and delight in Him even more. And this deepened knowledge and experience of God in turn, strengthens our faith, and the whole cycle begins again. This is spiritual growth.
The end result? To love God with all our heart, soul and mind. The medium through which this happens is holiness of life. The means by which we attain this is faith. “But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him” (Hebrews 11:6).
This brings us full circle to the point of salvation. In Part 1, we learned how God saves us to glorify Himself. Well, as a believer makes God His continual refuge, continual rest, continual reference point – what does that say about God? It exalts God as dependable, as strong, as good, as worthy of affection and devotion, as refreshing, and all things excellent and lovely. God is glorified by our faith in Him.
Likewise, as we grow in our delight in God and as we grow in our love for Him – this glorifies God. It shows God to be most worthy. When a human finds their ultimate joy, satisfaction, happiness and fulfilment in God, God is glorified as being better than any of his gifts, the highest and greatest of all. Therefore the power of salvation is really the enablement to reach the point of salvation – to glorify God.
I trust that this series has helped you see the point, the Person, the process, and now the power of salvation. The point is to glorify God. The Person is the Lord Jesus Christ. The process is a death and resurrection, appropriated by repentant faith. The power is a life of faith whereby we grow in righteousness and consequently in our experience of God.
May we never water down, alter, omit or add to the pure truth of the gospel and its power. May we be pleased to declare it to all, in its entirety, for as Paul said in Romans 1:16: “I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth.”