Why Did God Save Us?

When answering the above question, many fervent believers will often swiftly, joyfully, and accurately answer, "Because of His great love for us!" Along these lines, a common song of praise which we regularly sing in our assemblies answers the question with the compelling phrase "Because He loved me so." This idea, of course, is verified countless times by God's word. In John 3:16 and many other places, the scriptures clearly teach that God's abundant, overflowing love caused Him to save us from our sinful degeneracy. Indeed, if "God is love" (I John 4:8,16, it follows that everything God does must somehow be motivated by love, since that is a defining characteristic of His nature. Is God's love for us, however, the only reason for the plan of salvation? Is it even the main reason? Whenever the gift of salvation is discussed amongst Christians, the blessings that humans obtain from God are often emphasized, and rightly so. Instead of wallowing in our dead and debased spiritual condition, we now enjoy life and the forgiveness of our sins. Instead of eternal separation from God, we now have the promise of an eternal relationship with God. Instead of giving up all hope, we now possess every reason to ho When considering the benefits of salvation from our human perspective, the things that we have received from God sound like a pretty good deal! But are the things that we gain, wonderful though they are, the point of the plan? Is salvation intended to be considered merely from our human perspective?

Up until the time of the Polish astronomer, Copernicus, the vast majority of Europe believe in geocentrism - the theory that our earth does not move and the universe revolves around it. The grossly mistaken hypothesis was no doubt believed because the heavenly bodies naturally appears to circle the earth and because certain Biblical passages could be forced to fit the model, but this supposition was also reinforced by the fact that human beings lived on the earth. Surely it was reasonable to suppose that God had ordained the mighty universe to move around the crowning glory of His creation: us! Of course, not only is such a viewpoint utterly wrong scientifically, it also seems rather arrogant to assume that the universe literally revolves around us.

Unfortunately, many people (albeit subconsciously) look at the plan of salvation in the way that medieval Europeans used to look at the heavens. They have the notion that God's plan to save man was entirely concocted for the benefit of man. Therefore, motivated by His great love, God conceived and executed a rescue mission with the sole aim of resolving man's problems, man's sins, and man's depravity. But if that were the case, how does that man-centric view of the plan into the Bible's overwhelmingly strong emphasis on the glory of God? If God's designs for may merely provide an opportunity for Him to give to us, why does He emphatically insist that the Christian life must be given back to Him? It seems myopic only to view God's plan through the lens of our own personal benefits. We are then brought back to the original question: why did God save US?

Paul answers that question in the book of Ephesians. Although Paul does mention that God save us from our sinful deadness "because of the great love with which He loved us" (Eph. 2:5), the primary reason why God delivered us was so that humans (as Christians) could live their lives " the praise of His glory," reflecting a concept that Paul expresses three times in chapter 1 alone (1:6,12,14). This adds a whole new dimension to the picture of man's redemption. Paul's main emphasis in Ephesians is not that mankind has received the incredible gifts of salvation, but that God chose to give us those gifts in order to further His glory. Right away in chapter 1, Paul describes the primary purpose of the plan: "that we should be holy and blameless before him" (1:4). Of course God desired to give us "every spiritual blessing" as he says in that verse, but H did so in order to fulfill a larger objective. Since it is completely impossible to glorify God through a life that is full of sin and bent on serving Satan, the plan for our salvation was created enable us to fulfill our original purpose as human beings. Ultimately, His brilliant plan was not enacted for us. but for God. Let us further consider the benefits of the plan of salvation from God's viewpoint. By making it possible for man to be forgiven of his sins, God not only receives the eternal praise of a larger portion of His creation, He proves once and for all that He is wise beyond degree. When Paul points out the purpose of the Lord's church in Ephesians 3:10-I 1, it seems much larger than the oft-quoted triad of "benevolence, edification, and evangelism." God's ultimate plan is that "through the church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places. This was according to the eternal purpose that he has realized in Christ Jesus our Lord" (ESV). The universal body of saints is intended to prove to all the hosts of the heavenly realm that God is truly worthy of everlasting glory, thus refuting for all eternity the vicious rebellion of Satan and his followers.

If God is able to defeat the staunchest forces of evil by continually using the lowliest of means, He is necessarily the wisest being of all. If He can create a nation by enabling a 100 year-old man to father a son, lead that man's descendants out of their abject slavery under a powerful nation, sustain that tenuous people through both prosperity and captivity, and ultimately conquer sin through the hideous death and joyous resurrection of a no-account carpenter from Nazareth, then God has unequivocally proven His supreme wisdom. When He attracts humans to this lowly plan by faith, when He displays to all the spiritual realm that man will indeed serve God "for no reason" (Job 1:9) and endure persecution and pain for the cause of the Lord, He has triumphantly whipped the devil with both hands tied behind His back. God has demonstrated that He alone is the uncontested ruler of the universe.

Why did God save us? Ultimately, He did it to magnify Himself, to show once and for all His incomparable power and wisdom. Consequently, the most wonderful thing about our salvation is not the blessings that we receive from God. It is the glory that God receives from our obedient lives. Nathan