The Purpose of Salvation B

The ultimate end of salvation is the glory of the Son. And the glory of the Son calls for His preeminence among a whole redeemed humanity who will see that preeminence and forever and ever and ever glorify Him. We have been redeemed.

We have been ordained from before the foundation of the world to the end that we would give the preeminence to Christ and that's what we do. You may know that God is holy, you're a sinner, and the penalty for sin is death. And you may have repented of your sin and turned to faith in Christ, and yet with all of that, do you sometimes wonder, has God really saved me forever?

While what you think about salvation may change, salvation itself does not. Once you're in God's grip, you're always in His grip. John MacArthur helps you focus on that truth in his study, The Grip of God, today on Grace to You.

Now with a lesson, here's John. We're going through the eighth chapter of Romans, Romans 8, 28 to 30, where it says, And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose. For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren, and whom He predestined, these He also called, and whom He called, these He also justified, and whom He justified, these He also glorified. These three verses present the clearest and most powerful statement of security in all of Scripture. They guarantee without deviation, they guarantee without variation, without exception, that all those who are genuinely saved will enter into final glory. And verse 28 starts out clarifying this guarantee by saying, We know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the true lovers of God who have come to Christ in faith.

God causes all things, that is good things and bad things and neutral things, all things, no matter what they are, we went through the whole long list of those things, He causes all things to work together for good, and you remember we told you the good Paul is referring to is eternal glory. The good he's referring to here is the good referred to in verse 23 as our adoption as sons, the redemption of our body. It is the good of verse 21, the freedom of the glory of the children of God. The whole prior section is talking about our hope, the glory that is to be revealed in us in verse 18, the redemption of the body, the adoption as sons, the fact that we are going to enter into the freedom of the glory of the children of God, that there is yet something ahead of us and that something is eternal glory. That is the pledge of verse 28. Now the general truth is this, the general truth given by the Holy Spirit is that God causes all things, okay?

That's what it says, and He causes all things to work together for our eternal good, our good being eternal glory. Why? Because that is His purpose. And if God causes that, it's going to happen.

Why? Verse 31, if God is for us, who in the universe could possibly be against us successfully? No one since God is superior. So we are secure eternally in the purpose of God. It is the purpose of God to save us eternally. The reason we are confident in our eternal salvation is because that is the plan.

That is the plan. I mean, the natural man in 1 Corinthians 2, 14 can't understand the things of God, so he certainly can't save himself. He is really hopeless in making any effort to do that since he is blind and ignorant and willfully rebellious and hopelessly iniquitous. Jesus said in John 8, 43 to those around Him, He said, why do you not understand what I'm saying? It's because you can't hear My Word because you're of your father the devil. And as long as you are dead in trespasses and sin, as long as you are blind, as long as you're of your father the devil, you cannot understand the truth.

It's not just a matter of you being smart enough to make the right choice. There has to be a mighty work of God. It's not of the will of man, it's the will of God. John 6, 37 I think sums it up so well. All that the Father gives Me shall come to Me.

That statement somewhere ought to be locked into everyone's mind. All that the Father gives Me shall come to Me. In other words, the whole matter of salvation is initiated by the Father's will. All that the Father gives Me shall come to Me. Go down to verse 44. No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him.

Now look at this. Nobody comes unless the Father who sent Me draws him and I will do my best to hang on to him till the end. Is that what it says?

No. I will what? Raise him up at the last day. Nobody gets lost in the meantime. The whole matter of the security of the believer is clearly identified right here. They are by the will of God drawn to Christ who keeps them all and raises them up at the last day. Look back at verse 39, and this is the will of him who sent Me that of all that he has given Me I lose none but raise him up on the last day. For this is the will of My Father that everyone who beholds the Son and believes in Him may have eternal life and I Myself will raise him up on the last day. God's will is that whom He draws, Christ receives. Whom Christ receives He keeps and whom He keeps He raises to eternal glory.

That's His will. You remember that most notable section of the 17th chapter of John and I remind you of it because it's one of the most magnificent insights into this. Jesus was so conscious of His responsibility to hold on to believers that when He was going toward the cross, He realized there was going to be a problem because there was going to be a time on the cross, remember when He said, My God, My God, why have you forsaken Me? There was going to be a time on the cross when He was going to be spiritually somehow alienated from God and He could not hold on to His own. Now that was a concern to Him, so He prays to the Father in John 17 and in verse 11, this is what He says. And He's anticipating the time on the cross, I'm no more in the world and yet they themselves are in the world and I come to Thee, Holy Father. Look at this, keep them in Thy name. You know what He's really saying to the Father? Father, there's going to be a time when I'm not going to be able to hold on to them.

Would you please take over during that time and keep them for Me? So you see, now let's go back to Romans chapter 8. You see that the marvelous statement in Romans chapter 8 called according to His purpose unlocks everything.

That unlocks everything. And then verse 29, for whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son. Listen, He didn't predestine you to the beginning of your salvation but to the end of it, which is to be conformed to the image of His Son.

When we're finally in glory, we'll be like Jesus Christ and we'll talk more about that as we go through this. Now, as we look at these two verses, I want us to see just two points. But I want us to look at the purpose of salvation and the progress of it, okay? The purpose of salvation and the progress of salvation. There is a clear statement of the purpose of salvation, and it's in there in verse 29.

He predestined us to become conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren. The purpose of salvation, I hate to shock you too much, but the purpose of salvation was not primarily for you. The purpose of salvation was not primarily to deliver you from hell and to take you to heaven so you could just sit on a cloud and pluck a harp and have a great old time forever.

That's a sort of a secondary and corollary benefit. The purpose of salvation was not so that you could go up to heaven and live in some mansion up there, as people like to think about in John 14. The purpose was not so that you could trek your way through the cubed, transparent, gold-bejeweled city called the New Jerusalem. The purpose of your salvation was not to make you into a perfect person who would live forever in the eternal bliss of heaven in unmitigated and unending and consummate joy. No, the purpose of your salvation was so that you could be conformed to the image of His Son.

Well, what does that mean? Well, God's plan in salvation was to make the saved like the Son, to make the saved like Christ, forgiveness of sin, that's a wonderful benefit, removal of guilt, the granting of peace and joy and love and all of that. All of those are a part of the reality of salvation, but the goal is to make you like Jesus Christ. And salvation, listen carefully, to be salvation cannot stop short of that, or it's not the salvation God planned, understood? It cannot just end with calling, that God just calls and then hopes. It cannot end with justification.

He justifies, but it never goes beyond that and He just kind of hopes that it gets to glory. No, the plan of God, the purpose of God, the kind intention of His will is that we be brought all the way to glory and then this great phrase, conformed to the image of His Son. We have been saved in hope, it says back in verses 17, 19 and 21, and the hope in which we've been saved is that someday we'll be like Christ. Now let's look at that phrase.

To become conformed literally means to bring to the same form with. This is really unimaginable, but this is God's plan. Philippians 3, 20, listen, our citizenship is in heaven from which also we eagerly wait for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. Listen to this, who will transform the body of our humble state into conformity with the body of His glory. How in the world is He going to do that? By the exertion of the power that He has even to subject all things to Himself. You say, how in the world is He going to do that? People ask me the funniest questions. They'll say to me, well, I'm a little worried about cremation because how's the Lord going to find all the pieces at the end so that He can give me the glorified body?

Not to worry, folks, not to worry. If you're not created, just stay in the grave long enough and you'll have the same problem because there's disintegration. You see, it's by the same power, as Philippians 3 says, it's by the same power that He exerts over everything in the universe. He created the whole universe out of what?

Nothing. He is going to grant to us a form like unto the glorious body of Jesus Christ. You say, what does that mean, we're all going to look like Him and be 33 years old and have shoulder length hair and a beard?

No. It's talking about your holiness, your blamelessness, your righteousness, your spiritual perfection. I don't know all that it means except to say that you will have a body like unto His glorious body and the only thing we know about His glorious body is what we see in His post-resurrection appearances, right? He was visible. He was touchable. He could speak. He could eat. He could transport Himself supernaturally, rapidly.

He could live in time and space and out of it. He was perfect and sinless and visible only to those to whom He chose to reveal Himself. But we're going to be brought into the same form as the resurrection body of Jesus Christ. In whatever way glorified humanity can be like incarnate deity will be like Christ.

And it's a spiritual reality and yet there will be a glorified body. Look at the word there, conformed to the image. This is interesting. Image is icon. You get the word icon from it, which is a...you know what an icon is? A statue, isn't it? It's a replica. The word icon is used in four other verses with a similar reference to Jesus Christ, 2 Corinthians 3.18, 2 Corinthians 4.4, Colossians 1.15, and Colossians 3.10. And it refers to a purposefully derived likeness, not an accidental one.

When you go about to produce an icon, to produce a replica of somebody else, it's not accidental. A statue is a replicate and that's exactly what the word conveys. We're going to be in the image of Jesus Christ in that somehow God is going to shape us into a replica of Jesus Christ. We will not be Jesus Christ as a son is not his father, but we will bear the image of Jesus Christ as in some ways a son is a replica of his father. When God made man, made him in his image and in his likeness, Genesis 1.26.

But that original image, imagio Deo as it's often called, was defaced and marred by sin so that that original body had to be discarded in the grave. But there is coming a time in eternal glory when the intention of God that man would be made in his own image will again be restored. He became one of us that we might become conformed to him. This is an incredible thing. 1 John 3 is the familiar promise.

Listen. Verse 1, see how great a love the Father has bestowed on us? How great is God's love for us? This great that we should be called children of God and such we are. For this reason, the world doesn't know us because it didn't know him. The world can't recognize children of God.

It didn't even recognize him. How can it recognize us? Beloved, I love this, verse 2, now we are children of God. It is true, we are now children of God. But it has not yet appeared as yet what we shall be.

This isn't the final image. We know that when he appears, we shall be what? Like him.

Wow. The whole plan of salvation is to make us like him. Inwardly and outwardly, in our redeemed and righteous and holy spirit, and our glorious, perfect, supernatural, resurrection body, we're going to be like Christ. We won't be Christ, but we'll be as much like Christ as it is possible for glorified humanity to be like incarnate deity. And beloved, that is the goal of our salvation. That's what God had in mind before the foundation of the world. That's what God had in mind when he saved us and that is exactly what is going to happen. Listen to Hebrews 2, 10.

Here it is again. It is Christ through whom are all things, I love this phrase in the middle of verse 10, in bringing many sons to glory. You see, that again is the point. The point is He brings His sons to glory to perfect the author of their salvation.

If Christ doesn't bring many sons to glory, if He doesn't bring us all the way to glory, then He is not the perfect author of our salvation. The ultimate purpose then for us is to be glorified. But why does He want this? There's a reason for that even.

There's a reason and a motive behind that. Back to verse 29, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren. Why does He want to make us like Christ? So that there will be many brethren among whom Christ will be the firstborn. Firstborn is the word prototokos and it means the premier one.

It's not in chronology. It means the firstborn was always the most notable child, the one who inherited everything, the one who had the rights and privileges and honors. It's the position of preeminence. You see, God had a plan and the plan was that there would gather around Christ a redeemed humanity made in His image who would view Him as preeminent and thus forever and ever and ever they would praise and honor and glorify His name. And that's why we were saved. Why do we need to be like Him? Because that allows us not only to praise and honor His name by what we ascribe to Him, but to reflect that through our likeness to Him.

It's just another way to manifest His preeminence. You see, the ultimate end of salvation is the glory of the Son. And the glory of the Son calls for His preeminence among a whole redeemed humanity who will see that preeminence and forever and ever and ever glorify Him. The ultimate objective in bringing us to His image is that He may be the most glorious among many who are glorious. God wanted holy glorified beings who forever and ever and ever would recognize the majesty and the wonder and the preeminence of His Son.

It's just a tremendous concept. He is the preeminent one among many brethren. Hebrews 2 says He's not ashamed to call us brethren.

Isn't that marvelous? We will have an intimate relationship with Him, but He will be the chief one. He will receive all the praise and all the honor and all the glory. The only glory we will have is that derived from Him.

The only righteousness we will have is that granted from Him. The only beauty and magnificence in our bearing will be because we have His image. It's an amazing thing, Paul said, that God set me apart even from my mother's womb and called me through His grace.

And He called me to this great end. That's why Paul would say to the Galatians, I'm not satisfied until Christ is fully formed in you. David said like this, he said, I will only be content or satisfied when I awaken thy likeness. The central point in the history of redemption is the glory of the Son on display for all eternity before the redeemed saints and angels. He is eternally to be glorified, eternally to be exalted.

He stands over and above the multitude of the redeemed as their King, Priest, Prophet, and Savior. And beloved, that's why even here in this life, before we get there, the object of our life is to glorify Christ, isn't it? That's why worship is such a priority for us. That's why we're not spending our time when we come together with foolish things.

That's why we aren't dealing with trivial things, fussing around with entertainment and man-centered things. But we have been redeemed, we have been ordained from before the foundation of the world to the end that we would give the preeminence to Christ, and that's what we do. And until we get to that point, we still pursue the goal.

That's Philippians, I've told you that many times. Philippians 3, I press toward the goal. What is the goal? The goal is the prize of the upward call. What's the prize of the upward call?

Christ's likeness. If that's the prize of the upward call when I go to glory, it's the goal in life while I'm here. So I pursue Christ's likeness here because that's why I was saved in the first place. That's the purpose of salvation. Now that takes us to the progress of salvation, but I don't have time, so we'll do that next time. How does God get us to fulfill this purpose? And the progress we're going to see in the words, foreknew, predestined, called, justified, and glorified.

And we'll save that till next time. We thank You, Father, for all that You give to us in the strength of the indwelling Spirit, for the faithfulness of our great High Priest, who has been in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin, who knows the way of escape and who intercedes on our behalf. We thank You that nothing can condemn us, for You have declared us just and there is no higher court.

Nothing can separate us from the love of Christ who has already given His life for us. We thank You that You are bringing through the instrumentation of Jesus Christ many sons to glory, and all that You have chosen You will call and all that You call will come and all that come Christ receives and all that He receives He keeps and all He keeps He raises. We thank You, Father, for the hope of eternal glory and for that glory we wait till that time when we are made perfect and the purpose for which You called us, the purpose for which You predestined us in the very first place. That being that we might give the preeminence eternally to Jesus Christ and the perfections of eternal heaven comes to pass. But until that day, may we serve the purpose for which we are being redeemed even now and may we exalt Jesus Christ by praise and obedience. We pray in His great name and every one said, Amen. our 9,000th Grace to You broadcast.

And whenever we hit a milestone like that, it reminds me how much has changed in the world since broadcast number one. But one thing that won't change is our core commitment to faithfully teaching God's Word and giving people tools they can use to study Scripture on their own. Yeah, and one other thing that won't change is the Bible.

That's right. The Word of God is like the Lord himself, the same yesterday, today, and forever. The Word of God endures forever. And not one jot or one tittle shall in any wise pass away. So we're dealing with the timeless, eternal Word of God.

How wonderful is that? We're not trying to catch up to new technology with new data. We're catching up to new technology with the living Word of God, which is eternal. That's so wonderful, and what that means is that whatever we've done in the past is valid today, because the Word of God does not change. Whatever the Bible meant when it was originally written, it still means and will always mean.

And along that line, this might seem like we're going in the wrong direction, but in reality it's going to be a fresh, new kind of approach. Twenty-five years or so ago, we used to put out what were called study guides. And they basically took the subjects of the Bible, key subjects that people were interested in, and pulled sermons together on those subjects. The little booklets had outlines and study questions and all kinds of things. They were really very, very popular. In fact, I think we did about 150 of them on 150 different subjects.

Well, they've been lying dormant for the last quarter of a century, and I'm really excited to say we're going to resurrect them again. And the series is going to be called Verse by Verse with John MacArthur, but the subjects are going to be the feature of these little books. Each one of these books will target a specific biblical subject and pull together the sermons that I've preached through the years on that subject. The first one is going to be Spiritual Boot Camp, and it looks at how to study the Scripture, how to pray, how to witness with the gospel, and how to function in the church—really foundational.

We're going to work our way through all of them again in a fresh new format, beautiful new covers and design. We would love to help you get started with us in the series Verse by Verse with John MacArthur and these booklets. The first one, Spiritual Boot Camp, special offer. If you've never been in touch with us before, we'll send you a free copy of the new Spiritual Boot Camp study guide. And by the way, next month the Spiritual Boot Camp series will air on the radio. That's I guess in late June, so get your copy of the study guide now and you can follow along as you listen.

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If you have already gotten in touch, it's available for a reasonable price. To pick up the Spiritual Boot Camp study guide, call 800-55-GRACE or go to gty.org. And when you visit gty.org, make sure you take advantage of the thousands of free resources you'll find there. That includes daily devotionals written by John, 3500 sermons that cover crucial topics like abiding in Christ or the Lord's Supper or God's love, and so many others. And if you're not sure where to start, try GraceStream. That's a continuous broadcast of John's preaching through the entire New Testament. Our website one more time, gty.org. Now for John MacArthur, I'm Phil Johnson, encouraging you to be here tomorrow when John looks at God's foreknowledge. It's part of his current study, The Grip of God. Don't miss another 30 minutes of unleashing God's truth, one verse at a time, on Grace to You.