What is salvation?

For by grace you have been saved through faith; and this is not of yourselves, it is the gift of God - Ephesians 2:8 (NASB)

For the word of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. - 1 Corinthians 1:18 (NASB)

Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from the wrath of God through Him. - Romans 5:9 (NASB)

Salvation has three aspects:
• The Past: Justification - We have been saved from the penalty of sin.

• The Present: Sanctification - We are being saved from the power of sin.

• The Future: Glorification - We will be saved from the presence of sin.

The following are excerpts from John MacArthur's sermon Saved or Self-Deceived.

In the feeble understandings of the anthropomorphic ideas, there was a moment in eternity when the Father determined to express His infinite and perfect love to the Son. And we can understand that there is an inter-Trinitarian love, the likes of which is incomprehensible and inscrutable to us. But this we know about love – it gives. And at some eternal moment the Father desired to express His perfect love for the Son. And the way He determined to express that was to give to the Son a redeemed humanity as a love gift. A redeemed humanity whose purpose would be, forever and ever, throughout all of the eons of eternity, to praise and glorify the Son and serve Him perfectly. That was the Father’s love gift. To express His love, He wanted to give a redeemed humanity.

Evidently the angels wouldn’t suffice to be in heaven praising the Son, because there were characteristics of the Son for which they could never praise Him, because they had never fallen and they had never been redeemed. And because it’s in the nature of God to be gracious, He must manifest that grace and be exalted for it forever and ever and ever. And He wanted to give a love gift to the Son, and so He predetermined to do that. Not only did He predetermine to do it, but He predetermined who would make up that redeemed humanity, and He wrote their names down in a book of life before the world began. And He said, “This is the love gift I want to give to you. And they will forever and ever and ever praise and glorify your name.”

When you get a glimpse into heaven, in the book of Revelation, what are they doing up there? What are the saints saying up there? “Worthy is the Lamb.” And I think that’s just a glimpse of what’s going to go on up there forever. The Father then determined to give a redeemed humanity as a love gift to the Son, which means – if I can be so bold as to say it – you and I are somewhat incidental to the real issue here. Salvation is primarily for the honor of the Son, not the honor of the sinner. The purpose here is not to save you so you can have a happy life. That’s a by-product. The purpose here is to save you so that you could praise the Son forever and ever and ever.

Everything that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I certainly will not cast out. For I have come down from heaven, not to do My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me. And this is the will of Him who sent Me, that of everything that He has given Me I will lose nothing, but will raise it up on the last day. For this is the will of My Father, that everyone who sees the Son and believes in Him will have eternal life, and I Myself will raise him up on the last day.” - John 6:37-40 (NASB)

Every redeemed individual is a part of an elect, redeemed humanity that is a gift from the Father to the Son. So all that the Father gives are drawn. All who are drawn, come. All who come, I receive, and I’ll never turn one of them down. It’s not because you’re so inherently desirable. It’s because you are a gift from the Father to the Son. It is the infinite love of the Son for the Father. It is the perfect gratitude for the expression of that love by the Father that opens the arms of the Son to embrace the gift. All that the Father gives shall come and all that come, I receive.

So here’s how it works. The Father chooses, writes the names down in the Lamb’s Book of Life of who that redeemed humanity will be to be given to the Son as an expression of love. Then in time the Father draws. When the Father draws, the sinners come, when the sinners come, the Son receives them. When the Son receives them, He keeps them and raises them the last day to bring the plan to fruition.

Inherent in this whole doctrine is the doctrine of the security of the believer, the perseverance of the saints because it’s all built into the plan. He holds His own that have been given to Him by the Father, and He has lost none of them and never will. He’ll bring them all the way to resurrection. Why? Because they are love gifts from the Father. They are precious, not so much inherently in who they are, but they are precious in the fact that they are expressions of the Father’s perfect love to Him for the purpose of glorifying and honoring and serving Him throughout all of eternity. And the Son will keep them. He’ll hold onto them. And if there is a circumstance that would be more than they could bear, He’ll make sure it doesn’t happen to them. If He has to, He’ll intervene into that circumstance. It’s not just by some divine fiat. It’s by the ongoing, incessant care of the Savior, the High Priest for His people, that we are kept in the plan.

Be Encouraged to know Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord