The idea for this article has actually been gnawing at me for a long time, but I finally got the clear sense that it was time to go ahead and pull the trigger on this one. As the title suggests, we're going to be talking about salvation. And as the title also suggests, it is intended to be a primer of sorts, or a short, informative introduction to some particular subject.

Straight up: There's really not a lot that's "new" in this article. As I have done in the past on occasion, I wrote this primarily to have a full answer at the ready to respond to people's questions about a particular topic—in this case, the nature of salvation, especially as it applies to different periods of time. I have touched on many of these issues in various articles over the years, but I just felt led to bring it all together into one package.

To that end, we will discuss the following:

1. Pre-Church salvation

2. Church Age salvation

3. Post-Church salvation

One thing that helped get me stoked to finally sit down and write this was a few of the responses I got to my most recent article "The Parables of Matthew 25," in which I discuss the fact that Gentile Tribulation survivors will be required to have maintained a faithful witness in order to be granted entrance into the Millennial Kingdom after the Second Coming. Apparently the idea that salvation won't quite be the same during the Tribulation as it is during the Church Age is a disturbingly alien concept that doesn't sit well with some, and I had a couple of folks who hit me with vague passages of Scripture taken out of context in fuzzy, futile efforts to refute what I had written.

Now, that last bit doesn't bother me—it comes with the territory. I am generally content to let others hold the opinions they do. But it drove home the point that there really are some things about the nature of salvation that some believers—although they're as saved as saved can be—don't fully understand, partly because some of this doesn't apply to the Church and partly because some of this is  seldom  never taught in a lot of churches today.

So with that said, it's back to the beginning.

1. Pre-Church salvation

In the Garden of Eden, God gave Adam and Eve one simple command:

 DON'T EAT THAT FRUIT! 

Any questions? Black and white, clear and simple. "That fruit," of course, being the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. And you know the story: Satan used a serpent to speak to Eve, got her all discombobulated about what God had actually said, fed her the lie about how "you shall be as gods" (or "you shall be like God," depending on the translation) and tempted her to eat the fruit. Which she did, and she promptly offered Adam a slice.

When God confronted Adam and Eve about their sin, they did what we all tend to do: They made excuses. Adam blamed God ("the woman You gave to be with me") as well as Eve ("she gave me from the tree"), and Eve blamed the serpent ("the serpent deceived me"). First, God proceeded to place a curse on the literal snake (i.e. snakes do crawl on their bellies in the dust).

Science confirms the Bible—again: Scientists have discovered that some snake species (namely pythons and boa constrictors) possess tiny vestigial legs, a finding that has been attacked by other scientists—and the reason is simple: They feel compelled to attack anything that lends support to the biblical account. But those other scientists can howl away, because it has also been discovered that snakes still possess the genetic potential in their DNA to grow limbs—a genetic mechanism that was "broken" somehow in the distant past. Oh wait...don't tell me, let me guess: It's a clear evolutionary advantage for a terrestrial species to have no arms or legs. Right?

Then God turned His attention to Satan in the form of the serpent and announced what is known as the protoevangelium—the "first gospel."

¹⁵And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed; it shall bruise your head [many translations read "crush"—this is a fatal wound], and you shall bruise his heel [the Crucifixion, a wound that turned out to be not so fatal a couple of days later].

(Genesis 3:15 AKJV / emphasis & [comments] added)

There is arguably more packed into this one verse than almost any other single verse in Scripture, but I just want to point out three important items:

1. The "seed of the woman" is Jesus, God's Son and our Savior. Every person born since Adam and Eve is the seed of Adam (from whom we inherit a sin nature through our fathers). Jesus was the lone exception. Skeptics can attack Isaiah 7:14 (Behold, a virgin shall conceive...) till they're blue in the face, but they're wasting their time. Genesis 3:15 speaks with absolute clarity to the virgin birth of Christ: A woman alone set the stage for the curse, and this tells us that through a woman alone would come the One who would remove it.

2. Just as the seed of the woman is a person (Christ), so is the seed of the serpent a person (the Antichrist). The final battle in this conflict will be between the Son of God and the son of perdition, and it will end in Christ's consummate victory over the Antichrist when He returns to establish the Millennial Kingdom (Rev. 19:20). Satan gets his at the end of the millennium (Rev. 20:7–10).

3. Note that God is effectively telling us that He will send a Savior into the world through a virgin birth to remove the curse of sin and death and to undo the damage inflicted on us and our world by Satan. In other words:

He's promising to send us a Redeemer.

The point is this:

The verse [Gen. 3:15] introduces two elements previously unknown in the Garden of Eden, elements that are the basis of Christianity—the curse on mankind because of Adam's sin [we are cursed with a sin nature due to Adam's sin, but Adam's sin came about as a result of Eve's sin] and God's provision for a Savior from sin who would take the curse upon Himself.

[...]

The protoevangelium shows us that God always had the plan of salvation in mind, and informed us of His plan as soon as sin entered the world [not when Jesus showed up two thousand years ago (see remarks below)].

(emphasis & [comments] added)
—GotQuestions.org [Source]

Where did they get that idea? I do a full gainer of a facepalm when I hear clueless skeptics attack the gospel by claiming that Christianity is nothing but a pack of reworked ideas borrowed from ancient religions from different parts of the world, many of which contain surprisingly similar stories about a God-man coming to earth to heroically set things in order, right wrongs, etc. Nope, sorry. The idea that God would send a Redeemer to the world to save men from their sinful condition goes all the way back to the Garden of Eden, and later was taken all over the world by different people groups—especially after the dispersion of people from Babel (Gen. 11). So, the idea that the basic elements of Christianity show up in many ancient religious beliefs all over the world actually does far more to confirm the truth of the biblical account, rather than call it into question. Duh...(*smack*).

Now, note with care what Adam and Eve did after they ate the fruit:

⁷And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons.

(Genesis 3:7 AKJV / emphasis added)

They (a) suddenly realized they were naked, and (b) sewed fig leaves together to fashion garments to cover their nakedness. When God finally tracked them down in the Garden, He wasted no time in confronting them over their now radically changed condition:

¹¹And he said, Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten of the tree, whereof I commanded you that you should not eat?

(Genesis 3:11 AKJV)

Of course, it's obvious that God knew exactly what they had done. And after placing a curse on the serpent and then on Adam and Eve as well as the earth itself, God prepared a temporary remedy for them:

²¹To Adam also and to his wife did the LORD God make coats of skins, and clothed them.

(Genesis 3:21 AKJV / emphasis added)

He clothed them with the skins of animals. And this is crucial:

Adam and Eve had covered their nakedness with garments made by sewing fig leaves together—the work of their own hands. God taught them that the work of their own hands was not sufficient to cover their nakedness, and proceeded to clothe them in the skins of animals.

Now, let's put on our thinking caps: What did God have to do in order to clothe them in the skins of animals? That's easy: He had to slaughter a couple of animals. He had to shed the innocent blood of animals to get those skins to make those garments to cover their nakedness—their unrighteous spiritual condition. In other words:

Covering their sin required the

shedding of innocent blood.

Not removing it, covering it (it only prefigured the act that would remove it). Hey, skins or no skins, Adam and Eve still got kicked out of the Garden.

Now, did God teach Adam and Eve that it was necessary to continue this practice of shedding the innocent blood of animals to cover their sin? Well, their son Abel did it...where do you think he learned that from? And God commended him for it. But their son Cain failed to do it, instead offering the LORD the work of his hands—and God chastised him for making the same mistake his parents made (Gen. 4:1–7). So yes, clearly God did teach Adam and Eve to continue sacrificing animals—and they clearly taught their children to do the same.

My point is that we have to understand that right off the bat, as soon as Adam and Eve headed for the exit of the Garden of Eden, two fundamental principles had been set in place in regard to man's sinful condition:

1. God promised to send a Redeemer someday to undo the damage Satan had done and save them from their sinful condition.

2. God expected them to believe His promise of a Redeemer, and offer animal sacrifices as an act of worship that demonstrated that belief.

Many Christians naively assume that it was the Jews who started the idea of sacrificing animals to cover their sin, but that's not true. It came right out of the Garden of Eden, and continued on from there. For example, Noah had "clean" animals available in order to offer sacrifices after exiting the ark when the flood waters receded (roughly nine centuries before the Jews received the Law of Moses according to some Old Testament timelines):

²⁰And Noah built an altar to the LORD; and took of every clean beast, and of every clean fowl, and offered burnt offerings on the altar.

(Genesis 8:20 AKJV / emphasis added)

The point is that the basics of how people were saved in Old Testament days had been established:

They were required to have faith in God and believe His promise of a coming Redeemer, and offer animal sacrifices to worship Him and demonstrate their faith in that promise.

It's also worth noting that faith in God and the sacrifices that demonstrated it had to go hand in hand—one without the other was a non-starter. In fact, God makes it crystal clear that He hates sacrifices made in the absence of a life characterized by justice, mercy, humility, and a broken and contrite spirit before Him (Hos. 6:6; Amos 5:22–23; Ps. 51:16–17; Mic. 6:6–8; Isa. 29:13).

Notes on the Holy Spirit: It is important to be aware of the nature of the ministry of the Holy Spirit during this entire pre-Church period. There is nothing in the entire Old Testament about the Holy Spirit sealing and indwelling believers at the moment they came to believe in faith in God's promise of a coming Redeemer or when they began to offer animal sacrifices to demonstrate that belief. Neither is there a single word about the Holy Spirit having His temple on earth in the hearts of believers during this time.

Now, we do see the Holy Spirit "circumcising" the hearts of people (Deut. 30:6), and "coming on" people in order to empower them to do certain things at certain times. For example: Joshua (Num. 27:18); David (1Sam. 16:12–13); and Saul (1Sam. 10:10). But this "coming on" people was selective and often temporary, and could be withdrawn. We see this clearly as David agonizes over his sin with Bathsheba:

¹¹Cast me not away from your presence; and take not your holy spirit from me.

(Psalm 51:11 AKJV)

But the chief difference is that Old Testament believers were not sealed and permanantly indwelt with the presence of the Holy Spirit from the moment they believed as are Church Age believers, as we shall see in the next section.

But what about this promise of a coming Redeemer? Is that all mankind had, just God's original statement given in the Garden of Eden to Adam and Eve? Is that it? You'd think God would elaborate a bit more at some point on something as important as this Redeemer business.

And indeed He did.

The Old Testament contains quite the trail of clues in regard to this coming Redeemer, containing at the very least 300 prophecies concerning Him (some Bible commentators put this at nearly twice that number)—each of which was fulfilled to the letter in the genealogy, birth, life, ministry, miracles, death, and resurrection of Jesus. And I would be remiss if I didn't mention a handful of the prophecies that made it possible for people in Old Testament days to not only follow the trail of the coming Redeemer and ID Him when He showed up, but even be aware of the approximate time He would show up:

1. He would be a descendant of Abraham (Gen. 12:3; 22:18).

2. He would be a descendant of Abraham's son Isaac (Gen. 17:19; 21:12).

3. He would be a descendant of Isaac's son Jacob (Num. 24:17).

4. He would be a descendant of Jacob's son Judah (Gen. 49:10).

5. He would be a descendant of King David (2Sam. 7:12–16).

6. He would be born of a virgin (Gen. 3:15; Isa. 7:14).

7. He would be born in the town of Bethlehem (Mic. 5:2).

8. Although born in Bethlehem, He would come out of Egypt (Hos. 11:1).

9. He would make the lame walk, the blind see, the deaf hear, the dead live, and preach the Good News to the poor (Isa. 26:19; 35:5–6; 61:1).

10. He would be killed somewhere around AD 30–33 (Dan. 9:24–27).

Please understand that Daniel 9:24–27, properly interpreted, indicates when that Redeemer would be "cut off" or killed with a surprising degree of accuracy (some purport to have pinned it down to the exact day). But any way you look at it, this allows us to deduce the general time frame in which He would be born—the late first century BC or the early first century AD.

Which He was, around 6–3 BC, give or take.

As far as animal sacrifices are concerned, one thing the Law of Moses did was codify in excruciating detail the types of sacrifices that were required for specific situations and the proper procedures for carrying them out. What the Law of Moses didn't do was pull the idea of sacrificing animals to demonstrate one's faith in God's promise of a Redeemer out of the clear, blue sky.

Sadly, over the centuries the Jews succeeded in reducing the Law of Moses to a burdensome morass of petty rules and regulations that, if slavishly followed, would make one righteous in God's eyes. They stripped God's Word clean of any of the love, mercy, and grace that God wanted to demonstrate to man through His Son the Redeemer. So when Jesus came and pointedly revealed what petty, hardhearted legalists the Jewish religious leaders had become, they hated Him, rejected Him, and ultimately had Him arrested, falsely tried, and executed by their Roman masters like a loathsome criminal.

Of course, the grave couldn't hold Him. After Christ completed His perfect work of atonement through His crucifixion, burial, and resurrection, what had been promised since the Garden of Eden, prophesied through God's servants the prophets, and painted in types and shadows throughout the Old Testament had became thundering reality.

And it was a whole new ballgame.

2. Church Age salvation

Aah...back on home turf.

During the Church Age, which started on Shavuot or the day of Pentecost 50 days after the Resurrection, the moment a person hears the message of the gospel, responds to the conviction of the Holy Spirit, humbles their heart before God and asks Him for the forgiveness of sin that Christ purchased for them with His perfect sacrifice on the cross (not necessarily all at the same time), God forgives every sin they have ever committed or ever will commit, and imputes His Son's perfect righteousness to them. From that moment on, He no longer sees them as sinners, but as being as righteous as His perfect Son because they are now part of His Son's body—they are in Christ. They are sealed with the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit for the rest of their earthly lives, and the Holy Spirit works to convict them of sin and gradually conform them to the image of Christ over the course of their lifetimes.

And I'm not trying to make it sound complicated or anything (you could argue that it comes down to two simple words: I BELIEVE). I'm just trying to paint a clear, thorough picture of what we're talking about.

Actually, I could end this section right here—that's the long and the short of Church Age salvation in a nutshell. But there are a couple of aspects of it that I want to flesh out a bit.

Of course, central to Church Age salvation is the message of the gospel:

Just as had been prophesied in His Word, God finally sent the Redeemer into the world in the form of His perfect sinless Son, who gave His life as a ransom for many. Jesus redeemed us by taking the penalty for sin we were due by shedding His blood on a cross at Calvary and satisfying His Father's perfect justice on our behalf. In so doing, He  made it possible for those who believe in faith to be forgiven of sin, have His perfect righteousness imputed to them by faith, and be eternally reconciled to a holy, just, loving God.

For the last two thousand years, every person who has heard and believed this message in faith and asked for the forgiveness Christ offers has been saved. Born again. Born of the Spirit. Spiritually regenerated. Redeemed by the Redeemer Himself. And every single one of them will spend eternity in a place He has prepared for us that is beyond anything we can currently imagine.

But one of the key points about salvation during the Church Age is this:

What I just described is all that

God requires of us: belief in faith.

We are not required to sacrifice any animals to demonstrate our faith and belief in God's promises. We're not required to meticulously obey a mountain of petty rules and regulations to be considered righteous in God's eyes, as per the Jewish religious leaders of Jesus' day. It's Believe. The. Gospel.

In other words, once we are saved, we remain that way. Why? Because we are a new creation in Christ (2Cor. 5:17). Salvation during the Church Age is not something we must work to maintain or can lose through negligence. Church Age salvation is eternally possessed the moment we receive it in faith, and this doctrine is commonly referred to as "eternal security." This fundamental truth is often expressed by the phrase "Once saved, always saved" (OSAS), or...

You are forever saved,

or you were never saved.

The scriptural support for the eternal security of the Church Age believer is nothing short of overwhelming. Here's a taste:

²⁸And I give to them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. ²⁹My Father, which gave them me, is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father's hand.

(John 10:28–29 / emphasis added)

Neither the Father nor the Son has butterfingers.

³⁹This is the will of my Father who sent me, that of all he has given to me I should lose nothing, but should raise him up at the last day. ⁴⁰This is the will of the one who sent me, that everyone who sees the Son and believes in him should have eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day.

(John 6:39–40 / emphasis added)

He's not going to lose any of us, and will raise us all up on the last day.

²⁵Therefore he is also able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him, seeing that he lives forever to make intercession for them.

(Hebrews 7:25 / emphasis added)

"To the uttermost"—I don't think we can be any more saved than that.

¹⁷Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.

(2 Corinthians 5:17 AKJV / emphasis added)

After we are saved, we are literally a new species: Homo redempti.

¹³In whom you also trusted, after that you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation: in whom also after that you believed, you were sealed with that holy Spirit of promise, ¹⁴Which is the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, to the praise of his glory.

(Ephesians 1:13–14 AKJV / emphasis added)

We are sealed. And show me a place in Scripture where we can get unsealed.

And that's just the tip of the proverbial iceberg. But you know how some people are: "If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is." Over the centuries, many well-intentioned people have struggled mightily with this idea, and have trawled God's Word for ways to worm their way around it and argue that you can indeed lose your salvation if your walk with the Lord doesn't measure up to some nebulously defined standard. So you'd better toe the line, pal, or you may find yourself spending eternity in the lake of fire with You Know Who.

I have touched on eternal security here and there over the years, but I devoted an entire article to the subject entitled "Cold Feet" about six years ago. I won't rehash it here, but one thing I discuss in that article is several common ways the anti-OSAS ship runs aground:

1. Misinterpreting verses that speak of rewards as speaking of salvation.

2. Misinterpreting verses that refer to unbelievers as referring to believers.

3. Misinterpreting verses that are directed at other groups of believers (i.e. Tribulation saints, etc.) as being directed at the Church.

Again with the iceberg.

One of the major lines of attack on the doctrine of eternal security of Church Age believers centers around the idea of works. In reality, this is little more than our sin nature creeping in through the crack under the door, whispering in our ears things such as...

— You get what you pay for...

— There's no free lunch...

— No pain, no gain...

And so on. The idea that we need works to merit/maintain/manifest our salvation just seems so right to our flesh, which goes a long way in explaining why it has been regurgitated in countless forms through every man-made religion in the history of mankind (with a lotta help from You Know Who). This is a topic I address in an article entitled "The Great One-Trick Pony."

One passage of Scripture that has become the go-to verse for anti-OSAS marauders is a well-worn passage from the pen of James:

²⁶For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also.

(James 2:26 AKJV / emphasis added)

"Got that, hoss? Faith without works is dead! So I guess that drives a stake through the heart of your little 'eternal suh-kur-ity' idea, huh?"

Oh yeah, drives a stake right through it—it sure does...but only for people who fail to understand what James is saying. The logic underpinning what James is trying to communicate to us goes something like this:

Genuine, saving faith—which results in the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit—will always manifest itself in at least some Spirit-led works (albeit more in some than in others). Thus the complete absence of Spirit-led works indicates the complete absence of genuine, saving faith.

In other words:

Spirit-led works are not what saves you—

they are the evidence that you are saved.

I want to emphasize the idea of "Spirit-led" works here, because this key distinction all too frequently slips through the cracks. We're not talking about generic "good deeds" that may be perfectly good things in and of themselves, but may be done through strictly human motivation to boost the self-esteem and elevate the ego of the doer.

We're talking about things you do at the prompting of and in obedience to the Holy Spirit, who seeks to glorify and draw men to Christ. Note that some works-related verses don't always make this distinction jump out at you, but the distinction is there nonetheless. We're talking about allowing the Holy Spirit to put you into action anytime, anyplace, and for reasons that may not be obvious to you in order to play your small role in advancing the Holy Spirit's ministry. After all, Church Age believers are the temple of the Holy Spirit on earth, so that's a natural part of our role as born-again believers.

Before we move on, I want to let the Word deliver the smackdown to the salvation-by-works argument, because Scripture could scarcely make it any clearer that we are saved by faith alone and not works. It really is that simple. That means when people come along and think they have a verse that says something to the contrary, they need to look a little deeper because I guarantee you they're missing something somewhere. Here's a taste:

²⁸They said therefore to him, "What must we do, that we may work the works of God?" ²⁹Jesus answered them, "This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent."

(John 6:28–29 / emphasis added)

The "work" of God is that we believe in faith in His Son.

⁴But when the kindness of God our Savior and his love toward mankind appeared, ⁵not by works of righteousness which we did ourselves, but according to his mercy, he saved us through the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit, ⁶whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior; ⁷that being justified by his grace, we might be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life.

(Titus 3:4–7 / emphasis added)

He saved us according to His mercy, not according to our works.

⁸for by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, ⁹not of works, that no one would boast.

(Ephesians 2:8–9 / emphasis added)

If our works could save us, we'd have something to brag about. But we don't.

⁵But to him who doesn't work, but believes in him [i.e. belief in faith is not a work] who justifies the ungodly, his faith is accounted for righteousness.

(Romans 4:5 / emphasis & [comments] added)

Same deal: It's all about faith, not works.

"Woo hoo, I got ya dead to rights this time, Bible Dude! You forgot all about the poor schmuck that shows up at the bema and has all his works burned up and has to walk away empty-handed, saved "as through fire"! HA! So much for your theory that every true believer has at least some good works to show for themselves...this schmuck had zilch!"

Ah, yes...the sad story I like to call "The Schmuck at the Bema":

¹⁴If any man's work remains which he built on it, he will receive a reward. ¹⁵If any man's work is burned, he will suffer loss, but he himself will be saved, but as through fire.

(1 Corinthians 3:14–15)

"He himself will be saved, but as through fire." So it appears Paul is referring to this schmuck who has all his earthly works burned up like so much wood, hay, and stubble, but is still saved and enters heaven with zero rewards.

This is the bema, or the judgment seat of Christ that all Church Age believers will stand at shortly after the Rapture (and before returning with Christ at the Second Coming) to be rewarded for the Spirit-led works in their earthly lives that warrant them.

However, I am convinced, based on Scripture, that Paul does not literally mean that some believers will leave the bema empty-handed. Paul, as he often does, is using hyperbole to get his point across that we are saved because of our faith in Christ and absolutely nothing else, and that our works report card can't touch that with a nine-kazillion-foot pole. I won't rehash it here, but if you're interested in running through the details of my argument, take a look at the following section of my article entitled "Go for the Gold."

And that pretty well covers Church Age salvation. So, the Church Age ends at the Rapture, which is right about where we are now. And that means the world is almost ready to be introduced to...

3. Post-Church salvation

As I indicated earlier, this seems to be the one some people have a hard time dealing with—but Scripture is pretty clear.

At the Rapture, the Church—the temple of the Holy Spirit on earth—will be removed, and as a result Paul's prophetic words to the believers in Thessalonica will be fulfilled:

⁷For the mystery of lawlessness already works. Only there is one who restrains [this can be no one but the Holy Spirit] now [i.e. during the Church Age], until he is taken out of the way [at the Rapture]. ⁸Then the lawless one [the Antichrist] will be revealed, whom the Lord will kill with the breath of his mouth and destroy by the manifestation of his coming;

(2 Thessalonians 2:7–8 / emphasis & [comments] added)

Notice that this one passage alone tells us that there must be something fundamentally different about the nature of salvation following the end of the Church Age at the Rapture. During the Church Age, we have the Holy Spirit sealed in us and dwelling within us, making us His temple on earth. While His temple is on earth