The doctrine of salvation is the most important of the doctrines of the Bible. This is because lost humanity has no hope of salvation apart from Jesus Christ. Christ is God in the flesh and is beginning, middle, and end of our salvation.
Lost humanity needs to understand their only hope of salvation and to see heaven is the God they have sinned against.
Sin is a violation of God’s law and is something of which all are guilty as we see taught in Romans 3:23, “For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God.”
Because of this, He made a way for His plan of redemption to be possible which was to send His only begotten Son to the world to take the penalty of sin for all who would believe in Him.
Romans 5:12 teaches this, “Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned.” The man by whom sin entered into the word is Adam, as is taught in Genesis 3:6; and as a result of him having sinned against God, all of humanity has a sin nature (hence Romans 3:23).
Looking to Christ
Salvation from sin and its penalty of eternal spiritual death is only by Him because without drawing lost humanity to Christ there is no hope of salvation. We learn from Ephesians 2:1-3 and 2:8-9 man can do nothing whatsoever to save himself. This shows us that He is in control of our salvation as the first verse of this chapter says.
We are dead in sin and it is logical that a dead man can do nothing unless something outside of himself makes him alive. Verse 5 says He makes them alive with Christ.
Jesus says in John 5:4 that without God drawing a sinner to Him salvation is impossible, which also shows us God’s control of man’s salvation, for man on his own accord can never be saved.
However, when a lost soul realizes He is drawing him to Christ, he needs to be as the Philippian jailer of Acts 16:30, and ask another (if he has not been taught) what he needs to do to be saved. He then needs to go to Him in a prayer of repentance of His sin, trusting in Christ by faith alone for salvation.
Our Future Hope of Heaven
Once He has saved a sinner, eternal perfection with Him in heaven is a certain hope. However, before He calls us home He will make us more like Himself over time. We see this in Romans 8:29 because it teaches that He has predestinated His people to be conformed to the image of Christ Who lived a perfect sinless life.
While the most godly of His people will still sin from time to time they will not live in sin; by being conformed more and more by Him to Christ they will reflect His perfect sinlessness.
Also, when God saves a lost sinner the Spirit of God dwells within him as is taught in I Corinthians 3:16. His Spirit will guide His people in their earthly life so as to obey God and reflect Christ. This continues until the day He calls them home.
Finally, He fully and completely saves His own when death happens and their soul is taken to heaven. When this happens, their conforming to the image of Christ is totally complete and they will sin no more. As Romans 8:30 so guarantees that it is written as if it has already happened, He will glorify them, which means His people will forever be perfected as Christ is perfect.