GOD’S AMAZING SALVATION, VOL. I – A SUMMARY
SUMMARY OF JACK COTTRELL’S “COLLECTED WRITINGS” SERIES:
VOLUME NINE: GOD’S AMAZING SALVATION, VOL. I, by Jack Cottrell
INTRODUCTION
Here, I am summarizing the contents of volume 9 of my Collected Writings, God’s Amazing Salvation, Vol. I. You will notice that this is only one of two volumes on the subject of salvation. Appropriately, I seem to have written more about this subject than any other (at least in short pieces).
The major theme of this volume is the subject of grace. Some other items are included, but most of the material (especially in parts two, three, and four) is about what it means to be saved by grace.
Part One is three of my favorite sermons, all on salvation. The third one, “The Robe of Righteousness,” is my all-time favorite. I composed it in the 1960s, when my understanding of grace was developing. And I could not wait to preach it again and again; since I was doing a lot of supply preaching, I was able to preach it nearly 60 times. It is still a good summary of what salvation by grace is all about.
The two NT books that present grace most specifically are Romans and Galatians. Part Two is focused mainly on the message of Romans, an understanding of which is crucial if you are going to understand grace clearly. I call it “The Gospel According to Paul,” as one of the items indicates.
Part Three focuses specifically on shorter issues and questions about grace. You will particularly like the drama I composed to teach “Saved by Grace—Not by Law: A Drama.” It could actually be presented to your congregation, with the “actors” reading their parts.
Part Four singles out the strongest and most important element of the content of grace that God bestows on believing sinners, namely, justification. A right understanding of this subject (equivalent to forgiveness) is a must.
The last item, Part Five, is “The Christian World View.” It is not limited to the subject of salvation but I did not have a better place to put it—and I needed a few more pages to complete this volume!
PART ONE – THREE SERMONS ON SALVATION
I will give very brief summaries of the first two sermons, with a bit longer one for one of my favorites, as explained above.
A. “The Wells of Salvation,” (pp. 3-13). This sermon is based on Isaiah 12:1-4, where the prophet Isaiah says in v. 3 (ESV), “With joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation.” I don’t know exactly what wells Isaiah had in mind, but I am applying this thought to the salvation God bestows in this New Covenant era. What are these “wells of salvation” today? What do you get today when you dip your bucket of faith into these three wells?
1. First, you get water that puts out the fires of hell. Specifically, this is the application of the blood of Christ to us, and His blood is that “water” that quenches the fires of hell for us. This is what happens when we are justified (i.e., forgiven). When God as Righteous Judge justifies us, He is declaring, “NO PENALTY FOR YOU!”
2. Second, you get water that gives you life. All life needs water, and sinners dead in their sin need it most of all! This water is the HOLY SPIRIT, Who began to be given to sinners in baptism on the Day of Pentecost in Acts 2. Jesus promised this “living water” in John 4:14 and 7:37-39. When the thirst-quenching Spirit is given in baptism, this results in resurrection from spiritual death, a regeneration of the soul (1 Cor. 12:13; Titus 3:5).
3. Third, you get water that gives you power. This is the second way the Spirit is like water—the water that turns millstones and turbines, producing power. This is why the Holy Spirit, who is given in baptism, stays within us as an indwelling presence, i.e., to empower us to live holy lives.
B. “The Rock of Salvation,” (pp. 15-25). This sermon is about Jesus’s promise in Matthew 16:18, that He is the ROCK on which the church is built, and that the forces of death (= Hades) will never overpower Him or His church.
Jesus is taking this concept from Isaiah 28:14-19, which I explain here as representing the floodwaters of death that are seeking to sweep us away, except that God provides us with “a stone, a tested stone, a costly cornerstone for a foundation, firmly placed. He who believes in it will not be disturbed.”
I compare this Satanic flood with the “Raging Waters of Death” that destroyed Johnstown, PA, in 1889. And I also show how people try very hard to make “False Covenants with Death” to protect themselves from it—as they did in Isaiah’s day (28:14-15).
Finally, I show that “the only refuge from death is the Rock of Salvation, the risen Christ.” He is our stone to stand on, and our rock to rest on; His church is our house to hide in.
C. “The Robe of Righteousness,” (pp. 27-37). Here we compare the main element of salvation, i.e., forgiveness of sins (= justification), with a garment of salvation which Isaiah 61:10 calls a “robe of righteousness.” This robe is given to believing sinners in baptism, and covers our sins (metaphorically) from the sight of God. We wear this robe continuously as long as we maintain our faith in Jesus Christ. The three points of the sermon are these:
1. WE NEED A ROBE OF RIGHTEOUSNESS. This is so because God will not allow any one into His presence for eternity who is “unclean” with sin (Rev. 21:27); see Psalms 1:5, and Christ’s parable of the wedding feast in Matthew 22:1-13. In this parable, the man without the wedding garment—which we can identify as Isaiah’s robe of righteousness—is cast into hell. Thus we NEED the robe of righteousness, which righteousness is the essence of the gospel (Rom. 1:16-17).
2. WE DO NOT HAVE A ROBE OF RIGHTEOUSNESS. No matter how badly we need it, as sinners we do not have this robe of righteousness! As Isaiah 64:6 says, all our own personal righteous deeds are “like a polluted garment” (see Rom. 3:10-18, 23). If we try to be saved by “how good we are” at obeying the law of God (Phil. 3:9), we will surely be lost—as Paul says was true of most Jews (Rom. 10:3).
3. GOD GIVES US THE REQUIRED ROBE OF RIGHTEOUSNESS. This is the point of Isaiah 61:10—one of the grandest promises in the Bible! What is this robe of righteousness? It is Jesus Christ Himself—whom we “put on” like a garment in baptism (Gal. 3:26-27). We are now “in Jesus Christ,” Who is our righteousness (1 Cor. 1:30). We have become the righteousness of God in Him (2 Cor. 5:21). So—“put on the Lord Jesus Christ” (Rom. 13:14)!
We sometimes sing, “My hope is built on nothing less than …” WHOSE righteousness? “JESUS’S blood and righteousness”! He established this righteousness through His death on the cross—THE “one act of righteousness” (Rom. 5:18), the justifying ROBE of righteousness! And we are now wearing it, and are thus resting in the continuing assurance of our salvation. We are free from the fear of judgment, because “when He shall come with trumpet sound,” we will be “dressed in HIS righteousness alone”!
PART TWO – ROMANS AND GALATIANS
A. “Law or Grace?” (pp. 86-96). This is one of the most important lessons in this book. It shows how we stand in two main relationships with God: creatures related to God as our Creator, and sinners related to God as our Redeemer. He is always our Creator whose laws we obey, but He becomes also our Redeemer when we obey the gospel of grace.
1. GRACE—as an attribute of God—is the SOURCE of our salvation. As our Creator, God relates to us through His law, which we are always obligated to obey. But when we sin against His law, we can no longer be right with Him (i.e., righteous) by how well we keep His law commands (i.e., by what Paul calls “works of law”). This is why we need His GRACE.
God’s nature includes two main moral attributes. One is His holiness, which requires Him to punish sins against His laws. Thus as sinners, all of us are under His holy wrath. But God is also love, which means He loves even sinners, and wants to save them by His grace. The latter thus becomes the SOURCE of our salvation.
2. GRACE—as a way or MEANS of salvation—is the system or method by which we are saved. As sinners, we have the choice of how we want to appeal to God for salvation. We can (foolishly and in vain) appeal to Him on the basis of our works (works of law), i.e., based on how our good works balance out against our sins. This is the LAW system, and it will never work! See Romans 3:28; 4:6-8. To get to heaven by law-keeping, you have to be 100% perfect—which no one is (Rom. 3:23).
This is why God, from His love, has provided another system for getting to heaven—one that sinners must be under for salvation, i.e., the GRACE system! Thus as Christians, we “are not under law [the law system] but under grace [the grace system]” (Rom. 6:14). This is how we relate to God as our Redeemer. How does this happen? No longer by attempting to be good enough by how well we obey our law code, but only by obeying the gospel (Rom. 10:16; 2 Thess. 1:8; 1 Peter 4:17). This obedience to the gospel is the familiar path of faith, repentance, confession, and baptism, with the first three continuing throughout the Christian life.
3. GRACE—in the basic sense of a gift—is the CONTENT of our salvation. As the old hymn “Rock of Ages” says, God’s saving grace is a “double cure.” The primary element is justification (= forgiveness), which takes away all condemnation for our sins (Rom. 8:1). Jesus on the cross paid the debt of punishment for us. We became justified when we met Jesus in baptism; we stay justified by continuing to trust in His cross.
The other side of this double cure comes via the gift of the Holy Spirit (Acts 2:38), whose very contact with our souls in Christian baptism regenerates them (gives them a new beginning—Titus 3:5), and raises them up from spiritual death. The Spirit’s continuing indwelling within us is the source of power for our ongoing sanctification, or becoming holy as God is holy (1 Peter 1:15-16).
We are still creatures who owe God our complete obedience to His law, but we are saved only by our relation to His grace. (See another lesson in this book, on pp. 125-129, “Plan of Salvation—Or Plan of Slavation?”)
B. The Rest of Part Three.
1. “Saved by Grace—Not by Law: A Drama” (pp. 97-106). Read this!
2. “Have We Learned to THINK in Grace? An Aid for Self-Examination” (pp. 107-112).
3. “The Ten Commandments of Grace” (pp. 113-114).
4. “Grace and the Covenants” (pp. 115-120).
5. “Wesleyan Grace” (pp. 121-124).
6. “Plan of Salvation—or Plan of Slavation?” (pp. 125-129).
PART FOUR – JUSTIFICATION
A. “The Heart of the Gospel: Romans 3:21-26” (pp. 133-139). Romans is my favorite book in the Bible, and Romans 3:21-26 is my favorite passage therein. It tells us how sinners can be right with God’s law. It reminds me of a courtroom trial where God is the Judge, we sinners are the defendants, and Jesus is our Lawyer.
1. The Crime: The Sinner’s “Problem with the Law” (3:23). All sin is anomia, i.e. “lawbreaking, lawlessness.” This is the first part of the “double curse” which the double cure resolves, i.e., we are in trouble with the law and are standing guilty before God the Judge. Our situation seems to be hopeless.
2. The Possibility of Our Acquittal. The very point of this paragraph is that it is possible for us to be “right with the law” again, i.e., we can be righteous again. But not under law! Why not? Because we are sinners; and the only way for sinners to be righteous under the law is to suffer the PENALTY of the law—which is eternity in hell! So how can we sinners be righteous again? Only “apart from the law” (3:21) or “apart from works of law” (3:28). I.e., not by the law system, but only by the grace system (6:14).
I.e., even though we are guilty, we can still stand before the Judge and hear Him declare: “NO PENALTY FOR YOU!”—which is the meaning of justification.
3. The Lawyer. Every criminal’s dream is to have the right lawyer—and such is the case with us. Our Lawyer in this trial is no less than Jesus! He is our parakletos, our “defense advocate” (1 John 2:1). And He says to us – “Don’t worry; I’ll get you off, even though you are guilty. You won’t serve any time in hell!” He can do this for us only if we believe in Him, though (3:22).
4. The Strategy. How will our Lawyer accomplish this? The strategy of Jesus, our defense attorney, is GRACE! What is the “grace defense”? Jesus simply PAYS OFF THE JUDGE, using His own resources: His own life! This payment is an act of redemption (3:24), i.e., setting us free by paying a price. That price is His own life-blood, paid to God the Father (Matt. 20:28). This is what “propitiation” means (3:25): to turn away wrath by an offering. Jesus turns God’s wrath away from us by offering up Himself in our place. This is the grace defense—and grace means that it is free to us!
5. The Judge. What does the Judge (God the Father) think of all of this? It was His idea! GOD set Jesus forth as the propitiation (3:25), and Jesus willingly agreed, though His human side struggled with it (Matt. 26:38-39). As a result of this payment, both sides of God’s nature—holiness and love—are satisfied: He can thus be both JUST (= righteous) and JUSTIFIER (3:26).
B. The Rest of Part Four.
1. “The Righteousness of God in the Gospel: Romans 1:16-17” (pp. 141-144).
2. “Righteousness: Imputed or Imparted?” (pp. 145-48).
3. “What Justifies Us?” (pp. 149-150).
4. “What Does 1 John 1:9 Mean” (pp. 151-153). CRUCIAL! Get this straight!
5. “Should Christians Pray for Forgiveness?” (pp. 155-156).
6. “Suicide and Forgiveness” (pp. 157-159).
PART FIVE – THE CHRISTIAN WORLD VIEW
There is just this one item here (pp. 163-188). It has these four parts: (1) The Why of Creation; (2) An Upside-Down World; (3) A New Beginning; and (4) The New Creation.