Jesus Secured Our Adoption

What Did Jesus Do?

In love he predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ.
Ephesians 1.5

Has anyone ever asked you, “When were you saved?” If we move about in evangelical circles long enough we are sure to be asked that question, and most of us have probably been asked many times about our salvation “experience.” And most of us have probably heard many stories from people eager to tell us about the time they “got saved.” There is no small difference of opinion on the whole matter of salvation. Here, for your consideration, is my understanding of “my” salvation.

In a very real sense I was “saved” the moment in eternity past when the Father chose to include me among the number of those he predestined for adoption through his Son (See the above captioned verse). Once my adoption was settled in the will of God there was nothing that could touch it. Oh, I'm not suggesting that predestination is all there is to salvation, but our eternal security in and through the Son is just that, eternal, from eternity past, through all the temporal ages, to eternity future. Those who have been chosen/elected/predestined in Christ are safe and secure in him by the sovereign authority of the Father's will.

But my salvation, secure in the Father's will, had to be paid for. It is the Father's free gift to the elect, but it came at a very high price. So, in a somewhat different sense, I was “saved” on a day nearly two thousand years ago now, on a hill called Golgotha, which stood just outside the walls of Jerusalem. There, on a cross erected atop that hill, my Savior died for me, paying the penalty for all my sins. The penalty having been paid for sinners, the victory over sin and death was announced three days after the Crucifixion with the words, “He is risen!” And so, for me, and for all who are adopted by the Father through the Son, death holds no terror because we have been promised eternal life. And the proof, the guarantee of that promise, is the Risen Savior. All this pertaining to my salvation is as absolutely true as the very words of Scripture which describe it. But there is more. For there was also a time when all this truth became true to me, and you might say that the occasion of my calling was when I was “saved.”

For me, the calling was not a singular episode that occurred in an instant. When I was fourteen I was baptized in the Reformed Church, and I made a public profession of my faith. While it was a very sincere action on my part, I must confess that I did not actually have a personal relationship with the Lord at that time. There was a lot of knowledge of Jesus in my head, and I believed all that was in my head, though it still needed some sorting out. But, even with a head full of Jesus, if you will, I still lacked something very important. My heart had not really received him. Did this mean I wasn't “saved?” By no means! It did mean, however, that I possessed a far from complete understanding of salvation at that time, and, far worse, I could not really live out the reality of my salvation in any meaningful way. It was as if I had received a gift, but never unwrapped it. The gift was mine, and all its benefits. I simply missed out on the matchless joy of the gift. That remained for another occasion.

The occasion came when I was in a hotel room alone, well not alone, as I discovered, and got on my knees and had my first real conversation with Jesus. Oh, I had prayed many prayers over the years, but they were more like telegrams, sometimes urgent, generally pleading, but certainly not the stuff of an intimate personal relationship. My prayers were up to that point dispatched to, so I thought, a distant Savior and Lord sitting at God the Father's right hand in heaven. But there, in that dark hotel room, I became aware that I was not alone at all, he was there with me! In fact, he made it clear that he had always been with me, patiently attending me in all my willfulness, all my waywardness, all my sinfulness. He had patiently waited for that very moment, when I confessed, from my heart and not my head, my desperate longing and need for him. Jesus had been real to me for a long time, but now that my heart was open and not just my head, he was real and present in a way I had never experienced. That encounter in the hotel room, what some would call my “conversion,” could also be said to be the time I “got saved.”

So, when was I “saved?” You may have your own opinion on the matter of my salvation. All I can tell you is that the Father decided it before even the foundations of the world were established; the Son secured it on the cross nearly two thousand years ago; I acknowledged it when I was baptized and made my first public profession of faith; but its real fruits began to blossom the night Jesus burst my heart open. All of this was Jesus' doing; it was all a matter of his securing my adoption by the Father. That's what Jesus did, for me.

S.D.G.

Jim
www.jimwilkenministries.org
Marion, NC
PS 37.4