| Popis: |
The act of salvation made by our Lord is one of the most fundamental foundations of Christianity. Soteriology is a theological discipline that studies and reveals the allembracing vital value of this Divine Act for the whole world, all of mankind, and in particular for each of us personally, from whom this humanity is composed. Salvation is the gift of God to everyone who believes that Jesus Christ "... was given up for our sins, and rose again to justify ours" (Romans 4:25). The life of a Christian as such is a permanent presence in this faith. That is why salvation for a Christian is at the same time the present state in which a Christian is invariably in place, and a constant, enduring process that ends only with the conversion of a Christian to eternity. The word of God, our own experience and life realities prove that the existence of a Christian on earth, as well as his entire life, is a constant competition between his old sinful nature as a result of the original sin and the new righteous nature as the gift of salvation in Jesus Christ. And this is not just a competition for trying to find out who is stronger and more agile. This competition is a ruthless and fierce battle without rest and rules of combat, the final of which can be only the death of one of its participants, "because the flesh wants a nasty spirit, and the spirit is nasty to the flesh: they resist each other" (Galatians 5:17). This deadly battle of the old and new nature of a Christian is not somewhere outside the Christian and without his participation - the object and the immediate main participant in this battle is, personally, the Christian himself, and the battlefield - his life. He becomes an ally of the old sinful nature, when it is completely given to it and falls under the power of sin, and together they win the new righteous nature, on the contrary, together with the new righteous nature, as the gift and effect of God's grace in Christ, they win the old sinful nature. The purpose of this article is to reflect the doctrine of the Scriptures on the preservation of a Christian in salvation, precisely because of such an objective state of the Christian and salvation as its current state and process at the same time. |
