Quotes About Salvation

Salvation is not a matter of getting a reward that will make up for a rotten deal; it is a matter of entering by faith into the happiness - the hilarity beyond all liking and happening - that has been pounding on our door all along.

We spend our lives invoking upon ourselves imagined necessities, creating God in the image of our own fears - and all the while, he is beating us over the head with the balloon of grace and the styrofoam baseball bat of a vindicating judgment. The history of salvation is slapstick all the way, right up to and including the end.

The theological function of hell … is to be a sacrament to the ultimate and real element of risk by which alone we can recognize a world ruled by love. Universalism, as an overriding theological principle, is a false start. On the other hand, if you ask whether there is in fact a hell - whether specific persons will actually go so far as to insist on a second death in the face of their resurrection by the supreme Lover himself - that's another matter altogether.

the world is going down the drain; only a Savior who is willing to work at the bottom of the drain can redeem it.

On the last day, Jesus will not do anything new; he will simply make manifest what he has been doing all along - what, in fact, he has long since done by preparing for us a kingdom from the foundation of the world. It will be in seeing him, as he is, that it will finally dawn on us what, in him, we have always been.

it is precisely our sins, and not our goodnesses, that most commend us to the grace of God.

We are saved gratis, by grace. We do nothing and we deserve nothing; it is all, absolutely and without qualification, one huge, hilarious gift.

It is us he saves, not our lives. It is the person he dies for, not the suit of clothes in which the person hides from the bare truth about himself. He does not save you or me as we dress ourselves up at high noon on a good day; he saves us only as we stumble naked and uncombed from lumpy mattress to cold shower after a long, hard night - as, that is, we limp in faith from the bed of our death, through the blood of the cross, to the joy of his resurrection.

God in Jesus didn't prevent sinners from sinning, he went around forgiving them right and left.

While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. He has taken the cleanup entirely into his own hands. He has just gone and done it without waiting for us; and he invites us simply to trust that he has it all accomplished for us in Jesus—and to proclaim that trust by acting as if we really believed it.

In Jesus' death and resurrection, God has declared that he isn't the least interested in examining anybody's books ever again, not even his own: he's nailed them all to the cross. Accountability, however much it may be a buzzword now, is not one of his eschatological categories.

judgment falls not on the unacceptable but only on those who will not accept acceptance

When a man really believes that it is necessary to do a certain thing to be happy forever, or that a certain belief is necessary to ensure eternal joy, there is in that man no spirit of concession. He divides the whole world into saints and sinners, into believers and unbelievers, into God's sheep and Devil's goats, into people who will be glorified and people who are damned.

If what is known as the Christian Religion is true, nothing can be more wonderful than the fact that Matthew, Mark and Luke say nothing about "salvation by faith;" that they do not even hint at the doctrine of the atonement, and are as silent as empty tombs as to the necessity of believing anything to secure happiness in this world or another.

The blood of Jesus speaks forgiveness: it gives God the legal right to forgive sins.

Surely then, if the blood of men and the tears of women could not avail to move the Judge and Observer of all from His silence, surely at least here the bloodless Death of His only Son, that once on Calvary had darkened heaven and rent the earth, pleaded now with such sorrowful splendour upon this island of faith amid a sea of laughter and hatred—this at least must avail! How could it not?

It was Christianity alone that made life tolerable.

We offer no rewards except those which God Himself has promised to those that love Him, and lay down their life for Him; no promise of peace, save of that which passeth understanding; no home save that which befits pilgrims and sojourners who seek a City to come; no honour save the world's contempt; no life, save that which is hid with Christ in God.

For there is born to you this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. – Luke 2:11

For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. – John 3:16

Now when these things begin to happen, look up and lift up your heads, because your redemption draws near. – Luke 21:28

Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God. – 1 John 4:15

So they said, "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved." – Acts 16:31

Do not be afraid, for I know that you seek Jesus who was crucified. He is not here; for He is risen, as He said. Come, see the place where the Lord lay. And go quickly and tell His disciples that He is risen from the dead. – Matthew 28:5–7