R.C. Sproul

We mean that he's been saved from losing the fight.

so that any experience of deliverance from a clear and present danger, from some kind of calamity, is defined biblically in terms of salvation.

When we talk about salvation biblically, we have to say, from what ultimately are we saved?

What is it that we are saved from?

If we look in Paul's letter to the Thessalonians in the very first chapter,

of 1 Thessalonians.

It's around the 10th verse.

It says in there that Christ has saved us from what?

From the wrath which is to come.

And again, you cannot understand the teaching and the preaching of Jesus of Nazareth apart from that because he constantly warned people about the fact that someday the whole world was coming into judgment.

And what is done in corners and in secret will be made manifest.

He says every idle word will come into the judgment.

His was a crisis theology.

The Greek word crisis means judgment.

And the crisis of which Jesus preached was the crisis of an impending judgment of the world, at which point God is going to pour out his wrath against the unredeemed and the ungodly, the impenitent, and that the only hope of escape from the wrath of God was how?

to be covered by the atonement of Christ.

And so the supreme achievement of the cross for me that Christ has made, Christ has placated the wrath of God, which would burn against me were I not covered by the sacrifice of Christ.

So if somebody gives you static about placation or satisfying the wrath of God, run for your life.

because now you're talking about the gospel.

We're talking about salvation in its essence, that as one who is covered by the atonement, I have been redeemed from the clear and present danger and the supreme danger to which any person is exposed.