“Hear what God says: ‘When the time came for me to show you favor, I heard you; when the day arrived for me to save you, I helped you.’ Listen! This is the hour to receive God’s favor; today is the day to be saved!” (2 Corinthians 6:2 GNB).
When used in a spiritual sense, the word “salvation” means “deliverance.” It involves God’s liberation of human beings from their state of separation from Him. One key to understanding the need for salvation involves an examination of God’s righteous character.
You see, “righteousness” is a basic attribute of God. In other words, God always does what is true, honest, good, and right. For instance, God does not maintain a double standard or bend the rules to favor one person at the expense of another. Instead, He always does what is just (Psalm 11:7). Because of this, God cannot simply dismiss human wrongdoing. This means that anyone who fails to act in accordance with His righteousness (even in the smallest matter) is someone who has violated a basic tenet of God’s character.
Now it’s probably fair to say that most human beings prefer to think of themselves as “good people” who have done nothing wrong or offensive with respect to their Creator. The problem is that the Scriptures tell us, “…all have sinned; all fall short of God’s glorious standard” (Romans 3:23 NLT). This means that it’s not enough to be a good person; the standard is complete, 100% righteousness at all times.
Unfortunately, the truth is that everyone has fallen short of what they could and should be in this regard- and all have failed to live up to this righteous standard of perfection. But the reality is far more alarming for the New Testament book of James tells us, “…the person who keeps every law of God but makes one little slip is just as guilty as the person who has broken every law there is” (James 2:10 TLB).
This is why Jesus Christ -who was perfect- satisfied God’s righteous requirement for humanity through His atoning, sacrificial death on the cross. Jesus’ sacrifice means salvation (or deliverance) from an eternity of separation and punishment from the Creator for those who accept it. One paraphrase of John 3:17-18 summarizes this idea in the following manner…
“God did not send his Son into the world to condemn it, but to save it. There is no eternal doom awaiting those who trust him to save them. But those who don’t trust him have already been tried and condemned for not believing in the only Son of God” (TLB).