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In my own experience, people don’t use the word “salvation” much.  Over time it became a distinctly religious or theological term.  With a deathly illness, can a doctor save his patient?  When he does, he saved his life.  For a time, he saved him from physical death.  He will still die later.  A doctor saved him with a medication or a surgery.  He still dies though, just later.

THE IMPORTANCE OF SALVATION

When Paul says “salvation” in Romans 1:16, he means eternal salvation.  It is salvation from physical death, because of bodily resurrection.  However, most of all it is salvation from sin, from spiritual death, and from eternal death.  We can hardly fathom the immensity of trouble, pain, and loss of eternal death.  Therefore, we can’t fully understand the full significance of the salvation that is eternal life.

People place temporal worldly gains above eternal heavenly ones.  The Lord Jesus addresses this reality with His statements in the gospels about gaining the whole world but losing your own soul.  Nothing is even close to as bad, including physical death, to eternal death.  No loss is even close to as catastrophic as losing the eternal soul.

Men look to solve the problems they deem most serious.  That’s where they spend their time, energy, effort, and money.  The latter gives evidence of the former.

When men elevate to the most serious problems much lesser problems they take away the importance of what is really serious.  Nothing is more serious than eternal death.  The gospel is the only solution to that problem.  If the gospel is the power of God unto salvation, and salvation is salvation from eternal death, then the gospel is the most important solution to mankind.

THE PRIORITY OF PREACHING THE GOSPEL

I write all of the above because of the priority of preaching the gospel.  Only the gospel alleviates the worst to bring the best.  When I say worst, I mean worst.  This is no exaggeration.  It isn’t close.  And so when I say best, whatever you might think is best, this is far better.

People receive renown on earth for “saving” people from far less than what the salvation of Romans 1:16 saves them from.  What they get in their temporal salvation doesn’t last.  What someone gets from eternal salvation lasts through all eternity.  Yet still, people, even Christians, elevate these lesser savings or salvations to greater than the eternal salvation of Romans 1:16.

Salvation of Romans 1:16 also means salvation from a wasted life and salvation from unfulfilled purpose for life.  Man can’t glorify God or please God without the salvation of Romans 1:16.  He may please himself and others, but not God.

The gospel brings the outstanding accomplishment of eternal salvation.  God uses the person preaching the gospel to attain this greatest achievement.  The world, however, touts and will laud the short term attainments.  Someone donates for new uniforms.  A wealthy man pays for a new wing at the hospital.  A celebrity buys and then serves turkeys at Thanksgiving or Christmas time.

THE REWARDS FOR SALVATION

A war hero visits the White House for the Congressional medal of honor.  Hollywood produces a film about a man who saved dozens from a concentration camp.  The NFL honors a football player with a statue in the Hall of Fame.  The NBA pays a star player 50 million dollars for one year.  Biographies are written about leaders of human empires.  Men build a museum to an inventor.  Heaven though rejoices over the salvation of a single lost soul (Luke 15:7).

The gospel is the power of God unto the salvation over which heaven rejoices.  The New Testament calls the presentation of the gospel, preaching.  When someone preaches the gospel that saves, the one hearing often cringes or scowls.  I saw that all the time in my life.  Your reward for preaching the gospel is a cringe or scowl or worse.  Many times someone yelled at me for showing up to preach the gospel to him.  More than once someone said he would call the police if I didn’t walk away from his house, when there preaching the gospel.

Believers do not look for temporal rewards.  They want the eternal ones.  Few would even offer a temporal reward for preaching the gospel.  Churches might pay a pastor, who does the work of the evangelist and equips his church for preaching the gospel.  They might support a missionary to go and preach where they can’t or won’t preach the gospel.  This aligns with the rejoicing and purpose of heaven.

More to Come