Most of the more than 41,000 different flavors (denominations) of christianity teach a salvation that is not based on truth, but on emotionalism and humanism. With something so incredibly important—eternal destiny—how could it be that christianity chooses to peddle something that is actually found nowhere in the scriptures?
The quick answer is that, when christianity was invented after all the New Testament writers had died, and was codified in the fourth century by a sun-worshiping pagan emperor, the very things that the Father provided for us to understand salvation were abolished and replaced by pagan lies. And, by doing away with the physical object lessons the Father gave us, christianity was then left to its own devices to create a counterfeit of salvation that is devoid of its foundations.
You see, there is absolutely nowhere in the scriptures where salvation is presented as something man decides. No, there are no “invitations,” no “altar calls,” no “going forward,” no “sinner’s prayer,” and no “accepting Christ into your heart.” Those are all false inventions of christianity, which is a counterfeit of the true faith.
I can hear it already. Some christians will say that when the physical Jews were told to “choose you this day whom you will serve,” that was a call to salvation. But, that’s just not true, because the physical Jews already had the covenant when they were told to choose. It was a picture (foreshadow) of the holiness (sanctification), not the righteousness (justification), of Messiah’s bride.
When Paul preached salvation, he preached Christ crucified, which is the Passover. Now, many in christianity are not familiar with that fact because their “church” tells them that Messiah was crucified on the false “good Friday,” and they’re also fed the gross error that He rose again on the pagan fertility festival of easter/ishtar.
But, why is that important? Why does it matter which days one chooses to celebrate Messiah’s crucifixion and resurrection? It’s because the Passover presents a picture of the path TO salvation. The Passover was the necessary first step on the journey to receiving the covenant, and it is a foreshadow (a physical representation of a future-revealed spiritual real substance) of Messiah’s bride receiving the new covenant, which is the seal of the Holy Spirit upon her.
The journey the physical Jews took from Egypt to Mt. Sinai is so vital to our spiritual understanding that Yah designed the priestly progression in the tabernacle to mirror it. From the Outer Courtyard (Passover sacrifice, Red Sea), through the Holy Place (being led through the wilderness by the Holy Spirit in the pillars of cloud and fire, and being fed by bread from heaven), into the Holy of Holies (Mt. Sinai, giving of the covenant).
Ask most christians what the new covenant is, and while some can identify the old covenant as the Ten Commandments, many don’t understand that the new covenant is a “ketubah” (marriage covenant), and that it is the eternal seal of the Holy Spirit upon Messiah’s bride (whose name is Y’isra-el—Romans 11).
So, what’s the real difference between true salvation and the counterfeit that is so largely spread by christianity? Actually, the difference is the Holy Spirit. The false salvation of christianity is something that man decides, and then after his decision, he declares that he has been “born again” by that decision. But, who told that person he was born again? How was he told? What was he told? There is no human who can declare that anybody has been saved—not even oneself. The declaration MUST be made by the Holy Spirit.
Christianity teaches that, at the moment a person makes a salvation decision, or prays a sinner’s prayer, or “accepts Christ” (notions that are found nowhere in scripture), the Holy Spirit is placed within him, even though scripture never states such a thing. No, scripture states that those who believe (present tense) SHALL BE saved (future tense).
What scripture teaches, and what christianity mostly ignores, is that salvation is not something man decides, but is a gift the Father gives to those who believe in Him AND whose belief (faith) endures through a period of testing (James 1). What christianity peddles completely ignores the need to “endure in belief” as a necessary part of the path TO salvation.
The physical Jews had believed in Yah, who told them to sacrifice lambs and spread the blood on their homes, but that was not the covenant. They were told to leave Egypt and cross the Red Sea (baptismal cleansing), and then they had to journey through the wilderness before reaching Mt. Sinai—and, even then, they had to await the giving of the covenant. They endured BEFORE they received the covenant.
Why did they have to go through all that? Why weren’t they just given the covenant when they obeyed the Passover instructions? We’re given the answer in Exodus 20:20.
And Moses said to the people, “Do not fear; for Yahweh has come to TEST you, and that His fear may be before you, so that you may not sin.” Again, this is a physical picture of something that would later be revealed as its spiritual real substance, and that happened with Messiah’s crucifixion (Passover), burial (Feast of Unleavened Bread), resurrection (Feast of Firstfruits), and THEN the giving of the new covenant (Feast of Weeks).
Nobody receives the covenant without first being tried (tested, proven, tempted to turn back). We see this being taught by James, who said, “Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith (belief) produces endurance. And let endurance have her perfect work, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing (which is to be sealed by the indwelling Holy Spirit). James 1:2-4
Messiah Yahoshua spoke of those who hear the truths of the Holy Spirit (the Word), and who believe them with all joy for awhile, but then, because they don’t endure through the trying, or testing, of their belief, they fall away (Luke 8:13). Clearly this shows us that man’s decision to believe is NOT salvation, but is the first step on the path TO it.
In Hebrews 10:39, we’re told of those who receive salvation that they “are not of those who shrink back to destruction, but of those who believe to the saving of the soul.” And, why did they have to do that? Verse 36 tells us: “For you have need of endurance, so that when you have done the will of Yah (John 6:40), you may receive what was promised.
The will of the Father is that we believe in His Son Yahoshua, and those who endure in that belief will receive what was promised. And, what is that? In Ephesians 1:13 we’re told that “AFTER hearing the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation—having also believed, you were sealed in Him with the Holy Spirit of promise.”
And, how does one “endure in belief to the saving of his soul”? Messiah Yahoshua explained it in Matthew 10:32-33. “Whoever confesses Me before men, I will also confess him before My Father who is in heaven. But whoever denies Me before men, I will also deny him before My Father who is in heaven.”
Taking a stand for the true Gospel of Messiah Yahoshua is to confess HIM before men. And, those who faithfully present the truths of the Holy Spirit, as opposed to the false teachings of christianity (or any other religion of men), will be faced with ridicule, mocking, derision, and often, separation from friends and family. I don’t know how many times folks who are highly educated in the tenets of christianity have told me that I am “in a cult” when I have shared the actual truths of the Holy Spirit with them.
And, those who withstand that period of testing will be saved—they will have the evidence (1 John 5:10) placed within them as the testimony of Messiah Yahoshua. That Witness is the Holy Spirit, whose eternal seal upon Messiah’s bride is the covenant of marriage—what the entire Passover Journey from Egypt to Mt. Sinai pictures for us.
Moreover, those who are given the Holy Spirit of promise are TOLD by HIM that they are children of Yah (Romans 8:16), and He does that exactly as the apostle Peter declared He would on the very day the Holy Spirit’s seal was revealed as the new covenant to Messiah’s bride (Acts 2:17).
Those who have not been told by the Holy Spirit, personally and directly, that they have been adopted as children of Yah are NOT SAVED. It doesn’t matter how many times one goes forward, prays a formulaic prayer, or gets dunked in water—it doesn’t matter how much good a person does, or how many people he gets to join his “church,” how much he says he loves Christ, or how moral he is, those things are NOT salvation!
In fact, we’re told in Romans 8:9 that those who do not have the Holy Spirit are NOT Messiah’s—it doesn’t matter how much someone says he loves Christ. If that person has not been given the Holy Spirit, he is not saved.
Salvation (justification) is being declared righteous by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, and that is not something any human being can do. So, the whole idea of people going forward and saying a prayer, as if that is “salvation,” completely misses what the Father actually showed us, and what the Holy Spirit has told us in His scriptures is the ONLY path TO salvation:
BELIEVE in Messiah Yahoshua, CONFESS Him before others (endure in belief), and then RECEIVE the gift of salvation by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. The Outer Courtyard, the Holy Place, the Holy of Holies. Egypt, the wilderness, Mt. Sinai. It is ALL a picture of Messiah’s bride being saved by the giving of the covenant—the eternal seal of the Holy Spirit.
Nothing else is salvation, and that’s why so many christians have never actually been saved. They have declared their own salvation, which is not salvation at all, but a false teaching from a religion of men.
For more information: Between Belief and Salvation