Our Common Salvation
“Beloved, although I was very eager to write to you about our common salvation, I found it necessary to write appealing to you to contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints.”
Salvation is precious to every Christian. It is something done for us and given to us by God. Its design is by the Triune God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Its accomplishment is by the Lord Jesus Christ and its application is by the Holy Spirit. Jude refers to “our common salvation.” He does not mean that it is common in the sense that it is ordinary or low class. He means that it is the same salvation held or shared by every true believer in the Lord Jesus Christ. Salvation rests in the eternal decrees of God. Paul expresses the fruit of this decree in the order of salvation in Romans 8:29, 30. This order is foreknowledge, predestination, calling, justification and glorification.
Paul also gives us that very beautiful and magnificent declaration of God’s saving purposes in Ephesians 1:3–14. We are blessed in Christ with every spiritual blessing because of election and predestination (Eph. 1:3, 4). Election’s goal is ultimately conformity to Christ. God chose sinners that they might be holy and blameless (Eph. 1:4). Redemption is through the blood of Christ providing us with the forgiveness of our sins (Eph. 1:7). All of these are according to the riches of God’s grace. God works all things (not some things) according to the counsel of his will (Eph. 1:11). And this glorious salvation with all of its future blessings is guaranteed as ours because we have been sealed with the Holy Spirit (Eph. 1:13, 14). This all came about through believing the“word of truth, the gospel of your salvation” (Eph. 1:13). Belief or faith is the gift of God (Eph. 2:8, 9). The only and ultimate credit for salvation is God’s. It is not ours. This is why we give God the glory for saving us. We didn’t do it, nor could we.
When we read Jude 3, we discover that Jude speaks about “our common salvation”. It was his desire to write to his audience about their common salvation, but something urgent had come up, and he had to write about something else. We can only imagine what a letter he might have written about our salvation. It’s not that Jude got sidetracked. He must have been thinking about the doctrine of salvation, but he realized that as great as that subject was, it was not what was needed at that moment. A solid and robust offense for the faith was necessary. I say offense because Jude speaks about contending for the faith. He’s not thinking of defense here.
You will notice that he refers to “the faith” and not just faith. “The faith” is the body of truth received by the apostles from God. It concerned Jesus Christ as the fulfillment of all the Old Testament promises, and as the substance of all the shadows in the Old Testament. It concerned the salvation found only in Christ. As far as Jude was concerned, “the faith” was necessary to be a Christian. It was to be received, believed, taught, and defended. It had substance. It was real. It was not a body of truth that constantly needed refining or adapting. It was perfect as it was.
Paul speaks about the same things in 1 Timothy 4. He warns the believer to watch out for deceiving spirits, who, he says, will “depart from the faith” in later times (1 Tim. 4:1). He refers to those who “believe and know the truth” (1 Tim. 4:3). Paul encourages Timothy to teach the believers to watch out for deceiving spirits. It was the “teaching of demons” (1 Tim. 4:1). Rather, Timothy would be a good servant of Christ, if he reminded the believers of these things. He would demonstrate that he was “being trained in the words of the faith and of the good doctrine” that he had followed (1 Tim. 4:6). Timothy would be of benefit to the believers if he immersed himself in these things (1 Tim. 4:11–16). He would be a help to them in watching out for false teachers and their teaching.
Paul refers to “the faith” in 1 Timothy 4 in the way Jude refers to “the faith.” It is the same faith. The prevention of the spread of false doctrine is by the spread of good doctrine. In Jude 4, Jude mentions that “certain people have crept in unnoticed.” These are false teachers. He calls them “ungodly people.” They change God’s grace into license and they deny the person and work of Christ. All false teaching is ultimately going to deny the person and work of Christ. This is what every cult or false religion does.
Now here’s the interesting thing. Whenever you tamper with the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ, you destroy God’s grace; and if you mess with God’s grace, you mess with God’s salvation. If Jesus is not God the Son, then what do you have? You certainly could not have the fulfilling of all the conditions laid down in the covenant of works (laid upon Adam) or grace (Gen. 3:15), and if this is true then the eternal covenant of redemption must also fall away; and if that happens, then you have no valid council of God in eternity respecting our salvation; and, therefore, we have no salvation. All this simply by denying that Jesus is God. Not only this but how could Jesus be the intercessor of his people at the right hand of the Father? Thus, the three-fold office of Christ as our Prophet, Priest, and King would fall away, and should that happen, then there is no new covenant.
It should be obvious to every Christian that if you mess with Jesus’ death on the Cross, you mess with his person also. The person and work of our Lord stand or fall together. Contemporary Evangelical Christianity does not think in these terms. It is only interested in benefits. It’s a kind of evangelical communism. It’s feverish consumerism. It’s all about me and whatever gains I get out of the deal. This is not the doctrine of salvation in the Bible. This is a figment of our imagination, and it is so prevalent among Christians.
It’s always good to remind ourselves that grace is unmerited. You can do nothing to earn it. Pleasing God does not earn you God’s grace. In fact, you cannot please God without his grace. Grace is free and sovereign. It originates in God. There is no salvation apart from grace. The gift of faith is connected to the gift of grace.
This is why we owe so much to God. True thanksgiving can only result when we realize that all of salvation is God’s. If we take just a fraction of the credit, we tamper with God’s grace. Tampering with grace is going to give you something very different from God’s salvation. Jonathan Edwards preached a sermon called “God the best portion of the Christian” (April 1736) in which he outlines quite clearly how we should think about God. He asks the question: “if you could avoid death, and might have your free choice, would you choose to live always in this world, without God, rather than in his time to leave the world, in order to be with him?”
How much do we want God? Edwards further asks, “if you might go to heaven in what way would you prefer to go?” Would you prefer above all others the way of holiness? It’s not the end that is the issue really, but the way you get to the end that matters. You see, genuine salvation is concerned about the way of holiness, rather than heaven itself. The reason for this is because, without the way of holiness, you won’t get to heaven. So, salvation is really a powerful life-transforming event that is ongoing. Every true believer has this common salvation. Not an ordinary kind, but an extraordinary kind—God’s kind. So “build yourselves up in your most holy faith” (Jude 20).