“How shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation” – Hebrews 2:3a (KJV).
Salvation is deliverance from danger or damnation. To be saved from motor accident is a beautiful testimony. To be saved from sickness is wonderful. That one is saved or delivered from poverty or famine is a thing of great joy. To be saved from kidnappers, ritual killers, hired assassins and robbers should provoke great joy and excitement but none of these compares to the kind of salvation being conveyed in this scripture. While salvation that Christ offers involve all of the above, it has a more far reaching effect. One could be saved from all of the above and still perish, but the salvation Jesus offers is eternal salvation. It is not temporal deliverance from physical death but eternal life. It is deliverance from spiritual death or from eternal separation from God. It is not mere pardon or forgiveness of sin but deliverance from the penalty, power and dominion of sin to the reign of righteousness.
Man was eternally lost, having no hope and doomed for life until Jesus came bringing hope and salvation. Everyone that rejects Christ is lost and doomed forever. Such persons will spend eternity in a place of torment. The thought of eternity without God is awful. To live a day without hope is fearful, to spend eternity with Satan and his agents in hell is so frightening. This will be the lot of everyone that rejects Christ and the gospel. The fire will never be quenched, the torment will never be abated, men will seek for death but it will be far from them. This is real misery, tormenting and unthinkable.
To be saved from this eternal rejection and torment is indeed so great salvation. To have the privilege of peace with God, hope for now and eternity, to spend eternity with the one who loves us in a place of eternal joy and bliss is indeed a great salvation and breaking news.
PRAYER: Father, thank you for so great salvation.
Rev. Vincent Diolu