“Any ye are complete in Him, which is the head of all principality and power.“

Colossians 2:10

Once we believe in the gospel (the gospel of the grace of God), we become complete in our Lord Jesus Christ. He is our salvation. He is our righteousness. We have been crucified with him, buried with him, and risen with him (Rom. 6:3-4; Col. 2:11-13). Therefore, we are also secure in Christ too! There is nothing that can separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus (Rom. 8:39).

In one of Pastor J. C. O’Hair’s lessons, he goes through what he called “The Five F’s of Salvation.”¹ They are fact, faith, fruit, feeling, and future. The fact of salvation is that Christ Jesus our Lord came into this world and died on the cross for all of our sins. He did all the work that was necessary to fully satisfy the payment of the sins of the world. He paid the price with His own blood. Hebrews 9:26 says, “but now in the end of the world hath appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself.” “He entered in once into the most holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us” (Heb. 9:12). Christ suffered once so that He might bring us to God (1 Peter 3:18; Col. 1:20-21). And John 19:30, Christ said on the cross that “It is finished.”

The next thing is faith. The work is already done. All we have to do is believe in what God, through Christ, did on our behalf. We are saved by grace through faith and it is not of ourselves, it is a gift of God (Eph. 2:8-9). “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shall be saved,” we are told from Acts 16:31. And “but to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly his faith is counted for righteousness” (Rom. 4:5).

After we believe, then comes fruit. In Ephesians 2:10, it says that we are God’s workmanship. We are created unto good works. God the Father is glorified when we bear much fruit unto Him (John 15:8). We are not saved by good works, but we are created for good works that we should walk in them. 2 Peter 1:5-8 tells us that if we abound in faith, virtue, knowledge, temperance, patience, godliness, brotherly kindness, and charity, then we won’t be barren nor unfruitful (Compare Gal. 5:22). But, if we don’t do good works then God will make us barren or unfruitful. As 1 Corinthians 3:17 says, “if any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy.” That person will still be saved, but they will be barren (have no fruit) in their life for the Lord and they will suffer loss of a reward when God judges us for what we have done in our body whether good or bad.

The next thing is feeling. Based on what O’Hair writes, I think this can also be called “filling.” “Now the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that ye may abound in hope, through the power of the Holy Ghost” (Rom. 15:13). “For the kingdom of God is not meat and drink; but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost” (Rom. 14:17). By believing in what Christ has done for us and living our lives for Him, it will fill us up with all joy and peace. We have this feeling of joy that fills us up completely, because we know what Christ did for us on the cross and we know that we have a hope in Heaven with Christ forever. J. C. O’Hair adds this important note. “Salvation is not by feeling, but by faith.”² The feeling comes as a result of salvation (as does the fruit).

The final “F of Salvation,” is future. When we believe in what Christ has done for us, we have a glorious future waiting for us. Titus 2:13 calls it our “Blessed Hope.” God will show the exceeding riches of His grace toward us (Eph. 2:7). We will all be changed. How so? We will be conformed to the image of His Son (Rom. 8:29). We will be fashioned like unto His glorious body (Phil. 3:21). “When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory” (Col. 3:4).

“Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Jesus Christ, that we might be justified by the faith of Christ, and not by the works of the law: for by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified.“

Galatians 2:16

“I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.”

Galatians 2:20

The law was our schoolmaster as it says in Galatians 3. It was our schoolmaster to bring us to Christ, so that we might be justified by faith (Gal. 3:24). The law itself is holy, just and good (Rom. 7:12). But, when the law is used lawfully it is used to show us that we are sinners (1 Tim. 1:8-10). “For by the law is the knowledge of sin” (Rom. 3:20). Instead of bringing life to us, it brought death. “For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh” (Rom. 8:3). Christ came to deliver us from the law of sin and death and the law of Moses by being crucified to condemn sin in the flesh. He died for our sins. He did that so “that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us” (Rom. 8:4). The law required perfect righteousness. Righteousness is the requirement for entrance into Heaven. While many try to establish their own righteousness, the truth of the matter is that we just can’t. Isaiah says, “all of our works of righteousness is as filthy rags.” It is not perfect. It isn’t true righteousness. We instead need Christ’s righteousness. He alone is perfect. He came not to destroy the law, but to fulfill it (Matt. 5:17), which He did. When we have faith in Him, our faith is counted for righteousness. We become a member of Christ’s own Body. Therefore, Christ is made for us righteousness (1 Cor. 1:30). We are made the righteousness of God in Christ (2 Cor. 5:21). The righteousness that is required of the law is fulfilled in us, because Christ is in us. He is our righteousness! We are not made perfect by the law, but instead we are made perfect by Christ Himself. Therefore, we are secure in Christ!

“For I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angles, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.“

Romans 8:38-39

God has “chosen us to salvation through the sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth” (2 Thess. 2:13). We are chosen in Christ Jesus our Lord. It is Christ who was chosen before the foundation of the world (Eph. 1:4; 2 Tim. 1:9). Anyone can be saved if they just believe. When they believe, they are then joined to Christ. We are joined to His Body, the Body of Christ. In Titus 1:2, we read that “in hope of eternal life, which God, that cannot lie, promised before the world began.” We learn from Romans 4 that what God promises, He is also able to perform. All believers, members of His Body, began in the Spirit. The saints were baptized by one Spirit into one Body (1 Cor. 12:12-13; Eph. 4:4). We are set apart (sanctified) unto God as a holy temple in the Lord (Eph. 2:21-22). We became identified with Christ in His death, burial and resurrection (Rom. 6:3-4; Col. 2:11-13). We are crucified with Him, buried with Him, and risen with Him. Therefore, because we began in the Spirit, we will also be made perfect by the Spirit. Since we have life in Christ Jesus, because of the law of the Spirit, we therefore have the Spirit dwelling inside of us to help us mortify (put to death) the deeds of the body (Rom. 8:13), so that we may be able to produce fruit unto God and glorify Him. We have that blessed hope of the redemption of our bodies, where we will be conformed to the image of His Son. Nothing can separate us from God’s love. Nothing can rob us of the joy that we have in the Holy Ghost. No one can lay a charge against us, because it is God that justifieth (Rom. 8:33). No one can condemn us, because it is Christ who was condemned for us by dying on the cross and is risen again (Rom. 8:34). We know that He is the firstfruits of them that slept. He was raised for our justification. Therefore, we know that we also will be resurrected and have that hope of eternal life with Christ in God. We have this hope by belief of the truth. When we first trusted in Christ as our Savior, we received the Spirit of adoption (Rom. 8:15), the Spirit of His Son (Gal. 4:6).

Ephesians 2:5-6 – “Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved;) And hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus.“

Ephesians 2:5-6

Believers are quickened (or made alive) together with Christ. We have newness of life, because of what Christ did for us on the cross. We have a position in the heavenlies in the Lord Jesus Christ. Colossians 2 says that we are complete in Christ. That means we are circumcised (spiritual circumcision) by the circumcision of Christ (by the death of Christ) (Col. 2:11), we are buried with Him by baptism (Col. 2:12), and we have been raised with Him (Col. 2:11-13). All of that was accomplished by the operation of God. It was by God’s doing, not ours. All we did was believe or trust in what God said He did. Our faith is then counted for righteousness. We are made the righteousness of God in Christ.

In conclusion, we have the “the 5 F’s of salvation.” They are fact, faith, fruit, feeling (or filling), and future. Christ did all the work necessary for us to have salvation. He fulfilled the law Himself, He was crucified for our sins (He knew no sins Himself), buried our sins away forever, and rose again for our justification. The only thing we do is decide to believe on Him and His finished work. When we do believe, our faith is counted for righteousness. We now have life in Him. God gives to us the Spirit of His Son, so that we may live for Him on this earth while we wait patiently for Him to return to catch us away in the air and take us to glory. Having this knowledge of salvation and living for Him gives to us a good feeling. We are filled with all joy and peace, because we know where we are headed and we are excited to get there and be there with Christ and God the Father. We are justified by the faith of Christ, and we live by His faith too. We began in the Spirit, and we are made perfect by the Spirit. We are not made perfect by the works of the law, but by Christ Himself. He is our righteousness, and our life. We are made alive together with Him and raised up together and made to sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. For we are complete in Him. We are secure in Christ.

Notes:

1. J. C. O’Hair, One Hundred and Seventy Bible Lessons or Sermon Outlines (Wisconsin: Berean Bible Society), 5-6, https://www.bereanbiblesociety.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/ONE-HUNDRED-AND-SEVENTY-BIBLE-LESSONS.pdf.
2. O’Hair, One Hundred and Seventy, 6.