Christians tend to use terms that a lot of people find confusing. They use words like salvation and justification. What do these things mean?
Both of these words refer to the experience of coming to belief in Jesus as your Savior. Salvation comes by believing in Jesus and confessing your sins to Him. When you confess your sins to Jesus, He forgives you, and you are said to have been, “justified.” So complete is this experience of forgiveness that in God’s eyes, it is as though you had never sinned.
I found a story that helps us begin to understand this experience of salvation or justification. It seems that a man who lived in England came over to the United States to visit a resort for several months. He wanted to bring along his Rolls Royce for the trip, so he had it carefully packaged and shipped overseas.
While visiting in America, something happened to the car—a mechanical failure of some sort—so he called back to England and explained his problem to the company. Rolls Royce told him, “We will take care of it. Within 48 hours, we'll have a mechanic there with the auto parts to fix it for you."
They put a mechanic on a plane with the necessary parts and flew him to the United States. He worked on the car in the parking lot of the resort, fixed it in good time, got on a plane, and flew back to England. The man happily drove his Rolls for the rest of his holiday, and then he packaged it back up, put it on a ship, and sent it to his home in England.
Nearly a year after the man returned to England, he discovered he had never received a bill from Rolls-Royce. So he wrote the company a letter, saying, "This date last year there was something wrong with my Rolls Royce, and you flew a mechanic over to help me. You fixed it, but I've never received a bill. If you should find that bill in your office, I'll be happy to pay for your efforts in fixing my car."
He received a letter back from Rolls-Royce that simply said: "In the files at the headquarters of Rolls-Royce, there is no such account saying anything has ever been wrong with a Rolls-Royce anywhere that you speak of."
Now that's justification. Your broken life is repaired, and no record of it is kept in heaven. That’s how completely Jesus saves those who receive Him.
With Love,
Mike