In discussing salvation, you must first ask yourself what do you mean by salvation? Salvation at its very simplest is a deliverance. For us, it is the deliverance of our souls from a force. What force might that be? Are we delivered from our sin? Are we delivered from the devil? The answer to both of these is no, we are not. So what are we delivered from? We are delivered from the wrath of God. In the spiritual universe, there is not a competition between a good and a bad force. It is not the struggle between God and satan. God is the sovereign. Those in hell will not be eternally punished by their sin, they will not be punished by satan. They will be punished by God. That is from whom we are delivered. We are delivered from the judgment and punishment of God.
There is a sense that in our lives we are delivered from the prince of the power of the air, delivered from the power of sin. We are delivered from the ignorance of not knowing of our Savior and our God. This is in truth something that does occur in the lives of a child of God, but that is not the deliverance from the wrath of God. Where that wrath was propitiated you will find your salvation. You find your salvation at the cross of Christ.
That is the main theme and focus of the scriptures. It is the cross of Christ. It will be the focus throughout this writing. It is where the Spirit of God pointed those before Christ to look ahead to its coming; it is where the Spirit causes us who have come after His death to look back to. We all look to the cross of Christ where our deliverance from the wrath of God took place. That is how Paul could exclaim in Romans 8:1 There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.