I was think with Amazing Grace the bible verse which I qouted with Jesus to Zaccheaus. He came to seek and save the lost. I once was lost but now am found, was blind but now I see. He healed the sight of the blind man, found lost Zacchaeus and saved him.
The examples I provided straight from Jesus teaching on salvation.
You are getting close to the real issue that I am referring to. Was lost, now found. Was blind, now see. First, we must identify the problem from which one must be saved. And what you presented there is not really the literal problem; but simply alludes to it or emblematically refers to it. The problem is sin. And even more directed, the problem that results to the spirit of a man, not the body, the flesh and blood, of a man. We are not saved from any of the physical, bodily effects that might result from sin; rather we are saved from the spiritual effects that result from sin.
The phrase in the song, "The Rocks Of Ages",
Be of sin, the double cure, is a plea to be a double cure to a double problem, a double problem that result from sin. What effects do a person's sins have on the sinner? What happens to the person who sins against God? What problems does the sinner face as the result of his sins?
In the hymn the “double trouble” is called the guilt and power of sin, or in its other version wrath and impurity. In other words, our sins make us guilty; they put us in a wrong relationship with God and his law, and bring us under his wrath. This is a legal problem. At the same time our sins corrupt our natures and make us spiritually sick and depraved. This is a problem with our spiritual health. The reality of personal guilt is one of the most difficult things for sinful man to admit. The unredeemed sinner has the constant tendency to deny his guilt and his personal responsibility for his sins. The ancient excuse “the devil made me do it,” whether invoked seriously (Gen 3:13) or flippantly, is an example of the continuing desire to blame someone else for our evil deeds (Gen 3:12). Another common excuse is “I’m only human,” as if finitude and/or free will makes sin inevitable rather than simply possible.
If we accept the biblical worldview, however, we cannot avoid the concept and reality of personal guilt with respect to sin. The Bible clearly teaches the existence of a Creator-God who has given his human creatures laws to obey and the free will to do so or not. Given these truths, we must affirm that sin makes us guilty.
Guilt is a concept that has meaning only in the context of law. It is a state that is brought about by a conscious violation of the law and that results in liability to punishment. When one breaks a law of God (which is the essence of sin, 1 John 3:4), he becomes guilty in the sense that he now stands in a wrong relationship with that law and is liable to the penalty prescribed by it. Because such breaking of the law is a matter of the sinner’s personal, free-will choice, he is fully responsible for his deeds and justly subject to the punishment they deserve.
As a wrong relationship to the law of God, guilt is not an inward, subjective condition. Rather, it is an external, objective state. In other words we must not confuse guilt with guilt feelings. A hardened sinner may have no guilt feelings whatsoever, and at the same time be burdened with intense guilt before the divine Lawgiver and Judge. Scripture clearly teaches the concept of guilt. James 2:10 says, “For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles in one point, he has become guilty of all.” The word used here is
enochos, which is a technical legal term meaning “guilty, subject to or liable to penalty.” This term is used four times in Matt 5:21-22, e.g.,
“Everyone who is angry with his brother shall be guilty before the court.” Romans 3:19 declares that the whole sinful world is
“guilty before God” (KJV). The Greek word is hypodikos, which means “liable to judgment or punishment, worthy of punishment, answerable, accountable.” The NASB and NIV have
“accountable to God” in this verse; but this translation is too weak to capture the full meaning of the term, since some connotations of “accountable” do not specify whether a person is guilty or not, but simply imply that he must give account for his actions, good or bad. But
hypodikos refers to someone who has done something wrong and has been brought before the court to answer for it.
The second part of the “double trouble” caused by sin is that it gives the sinner a sinful nature. That is, sin affects not only our objective relationship with God and his law; it also affects us subjectively and personally, in our very being. It brings about a weakness of the soul, making it harder to resist temptation. The sinner’s spirit is corrupted, diseased, and depraved. The sinner is spiritually sick and evil in his inner nature; he has a sinful heart. Many have denied the reality of spiritual depravity for various reasons. Some simply declare that sinfulness applies only to actions and not to persons as such.
It has been said, “
One of the most difficult lessons for us to learn is that sin is not only what we do, but also what we are. Sin, in the form of corruption, is in our very nature”. Some deny the reality of spiritual depravity because they think of it only as something that would be derived from Adam as part of an original-sin package (as in semi-Pelagianism or Augustinianism). It is not necessary, however, to think of the sinful nature as an inborn result of Adam’s sin. I do not personally regard it as such, in view of the biblical teaching that original grace has negated all such potential consequences of Adam’s sin (I have spoken to this previously and won't repeat it here). Since this is the case, and since the Bible affirms that sinners are evil and sinful, we must thus infer that this inward depravity is something we acquire as the result of our own sin. I personally deny that Adam’s sin ever touched or in any way affected the spirit of one of his descendants. Our own sin corrupts our spirits.” Concerning Adam’s descendants, spiritually they die for their own sins, and by these only are they spiritually depraved. Still others deny the reality of spiritual depravity because they fail to understand the difference between partial depravity and total depravity. They assume that any view of spiritual corruption is equivalent to total corruption. This is not the case, however. I am here stating that the sinner’s spiritual nature is depraved as a result of his own sins, but that this depravity is only partial and not total.
So then, salvation is God's statement of our acceptance by Him as promised by Him for inclusion in His kingdom through
freeing us from our guilt and giving us the antidote for our sin-sick spiritual health. It is God's statement that He has saved us from the spiritual effects of our sin.
I will add here that the spiritual effects of our sin that I have described above can be taken as the meaning of "
dead in trespasses and sins" as found in passages such as Ephesians 2:1.
I apologize for the too-long length of the post.
Now then, how we can obtain this double cure is "
a whole nother question".