Salvation is through faith alone in Jesus Christ, by God's grace, and is founded on the inspired and living Word of God. It involves justification, or redemption, where believers are declared righteous, sanctification, and an ongoing process of walking the path of righteousness. Good works are a result, not a cause, of salvation, with an emphasis on personal faith, a direct relationship with God, and the assurance of eternal life.
In a nutshell: We need to be saved from God’s Punishment because of sin. Those whom God considers to be wicked and sinful will spend eternity completely separated from Him in a place the Bible calls Hell. What is sin? Sin means to 'miss the mark.' What mark? Perfection. Not our idea of perfection, but perfection like God is perfect.
"For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." (Romans 3:21-26) This verse establishes that everyone is in need of salvation because no one is without sin.
So, if we are all born sinners, that is, into sin, is there anything you can do to 'earn' your salvation? No. Everything that comes from you, inside and out, falls short of God's standard of perfection. In fact, God considers our 'good works' to be like 'filthy rags'. In the biblical context, God is literally comparing our good works to a menstrual-cycle soiled rag to convey something extremely contaminated and undesirable. (Isaiah 64:6)
And, to make things worse, the Bible says we are 'married to the law,' and the only way out of that 'marriage' is death. Sort of like, '...until death do us part.' That’s one of the reasons God instituted marriage, so we can make the connection that there’s no escaping our sin. That’s one of the reasons why God hates divorce (Malachi 2:13-16), because it is unnatural.
“Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned—” (Romans 5:12)
“Or do you not know, brethren (for I speak to those who know the law), that the law has dominion over a man as long as he lives?” (Romans 7:1-6) This verse establishes that those who are in Christ are dead to the law and ‘married’ to Christ.
‘What’s wrong with the Law? I thought we were supposed to follow it?’
The Torah (The Law, Ten Commandments) was not given to us in the hopes we might be able to follow it and ‘earn’ our salvation. Actually, the exact opposite is true. It was given to show us that no one could ever possibly follow it, perfectly. In fact, every ‘good work’ we do while under the law is counted against us as debt. Fundamentally, if you break one commandment, you are guilty of breaking all of them; Thus, the Law was given to us to call attention to our sin, transgression, and iniquity. We have utterly missed the mark.
“For whoever shall keep the whole law, and yet stumble in one point, he is guilty of all.” (James 2:8-10) This verse establishes that to break one part of ‘The Law’ (Torah), then you are guilty of breaking the entirety of the The Law (Torah).
This puts us in an impossible situation. ****Our ‘good works’ (following ‘The Law’) cannot earn us salvation and the only way out of being bound or ‘married’ to the law is through death; Except, once you die, your situation becomes permanent. It’s not as if you can literally be raised from the dead.
‘So, what’s the solution?’
Great question.