Does Salvation Cost Anything?

Scripture teaches salvation by grace alone through faith alone. Through His death, burial, and resurrection, Jesus did everything necessary for salvation. That’s a main reason why on the cross Jesus said, “It is finished.” Those words are perfect tense in the original language of the New Testament, the Greek, and they speak of the completion of His work with the effects of the work continuing or ongoing.

What Jesus did keeps working on the behalf of those He saved. Since Jesus paid it all, is any cost required of the recipients of salvation to acquire the benefits of what Jesus did? According to the New Testament, faith is not a work but it is a condition necessary for the reception of salvation.

Since faith is free, no one must work for faith. God gives faith. However, faith costs. Jesus expressed that when He called on His audience to count the cost in Luke 14:28, saying, “For which of you, intending to build a tower, sitteth not down first, and counteth the cost, whether he have sufficient to finish it?” When someone receives Jesus Christ, he knows he relinquishes his life or the control of his life.

Since life without Christ, Paul calls “loss” and “dung” (Philippians 3:7-8), this trade-off doesn’t really cost anything. Sacrificing self or one’s life to Christ doesn’t cost anything, because his self or life isn’t worth anything. He trades nothing for everything. This is the truth that Jesus expresses in Matthew 16:25 among several other places, when He says, “For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it.”