Bible Verses for Reference:

“He that believes and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believes not shall be damned” (Mark 16:16).

“For this is My blood of the new testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins” (Matthew 26:28).

“Not every one that said to Me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that follows the will of My Father which is in heaven” (Matthew 7:21).

“These are they which were not defiled with women; for they are virgins. These are they which follow the Lamb wherever He goes. These were redeemed from among men, being the first fruits to God and to the Lamb. And in their mouth was found no lie; they are without blemish” (Revelation 14:4–5).

Relevant Words of God:

At the time, Jesus’ work was the work to redeem all mankind. The sins of all who believed in Him were forgiven; as long as you believed in Him, He would redeem you; if you believed in Him, you were no longer of sin, you were relieved of your sins. This is what it meant to be saved, and to be justified by faith. Yet in those who believed, there remained that which was rebellious and opposed God, and which still had to be slowly removed. Salvation did not mean man had been completely gained by Jesus, but that man was no longer of sin, that he had been forgiven his sins. Provided you believed, you would never more be of sin.

—The Word, Vol. 1. The Appearance and Work of God. The Vision of God’s Work (2)

As soon as the second stage of God’s work was completed—after the crucifixion—God’s work of recovering man from sin (which is to say, recovering man from the hands of Satan) was accomplished. And so, from that moment onward, mankind had only to accept the Lord Jesus as the Savior, and his sins would be forgiven. Nominally speaking, the sins of man were no longer a barrier to his achieving salvation and coming before God, and were no longer the leverage by which Satan accused man. That is because God Himself had done practical work, had become the likeness and foretaste of sinful flesh, and God Himself was the sin offering. In this way, man descended from the cross, and was redeemed and saved through the flesh of God—the likeness of this sinful flesh.

—The Word, Vol. 1. The Appearance and Work of God. Appendix 3: Man Can Only Be Saved Amidst God’s Management

The work of the last days is to speak words. Great changes can be effected in man by means of words. The changes now effected in these people upon their accepting these words are much greater than those effected in people upon their accepting the signs and wonders of the Age of Grace. For, in the Age of Grace, the demons were cast out from man with the laying on of hands and prayer, but the corrupt dispositions within man still remained. Man was healed of his sickness and forgiven his sins, but as for just how man was to be purged of the corrupt satanic dispositions within him, this work had yet to be done. Man was only saved and forgiven his sins for his faith, but the sinful nature of man was not extirpated and still remained within him. The sins of man were forgiven through the agency of the incarnate God, but this did not mean that man no longer had sin within him. The sins of man could be forgiven through the sin offering, but as for just how man can be made to sin no more, and how his sinful nature may be extirpated completely and transformed, he has no way of solving this problem. The sins of man were forgiven, and this is because of the work of God’s crucifixion, but man continued to live within his corrupt satanic disposition of old. This being so, man must be completely saved from his corrupt satanic disposition, so that his sinful nature may be completely extirpated, never to develop again, thus enabling the disposition of man to be transformed. This would require man to grasp the path of growth in life, to grasp the way of life, and to grasp the way to change his disposition. Furthermore, it would require man to act in accordance with this path, so that his disposition may gradually be changed and he may live under the shining of the light, so that all that he does may be in accord with the intentions of God, so that he may cast away his corrupt satanic disposition, and so that he may break free from Satan’s influence of darkness, thereby emerging fully from sin. Only then will man receive complete salvation. At the time that Jesus was doing His work, man’s knowledge of Him was still vague and unclear. Man always believed Him to be the son of David, and proclaimed Him to be a great prophet, the benevolent Lord who redeemed man’s sins. Some, on the strength of their faith, were healed just from touching the edge of His garment; the blind could see and even the dead could be restored to life. However, man was unable to discover the corrupt satanic disposition deeply rooted within himself, neither did he know how to cast it away. Man received much grace, such as the peace and happiness of the flesh, the faith of one member bringing blessing on an entire family, the healing of sickness, and so on. The rest were the good deeds of man and his godly appearance; if someone could live on the basis of these, they were considered an acceptable believer. Only believers of this kind could enter heaven after death, which meant that they were saved. But, in their lifetime, these people did not understand at all the way of life. All they did was to commit sins and then confess their sins in a constant cycle without any path to change their disposition: Such was the condition of man in the Age of Grace. Has man received complete salvation? No! Therefore, after that stage of work was finished, there still remained the work of judgment and chastisement. This stage is to make man pure by means of the word, and thereby give him a path to follow. This stage would not be fruitful or meaningful if it continued with the casting out of demons, for it would fail to extirpate man’s sinful nature, and man would come to a standstill at the forgiveness of his sins. Through the sin offering, man has been forgiven his sins, for the work of the crucifixion has already come to an end and God has prevailed over Satan. But the corrupt disposition of man still remaining within him, man can still sin and resist God, and God has not gained mankind. That is why in this stage of work God uses the word to expose the corrupt disposition of man, causing him to practice in accordance with the right path. This stage is more meaningful than the previous one, as well as more fruitful, for now it is the word that directly supplies man’s life and enables the disposition of man to be completely renewed; it is a much more thorough stage of work. Therefore, the incarnation in the last days has completed the significance of God’s incarnation and completely finished God’s management plan for man’s salvation.

—The Word, Vol. 1. The Appearance and Work of God. The Mystery of the Incarnation (4)

Man’s flesh is of Satan, it is full of rebellious dispositions, it is deplorably filthy, and it is something unclean. People covet the enjoyment of the flesh too much and there are too many manifestations of the flesh; this is why God despises man’s flesh to a certain extent. When people cast off the filthy, corrupt things of Satan, they gain God’s salvation. But if they still do not divest themselves of filth and corruption, then they are still living under the power of Satan. People’s conniving, deceitfulness, and crookedness are all things of Satan. God’s salvation of you is to extricate you from these things of Satan. God’s work cannot be wrong; it is all done in order to save people from darkness. When you have believed to a certain point and can divest yourself of the corruption of the flesh, and are no longer constrained by this corruption, will you not have been saved? When you live under Satan’s power you are incapable of manifesting God, you are something filthy, and cannot receive God’s inheritance. Once you have been cleansed and made perfect, you will be holy, you will be a normal person, and you will be blessed by God and delightful to God.

—The Word, Vol. 1. The Appearance and Work of God. Practice (2)

What is the ultimate significance of people’s faith? Simply put, it is in order to be saved. And what is the significance of salvation? I want you all to think it over and tell Me what it really means to be saved. (It means that we can break free from Satan’s dark influence, turn completely to God, and ultimately, survive.) (People who live under the power of Satan deserve death, but people who are saved by experiencing God’s work will not die.) You all understand this and can explain it at the level of doctrine, but you simply don’t know what it really is to be saved. Is being saved casting off your corrupt disposition? Does being saved mean not lying, being an honest person and ceasing to rebel against God? What are people like after they’re saved? In plain terms, being saved means that you will be able to live on, that you have been brought back to life. You were once living in sin, and bound for death—as God sees it, you were a dead person. What is the basis for saying this? Under whose power do people live before they have attained salvation? (Under the power of Satan.) And what do people rely on to live under Satan’s power? They rely on their satanic nature and corrupt dispositions to live. Then is their whole being—their flesh, and all other aspects such as their spirits and their thoughts—alive or dead? From God’s point of view, they are dead, they are walking corpses. On the surface, you appear to be breathing and thinking, but everything you are constantly thinking about is evil, in defiance of God and in rebellion against God, all of your thoughts are of things that God detests, hates, and condemns. In God’s eyes, all these things not only belong to the flesh, but they entirely belong to Satan and to devils. So, in God’s eyes, is corrupt mankind even human? No, they are beasts, devils and Satans; they are Satans alive! All people live by Satan’s nature and its disposition, and as God sees it, they are Satans alive and garbed in human flesh, devils in human skin. God characterizes such people as walking corpses, as the dead. God is now doing the work of salvation, which means He will take the walking corpses that live by Satan’s corrupt disposition and its corrupt essence—the dead—and turn them into living people. That is the significance of being saved. One believes in God in order to be saved—what is it to be saved? When one attains God’s salvation, they are the dead become living. Where once they belonged to Satan, slated to die, they have now come to life as people belonging to God. If people can submit to God, know Him, and bow down to Him in worship when they believe in and follow God, if they have no more resistance and rebelliousness against God in their hearts, and will no longer resist or attack Him, and can truly submit to Him, then in God’s eyes, they are true living people. Is one who merely acknowledges God in word a living person? (No.) What sort of person is a living person, then? What are the realities of living people? What must living people be possessed of? Tell Me your opinions. (People who can accept the truth are living persons. When people’s ideological views and views concerning things change and align with the word of God, they are living people.) (Living people are those who understand the truth and can practice the truth.) (A person who fears God and shuns evil like Job is a living person.) (People who know God, can live according to God’s words, and can live out the truth reality—those are living people.) You have all spoken of one sort of manifestation. For someone ultimately to be saved and become a living person, they must at least be able to heed God’s words, and able to speak words of conscience and reason, and they must be thinking and discerning, able to understand the truth and to practice it, able to submit to God and worship Him. That is what a true living person is. What do living people often think about and do? They can do a bit of what normal people ought to do. Mainly, they perform their duties well, and they fear God and shun evil in what they think of and reveal, what they say and do on a regular basis. That is the nature of what they often think and do. To put it a bit more precisely, what they say and do by and large accords with the truth, at the least. It is not condemned by God or spurned by Him, but acknowledged and approved of by Him. This is what living people do, and it is what they ought to do.

—The Word, Vol. 3. The Discourses of Christ of the Last Days. Only With True Submission Can One Have Real Trust

If people wish to become living beings and to bear testimony to God, and to be approved of by God, then they must accept God’s salvation; they must gladly submit to His judgment and chastisement and must gladly accept the pruning of God. Only then will they be able to put all of the truths required by God into practice, and only then will they gain God’s salvation and truly become living beings. The living are saved by God; they have been judged and chastised by God, they are willing to devote themselves and are happy to lay down their lives for God, and they would gladly dedicate their whole lives to God. Only when the living bear testimony to God can Satan be shamed; only the living can spread the gospel work of God, only the living are in line with God’s intentions, and only the living are real people. Originally the man made by God was alive, but because of Satan’s corruption man lives amid death and lives under the influence of Satan, and so, in this way, people have become the spiritless dead, they have become enemies who oppose God, they have become the tools of Satan, and they have become the captives of Satan. All the living people created by God have become dead people, and so God has lost His testimony, and He has lost mankind which He created and which is the only thing that has His breath. If God is to take back His testimony and take back those who were made by His own hand but who have been taken captive by Satan, then He must resurrect them so that they become living beings, and He must reclaim them so that they live in His light. The dead are those who have no spirit, those who are numb in the extreme and who oppose God. They are foremost those who do not know God. These people have not the slightest intention of submitting to God; they only rebel against Him and oppose Him and have not the slightest loyalty. The living are those whose spirits have been reborn, who know to submit to God, and who are loyal to God. They are possessed of the truth, and of testimony, and these people alone are pleasing to God in His house.

—The Word, Vol. 1. The Appearance and Work of God. Are You Someone Who Has Come to Life?