What is the state of your soul? This question represents the most critical matter every person ever born needs to settle. My guess is that under the pressure of this past year, more and more people are wondering about the state of their soul because when pressure comes, life has a way of boiling down to the very basic universal questions of being human: Why am I here? Who or what made me? What is my purpose? What will happen to me when I die?

Such was certainly my personal experience when I shipped off to war back in 1990 for what was to become Operation Desert Storm. In an instant, the props of “normal” life were stripped away, and I had to face the thought of my death and all the intensely personal implications such a proposition implies. I most certainly was asking those very basic universal questions of being human in all manner of internal dialogue, even as I sought to do my best on mission for the military post for which I was responsible to my nation, fellow soldiers, and family. I confess that pondering my own death brought fear; my soul’s state was not at peace, and I needed to understand why.

In God’s providence, I found out that the Holy Bible had answers to discerning the state of my soul, and my discovery of Scripture’s saving truth was at first incredibly unnerving. Far from home, in the middle of a war zone, I came to understand that the Bible explains the state of the human soul in terms of a binary proposition: we are either saved by God, or we are lost. Our soul is either right with the God of the Bible, or our soul is warring against the God of the Bible. We are either at peace with God, or we are separated from Him. We are either counted righteous in His sight, or we are due His holy wrath. We are either graced with eternal life in fellowship with Him, or we are headed, like Satan and his demons, to never-ending punishment. We are either considered a royal family member of the King or an antagonist of the crown.

Modern culture readily rejects such dualistic clarity, arguing that such fundamental assertions are out-of-date, unsophisticated, perhaps not intellectually rigorous, unscientific, or even hateful. And until God’s sovereignly orchestrated life pressures served to squeeze me, I was in that modern culture camp. But like it or not, Holy Scripture is crystal clear. A person either belongs to God, or he does not, and I realized that I was, in fact, God’s enemy, helplessly so, and therefore in desperate need of rescue. And praise our gracious, patient, loving God, the saving of the helplessly lost is precisely the purpose of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

When we think of the gospel, we should always think in terms of rescue and transformation, of being saved from a terrible state with a horrific future and then being changed from one thing into something else. The gospel is the most dramatic rescue and significant transformation of all. It is the single greatest possibility for human beings because it transforms us from being an enemy of God to becoming a beloved adopted child in God’s royal family.

I love the story of The Apostle Paul’s conversion because he epitomizes rescue and transformation. Paul—formerly Saul—wrote boldly in Romans 1:16:

For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. 

Paul is not ashamed of the gospel because he was a great beneficiary of the gospel—perhaps the most noteworthy beneficiary of all time! His transformation was so shocking, so dramatic, so extraordinary, so improbable, so extensive, so extreme, so miraculous, that he is portrayed in the New Testament as the very model of gospel transformation.

Why? Because Paul was in every respect an enemy of the God of the Bible. He was the epitome of an enemy deserving of holy wrath due the enemies of deity. He was a Pharisee of Pharisees who was professionally persecuting and killing Christians—those saved by God Himself and counted righteous.

Then, what happened? Do you remember the story of Paul’s conversion? God did something miraculous. The resurrected Christ, the second member of the Trinity, appeared to Paul as he was headed to Damascus on a search and destroy mission, and through the dramatic encounter with Christ, Paul was forever changed. He was rescued, and he then, over the rest of his life, was utterly transformed!

Paul, by God’s power, in his perfect providence, was saved; he experienced salvation. Jesus Christ rescued Paul through His finished work on the cross. And the only thing Paul did in his moment of redemption was believe Jesus. He received the faith that Christ was graciously offering him. And we know from Scripture how God went on to use Paul mightily as this rescued man lovingly served His Lord with all his heart, mind, soul, and strength.

As recorded in Acts 25, Paul was given an audience with King Agrippa wherein he gives his amazing testimony as a defense from persecution from his fellow Jews:

⁴ “My manner of life from my youth, spent from the beginning among my own nation and in Jerusalem, is known by all the Jews. ⁵ They have known for a long time, if they are willing to testify, that according to the strictest party of our religion I have lived as a Pharisee. ⁶ And now I stand here on trial because of my hope in the promise made by God to our fathers, ⁷ to which our twelve tribes hope to attain, as they earnestly worship night and day. And for this hope I am accused by Jews, O king! ⁸ Why is it thought incredible by any of you that God raises the dead?⁹ “I myself was convinced that I ought to do many things in opposing the name of Jesus of Nazareth. ¹⁰ And I did so in Jerusalem. I not only locked up many of the saints in prison after receiving authority from the chief priests, but when they were put to death I cast my vote against them. ¹¹ And I punished them often in all the synagogues and tried to make them blaspheme, and in raging fury against them I persecuted them even to foreign cities.¹² “In this connection I journeyed to Damascus with the authority and commission of the chief priests. ¹³ At midday, O king, I saw on the way a light from heaven, brighter than the sun, that shone around me and those who journeyed with me. ¹⁴ And when we had all fallen to the ground, I heard a voice saying to me in the Hebrew language, ‘Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? It is hard for you to kick against the goads.’ ¹⁵ And I said, ‘Who are you, Lord?’ And the Lord said, ‘I am Jesus whom you are persecuting. ¹⁶ But rise and stand upon your feet, for I have appeared to you for this purpose, to appoint you as a servant and witness to the things in which you have seen me and to those in which I will appear to you, ¹⁷ delivering you from your people and from the Gentiles—to whom I am sending you ¹⁸ to open their eyes, so that they may turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me.’¹⁹ Therefore, O King Agrippa, I was not disobedient to the heavenly vision, ²⁰ but declared first to those in Damascus, then in Jerusalem and throughout all the region of Judea, and also to the Gentiles, that they should repent and turn to God, performing deeds in keeping with their repentance. ²¹ For this reason the Jews seized me in the temple and tried to kill me. ²² To this day I have had the help that comes from God, and so I stand here testifying both to small and great, saying nothing but what the prophets and Moses said would come to pass: ²³ that the Christ must suffer and that, by being the first to rise from the dead, he would proclaim light both to our people and to the Gentiles.  Acts 26:4–23

Paul was an enemy of God, yet he was rescued, transformed, and used mightily. The Gospel of Jesus Christ is salvation by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, according to the Scriptures alone, to the glory of God alone. I write to you today because God rescued me—not because of anything I did or could ever do, but because He is gracious, and saving the lost brings Him glory. For over thirty years, He has been transforming me, and I am overwhelmed at His goodness.

What is the state of your soul? Have you been rescued? Is He transforming you?