What Does Salvation Feel Like?

People who have not yet experienced it sometimes ask my husband and I to explain what took place at our Salvation. 

And what they mean is, not what Jesus did on the Cross for us; they already possess that head knowledge (even though it hasn’t transferred yet to their soul, spirit and heart). 

What they want described is what it was that took place within us, at the moment we were saved. What did it feel and look like? 

To answer that is a tall order, since the quickening of the Spirit that leads to Salvation in Christ is unique to each individual. 

For my husband, it was a sudden and overwhelming coming-to-the-end of his very self-sufficient and highly self-regarded self. His Salvation was attended by a bodily feeling of warmth. 

For me, it was a progression of God’s truth revealed in Scripture working on my heart and mind through a series of events that, little by little, brought me to the end of myself; mainly to the end of a severe reliance on my independence and liberal, secular-humanist worldview, along with the realization that, in spite of what the self-help books told me, I could not transform myself by myself. 

Throughout it all, and the very impetus of the process, was that I had picked up the Bible and been consistently reading it, “searching the Scriptures” just as the folks did in Bible times (Acts 8:26-39; 17:11-12). 

And yet, while the details of each Salvation in Christ are particular to each person, if I had to describe the awareness and perception which accompanied that Salvation it would be thus:

In the words of Job:

“Then Job replied to the LORD:

‘I know that you can do all things; 

  no purpose of yours can be thwarted.

You asked, ‘Who is this that obscures my plans without knowledge?’

  Surely I spoke of things I did not understand, 

  things too wonderful for me to know.

You said, ‘Listen now, and I will speak;

I will question you, 

and you shall answer me.’

  My ears had heard of you 

  but now my eyes have seen you.

  Therefore I despise myself 

  and repent in dust and ashes.’”

(Job 42:1-6)

In the words of David: 

“Against You, You only, I have sinned

And done what is evil in Your sight,

So that You are justified when You speak 

And blameless when You judge.” 

(Psalm 51:4)

In the words of Isaiah

“‘Holy, Holy, Holy, is the LORD of hosts, 

The whole earth is full of His glory.’

And the foundations of the thresholds trembled at the voice of Him who called out, while the temple was filling with smoke. Then I said, 

‘Woe is me, for I am ruined!

Because I am a man of unclean lips,

And I live among a people of unclean lips;

For my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts.’

Then one of the seraphim flew to me with a burning coal in his hand, which he had taken from the altar with tongs. He touched my mouth with it and said, 

‘Behold, this has touched your lips; and your iniquity is taken away and your sin is forgiven.’” 

(Isaiah 6:3b-7)

That is what it was like when the scales fell away and I knew the LORD through Salvation in Christ.

copyright Barb Harwood

“One thing I do know. I was blind but now I see!” John 9:25b

“Immediately, something like scales fell from Saul’s eyes…” Acts 9:18a