As Christians, the doctrine of salvation stands at the heart of our identity as God's

redeemed children.

We are first and foremost a saved people.

And yet that doesn't mean that we don't still have questions, lots of questions, about all

that the Bible teaches about what it means to be saved in and through

Jesus Christ.

My guest today is Joel Beakey, and in our conversation, he answers some of the most common

and most difficult questions that Christians tend to have about salvation.

Whether it's related to how it's fair that God saves some and not all, why faith is so important, or the role of works

in our lives as Christians, I think you'll find this conversation illuminating and refreshing,

as we think together about all that God has done for us in Christ. Joel Beakey serves as

Chancellor and Professor of Systematic Theology and Homiletics at Puritan Reformed Theological Seminary.

He's also a pastor and the author of over 100 books, including a new four-volume systematic theology from Crossway called Reformed Systematic Theology.

Let's get started. Well, Dr. Beke, thank you so much for joining me again on

the Crossway podcast. Thanks for inviting me, Matt. So today I'm excited to talk through a number of

tough questions about salvation, tough questions about soteriology to use the big theological word.

And my guess is that many of us have wrestled or wondered about at least some of these questions

over the course of our Christian lives. Maybe for some, we've been Christians for a long time

and studied theology at a high level, and so some of these

are going to be very familiar. But even for some of those, sometimes we recognize over years that we

still kind of wonder about some of these things. So I'm hoping you can help us think through

some of these questions. The first one I wanted to start with is the issue of original sin.

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