(tm) Salvation: The First Area of Redemption
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The first area of redemption we are terming "salvation." The call of the evangelist is that people may receive salvation.
What does it mean to be saved ? From what are we saved, and toward what are we moving?
To be saved means to possess God’s guarantee that when the Day of Wrath comes—and it surely is coming!—the believer will be kept from destruction by the power of God. God is coming to the earth to judge the works of men and devils. The judgment that is just over the horizon is terrible.
People today, including Christian people, have talked themselves into the belief that God is a kindly old gentleman who will do good but not harm. Paul warns: "knowing therefore the terror of the Lord, we persuade men" (II Corinthians 5:11). We Christians need to gain some idea of the terror of the Lord before we really can appreciate what it means to be saved from wrath. In fact, it is the fear of the Lord that is the beginning of wisdom.
Christ came to seek and to save those who are lost. If any person, young or old, will receive Christ by faith and hold that faith, serving the Lord patiently throughout all the testings and tribulations of life, he or she will be saved in the Day of the Lord.
"He who endures to the end shall be saved." Some will gain an abundant entrance into the Kingdom of Christ, while others will be saved "yet so as by fire."
Perhaps you as an individual are not making a success of the Christian discipleship, at least not in your own opinion. If you will keep your hope steadfast in the Savior and not turn your heart away from Him in discouragement, pride, lust, or rebellion, you too will be saved in the Day of Judgment, the Day of the Lord.
The next coming of Christ will be so frightful that no words of ours can portray adequately what the world is about to face. The most terrifying scene that ever has appeared on the earth will seem like child’s play when compared with the wrath of God that will be poured out under the administration of Christ and His saints.
The blood of Christ is a protection over us and our household when God passes over the earth to judge the gods of the world. Let us make sure we are under the protection of the "Passover blood" in the Day that is at hand.
After the Kingdom Age will come the Lake of Fire. The Lake of Fire is no mere symbol of God’s anger, it is a real lake, a place of eternal torment. It is reserved for the devil and his angels and for all others who reject the lordship of Christ.
There is a lake that burns with the pungent smell of burning sulfur. There will be angels, demons, and people in it.
In Christ there is salvation in the Day of God’s wrath. Let us not neglect this salvation. Let us embrace it and preach it. It is God’s gift freely given, the sacrifice of God’s only begotten Son. We do not want to be numbered among those who reject God and His Gift. Let us receive Christ and be saved.
Heaven is a real place, a Paradise of peace and joy. Heaven is the most wonderful dream of people in solid and enduring form. To be received into Heaven when we die requires accepting Christ in obedience to the will of God. "Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house." "He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved."
Each person who receives Christ as Savior and Lord is at once redeemed from the authority, guilt, and death of sin. By death, in this instance, we mean separation from the Presence and acceptance of God.
Each human being is born in sin because of the transgression of Adam and Eve. We all have an inborn tendency toward moral corruption. We sin because it is our nature to do so. There is no way in which we can redeem ourselves. We do not possess the price to pay God for past transgressions and we do not have the power to quit sinning now. We must have a redeemer.
The root of our problem is Satan and the rebellion in the heavens. This is where sin began. Sin was introduced into the garden by the serpent, not by our ancestors, Adam and Eve. God has determined to judge and bring to an end the entire first creation and to punish the angels who rebelled against Him.
We are not to attempt to please God by our own wisdom and strength. God has a master plan and we can enjoy perfect peace and rest only as we are willing to fit into God’s design for our life.
Christ bore on Himself the sins of the whole world. The judgment of God came upon Christ and He was crucified. In Christ, God brought to an end the first creation. In Christ, God brought judgment on the evil lords of darkness and destroyed their authority and power.
God in Christ conquered Satan.
All of this was accomplished on the cross of Calvary. We had nothing to do with it. The Divine program of redemption is concerned with God’s wrath, God’s Law, God’s righteousness, God’s provision, God’s Nature and grace. We must accept it and cooperate with it.
When we come to Christ, God directs us to be baptized in water. "Go down into the water," God commands, "showing that you are willing to die to your first life, to the first creation. Accept My judgment on the source of sin in your life. Take your forgiveness by faith and be believing and thankful. It is my gift to you."
By faith we establish that our "old man," our first personality, is now dead by our participation with Christ on the cross. We count that our sinful nature is being destroyed, its authority over us having been completely removed in Christ. We declare in militant faith that our new inner man, the new life that has been born again in Christ, is now risen with Christ.
We understand from the Scripture that the new life we possess is without condemnation from any source. We are free from all guilt. Every "Egyptian" died in the Red Sea, so to speak, as demonstrated by baptism in water. By the death of our old personality we are free to be married to the Lord Jesus Christ.
At the moment of receiving Christ we gain perfect redemption by the payment of the blood of the Lamb of God. The life’s blood of Christ, God’s Lamb, has paid for our deliverance. We go free. The first creation came to an end on the cross. The believer in Christ comes up from the waters of baptism free from condemnation, having been forgiven every sin by the redemption God has provided.
Salvation is a first reaping of our life. It is a reaping to Christ. It is an instant death by faith, potentially destroying the ability of our old nature, our sin and self-will, to dominate us. We say potentially because the actual destruction of sin and the transformation of our personality depend on our working out in hope, faith, and obedience what God and we declared to be true in our baptism in water.
Water baptism portrays what will become a fact if we follow Christ faithfully: the death of our first personality and the creation of a new personality. Our new life is raised to be hidden with Christ in God (Colossians 3:1-4).
The righteousness of Christ Himself is imputed (ascribed) to us—freely given to us. It is the grace of God in action. We now are without condemnation and are invited and welcomed to enter boldly into the Most Holy Place in Heaven before the Father, there to make our needs and desires known to Him who sits on the throne of the universe.
We are accepted in the beloved Son, Christ. The holy angels rejoice and the bells of Heaven ring because a prodigal son has returned to Father’s house. From now on, death holds no terrors for us. When we die our spiritual personality will be received into the realms of light, there to dwell with God and the Lamb and with the holy saints and elect angels.
We had been dead spiritually, being cut off from God because of our inherited and acquired sin. Now, through the atonement made by the blood of the righteous Jesus, we are accepted of God. God’s Holy Spirit has taken up His abode in us for eternity (John 14:16,17).
The Spirit of God is eternal Life in us and the guarantee of the more complete redemption yet to come. All past transgressions have been forgiven. The covering of the "Passover blood" shields us from the wrath of God.
In the preceding paragraphs we have described the salvation phase of the Divine redemption that comes through Christ. Every person who would have eternal life must appear here. We must receive Christ personally as our own Lord and Savior and be baptized in water. Then the Holy Spirit causes the Life of Christ to be born in us. We are "born again."
The only way a man, woman, boy, or girl can enter the Kingdom of God is by being born again. Until a person is born again he can neither see nor enter the Kingdom of God.
Our death with Christ on the cross and our new birth into the Kingdom of God are the first death and the first resurrection—the first area of redemption.
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