Salvation: The First Area of Redemption

The first area of redemption is that of salvation. The burden 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.

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.

Following the glorious and terrible return of the Lord, He and His victorious saints will rule for the thousand years of the Kingdom Age (Millennium). After the Kingdom Age the Lake of Fire will appear. The Lake of Fire is no mere symbol of God's anger, it is a real lake, a prison 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.

God has determined to judge and bring to an end the heaven and the earth that He created and to punish the angels who rebelled against Him. The root of the problem is Satan and the rebellion that took place in the heavenlies. This is the source of sin—where sin began.

Sin was introduced into the Garden of Eden by the serpent, not by our ancestors, Adam and Eve. Yet because of their sin, we who are their descendants, and all of the creation, are under the curse of sin and death.

In Christ is salvation in the Day of God's wrath. Christ bore on Himself the sins of the whole world. The judgment of God came on 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.

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, patiently serving the Lord 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.

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 our accepting Christ in obedience to the will of God. "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house." "He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved."

Salvation includes the first death and resurrection. 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 that which God and we declared to be true in our baptism in water.

As we will see in the next chapter, 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. This, our new life, is raised up to be hidden with Christ in God (Colossians 3:1-4). This is the first resurrection (the "first resurrection" in terms of the model presented in this book, not the first resurrection of Revelation 20:4-6).

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 his Father's house. From now on, death holds no terrors for us. When we die our spiritual personality is received into the realms of light 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. Christ has been born in us.

In the preceding paragraphs we have described the salvation phase of the Divine redemption that comes only 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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