Why It Is Important to Stress the Gaining of Eternal Life Rather Than Escape From Hell
Both the Old Testament and the New Testament emphasize the gaining of life.
See, I have set before thee this day life and good, and death and evil; (Deuteronomy 30:15)
For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. (John 3:16)
In the beginning Adam and Eve lost the right to eat of the tree of life.
Numerous passages of the New Testament speak of the gaining of eternal life and warn that continuing in sin will result in death. The warning is addressed to Christians.
Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness? (Romans 6:16)
The penalty for continuing in sin is spiritual death, that is, to be cut off from the Life of God that is in Christ.
Deliverance from Hell is not something we can experience today. Eternal life is something we can experience today.
To save a person from torment does not benefit God or His Kingdom. To bring a person from spiritual death to spiritual life is to return the individual to the Presence of God, for eternal life is the Presence of God in Christ.
The Christian salvation is the process of gaining eternal life.
To gain eternal life we enter the following dimensions of salvation:
We receive forgiveness through the blood of Jesus as we turn away from our sins and place our trust for salvation in the Lord.
We learn to live in the Spirit of God rather than by the efforts of our fleshly mind and adamic soul and body.
We turn over the throne of our personality to the Lord so that the Father and the Son may govern us from within.
As we press forward in deliverance from sin, in learning to submit every action of life to the Spirit of God, and in receiving the will of God until our greatest joy is to do God’s will, we enter more fully into eternal life.
Those who choose to live increasingly in the Spirit of God will one day have their body adopted by God and made alive by God’s Spirit. Then their entire personality will be filled with Divine Life and crowned with the authority and power of Divine Life.
Those who continue in sin will receive the destruction of their personality in the Day of the Lord. They have not sown to the Spirit of God and so they will reap corruption. They have slain their own resurrection by continuing to live in the flesh.
The proper concern of the Christian is what he will receive in the Day of the Lord, at the time of the resurrection of the dead. Grace and mercy will not determine what we receive in that Day. It is what we have sown that will determine what we receive when we are raised from the dead.
Notice the emphasis on salvation in the Day of the Lord in the following passage;
To deliver such an one unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus. (I Corinthians 5:5)
The incestuous Corinthian believer may or may not have been in danger of going to Hell when he died, but he certainly was in danger of his spirit not being "saved in the day of the Lord Jesus" even though he was a member of the church in Corinth. It is what we shall receive in the day of resurrection that is the issue.
Numerous "believers" in our day are living in the flesh, confident that they have their pass out of Hell. But they are going to reap corruption in the day of the Lord!
Can you see now why the great issue of salvation is not escape from Hell but entrance into Divine Life? How many individuals have been handed their ticket that releases them from Hell and admits them to Paradise (they believe), only to find in the Day of the Lord that they will be given back precisely what they have done while living in the world? Whether or not they have received Christ as their Savior, if they have lived in sin and self-will, in spiritual death, they shall reap corruption in the Day of Resurrection.
Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. For he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting. (Galatians 6:7,8)
This is precisely what is destructive about presenting the Christian Gospel as escape from Hell—it misleads the convert into believing that how he behaves after "accepting Christ" is not critical because now he need have no fear of Hell. The truth is, however, he shall reap precisely what he has sown. If he has practiced the deeds that belong in Hell he will be placed in Hell. God is not mocked!
The Christian salvation is not a device whereby those who belong in Hell find themselves in the Paradise of God!
We have to seek life each day. There is more abundant life for us if we will seek the Lord. We must lay hold on eternal life. To walk in the Spirit of God results in eternal life but to continue in the flesh is to kill our Divine Life.
For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace. (Romans 8:6)
The above verse was written to Christians.
If we have lived in the Life of the Spirit of God, then, when we die physically, we will continue in eternal life in the Presence of the Father. But if we have lived in the death of the flesh, then, when we die physically, we will continue to exist in separation from the Presence of the Father.
The Father is seeking fellowship with us. Fellowship with the Father is eternal life. There is joy in the Presence of God when the prodigal changes his behavior and returns home, not when an individual "accepts Christ" so he will not (as he believes) be tormented after death. There is no joy in the Father’s heart when a person "accepts Christ" and then continues in his or her worldly ways, in spiritual death, the lusts of the flesh, and self-will!
If we say that we have fellowship with him, and walk in darkness, we lie, and do not the truth: But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another [with God], and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin. (I John 1:7)
What does it mean to be lost? It means to be lost as a child of God—lost to fellowship with the Father. We have judged ourselves unworthy of eternal life, of becoming part of Christ, of being made a new creation. To be saved is to be restored to fellowship with God. The "lost sheep" of the house of Israel are those Jews (and elect Gentiles) who, because of worldliness, sin, and self-will have lost their fellowship with God. They are prodigal sons.
Whoever is willing to place his trust in the Lord Jesus, turning away from sin and praying for grace to live a righteous, holy life, will be delivered from the power of sin and will be spared in the Day of Wrath.
Satan cares little whether people are in Heaven or Hell. What Satan hopes is they will use their God-given talents to turn stones into bread (seek to get rich), to worship Satan, and to behave presumptuously without looking to God for every detail of life.
This is what Satan desires for himself—to be wealthy, to worship himself, and to do whatever he desires without seeking to please God. Because of this he always is in Hell and always will be of Hell and bring Hell with him wherever he goes. The same is true of all people whose desires are the same as his whether or not they profess to be a Christian. They belong in Hell and it is not our mission to rescue them from Hell until they are willing to turn away from the ways of Satan.