| Everyone who knows Christ has been saved from sin’s penalty and “hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life.” And our Lord says of all such that “I pray for them: I pray not for the world, but for them which Thou hast given Me; for they are Thine,” and thus we are saved from sin’s power. And we await the time of completed salvation, when we shall be saved from sin’s presence, “and so shall we ever be with the Lord.” Though we possess a complete salvation, we do not have a completed salvation. For this we wait, and “now is our salvation nearer than when we believed.” Already “our conversation is in heaven; from whence also we look for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ: who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto His glorious body, according to the working whereby He is able even to subdue all things unto Himself.” “Ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body.” We wait for the “salvation ready to be revealed in the last time, wherein we greatly rejoice, though now for a season, if need be, ye are in heaviness through manifold temptations.” |
