Salvation

SALVATION

(Luke 2: 30; 19: 9)

In the passages of the New Testament where we meet with the word salvation, present soul deliverance is in view, though this is intended to include also what is eternal, see Heb 5: 9. But in them all it is amid the now of opposition that “SALVATION” is wanted, and is to be known. Salvation has reference to enemies, and to the difficulty of living in peace and in the joy of the favour of God, notwithstanding them; though we are in the very seat and presence of the enemy, and where his ceaseless activity and antagonism to God (and to everything that is of God), is found. Salvation is evidently deliverance from the pressure of every such weight.

Now enemies are not found when people are in heaven, but on the earth. Hence salvation is for the earth, and for people on the earth, spite of the influence here of “spiritual wickedness” (Eph 6: 12) in the heavenlies.

When we look at saints we see that God desires them to be on earth in the good of salvation. Truly this is the “day of salvation”. But this does not mean that it is now the day when people can know that they are going to heaven when they die! They knew that in Old Testament times. It is that, and much more than that. It is the day when people who are in salvation do not live on earth, under the pressure of the evil that is found here, and that is active here, but when they live here in the love of God. It is the day in which the “love of God our Saviour toward man” (Tit 3: 4)has come to light, so that men may live in THAT. That is salvation. It is that which was and is seen “in Christ Jesus”; not as to source in us. It is in the Second Man, not in the first. I understand by this that God's thought for man is, that he should be led into all that is in the heart of God for him! Only One can do this for us.

Christ is in it. He is therefore the “captain of their salvation” (Heb 2: 10), to lead us into it. How was Christ affected on earth as Man by all the active power of the enemy, and by all the evil influences working here? Are we affected by them, or are we in the present good of “SALVATION”? It depends upon how much Christ is submitted to, who is now leading His saints into all the good of it. “How shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation”, Heb 2: 3? We shall not escape (it is the escape of saints that is in question). We shall surely fall under the influence of things here if we do not reach salvation. We shall become practically useless, unless we get into the good of it. Hebrews is the book of the wilderness. Hence in it we find that “SALVATION” is needed, see chaps 1: 14; 2: 3-10; 5: 9; 6: 9; 9: 28; 11: 7. The wilderness is an awful place of opposition (see Deut 8: 15), but it is where there was found in God “SALVATION”, v 16. Also we have the Word of God, Christ, and all that He is, and the Priesthood of Christ to lead us into this salvation now. The salvation spoken of in chapter 9: 28 is final deliverance from the scene of opposition.

Then we pass into another scene. In the new scene “righteousness” dwells, not “salvation” for no enemy is there.

From Words of Grace and Encouragement—vol 5, 1905