"And that, knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep: for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed."
- Romans 13:11
The gospel is not a theory...it is not a concept! It is not a set of ideas or principles that suggest something is true. It is not a notion or impression or any form of suggestion passed down to get people to believe. The gospel is a revelation of Truth. It is the reality of a heavenly drop down built on eternal evidence bigger and grander than the best theorist or imaginist. It is exact. It is precise. And it stands up against every other fact assumed or presumed because its validity outweighs the most detailed form of any natural knowledge. It is spiritual. It is eternal. It is forever settled.
Sometimes when folks are trying to state something that is absolutely true, they will say, "It's the gospel truth!" In other words, it is unquestionable. It is undeniable. We often state what we considered truth as "a fact is a fact," but actually truth far exceeds any fact. A fact can change, but truth endures forever. Therefore, it is necessary in describing the truth of our salvation that we realize that our place in Christ goes far beyond just the idea of a settled state of being, as if everything is fixed, unalterable, and cannot be changed. While I am certain of my security in the "fact" that salvation is an abiding work, I am also aware that things change moment by moment, day in and day out. The Word of God clearly teaches us that we are being renewed day by day, and that salvation does not mean that we have fully arrived.
I think folks sometimes have this mistaken idea that "being saved" is final. We oftentimes look back upon a day and mark it as a time when we first acknowledged Christ as our Savior. We might even say, "I have been saved for 10 years, 20 years, or even 30 years." But the truth is we are not only saved, in the past. We are being saved. That means we are being changed each and every day from one degree of salvation to another. We are developing into a progressive and perpetual state of salvation. We have to get passed the idea that salvation is a onetime thing; get it all at once, seal the deal forever where everything is done, kind of experience. Yes, Jesus finished the work, and the moment we acknowledge him as Lord an eternal work of salvation begins to take place in us. But we have to understand that it is an on-going work. That is what it means when the Word says, "We are being changed from glory to glory" (2 Cor. 3:18).
Each and every day we are to live our lives drawing our very breath from the life of God. Paul wrote to the church of Philippi and said, "Being confident of this very thing; that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform (complete) it until the day of Jesus Christ" (Phil. 1:6). He later added, concerning himself, "Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect: but I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus" (Phil. 3:12). Even though redemption is a finished work, there is a process we are involved in every day in working out our salvation with fear and trembling (Phil 2:12). In other words, "Salvation is really a work in progress." By daily renewals, such as: the renewing of the mind, the renewing of the Holy Ghost, and being renewed in the spirit of our mind, we are developing salvation (Rom.12:2, Titus 3:5, Eph. 4:23).
When folks fail to understand this, they miss out on so much. They mistakenly think that "once saved always saved" somehow implies I have my ticket stamped for heaven and nothing can change that! But our salvation is not some kind of "free pass" to heaven where we obtained something at some point in our life that guarantees that when we die we can exchange it for eternal life. We do not have a label or a title we hang around our neck that says, "I once was lost, but now I am saved," and there is nothing more than needs to be done! Our salvation is to be a living, breathing, definable experience with Christ, which literally lives itself, developing and growing deeper and stronger because we choose to live out of a vital connection to the power of God (Romans 1:16). This is the truth that Jesus said would make us free, and when you allow yourself to become a developing work of salvation then you will truly know what it is to be free indeed (John 8:31, 32, 36).
