Our Hope of Salvation
Dearly beloved of God, if we have confessed with the mouth the Lord Jesus, and believed in the heart that God raised him from the dead we have met the Biblically specified requirements for salvation [Romans 10:9], and in Christ we have a glorious hope ahead of us.
The moment we confess Romans 10:9 we are saved. We are born again of the spirit from God, and have entered the kingdom of God.
When God sends the Lord Jesus Christ to gather us up to meet him in the air we will physically enter the kingdom of God, and enjoy that for which we hope today. We will acquire the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ as joint heirs with him.
Today we are heirs of salvation, and when Christ returns that hope will become a reality.
In Christ we are today justified, redeemed, and saved. Today it is “Christ in you, the hope of glory.” When he returns we will glorified with him; we will receive glorious bodies like his glorious body. We will be conformed to the image of God’s Son so that he is the firstborn among many brethren, and we will glorified with him.
Our life on earth is short indeed when compared with the ages to come, and eternal life. If in this life only we have hope in Christ we are of all people most pitiable; but now is Christ risen from the dead and become the firstfruits of them that have fallen asleep.
As in Adam all men die, so in Christ shall all be made alive, Christ the firstfruits, and sometime afterward they that are Christ’s at his coming.
At his coming the dead in Christ will rise to life, the mortal will put on immortality, and together they will be gathered together up to meet the Lord in the air. We will be transformed to have bodies like his glorious body, and everlasting life.
We will be saved from death. We will be saved from the wrath of God that will come upon the world in the Day of the Lord.
As we were planted together in the likeness of his death, we will also be in the likeness of his resurrection.
We are now justified by his blood, and we shall be saved from the wrath of God through him. If when we were enemies of God, we were reconciled to God by the death of His son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by his life.
Not only is that so, but we also boast in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have presently received the reconciliation.
God has not appointed us to wrath but to the acquisition of salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us, that whether we are watching or sleeping, we shall be made alive together with him. Rejoice!
Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many; and unto them that look for him he shall appear the second time, not to bear sin, but to save those who are waiting for him. Rejoice! He is coming!