15.2 Gospel Salvation
© 2016 Christ Revealed Bible Institute
The clear intent of the gospel is that we live forever; the physical death of the Christian is not in view by the gospel.
I do not look forward to salvation. I look forward to the outward PROOF of the Salvation I know in all fullness now. I walk in Salvation in all that it means right now MORE than all those who have died and are found in heaven only, including Peter and Paul.
You see, I am redeemed. And being redeemed, I have turned utterly around. Salvation, REAL Salvation is now flowing out from me.
Provoking You
Let me take these provocative statements a stretch further. (I am intentionally provoking you, dear reader, with absolutes.)
Peter and Paul and all those who died IN faith, who lived calling those things that be not as though they are, cannot enter into the knowledge of Salvation separately from you and me now at this end of the age of human folly. But neither can we precede them in the outward Proof of that Salvation. God is right now sharing with John and Paul for the first time the same unveiling of Jesus Christ that He is sharing with us. What we are experiencing is happening in the heavens equally with our present experience here in heaven/earth.
Like Lightning
We see Jesus as He IS first before those now in heaven only. The unveiling of Jesus Christ, just like atmospheric lightning, begins in the earth first, though invisible, by FAITH and not by sight. However, just like lightning, the Proof of Salvation, the resurrection of our physical bodies, begins with all the elect in the heavens first, returning to this planet, this heaven/earth in which we all live, moments before our own physical bodies are SWALLOWED UP by life, just as Paul said.
It is my hope, in this one lesson, to give as clear of a definition of Salvation as it really is as I possibly can. Salvation means wholeness, being entirely what we ARE.
Someone Else
Salvation means Another Person inside of me. This other Person, the Lord Jesus Christ, IS Salvation, and He, living fully in me, is all salvation. I was designed by God to be filled with the Lord Jesus Christ in Person; I was designed no other way. Thus, for me to be whole means that I must be filled with this other Person, Christ Jesus.
I have seen so many, over the years, who apply principles of “Christ” or “union” to their lives. I never have – mostly because it never made sense to me. I have always needed Someone Else.
Jesus Lifts Me Up
When I stumble and fall, Jesus Himself lifts me up. When I sin, Jesus takes my sin from me and makes me holy. When I am ashamed, Jesus takes my shame upon Himself and places His own confidence upon me.
I can’t do that. Some may be able to trade shame for confidence on principle, but I cannot. I must have another Person, completely not me, yet always offering Himself to be me, to make that trade for me. My faith is ALWAYS and ONLY faith in another Person, Jesus, who lives in me, who loves me, and who gives Himself FOR me every moment of my life.
I Am Never Alone
Salvation means that I am never, ever alone.
I can’t tell you how many times since I wrote The Jesus Secret, that the Lord Jesus Himself has arisen in my heart in the midst of despondency and failure, arisen with joy, Jesus in Person, showing me that He is me in all things and that I am not to worry at all, but to sing together with Him. I tell you what; if there is any other salvation that does not include this other Person, Jesus, sharing all things with me that I am and through which I walk, then I simply ain’t interested.
Yet the wondrous thing about this Jesus alive in my heart is that He is larger than the universe and always flowing out.
The Anti-Thesis of Death
Salvation is the anti-thesis to death. Salvation is not the nullification of death, but life brand new alive unto God. Salvation is not the reversal of death, but the birthing of a new creation. We are saved by Jesus’ life.
Thus we find that the life of our Salvation, this Jesus alive in our hearts, replaces with Himself every particle and step of Adam’s sin and death. Adam is not restored; he is replaced. And so Salvation begins in us with a brand-new human spirit.
Alive unto God
Jesus alive in our hearts means that we are alive unto God, and being alive unto God means that we have a brand new spirit. This new spirit that we have possessed since we asked Jesus into our hearts is far beyond anything we have ever known or been taught, and it has been so since day one.
Our new spirit is incorruptible and perfect. It cannot sin because it does not know sin at all. Our new spirit is utterly fused together as one with the Holy Spirit of God. Our new spirit is open to and in communication with all the heavens of God; it gives no heed to any darkness, for it does not know darkness.
Work out Your OWN Salvation
Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure (Philippians 3:12b-13). When we were once “approaching” God, these words were always presented as a threat; now, they are hilarious joy. The words have not changed, but our seeing sure has.
This Salvation, Jesus alive in our hearts, begun in all perfection in us as our own incorruptible human spirit always perfectly merged together with the Holy Spirit, then flows out from our spirit, out from Jesus alive in our hearts, to transform our soul. Knowing that God is working His will in us in all things, we put the Lord Jesus Christ upon our entire story of self.
The Salvation of Our Souls
With fear and trembling? It cannot be otherwise. Putting Jesus, our Friend, our Salvation, upon our own self-story holds a catch. Inside this Jesus is Another Person, and this other Person filling Jesus filling us is a Consuming Fire. Salvation is all trembling; Salvation is all Joy. For this Consuming Fire inside of Jesus inside of us tells us, you and me, that we should call Him Father. And calling all the thunderbolts of the universe, Father, is no light thing.
The salvation of our souls, our psuches, our self-story, then, is a completed exchange, life for life, words for words; this is our part of forming ourselves, entirely by our active permission.
The Outward Appearance of Salvation
Out of the heart the mouth speaks; the tongue is the rudder, the steering, of the ship.
Salvation is knowing Jesus’ own present Self-story, Jesus as He is, as the only story of self that we speak. And then, finally, Salvation appears in outward appearance, showing itself as the proof of God, when our bodies become, in all visible glory, the self-same body of the Lord Jesus Christ in His resurrection.
We are the Body of Christ – flesh of His flesh. Old things are passed away, behold all things are become new. Put on the Lord Jesus Christ, spirit, soul, and body.
Salvation Revealed
But our bodies being swallowed up in the visible demonstration of Life, the first appearance of the new creation in appearance, is not the entirety of Salvation. For Jesus alive inside of us is also Savior of All, as Paul said. And this Jesus, even now, before our bodies have been transformed, even as we are putting His story upon our story, is flowing out from us as Salvation Revealed (1 Peter 1:5).
Salvation, then, in its final form, is that Heart of Jesus, revealed through us His Body, going forth into all the hurting places of the universe to seek and to save all that is lost. We begin with this earth and our brethren, and we end with all things restored to the Father.