Because Salvation In Nearer Now than When We Believed the Gospel

Romans 5:10 “now that we are reconciled, we shall be saved by His resurrection.”

Romans 12: 11 Knowing the time, it is already the hour for you to wake up from sleep, for now our salvation is nearer than when we first believed. 12 The night is nearly over, and the daylight is near, so let us discard the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light.

Luke 21:28 –Your redemption draws near

Ephesians 1: 13 When you heard the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and when you believed in Him, you were also sealed with the promised Holy Spirit. 14 The Holy Spirit is the down payment of our inheritance, for the redemption of the possession, to the praise of His glory.

Christ is not paying in “installments” for our redemption. Christ Died for the Elect Once for all Time. The benefits of redemption are coming to the elect in “installments”.

Ephesians 4:30– “And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.”

God in Time Imputes Christ’s Death and CAUSES those for whom Christ died to BELIEVE THE GOSPEL

Romans 5: 11 We rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ. We have NOW received this reconciliation through Him. Receiving the reconciliation is not the reconciliation. Receiving the reconciliation is not yet our glorification and resurrection on that future day when Christ comes back to earth.

The reconciliation is what Christ obtained by Christ’s temporary death. After Christ died, Christ rose again. Christ is not still dying. The reconciliation by God before God is still and always will be the reconciliation  (objective and real)

The temporary death of Christ was unlike the permanent death of  the condemned. If the non-elect will be always dying but never dead, then they will not be dead.

1.  Christ is not still dying. Christ was dead, Christ is no longer dead.

Romans 6:9-10 knowing that Christ being raised from the dead dies no more. Death no longer lords it over Him. Christ died to sin once for all time

2.  If the condemned non-elect will never die because they will have never been tortured enough, the wages of sin is not death.

Romans 6: 23 The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is lasting life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Not all the elect have been justified yet. We must not identify election and justification. We must not identify atonement and justification. All the elect in God’s time will receive the reconciliation by God’s imputation.

The justified elect (those who believe the gospel ) are really  righteous now, not because of their new birth, but because of their justification by God. Legally in Christ, they now share in His righteousness. The atonement (reconciliation) imputed results in actual justification before God.

Though Christ has already been glorified, and the justified are in in Christ and in Christ’s righteousness, none of the elect have yet been glorified. They have not yet been given immortality. John 3:13 No one has ascended to heaven but the one who came from there.

Romans 8: 24 Now in this hope we were saved, yet hope that is seen is not hope, because who hopes for what he sees? 25 But if we hope for what we do not see, we eagerly wait for it with patience.

Hebrews 11:39-40 “and all these did not receive what was promised, because God had provided something better for us, that apart from us they would not be made perfect.”

Tianqi Wu—It is not possible for us to have a change of legal state without also being converted to the gospel. To be “enslaved to righteousness” is to be BOTH imputed with Christ’s death and obedient to the gospel about that death accomplished and imputed.

Romans 6: 10 Christ died to sin once for all time… 11 So, you too consider yourselves dead to sin but ALIVE TO GOD IN CHRIST JESUS 12 Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body, so that you obey sin’s desires. 13 And do not offer any parts of your body to sin as weapons for unrighteousness. But AS THOSE WHO ARE ALIVE FROM THE DEAD offer yourselves to God… 17 Thanks be to God that you were slaves of
sin, but you OBEYED from the heart the form of DOCTRINE to which you were delivered. And having been set free from sin, you were enslaved to righteousness

Psalm 32– 1 How joyful is the one
whose transgression is forgiven,
whose sin is covered.
2 How joyful is the one
the Lord does not charge with sin
and in whose spirit is no deceit.

5 But THEN I acknowledged my sin to You
and did not conceal my iniquity.
I said, “I will confess my transgressions to the Lord,”
and You took away the guilt of my sin

Romans 8: 1 No condemnation now exists for those in Christ Jesus, 2 because the Spirit’s law of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death.

Tianqi Wu—The people who have been legally justified by Christ’s atoning sacrifice are identified by their conversion to “walking by the gospel” To be “walking according to Spirit” is to have one’s confidence in the verdict of God’s gospel, rather than in our experiences and works

2 Peter 1: 1 To those who have obtained a faith of equal privilege with our faith THROUGH THE RIGHTEOUSNESS of our God and Savior Jesus Christ.

Tianqi Wu –The meaning of Christ’s death on the cross cannot be known apart from faith in Christ revealed in the gospel about God’s declaration of justification. Justification of all the elect at the time of the cross (or from eternity)” is a false attempt to exalt “it is finished” at the expense of “truth shall make you free”. The idea of justification without faith or before faith strips away the power of the gospel.

“The gospel of Christ — is the power of God unto salvation, to every one that believes” — Romans 1:16.

“God be thanked, you were THEN the servants of sin, but yOUR have obeyed, from the heart, the doctrine into which you were delivered” — Romans 6:17.

“The word of the cross, is to us who are saved the power of God” — 1 Corinthians 1:18.

“The gospel which I preached unto you, which also ye have received, and wherein ye stand; by which also ye are saved” — 1 Corinthians 15:1, 2.

“He called you by our gospel, to the obtaining of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ” — 2 Thessalonians 2:14.

Tianqi Wu–In a false view of the meaning of “we died with Christ” language in Romans 6 (in order to support the error of all the elect justified at the cross) the elect were baptized into Christ PRIOR TO the completion of Christ’s death, so that when He died, the elect died with Him. In this false view, the elect were not legally placed into a FINISHED death, but were already legally in Christ as He was dying on the cross.

This view has terrible consequences. It changes the nature of Christ’s death on the cross from a substitutionary sacrifice, made by the holy Lamb apart from the presence of sinners, to a corporate (collective) death in the body of a legal representative, in which the legal subject of death is no longer Christ alone but Christ legally joined with the elect sinners. In this false view, Christ no longer died alone by Himself to redeem His elect in order to justify them in God’s time

This is a terrible time. Many who profess to believe in Jesus in Lord have put their trust in Trimp or in a political resistance to health regulations. At this time, let us be patient. Let us rejoice in Christ’s resurrection and in Christ’s future coming. Let us rejoice in that temporary  period of time when God’s Son (God Elect) became imputed with all the guilt of all the elect when the Word became incarnate (conceived in the womb of Mary) and THEN died on the cross under the magistrate Pilate.

I Peter 1:18 You were redeemed with the precious blood of Christ, the lamb without defect or blemish. Christ was chosen before the ages but revealed at the end of the ages  for you  who through Him are believers in God, who raised Him from the dead and gave Him glory, so that your faith and hope are in God.

Romans 6: 10 Christ died to sin once for all time… 11 So, you too consider yourselves dead to sin but ALIVE TO GOD IN CHRIST JESUS 12 Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body, so that you obey sin’s desires. 13 And do not offer any parts of your body to sin as weapons for unrighteousness. But AS THOSE WHO ARE ALIVE FROM THE DEAD offer yourselves to God… 17 Thanks be to God that you were slaves of sin, but you OBEYED from the heart the form of DOCTRINE to which you were delivered. And HAVING BEEN set free from sin, you were enslaved to righteousness

Explore posts in the same categories: atonement, death, resurrection

Tags: Advent, God and time, second coming

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