That’s right.
Heavenly Father, we just continue to be in Your presence, in Your beloved Son, Jesus Christ. We thank You for the Holy Spirit, who is revealing to us more and more of Him, the centre of everything. We thank You for this glorious Christ whom we have come to know, and for the privilege of being in Christ—of being in that glorious new creation and part of that divine purpose.
We thank You that You will continue to speak to us and give us instruction, so that we may continue our way in Christ Jesus and not fall into any trap the devil may lay before us. We thank You that You will open up Your Word to us at this moment. Amen.
Before coming back to our glorious gospel, let me share a few personal words. Let me thank you for all the love I have received during this week. It was great for me to enjoy all the fellowship. I have gone from one big meal to another, and I will take quite a number of pounds back with me to Switzerland!
But most of all, I thank God for what He has done in your midst. We are all the same people all over the world, and to be together in love is impossible unless God has brought it all about. It is He Himself who draws us together. It is Christ in you and Christ in me that is the reality of the fellowship we can enjoy.
That is what I have really experienced in your midst. I will share whatever I have seen and heard here in Richmond with my brothers and sisters in Switzerland. They will be eager to learn what is going on here. May the Lord bless you all and keep you in His grace.
Now let us turn to Ephesians 1:3-13.
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenlies in Christ: according as He hath chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blemish before Him in love;
having foreordained us unto adoption as sons through Jesus Christ unto Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will,
to the praise of the glory of His grace, which He freely bestowed on us in the Beloved:
in whom we have our redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace,
which He made to abound toward us in all wisdom and prudence, making known unto us the mystery of His will, according to His good pleasure which He purposed in Him,
unto a dispensation of the fulness of the times, to sum up all things in Christ, the things in the heavens, and the things upon the earth;
in whom also we were made a heritage, having been foreordained according to the purpose of Him who worketh all things after the counsel of His will;
to the end that we should be unto the praise of His glory, we who had before hoped in Christ:
in whom ye also, having heard the word of the truth, the gospel of your salvation.
We have been sharing a few thoughts on the glorious gospel, and I hope that the Holy Spirit has been able to open our eyes to the tremendous dimensions and vastness of the gospel.
Yesterday we shared concerning the gospel of the kingdom of God. It is a great thing to know that we are in the kingdom and that we are part of the kingdom of God. But we need to see that the kingdom of God lies at the very heart of God. Whatever He does—whether in redemption or in sanctifying us as His people—His aim and His goal is His kingdom.
It is His kingdom that will bring back to this whole creation the glory of God and reveal the reality of God from ages to ages. That is why God started that glorious work of recovery called salvation in the Bible. This morning, we will seek to see something concerning God’s purpose in bringing in salvation.
It is glorious to be saved, isn’t it? I was brought up in the Salvation Army, and people would shout, “Hallelujah!” So it is really glorious. I am thankful whenever we have the Lord’s table in our midst, just to rest in the assurance and fact that I am saved. The blood is there: no accusation, no condemnation, just a free way into the very presence of God. That is our privilege as the redeemed.
Now, what does it mean to be saved? If you ask people, they may say, “Well, if I am saved, I am going to heaven.” Or, “Being saved means that our sins are forgiven.” Hallelujah, that is true. Praise the Lord.
Others, perhaps more anxious people, say that being saved means being spared from punishment or escaping hell. That also is true. All of this is included in salvation. Salvation is an inclusive thing.
But if you read carefully in the Bible, after a few Scriptures you may become puzzled. There are Scriptures which definitely say that whoever believes in Jesus Christ is saved, and saved forever. Then there are Scriptures which say that salvation lies somewhere in the future. We are saved in hope.
So we begin to ask: Are we saved or are we not saved? Are we saved now, or are we saved in the future? In order to understand, we have to remember that salvation is a tremendous thing. It is not merely the first step necessary to enter into the kingdom. It is necessary to restore fellowship with God, of course, but salvation touches the whole universe.
Recently at school, I taught the children about space. The children like that; they are very interested in these things. But if you are a Christian and look at the planets in space, and know how confused these things are, you see something else. Look at the moon. From here it may be nice to see the moon, but when you are there it is a waste and an emptiness, a sign of destruction and corruption. You find that throughout space.
Let us first look at a few Scriptures that introduce us to the gospel of salvation. Matthew 1:21:
And she shall bring forth a son; and thou shalt call His name Jesus; for it is He that shall save His people from their sins.
Isn’t that a glorious verse? This is the announcement of the angel to Mary. He came to save His people from their sins. That is what He came to do, and that is what He did. If we believe in Him, He has saved us from our sins.
Second Timothy 1:9-10 says:
Who saved us, and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before times eternal,
but hath now been manifested by the appearing of our Saviour Christ Jesus, who abolished death, and brought life and incorruption to light through the gospel.
It has been made manifest by the appearing of our Saviour, Jesus Christ. He is called the Saviour because He came to save. That was His ministry.
Titus 3:4-6 says:
But when the kindness of God our Saviour, and His love toward man, appeared,
not by works done in righteousness, which we did ourselves, but according to His mercy He saved us, through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit,
which He poured out upon us richly, through Jesus Christ our Saviour.
God is called the Saviour God. I like that phrase. It is a glorious phrase, because salvation is not merely a rescue programme because things went wrong. Our God is a Saviour God. That is what He is. It is something of His very nature to save.
It says, “Not by works done in righteousness, which we did ourselves, but according to His mercy He saved us.” He saved us. That is the fact stated here. Whoever knows Jesus Christ is saved.
Hebrews 7:25 says:
Wherefore also He is able to save to the uttermost them that draw near unto God through Him, seeing He ever liveth to make intercession for them.
He is able to save completely—not just somehow, not just in a few things. He will save completely those who approach God through Him. This word completely brings us to a truth we must understand if we are to understand salvation as a whole.
There is a beginning of salvation, a process of salvation, and a goal of salvation. Salvation is not merely a fact in itself. It is something God began at a definite time, and He will complete it at a definite time.
Romans 13:11 says:
And this, knowing the season, that already it is time for you to awake out of sleep: for now is salvation nearer to us than when we first believed.
Paul writes about a salvation that lies in the future. It is nearer than when we believed. We will see how that relates to the reality of salvation according to God’s purpose.
Romans 8:24 says:
For in hope were we saved: but hope that is seen is not hope: for who hopeth for that which he seeth?
Paul says that we are saved in hope. Philippians 2:12-13 says:
So then, my beloved, even as ye have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling;
for it is God who worketh in you both to will and to work, for His good pleasure.
That is a rather bewildering Scripture: “Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.”
First Thessalonians 5:8 says:
But let us, since we are of the day, be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and love; and for a helmet, the hope of salvation.
And 1 Peter 1:9 says:
Receiving the end of your faith, even the salvation of your souls.
We have read Scriptures which say that He has saved us. We are already saved; it is something of the past. Whoever approaches the Lord’s table needs to be able to say, “I am saved.” He has the right to take part in the Lord’s table and share the bread and the wine.
But we have also read Scriptures which say that salvation is not yet fully accomplished. There is something related to salvation which lies in the future. We are saved in hope. The end of our faith is salvation. Salvation is nearer now than when we believed. These are statements in the Word of God.
Salvation reaches way down into eternity past, and it launches out into eternity future. There is a time dimension to salvation that we have to take into account. Salvation also touches our personal past, our personal present, and our personal future.
Now salvation, first of all, had to deal with sin. That is the primary matter God has to deal with, because sin was the one thing that caused the fall of man and brought death and corruption into creation.
What is sin? Sin is the ruling power of this universe. We very often forget this. Sin is not merely an easy matter to overcome. You may sin, confess, and thank God for forgiveness; then sin again, confess again, and thank God for renewed forgiveness. But that is not all there is to sin.
Sin is a ruling power. Sin is the spirit of rebellion in us as human beings. Sin is actually self. Around the world there is a tendency in modern society to vindicate self, to build self: self-assurance, self-assertion. This is another way of saying that sin is still in power.
That spirit of rebellion has a free way throughout the world. It is the main destructive and corrupting force in the world. Sin is a dreadful thing. We have to hate sin and avoid it.
Everything is under the grip of sin, and there is no escape outside of what the gospel teaches and shows us. Here the gospel comes in. Through the death of Jesus Christ on the cross of Calvary, the power of sin has been broken.
It is not merely forgiveness. God has done much more than that. He has broken the power of sin and opened up a way for us to escape that spirit of rebellion and be freed from its grip on our lives. This is the birthright of every Christian—man, woman, or child—to be released from that power.
Sin has no power over those who are in Jesus Christ, except when we yield willingly to sin. That is why we must be watchful, listen, obey the voice of the Holy Spirit, and follow His leading. He will keep us from sin.
The second thing God has to deal with is death. Death is the consequence of sin. As long as sin reigns in the life of a human being, or in the life of the whole cosmos, death is inescapable.
Death is a defiling thing, according to the Bible. It is absolutely contrary to God’s purpose for man and contrary to God’s nature. God is life. What a glorious life! God’s purpose for creation was life, and life in fullness: divine life expressed through all the beauty of creation, declaring His glory.
The gospel of salvation declares that not only has sin been dealt with, but death also has been conquered. It has not yet been removed, for death is still around us, but it has lost its power.
In a sense, as John says, Christians never die. Of course, we go to the Lord while Christ has not yet returned, but the Bible distinctly says that believers fall asleep. They do not die; they fall asleep when they go to be with the Lord.
Death has lost its power over all those who are in fellowship with the risen Christ. Our union with Christ is a union in resurrection and ascension. Resurrection life is already within us. That is why we have received eternal life—the life of Jesus Christ.
This life is a soaring life. It lifts all those who have come under its power into the dimension of the heavenlies. I like that moment when you enter a plane and it rises up. That is a good example of what resurrection life is about.
There is the power that keeps us down: gravitation. But there is a power already available that counteracts the law of gravitation. It is resurrection power. It brings us into the heavenly places, seated with Christ. That is where we are now.
We are not merely here in Richmond. We are in heavenly places through the resurrection power of Jesus Christ. This is part of God’s salvation: to bring people who have been under the reign of death and sin out of that realm and up into the heavens.
The third thing God has to deal with in order to bring what He has created back into His divine purpose is corruption. The mystery of lawlessness is working in this world—not only in human beings, but also in nature.
When Adam fell, his fall had tremendous consequences. Sin opened the door to lawlessness, disintegration, and decay on all levels of being. It began in the heavenlies. The divine order was confounded even there.
Paul speaks in Ephesians of principalities, powers, rulers of this world, and rulers of darkness. These were created to express God’s government. But part of the heavenly realm fell with Satan and was brought into lawlessness and decay. A great number of angels followed that rebellion, and they very often trouble us.
Look into outer space. We may think all these things are glorious because the laws of the cosmos work without human intervention. The sun rises in the morning and sets in the evening. But if you look more closely, things have been greatly damaged.
A few miles above us, life is impossible. To take a few steps on the moon, you need much equipment to prevent you from being killed immediately. It is not a place for life. It is the government and kingdom of death all over, because sin has corrupted not only humanity but the whole created order.
Then we come down to earth and look into nature. We see the struggle of creatures against one another. We see pollution in the environment. Even polluted air is a consequence of sin coming in through the fall.
Look at human character and society: murder, adultery, and moral decay. I sometimes pity our children and young people in Europe, because they have so few examples outside of a living Christian testimony. Part of our testimony is to keep the laws of God in human relationships.
Society has been corrupted. In the midst of thousands of people, you can be utterly lonely. You can be lost in a crowd. Even science, though it is a good thing, bears the element of corruption when it is separated from devotion to God and the consecration of life and mind to Him.
Everything and everyone has been corrupted by sin. Everything is spoiled by that wicked thing called sin. But here the gospel comes in in a glorious way. God has started a work of restoration—a work of recovery.
Salvation means bringing back all things—matter, mankind, space, all things—to God’s original thought. This will all be in Christ and related to Christ. The stars should be related to Christ. We are related to Christ. This earth will be related to Christ.
Through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, God brings all things back into their original state. Salvation means restoring, rearranging, and reordering things in Christ. It means the deliverance of the cosmos from the bondage of corruption and the release of creation’s forces and faculties to serve and worship God.
The next thing God has to deal with is the world. The world is the dominion of Satan. It is not merely trees, landscapes, cities, and plains. The world is the order Satan established when Adam sinned: a system of powers, authorities, and hierarchies of evil.
Why did Satan establish this order? To counterfeit the kingdom of God. Satan’s first aim is not simply destruction. His aim is to outwit God and prevent Him from establishing His kingdom of glory.
But decay and corruption are the price Satan must pay for his rebellion. Even if he could reach his goal—which is impossible—the end would be utter corruption. God is the only uniting, coherent power in the universe.
Where God is ruled out, ignored, denied, and abandoned, everything disintegrates. You can try your best to organise things, but they will go to pieces if God is not there. Scripture says that through Christ all things are held together. They are held together in Him, through Him, and because of Him.
Satan is on the wrong side, and he will lose. He will certainly lose. The gospel declares that an incorruptible life has been brought forth. God is setting up His kingdom in spite of all that Satan has brought in.
Everything will be brought under the headship of Christ, and Satan’s kingdom will be utterly destroyed, because Jesus came to destroy the works of the devil. Hallelujah for that. The kingdoms of this world will become the kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ.
Hebrews 2:8-9 says that all things have been put under the feet of Christ, though we do not yet see all things subjected to Him. Yet we live in the reality of the kingdom. The kingdom is already a spiritual reality, and we have kingdom life—the incorruptible life—within us.
God also has to deal with darkness. God is light, and there is no darkness in Him at all. Through sin, light was veiled and everything was darkened. Outside of God there is darkness—utter darkness.
Our minds are darkened, our wills are disoriented, and our emotions are confused. There is so much darkness in our inward life. But praise God: through the gospel, light shines forth, and confusion is brought back into divine order.
Let us look at 2 Corinthians 4:3-6.
And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled in them that perish:
in whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of the unbelieving, that the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should not dawn upon them.
For we preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus as Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake.
Seeing it is God, that said, Light shall shine out of darkness, who shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
These are tremendous words, aren’t they? You have that light. Do you realise that the life inside you is also light shining forth and bringing in the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ? When you look at the face of Jesus Christ, you see the glory of God revealed and manifested—perfectly.
In the New Testament, salvation has three different levels. Since sin started in the spirit of man, the work of salvation had to start there. Then salvation has to go on to recover and restore the whole being: spirit, soul, and body.
Through the restoration of humanity and creation, salvation will spread to all the dimensions of matter and spirit—except for the spirits of wickedness and evil. There is no salvation for them; they will be excluded from this tremendous salvation.
First of all, salvation starts in the spirit of man, and that is where salvation is secured forever. That is why Scripture says, “We are saved.” We have the life of God. Deep within is the assurance that we are saved and will never be lost, as far as eternal life is concerned.
What has been born of God cannot be unborn. It is impossible, because we have entered a life that is uncreated, incorruptible, and without any tendency to die or disappear. It is eternal life.
God deposits that eternal life within the spirit of man. This is called regeneration. It is the union of the Spirit of God with the spirit of man in Jesus Christ—a union with Christ in a wonderful and ever-deepening way. It is the beginning of a new creation. A new man has been born.
The spirit of man is quickened. There is a new relationship with God: communion with God in life, not merely in thought. You touch God, and God speaks to you. There are new faculties and abilities. You are able to discern in the spiritual realm because the Spirit of God reveals the character and nature of things to you.
There are new tastes. Many people say of the Bible, “I do not like it. It is too difficult. I read a few verses, and it did not say anything to me.” There is no taste for it. But when you are saved, a new hunger comes.
I met a brother in Canada who was saved in jail. He had been badly damaged by drugs and could hardly think or remember things. In that state, he was saved. The only thing he could do in his cell was read the Bible.
He read and reread the Bible until his whole mental structure was restored. Through reading the Bible, he was able to think the thoughts of God properly, communicate what he had read to others, and testify. He went from meeting to meeting, into the streets, and shared the gospel with everybody.
That is what salvation does. It gives you a new taste: a taste for the Word of God and a taste for worship. Salvation brings a deep longing into your heart to worship God in spirit and truth.
When God deposits incorruptible life in our spirit, He brings us into the supernatural. There is much talk about supernatural things, but when the Holy Spirit enters our spirit, He lifts our whole being into the supernatural.
Think back over your history with the Lord, right back to the beginning. Can you explain it? I cannot explain why I am here today. I was brought up in the Salvation Army. I came to know the Lord very early, and we did all the things one could do: singing in restaurants, preaching the gospel, holding open-air meetings, and going from door to door.
But there came a day when the Lord worked His life into me in a real way. He revealed to me the Son of God as the essential thing to know, and He brought me into the vision of God’s eternal purpose. Then things began to happen that I could not explain. It was completely supernatural.
If you are a child of God and have eternal life within you, the roots of your life are supernatural. Whatever God does in your life is supernatural. You do not need to wait for a miracle in order to experience the supernatural. Just follow the Lord. Just be faithful. You will never be able to explain the way God has led you.
Can you explain a fellowship like this? I do not think you can. It is a supernatural thing. May God help you to keep your fellowship in the supernatural. Do not bring it down to earth and make something out of, “We are it. We have it.” We do not have it; Christ has us. That is the main thing.
All the Scriptures that tell us we are saved refer to this fact: our spirit has received eternal life. That is secure. We do not need to be anxious about it. If you are truly born again, you are saved. Praise the Lord.
But salvation does not remain inside. God’s salvation needs to spread and touch everything that has been brought under corruption, sin, death, and decay. From the spirit within, salvation has to stretch forth.
There is a radiance of the gospel, a radiance of the glory of God, which should never remain hidden inside. It has to be expressed outside. Salvation must spread into the realm of the soul.
The soul is our world-consciousness. Through the soul we relate to our surroundings and the world outside us. The soul is our personality. When we are saved and born again, we remain the same people at first. Our behaviour changes because there is conscience within, but our character and patterns of thought may still be much the same.
Salvation must spread from the spirit into the soul, changing and bringing into a new order the whole structure of our personality. The Holy Spirit will do that for us. Our soul is under the power of the senses: what we see, hear, smell, and taste influences us.
As salvation spreads from the spirit into the soul, the Holy Spirit brings all areas of soul-life under the control of God. That is what sanctification is about. Our soul needs to be renewed, transformed, and conformed to the image of the Lord Jesus Christ.
The purpose of our soul is to express the life of Christ received in our spirit, to express the mind of Christ, and to understand and grasp the will of God in order to obey it. Our soul is to express the love, mercy, joy, and meekness of God through our emotional life.
When you meet people who have truly been dealt with by the Lord, you experience the compassion of the Lord and sense the love of God in them. God has been able to bring salvation to their souls and redeem their emotional faculties to express something of Himself in life.
The soul is also to be a vessel of the supernatural, under the lordship and covering of Christ. I believe in genuine gifts of the Holy Spirit. We are to minister with what God gives us, but always under the lordship and covering of Christ.
If you have a gift, do not use it merely because you have it. Use it only when the Lord allows you to use it, when the Spirit gives you permission to use it.
The soul of the unregenerate person has an affinity to the spirit of the world and to Satan. Behind the realm of soul-life lurks the demonic. Psychology, when it digs deeply into the fallen human soul, discovers the mess of fallen humanity.
Salvation must preserve us from the whole realm of occult spiritual life. It will redeem our whole soul, keep it safe for God, and bring it back to God to be used for the expression of His glory.
That is why the Bible tells us to deny ourselves. This is very important. Do not try to manipulate your soul through psychological methods. If you are a true believer and a child of God, God will take care of you. Trust Him.
The Holy Spirit is there. Incorruptible life is within you. Let it spread into every area of your soul-life and all the needs that are there. God is able to do a wonderful and real work in your life. He will redeem every area of your soul for Himself and for the kingdom of God.
Finally, salvation must spread into the body. This is where most of us suffer. We all have our aches, pains, headaches, and whatever else may come.
The body will be saved under two conditions: either we are resurrected, or Jesus Christ returns. One glorious thing about the gospel is that we do not need to die if Jesus Christ comes back during our lifetime.
Salvation will become so real that, in the twinkling of an eye, we will be changed. This body will be changed completely and rebuilt according to God’s purpose. All the defects sin has brought into our bodies will be done away with.
Praise the Lord for all those who suffer from defective bodies, for the disabled, and for all who feel that things are not as they should be. Salvation will bring back what Adam was meant to be: a representative of God, of God’s beauty, fullness, and perfection.
This will happen either in resurrection or when Jesus Christ returns. We will be changed “in an atom,” as it says in Greek—just like that. That is the power of salvation brought out.
But this is not the end. Romans 8 says that the whole creation is anxiously waiting for something tremendous to happen. When our bodies are saved, this opens the way for salvation to come to the animals, the trees, and all created things.
Have you read Scriptures which say that the trees will clap their hands? Can you imagine that? The trees cannot do that now, but they will be able to rejoice. When creation and all its dimensions are brought under the released life of God and freed from corruption, there will be harmonious and tremendous music throughout the universe.
Salvation has to do with all these things. It will touch matter. We will see what God had in mind when He created these things, because they will be free to show forth something of the wisdom and love of God.
Scientists may never fully explain electricity or gravity. You can describe their effects, but what they truly are remains a mystery. I believe gravity is another way of expressing love: love holding things together and bringing things together. It is the material side of the love of God.
This whole universe is full of mysteries, but these mysteries will one day be revealed. We will enter into that great revelation, and everything will tell about God and the glory of God in Jesus Christ.
Think of it: if we are to reign with Christ forever and ever, we will be part of all this. It is really exciting to be saved.
May the Lord bless us.
Lord, we bring back our hearts to You, and we worship You again and again. We thank You for this glorious gospel. We have come to see a little of the gospel of the kingdom of God, and now we have touched the matter of this wonderful salvation.
We thank You that this is not merely a matter to consider; it is a reality, a tremendous reality. We thank You that salvation has already started. There is a commencement of salvation, there is a process of salvation, and there is a final goal of salvation.
It is coming nearer and nearer, and it will be fulfilled when Jesus Christ takes over this earth and restores all things to their original purpose. How we worship You, Lord, for salvation. Amen.