By striving for personal freedom we are bringing ourselves into bondage. Some of the citizens of the wealthy democracies are destroying themselves (and others) by indulging the lusts of their flesh.

Only the slave of the Lord Jesus is truly free.

We should not want God to change. We should not desire that the Lord adapt to our sinfulness and self-centeredness, as the governments of the world have changed their laws to accommodate the lusts and whims of people.

God has not provided us with modified laws by which we can continue in our sins and still receive the rewards the Scriptures promise to the righteous, to those who do the will of God. Rather, God has made it possible for us to overcome sin and thus gain access to the tree of life (Revelation 2:7). God has given us of His Life so through that Life we may gain more Life.

There is a gulf between the current Christian doctrine of permanently gaining eternal life by imputed righteousness, and the doctrine of permanently gaining eternal life by obedience. It is obvious that one of the two concepts is not scriptural. Initially we enter eternal life on the basis of imputed righteousness. The purpose of the initial portion of life is to enable us to then move forward to the full achievement of life in our personality.

The believer who trusts in perpetual freedom from condemnation independently of his conduct, who does not press through in Christ to the perfecting of his spiritual nature, to the new creation, is not a candidate for the resurrection to life. If he were, Paul would not have warned the Christians in Galatia that those who live in the lusts of the flesh will reap corruption.

We are given to eat of the tree of life, which is in the midst of the Paradise of God, only as through the grace of God we overcome the forces of darkness that always are seeking to prevent our deliverance from their power.

It is as we overcome the forces of darkness that we gain joy, authority, peace, eternal life, union with Christ, and all the other blessings of the Kingdom of God.

When we have been delivered from sin and self-seeking in spirit, in soul, and in body, and when we have been brought into restful union with God through Christ in spirit, in soul, and in body, then we have been completely redeemed from the hand of the enemy. This is what the fullness of salvation is.

The making alive of our mortal body is a consequence of, and part of, such salvation; not a gift given to us independently of what we are in personality and behavior.

This is the true God and eternal life, as John says (I John 5:20). "We know that whoever is born of God sinneth not; but he that is begotten of God keepeth himself, and that wicked one toucheth him not" (I John 5:18).

The Christian salvation is infinitely more than a de jure redemption by which we are saved in our sins.

The new covenant is not primarily a covenant of forgiveness but of deliverance and transformation. The result is a new creation and the eternally indivisible union of Christ and the Christian.

There is the de jure aspect of salvation in which God sees us as righteous because of the atonement made by Christ. Then there is the de facto aspect in which we are transformed into the image of Christ (Romans 8:3,4;29).

His name is Jesus, because He saves us from our sins. He saves us so we may dwell forever in the Presence of God and experience the perfect freedom of that Glory. (From It Is Time for a Reformation of Christian Thinking)