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The Daily Word of Righteousness
Change, #2
I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. (Galatians 2:20—NIV)
The Christian salvation basically is a change, a complete transformation of what we are.
There are at least two ways of thinking about salvation. One way is to view salvation as a preservation of what we are and what we hold dear. The other way is to view salvation as a death and resurrection of what we are and what we hold dear.
The former view is more popular than the latter. No doubt it is the concept that salvation is a preservation of what we are that has given rise to the tradition of going to Heaven to enjoy life there. Our hope is that some day we will be free of afflictions and troubles and go to a land where all is peace and joy. We desire to be saved in the sense of being preserved.
There indeed is a paradise to look forward to. However, the Christian salvation is not a preserving of what we are but a changing of what we are. We are being "changed" into the image of the Lord. It is this total transformation of all that we are, including even our body, that is the new covenant God is making with His people, both Jewish and Gentile.
He that loveth his life shall lose it; and he that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal. (John 12:25)
Salvation is not a saving of what we are, it is a saving of us from what we are.
Apart from our transformation there is no new covenant. The new covenant has to do with change—radical change.
We do not have to change ourselves, although we do have to do what the New Testament teaches us. We are required to put off the old man with his deeds and to put on the new man who is being created in Christ's image. We have to choose to do the Lord's will each day, with the Spirit's help. But the actual change is performed by the Spirit of God. This is how the new covenant operates.
For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the Glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
(II Corinthians 4:6)
God has placed within our heart a light—the light of the knowledge of the Glory of God. One day the knowledge of the glory of the Lord will cover the earth as the water covers the sea. But today the knowledge of the glory is in the heart of the individual who has been born again. It is the face of Christ within us. As we gain glimpses of that glory we are transformed—little by little, command upon command, rule upon rule.
But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us. (II Corinthians 4:7)
To be continued.