Scripturally speaking, to be saved is to be transformed into the moral image of Christ and to enter untroubled rest in the Father through Christ. This is eternal life. Christ came preaching eternal life, not escape from Hell or entrance into Paradise. Read the New Testament carefully and you will find few references to Hell (not even one reference in the writings of the Apostle Paul) and no reference to making our eternal residence in the spirit Paradise.

The Lord Jesus and His Apostles preached eternal life. To possess eternal life is to be transformed into the image of Christ (true righteousness and holiness always result in life) and especially to enter untroubled rest in the Father through Christ.

But now being made free from sin, and become servants to God, ye have your fruit unto holiness, and the end everlasting life. (Romans 6:22)

Can you see now, given this obviously scriptural definition of salvation and eternal life, why making a "decision for Christ" thirty years ago is an incomplete, misleading expression of one's salvation? We should be concerned with what is true of the individual now—at the present time. Is the eternal life that was born in us when we were "born again" still living and growing?

Fight the good fight of faith, lay hold on eternal life, whereunto thou art also called, and hast professed a good profession before many witnesses. (I Timothy 6:12)

Are we being made a new creation in Christ? Are we living in Christ as He lives in the Father? If so, we are abiding in Christ, abiding in salvation so to speak, and bearing the fruit of a righteous, holy personality. But if we are not being made a new righteous, holy creation, if we are not abiding in Christ, then it may be that such was true of us many years ago when we were "saved," so to speak, but it is not true of us now. We are not walking in the light of God. The blood of Christ is not cleansing us from all iniquity. We are not living in eternal life. We are not in the state of abiding in Christ termed "salvation."

But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another [with God], and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin. (I John 1:7)

What will be true of us in the future depends on whether at that time we are being made a new creation in Christ and are dwelling in untroubled rest in the Father through Christ.

There is no salvation apart from living in Christ. Salvation is not a ticket to Heaven but a state in which the believer lives, moves, and has his being.

The Lord Jesus is not a ticket to Heaven but the Way to the Father, the Way to eternal life as well as the Life itself. Is Jesus your ticket or your way?

To be continued.