Given the definition of salvation as the spiritual and bodily transformation of the believer, it is easy to discern the folly of claiming that when a person is saved he always is saved, that he cannot be lost.

What meaning does such a belief have in light of the fact that salvation is a transformation of what we are in personality and behavior? Are we saying that when we are forgiven and have received a portion of eternal life as a pledge we will enter the glory of the kingdom without having been transformed in personality? It is our transformation that is the Kingdom!

Is it only the Gentiles who will experience spiritual and bodily transformation? How about Abraham and Elijah? Are they doomed to miss the plan of redemption by being a Jewish kingdom (as is commonly taught), or are they part of a "Gentile church"? Can you see how absurd the doctrine of the "rapture" into Heaven of a "Gentile church" is, given the true nature of salvation?

Salvation began for Abraham and Elijah when Christ sprinkled His blood upon and before the Most Holy Place in Heaven in the Presence of the Father. You and I received forgiveness when the Holy Spirit made us aware of that same sprinkling and we received the atonement by faith.

The God of Heaven is moving forward in His eternal plan to create for Himself a living temple. The work of judgment has been continuing since the first century, for Peter states: "the time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God."

From the present hour forward the glory and revelation will increase until the house of God comes to perfection as one whole, and then is filled to fullness with the Glory of the Lord.

At the sounding of the seventh trumpet all of God's witnesses will stand on their feet, beginning with the righteous Abel (Revelation 11:11). All the victorious saints will come together: Abraham, Moses, David, Paul, Peter, and you and I if we have cooperated with the Holy Spirit in the work of redemption. We all shall come to perfection together.

Our feet are on the pathway that leads to the fullness of the Presence of the Father. We have only just begun the process of deliverance from all that is of Satan to union with all that is of God.

Forgiveness, life, liberty, obedience, Christ's image, the fullness of God—all dwelling in a body like that of the glorified body of the Lord Jesus: this is the fullness of salvation, the transformation of what we are in personality and in behavior.

Then there lies before us an eternity of fellowship with God, Christ, the saints, and the holy angels. We shall increase continually in fruitfulness, dominion, and growth in God's image, in an environment that will cause the first Paradise to appear threadbare by comparison. The riches of the Father will be ours through Christ. The nations of saved peoples of the earth will be our inheritance.

To be continued.