Part of our misunderstanding arises from our definition of what it means to be "saved." When we define being saved as holding a ticket that will admit us to Heaven when we die, we are in error. Holding a ticket that will admit us to Heaven when we die is not what it means to be saved.

To be saved, in the scriptural sense of the word, is to be saved from the world and brought into the Kingdom of God; to be saved from the lusts and passions of our sinful personality and brought into freedom from the bondages of sin; to be saved from our adamic will and thinking, and all idolatry, and brought into the rest of God, the abiding place in the center of God's fiery Person.

To be saved is to acquire a hatred of wickedness and a love for iron righteousness, fiery holiness, and stern obedience to God.

We have seen then that salvation is a lifelong discipleship. Each day we should be further from the chains of worldliness, lust, and self-will. Each day a part of our adamic personality should die and the Life of Christ should be formed in its place. Each day we should be further from the person and works of Satan and closer to the Person and works of God.

Receiving Christ is the beginning of our transformation from Adam to Christ; from the old creation to the new creation. Each day we are pressing into more abundant eternal life. Our adamic personality is decreasing and Christ is increasing. Each day God is making all things new in our personality. The gate is small and the way is constricted that lead to eternal life, that lead to the Father. And we are going through that gate and walking on that path every day.

We finally will be "saved" when, in the day of resurrection, we receive back our body from the dead, and our body then is clothed with the eternal, incorruptible resurrection Life that proceeds from the Lord Jesus Christ.

The Bible tells us to work out our salvation with fear and trembling. This is because it is very easy to start on the way of righteousness and then to be deceived back into the cesspool from which we were rescued. We have to watch carefully that no one takes our crown. The way to God is filled with pitfalls and snares of every description. We do not fear and tremble because Christ cannot keep what has been committed to Him; rather we fear and tremble lest we be deceived and led away from the covenant we have made with God.

Peter informs us that the righteous are saved with difficulty. The fiery trials mentioned in the fourth chapter of the Book of First Peter are for the purpose of driving worldliness, lust, and rebellion against God from our personality.

To be continued.