Expert: Marilyn - 7/18/2009

Question
Hello Marilyn, I hope all is well with you and yours, I have another question for you as always. My question to you is......there are people that say that one cannot be saved(filled with The Holy Spirit) now, because you have to await Judgement before you can truly say you are saved, and that you must endure to the end(continue working towards your salvation). People point to Mark 13:13, Phil 3:12 to which points in their favor that Paul himself said he was not saved, as the reason that we cannot be saved right now. Is this Biblically correct?? Did not Jesus in the Book of Acts add to His Church daily?? Please elaborate on this subject for me.

I humbly await you response, and thank you in advance.

Junior

Answer
Hello Junior;

Matthew 10:22 and Mark 13:13 refers to those who will receive Jesus during the Great Tribulation and is not used in the sense of salvation of the soul, but of deliverance from persecution--in other words, if you're a Tribulation saint, you're not going to be spared persecution, you'll have to endure. But God doesn't promise to spare any of us persecution anyway.

Paul says Philippians 3:10-14: "I want to know Christ and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in His sufferings, becoming like him in His death, and so somehow to attain to the resurrection of the dead. Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on..."

I don't see Paul announcing that he's not saved here, rather I see him speaking of a continuum. He says, "Christ Jesus took hold of me." Isn't that salvation? Doesn't the Holy Spirit woo all of us who receive Jesus as Lord to His side and isn't it Christ with His message of LOVE and His death and resurrection who weds us to Him? Isn't that salvation--to be "taken hold of"?

In Romans 10:9 Paul says, "...if you confess with your mouth, "Jesus is Lord," and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved." In the instant you say "Jesus is Lord," you are saved, but making Jesus Lord and allowing Jesus to be Lord--that is a continuum which takes our entire lifetimes. And the fullness of salvation is not achieved until we have our resurrection bodies because the "peace of Christ," or the Shalom is literally "to be made whole" and wholeness is not achieved until our bodies are also redeemed, not just our spirits.

Paul says, "I want to know Christ and the power of His resurrection." While we live in our material bodies which are given to sin and in a fallen world which itself is separated from its creator because of sin, we look at Christ through a haze. "Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known," I Corinthians 13:12.

Paul hasn't experienced the resurrection yet.

He says in the Philippians passage that he was not yet "perfect." According to my Scofield Bible: "the word "perfect," as the Bible uses it of men, does not refer to sinless perfection. Old Testament characters described as "blameless," or "wholly devoted" were obviously not sinless (Gen. 6:9; I Ki. 15:14; 2 Ki 20:3; I Chr. 12:38; Job 1:1,8; Ps. 37:37) Although a number of Hebrew and Greek words are translated "perfect," the thought is usually either "completeness in all details" (Hebrew, tamam, Greek katartizo) or to "reach a goal" or "achieve a purpose." Three stages of perfection are revealed:

"1) Positional perfection, already possessed by every believer in Christ (Hebrews 10:14)
2) Relative perfection, i.e. spiritual maturity (Philippians 3:15), especially in such aspects as the will of God (Colossians 4:12), love, (I John 4:17 & 18), holiness (II Corinthians 7:1), patience (James 1:4), "everything good" (Hebrews 13:21). Maturity is achieved progressively, as in II Corinthians 7:"1, "perfecting holiness," and Galatians 3:3, literally, "are you now being made perfect?" and is accomplished through gifts of ministry bestowed to "prepare God's people" (Ephesians 4:12).
3)  Ultimate perfection, i.e. perfection in soul, spirit and body, which Paul denies he has attained in Philippians 3:12, but which will be realized at the time of the resurrection of the dead (Philippians 3:11). For the Christian nothing short of the moral perfection of God is always the absolute standard of conduct, but Scripture recognizes that Christians do not attain sinless perfection in this life (I Peter 1:15 & 16; I John 1:8-10)."

When I think of abortion and how people argue that a "fetus" is not a human being, this picture of progression or a continuum comes to clarity for me. At what point can a "fetus" or an "ovum" be said to NOT be a human being?

A child is conceived, the "breath of life" God breathed into Adam that was infected with sin when he sinned, finally meets an egg and a human being is conceived. From that moment onward the human being is intended, was created to enter a continuum, from glory to glory... "And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord's glory, are being transformed into His likeness with ever-increasing glory," II Corinthians 3:18. From the glory of the joining of the sperm and egg to the glory of the new born baby to the glory of the toddler to the first few words...on and on until we receive our resurrection bodies and have at last achieved our fullness in Christ, making Jesus Lord, the Christian walk, the Way is a continuum, being made whole, being made perfect day by day.

The moment one says, "Jesus is Lord," and believes in his heart Jesus was raised from the dead, we are born again. Our spirits are made alive when before they were dead in sin and we begin the spiritual continuum for which our physical continuum is only a vague picture. Spiritual infants we feed on God's Word, we are instructed and guided by our elders, we move from glory to glory being transformed into His likeness moment by moment, day by day, when we surrender to His will.

The new born Christian is a Christian, he's saved just as much as the mature Christian is saved--just as an ovum or a fetus is a human being just as much as a new born baby or a toddler is a human being. At no point after conception, either physical conception or spiritual conception, can a person draw a line and say, "Now, this creature is a human being," because human life is a continuum, from glory to glory.

Only in the sense that we will not see the fullness of what we've received until we have our resurrection bodies can anyone argue that a person is not "saved" until judgment. The whole of Scripture speaks of a walk, a Way, a progression toward God.

Sincerely,

Marilyn