Salvation has a definite point of beginning and a continuous period of development and growth throughout one’s lifetime, it also has a point of completion or perfection, which Christians have commonly referred to as glorification.
At conversion or the beginning point of salvation, God forever saves us from the penalty of sin. Salvation viewed as justification speaks to the removal of the penalty due us because of our sins.
During the span of living the Christian life, God works in us to deliver us increasingly from the practice or power of sin. These sins cause us to fall short of doing and becoming all God wants us to do and be. Thus, we need to practice regular confession.
Pointing toward the finish line
Salvation ultimately is pointing toward the finish line when God receives us into His eternal presence, and we experience deliverance from the very presence of sin, both our own and that of all who are around us. Indeed, that will be heaven!
The Bible speaks repeatedly of salvation in terms of the future, so that we can speak accurately and biblically about “having been saved” (conversion) as well as going to be saved” (glorification). This future sense of salvation finds expression in 1 Peter 1:5 where Christians are described as those “who are kept by the power of God through faith for salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.”
Viewing salvation in its future aspect, Romans 13:11 reminds us that “now our salvation is nearer than when we first believed.” Similarly, Hebrews 9:28 tells us that “Christ was offered once to bear the sins of many. To those who eagerly wait for Him He will appear a second time, apart from sin, for salvation.”
Final phase
Thus, we think of glorification as the final phase of a great salvation, a phase that is initiated at the return of Christ. At that return, He will raise the bodies of believers for a reunion with their souls, which will have been with Him during the time between death and His return. Those believers yet living at Christ’s return will experience a transformation of their earthly bodies.
Together, all believers through all the ages will have perfect bodies like Christ’s own resurrection body. This will then be glory for us all!
Philippians 3:20-21 summarizes the prospect of final glorification in these words, “Our citizenship is in heaven, from which we also eagerly wait for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body that it may be conformed to His glorious body.” In its final phase, salvation will include bodies suitable for inhabiting the “new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells” (2 Pet. 3:13). When we see salvation in its broadest sense — involving justification, sanctification and glorification — we understand how our Christian testimony can assert, “I have been saved, I am being saved, and I will be saved.”
EDITOR’S NOTE – Jerry Batson is a retired Alabama Baptist pastor who also has served as associate dean of Beeson Divinity School at Samford University and professor of several schools of religion during his career.
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