Church: Reformed Baptist Church of Franconia | Text: 1 Corinthians 15 | Date: February 19, 2017 | Speaker: Fred Zaspel

Salvation Now and Not Yet, Part Two

Bibles, if you will, please, and turn to 1 Corinthians chapter 15. Today we continue our series on the biblical story of salvation, the doctrine of salvation, and in particular, as we began last week, Salvation Now and Not Yet. So this is Salvation Now and Not Yet, part two. And you will not be surprised to learn that there’s a part three coming as well. I’m very encouraged with the response. I can’t thank you enough. You’ve been very encouraging with this. I often wonder when we go deeper, are they going to catch it, enjoy it like I do, or is this just me, or what? And you have been very encouraging. I think this material is so important both for understanding our Bible and also for understanding and enjoying our own Christian experience. And I’m just enormously encouraged that you think the same way.

But today we continue with that, salvation now and not yet. And to begin, I would like to read through a section of 1 Corinthians chapter 15, beginning with verse 1:

Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel that I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you, unless you believed in vain. For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that he was buried, and that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, and then to the Twelve. Then he appeared to more than 500 brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, and then to all of the apostles. Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me. For I am the least of the apostles, unworthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the Church of God. But by the grace of God I am what I am, and His grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it is not I but the grace of God that is with me. Whether then it was I or they, so we preach, and so you believed. Now, if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain, and your faith is in vain. We are even found to be misrepresenting God, because we testified about God that he raised Christ, whom he did not raise, if it is true that the dead are not raised. For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, then your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. Then those who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied. But in fact, Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. For as by a man came death, by a man has also come the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive. But each in his own order, Christ the firstfruits, then at his coming, those who belong to Christ.

Let’s bow together for prayer. Our Father, we thank you so much for these marvelous themes that we’ve been looking into and rejoicing in in your word, and we ask that you would give us a greater understanding still today. Help us to see the glory of the work of the Lord Jesus on our behalf. Help us to appreciate what was accomplished for us in his death and resurrection, and we pray that you would give us through it a more joyful experience of walking with him each day. In his name we pray, amen.

Well, we began this part of the series by pointing out that God has promised to do a saving work way back since the beginning. Since the Garden of Eden, God promised that he would fix this mess of human sin. And as that promise unfolded in the Old Testament, we saw that what he was promising was that in the end, in the end times, God would finally break into history. And in the end time, there would be a fixing of this whole mess and his people would be redeemed; there would be resurrection from death and the enjoyment of eternal life.

And then we saw that the biblical outlook then is that of two ages. There’s this present evil age, and there’s the age to come. This present evil age is marked by just that—evil—and all of the entailments of the fall and of the curse. It’s marked by sin and rebellion and humanity and its rush against God and its rebellion against him. And it’s also marked by all of the other entailments of the fall: sickness and suffering and disease and death and evil of every kind, both natural and moral evil. All of it is an entailment of the fall, and all of that is what marks this present age.

But beyond this age, in the end, Christ will come. God will break into history, and there will be resurrection, and there will be life, and there will be righteousness, and all of his intentions for creation and all of its blessedness will finally be realized. There’s this present age, and there’s the age to come. This present evil age and the age to come, which is the age of blessedness. The two ages in the biblical outlook of the history in God’s saving purpose.

What we saw last time is that what Christ has done is pulled some of the age—pulled the age to come back into this age. Now there’s still this present evil age, and there’s still the age to come. But in Christ we have come to experience the age to come ahead of time. And I don’t know a better way to put it than that. That the age to come is still future, it’s still coming, but in Christ we have come to experience it ahead of time. I told you the title of a book that has, in a classic way, expounded on this teaching of the scriptures, and it’s called The Presence of the Future, which is really a great way to say it all. The future is still the future, but there’s a present experience of the future blessedness in Christ.

Now the big word we use for that is called inaugurated eschatology. It’s helpful to know that, and that’s why I’ve used it here. I don’t like to use big terms like it, but it’s helpful to know that. Eschatology, that’s the study of last things. Eschatos means last. So all of the “ology” words—that’s your doctrine or the study of. Christology, the doctrine of Christ. Theology, the doctrine of God. Biology, the doctrine of bios, living things. Zoology, the doctrine of zoos. And eschatology, the study or the doctrine of last things.

Now what we’re saying is that the eschaton, the last things, have been inaugurated, not fully realized. But there’s been a dawning of the age to come in this age in Christ. Now for those outside of Christ, this age is simply this age, and that’s the end of the story. But for us in Christ, we live in this age, and yet we’ve come to experience in Christ the age to come. That’s the long and short of what we’ve seen so far.

How It All Came About

What I want to do this morning is explore it a little bit further and ask the question: How is it that all of that has come about? All this funny talk, theologian talk about inaugurated eschatology and the presence of the future—this sounds kind of weird. How did it all come about, and is it just dreamy stuff or is there an explanation? Is there a factor that makes all of that make sense?

And what we’re going to see, in a nutshell again—what we’re going to see is that all of that that we’ve seen so far, the presence of the future and the inaugurated aspect of the end times, all of that is tied very tightly to the resurrection of Jesus Christ. If you fall asleep, you’ve got that much, and you’ve really got the whole sermon. But I want to explore that and show how that is Paul’s teaching here in 1 Corinthians chapter 15.

In 1 Corinthians 15, Paul begins to expound the gospel. Now, it’s not expounding the gospel for its own sake, although that would be plenty of good reason to do it for its own sake, but he’s going somewhere with it. But he starts out, “Here I’m going to declare the gospel to you.” And the gospel is: one, Christ died for our sins according to the scripture; and two, Christ rose again. He was raised according to the scripture. Christ died. Christ was raised. It’s not simply Christ died and Christ rose again. It is “Christ died for our sins.” That’s the gospel. And he rose—he was raised the third day according to the scriptures. And these two facts, these historic incidents, the death and the resurrection of Jesus, are the axis of the gospel. Here are the essentials of it. We were lost, we deserve condemnation, but Christ died for our sins. He was delivered over for our offenses. He took our place, bore our curse, and then He was raised from the dead. And all of this in accordance with what the scriptures had promised.

Now, what is so significant about that is that the resurrection of Christ was not like any other resurrection that had happened previously. We’ve seen a couple of resurrections in the Gospels, even in the Old Testament, where people were raised from the dead. Lazarus is the outstanding example. In the grave four days, and Jesus says, “Lazarus, come forth,” and he’s brought back from the dead. Marvelous incidents demonstrating Christ’s power over even the realm of death. But when Lazarus was brought back to life, it was a life like he had before. And eventually, although it’s not recorded for us, Lazarus died again, and he awaits the final resurrection.

But when Jesus was raised from the dead, it was not like that. The resurrection of Jesus was exactly that resurrection to come. And so he was raised into the age to come. That’s Paul’s argument here. And so when he comes to argue with those who are denying that there will be a resurrection of the dead, Paul can argue: You as Christians cannot hold that. Because as Christians, you have already embraced the Gospel, and the Gospel centers on the death and resurrection of Jesus. And if you deny the end-time resurrection of the dead, you then must deny the resurrection of Jesus, because that’s the resurrection that He had. And so you must hold to that.

This is why, by the way, you see in the Book of Acts—I think it’s a fascinating thing—when the apostles are preaching to the Jewish audience early in the Book of Acts, we find them getting in a dispute, caught between the Pharisees and the Sadducees. The Pharisees say there will be a resurrection of the dead. The Sadducees say there will not be a resurrection of the dead; they’re the Jewish liberals of the age. “There will be a resurrection,” “There won’t be a resurrection.” The Apostle Paul gets caught in the middle because he preached in Jesus—in Jesus, he preached in Jesus the resurrection of the dead. Paul stood between both sides and says, “Guys, it’s not a question of whether or not it will or won’t happen. It already has. Jesus has been raised from the dead into the age to come.”

I guess I had turned that off, I’m sorry. And so Paul’s argument and the apostolic argument was: the age to come has come because Christ has been raised into that age to come and he has passed into that coming age. Now, all of that is something of a summary of the first 19 verses of 1 Corinthians 15. And so Paul argues, if you deny the resurrection, then Christ hasn’t been raised. Or say it the other way: if Christ hasn’t been raised, then the gospel is worthless and you’re still in your sins.

Now verse 20: “But now”—now in my version, it’s translated “but in fact,” trying to emphasize it, but some of you have the more literal rendering in your versions—”But now,” okay, now already “Christ has been raised from the dead.” And then notice this next one: “the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep.” The firstfruits. Now you remember that word somehow or other from the Old Testament, right? Every year there’s the Feast of Firstfruits, and it was required you bring in a sheaf of grain to the priest. He waves it before the Lord in honor. And what you’re doing is bringing in a sampling of what a full harvest will be and honoring the Lord with what you have received. But that sampling that you brought in was not just something that stood on its own. It was a representative sampling of a whole harvest that was still to come. It was just the first fruits.

And now what he says is that Jesus’ resurrection was not something just to be understood on its own, but it is the first fruits of a larger harvest of resurrection that will come. There will be the resurrection of the righteous. God has promised that. We saw it last time in the book of Daniel. God promised that in that day when God breaks into history, there will be a resurrection of the righteous. And what he is saying here is that Jesus is the one who got all that started. He has been raised from the dead, the first fruits, the first representative sampling of a large harvest of the resurrection of the righteous. So Jesus’ resurrection and the resurrection of the righteous cannot be separated. They are to be understood as all of a piece.

Now, sometimes you will hear this passage—and I’m sure I’ve said it myself—this passage explained in these terms: that the resurrection of Jesus is the guarantee of the resurrection of the righteous. And that’s true. But it’s not quite to the point here. What he’s saying here is not just that Jesus’ resurrection is the guarantee of our resurrection. What he is emphasizing is that Jesus’ resurrection is the representative beginning of the larger resurrection that will come. And that we will be caught up from the graves simply because our leader has already gone there before us, and we will go with him in the resurrection. So it’s in a sense, it’s not a question of “when will there be the resurrection?” because it already has. We just haven’t caught up to Jesus yet. That’s the idea.

And so, in summary: Jesus’ resurrection is the resurrection of the age to come; and then two, Christ’s resurrection is inseparable from ours. It’s impossible, rightly, to view the resurrection of Jesus as simply an isolated event in the past. But it is the first sampling of a great resurrection that still will come. And we will be in that resurrection, and we are assured of it, because our leader and our forerunner has gone there ahead of us. Not two separate events—his resurrection then ours—but two episodes of one resurrection from the dead.

This, by the way, is what Jesus means in John chapter 11 at the tomb of Lazarus when he’s talking to Martha. You remember he says those otherwise kind of strange words, “I am the resurrection and the life.” What does that mean? “You are the resurrection.” It means you’re the one who’s going to raise the dead, okay, but why would you say it like that? “I am the resurrection and the life.” And of course what he means is that in him and joined to him, he who was raised from the dead will be the leader of our resurrection as well. And bound with him, we will be raised just as he was.

Now, looking at it a little bit more closely, all of this depends on one underlying assumption, and that is of our union with Christ. Christ’s resurrection is the first representative sampling of a large harvest to come. Underlying assumption of that is we are joined to Christ so that we are raised with him in his resurrection. Now, we will say a lot about union with Christ. It is central to everything about the doctrine of salvation, and we’ll talk about it again and again, I’m sure, and sometimes we’ll take a Sunday or two to look at it in depth all on its own. But it’s something I think you’re familiar with. If you’ve read through Paul’s epistles at all, you see that recurring phrase: “in him, in him, in him.” It’s something of a signature mark. In Christ, in Christ, in the Lord, in him. With him, raised with him, and so on. We find that recurring statement that every blessing that we have in salvation, we have simply and only because we are joined to Jesus Christ, the Savior.

In his saving work, Jesus was not only our representative and not only our substitute, but there’s a sense in which—and a profound sense in which—he acted not just for us, but with us. So that when Jesus went to the cross, we were with him. We were riding piggyback on his shoulders, so to speak. When he was buried, we were with him, buried. When he rose from the dead, we were with him, rising from the dead. When he ascended to glory and was seated at the right hand of God, we are with him and seated in the heavenlies. Union with Christ—and every blessing we have, we have because we are joined to Christ. We’re forgiven of our sins because he paid the debt and we are joined to him in that payment of the debt, and so on. Every blessing we have, we have because we are joined to Christ. And here, his teaching is that we experience the resurrection of the dead because joined to him. We are joined to him. And he has already been raised.

This is the idea behind the New Testament designation of Jesus as the forerunner, or the pioneer, or the captain, or sometimes translated, the author of our salvation. The pioneer is the idea—someone who paves the way ahead of time and goes the way before us. If I can think to quote it, you might remember the hymn that we have sung here by Don Carson. I introduced it to the congregation at Gina’s memorial service. The first three stanzas of the hymn discuss the narrative of the resurrection and the gospels. You remember, it speaks of Mary and it speaks of the disciples and how they came to see the resurrection. And then the last stanza, if I can think to say it all:

Long years have passed and still we fear the face of death.
It steals our loved ones, leaving us undone.
It mocks our dreams and calls to us with icy breath.
The final terror when life’s work is run.
But this I know, my Lord has traveled this way before.
His body clothed with immortality.
The sepulcher’s sting is drawn, the power of sin destroyed,
Death has been swallowed up in his mighty victory.

That encapsulates very well all of this, that our Lord has gone ahead and joined to him, we go with him in his resurrection precisely because we are in union with him. Well, all of that is foundational to this, what we’re going to see this morning; that’s just the introduction.

Now the question comes up at this point: If we are united to Christ in his saving work, and if he has already been raised from the dead—if we’re united to him and his saving work, and if he’s already been raised from the dead—wouldn’t we expect then that there is some present implications for that? Are we joined to him in his resurrection today? And if so, shouldn’t there be some experiential dimension of that realized today? He is raised from the dead into the age to come. We are joined to him. And given all of that, is there any implication of it for us today? You think, well, how can there be? You know, there’s the resurrection of the dead, and that’s yet to come.

Let’s see how the Apostle Paul deals with that elsewhere. Turn forward a few pages to Ephesians chapter 2. Ephesians chapter 2 is a marvelous passage in the first verses here. You’ll remember it’s very well known, we’re familiar with it, where Paul describes us before Christ as, verse 1, “dead in trespasses and sins, in which you walked, following the course of this world, following the prince and power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience, among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and of the mind. We were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.”

Here is the condition of all of humanity outside of Christ. First, dead in trespasses and sins. You might remember when we worked through this passage together a couple years ago, I think I referred to this passage with the title “The Walking Dead,” and something like that is what Paul is saying. We lived and we walked, but we lived and we walked in a condition of spiritual death, insensitive to the things of God and having nothing to offer. We followed Satan. We followed the course of this age. We lived according to this present evil age under the power of Satan. And in that sense, we were in spiritual death.

But notice the turning point in verse 4. It’s a very emphatic transition, isn’t it? “But God, being rich in mercy because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ. By grace you are saved.” Made us alive. When we were dead, Christ made us alive. That is simply to say we were raised from the dead by virtue of our union with Jesus Christ. And the point here is that Christ having been raised from the dead, we now being joined to Christ have been raised from the dead also. Now, not fully, not bodily, physically—that’s going to come. But there is a resurrection that we have experienced.

And it results in a very different life. Paul says in verse 1 and following, we walked this way. We walked in spiritual death. We walked according to the course of this age. We walked under the domain of Satan. But now raised from the dead, verse 10, there’s a new walk. We walk in the good works that God has ordained for us. And what makes the difference between this old life of death and this new life of life, this old life of sin and this new life of righteousness—what brought about the difference experientially is simply resurrection. We’ve been raised from the dead.

That is, this is not just an abstract, theoretical, theological concept. This is what we all have experienced, even if we didn’t know what labels to put onto it. You remember what it was like when you came to Christ. You weren’t interested. You weren’t interested. You weren’t interested. You might even have cussed at the person who witnessed to you. You didn’t want anything to do with it. You wanted nothing to do with it. And suddenly you wanted something to do with it, and suddenly you were interested, and somehow you wanted to know, “What is all this Jesus stuff?” And somehow, all of a sudden, you wanted to go to church, and somehow, all of a sudden, you wanted to read that Bible. What’s happened? Paul’s answer here: you’re raised from the dead, out of death into life, and joined to Christ, we experience even now his resurrection.

And so there’s a sense in which the historical accomplishments of Christ in his saving work become ours in experience today because we are joined to him and in union with him. And so relating this back to 1 Corinthians 15, which we’ve seen, it’s not just that because we’re joined to Christ and because he was raised, we will be raised also. But already we have begun to experience his resurrection. And these are not two different experiences again. These are two different episodes of experiencing the resurrection of Christ. Both now and not yet. He has entered the age to come, and joined to him, we have entered the age to come as well. And so there is an overlap of the ages.

Now that’s how the Bible explains it. That’s not how you might have explained it, but it is what you experience, right? When the Apostle Paul says, talking about all of the troubles that he’s gone through in his ministry, he says, “I die every day,” almost literally. It’s tough doing what I do. I’ve been through every experience. I’ve been beaten—he talks about all those experiences. And he says, though the outward man perish, the inner man is being renewed day by day. And there we have it. And we’ve experienced that, haven’t we? We experience a conversion. We experience in the Christian life that there is a sense in which we have come, not just theologically to recognize, that with Christ we’ve entered the age to come. But this has been our experience—that we’ve been raised out of death into life and all of life has changed and it’s resulted in a new walk and in effect a new kind of energy that we cannot explain otherwise.

Okay. That’s how we get into the age to come ahead of time. Christ has gone there ahead of us. We are joined to him. And that experience then has been made ours now and not yet. Now what I wanted to do last time and I started to do last time is explore some of the implications of that. And they’re just massive.

The Enabling Factor In Our Obedience

Last time we touched on this, let me mention it again. Number one, the implications of all of this: This is the enabling factor in our obedience. This is the enabling factor toward our faithfulness in Christian living. We see that here in Ephesians chapter two. We did walk according to the course of this age, and we followed the prince of this age. But now there’s a different walk, verse 10. And the factor that brought it all about was verse five: we’ve been raised from the dead.

This is the enabling factor in Christian obedience. I wish I had time—I don’t—but I would like to take you to Romans chapter six, where the apostle Paul unfolds the same teaching. He tells us at the end of chapter five, we’ve received abundant grace in Christ and there’s a sense—now hear me, a sense—in which we might say then sin no longer matters. Christ has taken it all and grace covers it. And our twisted little minds go, “Well, then we can get more sin, more grace, let’s sin more, we get more grace.” And Paul said, you can’t talk like that. That’s an impossibility.

And you remember how he reasons? You are those who have died. And don’t you remember what you said in your baptism? That you died with him, you’ve been buried with him, and you’ve been raised to a new life. You’re not that kind of people anymore. It’s like talking about a square circle. Of course you can’t continue in sin so that grace may abound. You’re not that kind of people anymore. And he speaks in terms of the impossibility of it. Having been raised to a new life in Christ, a new life results. And this is always, in the New Testament, the explaining factor for how we can obey and how we can follow Christ.

You’ve heard me say it before, I love to say it this way: that we no longer obey God simply because he said so, although that’s plenty of reason. Don’t hear me wrong. But we don’t obey God anymore simply because he said so. We obey God because we can. There’s a new enablement. We’ve entered the age to come in which the renewed heart has become a reality. And behind all of the commands of the New Testament, there’s this underlying teaching of the gospel that what God requires, he gives. And having entered with Christ into the age to come, there is an enabling factor toward our obedience. I could expound that at great length, and maybe another time.

This Defines For Us The Nature Of The Church

Number two, implications of all of this. One, this is the enabling factor toward our obedience. We saw a little bit of that last time. Number two, this defines for us the nature of the church. This defines for us the nature of the church.

And I’m going to take the time—look at Hebrews chapter 12. We saw last time a good number of verses that say that in Christ we’ve entered into the kingdom, transferred into the kingdom of Christ. We saw verses like, we are those on whom the ends of the ages have come. At the end time, the age to come has come in Christ. But notice how it is said here. In Hebrews chapter 12, around verse 22, he is speaking of the experience of the old covenant people going to Mount Sinai and all that that implied. It was a terrifying event.

Now verse 22: “But you”—now new covenant believers—”you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering, and to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect.” Here is the nature of the church. We are nothing less than an outpost of the age to come. Isn’t that what it says?

Now this has massive implications with regard to our differences with our Paedo-Baptist friends. The church is not an assembly of mixed believers and unbelievers, but the church is a regenerate assembly. We have been joined already to the church of the ages. And so it defines for us here the very nature of the church. And again, this is not overstating the fact—we are those on whom the end of the ages has come. Enough of that one.

This Accounts For The Christian Experience Of Joy

Our third implication. One, it is the enabling factor toward our obedience to Christ. Two, it defines for us the nature of the church. Number three—and we saw this last time so I can’t chase it as long here either—and that is: this accounts for the Christian experience of joy. This accounts for the Christian experience of joy.

There’s something about Christian joy that simply cannot be understood unless you’ve been there. Unless you’re one of us. I heard Sinclair Ferguson refer to it once as “the Christian enigma.” I always thought that was just a wonderful way to characterize it. When a Christian faces suffering and difficulty, it’s suffering and it’s difficulty, and it can be torturous and all of that, but there is a difference. There’s something about the Christian experience in suffering that is undergirded with a real kind of joy.

And here we find the explanation for it. We are people on whom the end of the ages have come. We’ve entered into the age to come. We have entered into glory. We’ve begun to taste it already. And this and nothing less can explain the Christian experience of joy, a joy that’s unaffected by external circumstances. It is very simply a preview of glory. And again, it’s one of those things—either you see it or you don’t. You can’t make the person of the world, the lost person, see it. But those of us who have been joined to Christ, we’ve seen it. And it is something—we’re not able to articulate it well, but it’s something of a preview of glory. In our own experience, we feel that we have begun to experience glory.

This Explains The Tension Of The Christian Life

Now building on that, let’s move to our fourth one, and here we’ll take a couple of minutes. Our fourth implication of this inaugurated eschatology and so on. Number four: this explains the tension of the Christian life. This explains the tension of the Christian life.

The New Covenant promise was that in that day, God would—and here the metaphors vary—he would take out that heart of stone and put in a heart of flesh. Or he’ll write his law on our hearts. And you know the metaphor immediately—that our hearts can be hard against God, but in Christ somehow that heart has been softened. It’s like there’s a new one put in. It’s as though God’s law is no longer simply written on tablets externally—”thou shalt,” “thou shalt not,” “thou shalt”—but it’s been put inside. And there’s something about us that wants to do it.

And already we have sensed that the day, the age to come, has come. And already we sense that that promise has been delivered. And when Paul says, for example, “If anyone be in Christ, he’s a new creation,” we get it. Now we might not recognize on first or second or 10th reading—we might not recognize all of the implications of that with regard to inaugurated eschatology and all of that. “If anyone be in Christ, he’s a new creation.” But whether we get that or not, we immediately recognize the experiential dimension of it, don’t we? Old things have passed away, all things have become new.

That’s what happened. We came to Christ and that old life has changed. One friend of mine says, he said, “If you were to have asked me when I was saved, when I was first saved, ‘What difference has it made?’ I probably would have said ‘Sunday.'” I thought that was really perceptive. Sunday is what’s different. It used to be I’d go to that boring service, I’d sing those boring hymns, and I’d hear that labored sermon, and suddenly, I love those hymns, I love this service, I wish we did it twice a week, and I love it when he takes me into the Word. Something’s happened. All things have passed away. All things have become new. Things I used to hate, I now love. Things I used to love, I now hate. And I don’t know how to explain it except I’ve been raised into a new life, into the experience of the age to come. God promised that he would write his law in my heart, and he has.

And life has been so completely transformed that all of our affections and all of our ambitions and all of our ideals—they’ve been changed and transformed entirely. Like we said last week, we’re no longer charmed by the world’s delights, but things that are higher, things that are nobler, these have allured our sight. They really have. There’s no more looking back to the man of the world with envy. We really don’t, do we? We look to the man of the world with pity. We say, “Man, you don’t know what you’re missing.” And we don’t feel like the man of the world thinks we must feel; we do not feel that in order to become a Christian we’ve traded in a good life in order to have a good life there—or not that we’ve traded in a happy life here so we can have a happy life there. What we feel is that we have traded in a shallow, meaningless life for a life of glory that will only increase forever.

We know God. We experience fellowship with the triune God: Father, Son, and Spirit. We feel—what we feel is that God has invaded our hearts with love. Like we like to sing when we’re in Sunday school: “Heavenly sunshine, heavenly sunshine, flooding my soul with glory divine.” That’s right on the mark.

Except, of course, when it isn’t. And the reality is, any given moment, any given hour, any given day or week, you might not have felt any of that. You mistreat your wife, you mistreat your husband, you mistreat the kids, you blow up at work, you say things and treat people in such a way it leaves a terrible reflection on the Gospel. Sometimes, frankly, you’re so earthly-minded that you’re no heavenly or earthly good to anybody. And sometimes you fail so miserably that you wonder how any of this could be true. Am I right?

And what we feel like—what we feel like is that we are a living, walking civil war. In our heart of hearts, we really do—we really do want to serve God. And yet, at the same time, our hearts are filled with envy, and jealousy, and greed, and vengeance, and selfish ambition. And what we feel is that our hearts are really inclined to serve God. And what we feel is that they are not inclined to serve God. And what we feel is that God has written his law on our hearts. And then again, we feel that he hasn’t. And what we feel is this wonderful sense of God’s loving and assuring presence. And then again, we don’t.

And there’s a kind of schizophrenia about us. Flesh lusts, wars against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh. And what we feel like is that we live in two different worlds all at the same time. And sometimes it can become so frustrating. And we want to say, “God, this is not what you’ve promised.” Okay, it is. But then again, no, it isn’t. You’ve promised that you would write your law on my heart so that I would completely belong to you, that you’d cause me to walk in your ways and cause me to follow you always. I’m not what I used to be, I get that. But I’m not what I ought to be. And I’m not what I want to be. And I’m not what I hope to be.

And what we feel is that we are living in two worlds all at the same time. And this is precisely the tension of the Christian life. Theologians tend more to speak of it in terms of degrees of sanctification. It’s not exactly the biblical language, but there’s something to that. But most fundamentally, it is this: We have entered the age to come, but not yet. I have been raised with Christ into the age to come, and I’ve begun to experience the glory of it, but not yet.

In that day, in that day, we will experience such a fullness of the Spirit’s work in our hearts that our hearts will be wholly His. That’s not quite what we experience yet. We’ve only received not the full, but the first fruits of the Spirit. We’ve tasted—and we really have—we have tasted of the age to come, and we’ve tasted enough of it that we really want it. But we haven’t tasted enough of it such that this present evil age has lost all of its alluring attractions. We’re caught between two ages. And we feel this. This is not just abstract theology. We feel this. We feel the upward pull of the one. We feel the downward drag of the other. And we’re caught between two worlds.

And so while on the one hand we rejoice in all of the privileges and all of the glory that is ours today, at the same time, we really want a better day. And the preachers of the Old Covenant and the preachers of the New Covenant both promise us that a day is coming when that promise will be delivered in full, and the conflict with sin will be entirely over, and we will leave this present evil age for good. And then, the first fruits of the Spirit will give way to the final fruits of the Spirit.

And in that day, in that day, we won’t need preachers to come with thundering warnings: “You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not kill. You shall not steal. You shall not bear false witness. You will not covet.” We won’t need those warnings because in that day, our heart will be so fully transformed, so fully entered into the age to come, that those kinds of warnings will have been rendered obsolete. And at that point, we will have become fully all that we are in Christ today.

Assures Us Of The Certainty Of Our Final Salvation

And here’s the really good part. The implications: number one, all of this gives us the enabling factor toward our obedience. Number two, it defines the nature of the church. Number three, this accounts for Christian experience of joy. Number four, this explains the tension in the Christian life. And now finally, number five: all this inaugurated eschatology assures us of the certainty of our final salvation. All of this now and not yet, all of this inaugurated eschatology assures us of the certainty of our final salvation.

If we have already entered into the age to come, then the question of eternal security is already answered, isn’t it? You might be one of those timid souls that wonders when you sin, “How can this be real?” Having come to Christ, I wonder if I’ve lost it or if I will. But all of this assures us of the certainty of our final salvation. Frankly, simply put, it is not a question of “will we make it?” We already have.

And if you think that’s just a preacher’s deduction, I want you to know—and we’ll have to see more of it next time—that this is exactly the biblical reasoning. “He that hears my word,” Jesus said, “he that hears my word and believes on him that has sent me has eternal life and he will not come into condemnation because he’s already passed from death unto life.” We’ve already made it. We are those on whom the end of the ages has come. It’s just a preview. It’s just a foretaste. It’s just the dawning of the age to come. But it is the first installment of a fullness that we most certainly will enjoy in Christ. Amen.

Let’s bow for prayer. Our Father, these are wonderful truths that you’ve given for our joy and for our edification, and we praise you for them. We thank you for what we have in Christ, and we ask that the hearts of your people would be strengthened and encouraged, that we would experience daily more joy in anticipation of the fullness of what we’ve already entered in Christ. In his name we ask, amen.