ABOUT CHRISTIAN TERMINOLOGY

  This will be a short essay on terminology. Many say they are “saved.” What are they “saved” from? Obviously, they are safe (preserved) from the wiles of Satan, but Satan still exists. When Satan dies, then their minds, bodies, and souls shall be “saved.”

  There is one “you must be” in the Bible, and that is, “Ye must be born again” (John 3:7). That is what you must be to be safe from the Serpent. I reference, John 3:14. Those Hebrews who were bitten were healed and preserved, but they still failed to enter the Kingdom of God, excepting a few. “Born again” is safety in Christ because He died to defeat the Serpent, who was symbolized as dead on the pole. The Hebrews were saved from past sins but remained vulnerable to future sins. Those whose faith was not strong enough to reach the Promise Land, never made it. 

SAVED FROM SIN: 

  Paul used the expression “in Christ” quite frequently. So long as the eyes are on the brazen serpent already dead, then Christ preserves the new person. Thus, “To live is Christ; to die is gain” (Phil 2:1). Those who know they are living the Way of Christ have the “assurance of salvation.” It is the prize to be obtained (1 Cor 9:24). The brazen serpent does represent Jesus according to His purpose:

(Jesus) is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world.  And hereby we do know that we know him, if we keep his commandments. (1 John 2:2-3)… If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. (1 John 1:9)… Whom (Jesus) God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past… (Rom 3:25).

  Born again, or rebirth, is a cleansing from all past sins. Rebirth is more like the safety in gestation. There must be a continual cleansing to keep sins in the past. Rebirth is repentance, but Jesus propitiated the blood and water for the cleansing, not you, your mother, or anyone else.

  Understanding that Jesus made the propitiation, and not you is “born again,” coming from John 3:7. The appropriate thing for a new Christian to claim, is, “I am what I must be; I am a new person, cleansed from sin.”

   As such, the convert is saved from past sins, preserved from allure to future sin, and kept safe from the evil one. Once sins are past, then the Christian is freed from sin. Let that be called, “saved from sin,” not that you will no longer sin, but that your old nature should be gone. Better terminology is “safe from sin” because if the Christian truly knows Christ, commandments will be kept. The Holy Ghost, as the Comforter, is our Helper to retain righteousness. 

SOUL SAVED: 

  In the interval between rebirth and death, Christians are preserved. God seals the “jar” so to speak. Jesus referred to His “cup.” That is His Purpose, and surely His soul. God keeps the “cup” of Christians sealed, and only the person, by his own hands, can remove the seal to expose it to the corruption of the world. The soul is safe unless Satan successfully tampers with the “cup” and “temptation” is the tampering.

  The blood and water that Jesus spilt is what redeems:

³ Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to his abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead: ⁴ To an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you, ⁵ Who are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.” (1 Pet 1:3-5).

  Because Jesus died and was resurrected, Christians have a “living hope” (NKJV) in that what was available to Christ is available to Christians. Jesus was resurrected. His Ghost had been given up, but His body was preserved in the grave. Preserved for what? The saving of the flesh. When Jesus gave up the Holy Ghost, the Father saved that “cup” and Jesus’s soul was saved.

  Of course, Jesus knew that His body would be as well because He had foreknowledge of that. He also has the foreknowledge who of us that shall have their souls saved. However, we do not; Christians have the “assurance of salvation,” and for those whose assurance is ascertained, call themselves “saved.” However, they are certain that their faith is strong enough to endure the world until the end, when they “shall be saved” (Mat 10:22).

  Endurance to the end is to overcome the wiles of the Devil and the trials of the world. The end, therefore, is death. That is why “death is gain”— testing is over, and the Christian has passed the test.

  What happens at death? Everyone gives up the ghost. Either the unholy or Holy Spirit is given up. Those with an unholy spirit perish and are forever dying. For them, death is not a “lively hope” but a brazen certainty.

  Those Christians who endure the world “shall be saved.” What is saved at death? The “cup” with its contents. The human soul is saved along with the Holy Ghost of God within it. With that, those who endure the world have their immortal souls returned to them just as before the beginning of the world (Ephes 1:4). 

FLESH SAVED: 

  “Salvation” is not yet complete. There is one more “process” for regeneration. “Generation” is as Adam — “The Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul” (Gen 2:7). “Regeneration” is that same process again. The Lord takes the dust from the ground from which men came, and breaths life back unto it (1 Thes 4:16).

  Therefore, “regeneration” is not at rebirth, but that is the “beginning,” just as Gen 1:1 wherein God made the material and the space for it (i.e., the flesh and the soul, then with Adam, breathed life unto that soul and made it a “living soul.”)

  With the first sin, mankind’s soul was emptied of God’s “breath” and had the Serpent’s “breath” breathed unto them.

  As children of the Devil, all are born with their “cup” full of Serpentine poison until remission. Rebirth is when the Devil’s DNA is expelled as the cleansing process starts. Glorification is full regeneration — when the Christian is again “in the image of God” as generated in the beginning (Gen 1:27). God has three “images:” Mind, Body, and Spirit; or the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost of Jesus. When Christians are “glorified,” their minds are preserved at rebirth, their spirits are saved at death, and their bodies are saved at the general Resurrection. “Glorification” is back in Paradise in the Presence and on perfect terms with God. 

SUMMARY: 

  If you are alive, you are “born again” a “new person.”

  If you are dead, your soul is saved, IF you have been born again and kept the faith.

  Your hope is to be fully regenerated. That will happen when Jesus comes to save your body and breathe Life back into the soul.

  When you are raptured, then you shall be saved.

(picture credit: World Blogger)