The word gain of which Paul wrote entails many things, but “salvation” is foremost. That English word comes from the Greek, soteria, and Paul got it right. Salvation is not of your own skills, because Jesus was not only a “Carpenter,” but a “Teknik” (BLB Institute 2021).
Speaking of Jesus Christ, Luke wrote of Him, “Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other Name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved” (Acts 4:12).
Salvation therein is “soteria;” deliverance,
safety, salvation, preservation, and such (BLB Institute 2021). Safety and preservation
are very descriptive. In fact, “preservation of the saints” comes from Psalm 31:
23 O love the Lord, all ye his saints: for the Lord preserveth the faithful, and plentifully rewardeth the proud doer. 24 Be of good courage, and He shall strengthen your heart, all ye that hope in the Lord. (Psalm 31:23-24)
First off for salvation (preservation) is contingent on
several things:
1. “Love the Lord;” being a friend of Jesus (ibid). Judas had been a friend of Jesus. Judas had affection for the Lord, then for the love of money, Judas defected from Jesus. Thus, goodwill, not hatred, discontent, animosity, or even apathy is acceptable. Neither is misconstruing the Word of God and making it something that is not.
2.
Preservation applies only to the “saints;” those
who are the faithful ones (ibid). Thusly, preservation is dependent on whether
the person is faithful or not. Faithful people are those who do the Will of God
rather than their own will.
In fact, Satanism is defined as “Do what thou wilt; that is the whole law”
(Anton LeVey). Rather, the whole law, according to Jesus is the Greatest
Commandment and the one like unto it — to love God with all your substance and
others as yourselves (Mat 22:36-39). Love is remaining a friend of
Jesus, not when it is convenient but even when it is not productive to do so.
3. “The Lord” is the Lord God who preserves because
He alone is Supreme. By no other Name than Jesus can anyone be saved. Not just
any “lord” but the LORD GOD whose Name is Jesus, and especially not the “lord”
of self. Jesus is the physical Substance of God. The Flesh which He sacrificed
must be cherished. That kind of love is not emotional nor physical work but
having goodwill toward Jesus.
Obviously, those who continually sin
have little, if any, goodwill toward Jesus. Sin is essentially ill-will because
the sinner is no friend of the Lord but a friend to Satan.
4.
“Preserveth.” God is Sovereign. He alone can
preserve the saints. Behaving saintly is self-work and self-ingratiating.
In fact, the self-righteous are impedances to God because the self
stands between salvation and Jesus. The thread throughout scripture is that man
stand out of the way for God to be Supreme because He alone is Sovereign.
Therefore, all a sinner needs to do is be willing to sacrifice their own
defective will for the effective Will of God.
A willing worker is not one who can work but only stands ready to do
what God says. Like Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice Isaac was counted
to him as righteousness (Rom 4:3), the willingness for “whosoever” (John 3:16)
to be saved is sufficient “work” that is kategazmai and not ergon —
it is an accomplishment without any physical work involved.
Preservation is just like it
sounds. God puts the flesh in a protective vessel after thoroughly sanitizing it
and adds a “pickling” agent.
The “vessel” is the soul of the person, and the “Agent” is the Living Water of
the Holy Ghost. God seals the vessel, and only He can remove the seal but He
will not. “Labour not for the meat which perisheth, but for that meat which
endureth unto everlasting life, which the Son of man shall give unto you: for
him hath God the Father sealed” (John 6:27).
God is Sovereign; He and He alone seals the vessel. Nothing is said in
scripture about unsealing, but it is implied with “fall away” (Heb 6:6).
Falling away is apostasia in the Greek.
The “vessel” (Jesus called His vessel a “cup”) is sealed by the grace of God by
the gift of faith. That seals the “jar” so to speak, but as any cold-packer
knows, anything that contains certain substances can build up gases and
explode, thus breaking the seal. Every Christian with the onset of faith is sealed
by God, but their flesh remains corruptible until the Day of the Lord comes.
Hence, what is inside the seal is subject to corruption. Apostasia describes
that slow process of overcoming the seal, not by the hand of God nor the hand
of Satan but by the Christian’s own mind.
The flesh of the Christian is the “meat” that is sealed in the vessel and no
labor on the part of the flesh is necessary to seal it. The person just wills
that it be done, and God does the sealing. The seal is the Name “Jesus” and
Jesus will never break the seal. That “seal” is the Covenant of Grace, and it
is no different than any of the Covenants theretofore wherein the Hebrews
always broke the seal.
“And grieve not the holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of
redemption” (Eph 4:30). Grieving is defined in the preceding verse —
that the only communication that those so sealed is good and for the administering
of grace to others. In other words,
use the ”spice” of grace with which one is sealed or the flesh will spoil. That
spoilage will emit a gaseous stench which can break the seal from within. (This
topic could be a book itself, so let’s move to the next point.)
5.
Next come “rewardeth.” That is the “gain” of which
Paul wrote. That gain is nearly been exhausted, but death is the gain! Everything
changes upon dying to the world because Satan is the Prince of the Power of the
Air of the world (Eph 2:2). Remember how somehow Satan got into the Garden,
Satan got into the Ark, and Satan got into Ham, Canaan, and so many others?
Well, when God sealed each Covenant, somehow Satan got in, not all of his
person, but his “air” (spirit) so to speak. Just as each Covenant before was spoiled
after it was sealed by God, the Covenant of Grace is no exception because all
the Covenants were Covenants of Grace. That is the “Mystery of Christ” (Rom
16:25).
6.
Next comes “the proud doer.” That is not necessarily
“works” but accomplishments, but not of one’s own works, but what God
has accomplished in you. It is okay to be proud of what God has accomplished,
and that is He preserved and sealed you. Nobody is to be proud of their own
works. That type of pride is the pomposity of Lucifer. (Isa 14:12).
Pride in that passage is literally “swelling up” (ibid). If the pride is
in oneself, then that swelling breaks the seal. It is fine to be proud of what
God did for you, but not what you have done for God.
It is not acceptable to give any credit to oneself for what God did. Indeed,
you may be preserved but because iniquity is so ingrained pride may be
bottled up in the flesh. Perhaps it is pride that swells to break the seal
since the Hebrew is literal.
7.
Lastly is verse twenty-four: “hope in the
Lord.” The Lord is Sovereign, and you are not. Your hope is not in your good
courage, but that He shall strengthen your heart.
“Courage” is not work. It is an attribute of a saint because saints trust
in the Lord. Faith is a variable and describes the degree of trust over
time. The psalmist entreats the saint to keep the faith and God
will provide the strength. Courage is standing firm before an adversary.
The saint does nothing! Courage is merely standing still. The gift of faith is
the onset of courageousness that is measured by the degrees of faith.
Joshua was courageous enough face the enemies in Canaan as he crossed the
Jordan River. Courage is not swimming the turbulent waters and using the
strength of yourselves or even others but standing still and allowing God to be
Supreme as the Protector of the Faith and the Faithful.
The psalmist used the word “hope.” The Hebrew is literally an expectation (ibid).
An expectation is sometime in the future. “Hope in the Lord” lies at the “Day of
the Lord” when the Lord does what He says that He would do, to wit: “He that
raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his
Spirit that dwelleth in you” (Rom 8:11). Quicken is to animate or to
make a living soul again. That is the essence of the gain of which Paul
wrote!
God will breathe life again unto the dust of the ground (dried up bones), and
the Living Water will be the “mist” that forms the dust for the image, just as
in the beginning (Gen 2:6-7). Hence, regeneration is just like generation, and the
gain of Paul was not partial regeneration, but full regeneration
that will occur on the Day of the Lord.
The “Day of the Lord” is not just a day but the end of an age. It
is Jesus finishing His Purpose by dying: That “the spirit may be saved in the
day of the Lord Jesus” and saved “from the destruction of the flesh” (1 Cor
5:5). The Day of the Lord is when the flesh is saved as the vessel for the spirit
of the saint. Paul saw that time in the future. His expectation (hope)
was that someday that what he had trusted the Lord for will come true.
Salvation points not to now but a future time. Until then, the
Comforter provides the “assurance of hope” (Heb 6:11), or a continued expectation
of salvation.
Hence, “salvation” (soteria) is when the expectation is realized
and that is when the Lord Jesus returns to make the saints whole in
mind, body, and spirit. Until that time safety (sozos) is the protection
from the Lamb of God’s “skin”” just as with the Garment of Adam.
God put a Comforter on Adam and Eve to keep them safe until they were redeemed
at the “Place of Adam’s Skull” — Calvary. Perhaps Adam and Eve were there when
Jesus was resurrected, as is written, “The earth did quake, and the rocks rent;
and the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints which slept arose, and
came out of the graves after his resurrection, and went into the holy city, and
appeared unto many. (Mat 27:51-52).
What happened when the Word (Jesus) put coats of lambs’ skins on Adam and Eve?
They were kept safe until the beginning of the Age of the Lord! Like
Adam and Eve, the Flesh of the Lamb of God provides Comfort (John 14:6) until
that “day” comes.
It is true: “He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned” (Mark 16:16). “Shall be” is future oriented. It could mean directly or finally! The hope of salvation is that for the living it is finally — on the Day of the Lord.
There is a clue in there that might be missed. What is “saved”? It is not to be damned – “judged worthy of punishment” (ibid; in Hell). When are Christians judged? On the Day of the Lord when He elects those whose faith merited saving. Those left behind are the damned. The doctrine of “election” has some qualification: That those who “endure to the end shall be saved” (Mat 24:13). Saved at the end and not before. Thus, the “saved” are not the faithful, but those who remain faithful to the end, and salvation is when the faithfulness is recognized by Jesus as He again joins together the flesh to the soul to make a living soul again.
The very process of generation is the same process of regeneration. Generation was done in stages and so is regeneration. The dust from the ground was the process of generation and so it is with regeneration. That regeneration is rebirth is very Calvinistic doctrine that most of Christians were taught. However, the entire Bible is the Book of Generations whether in the beginning or ending!
The commentary is almost exhausted but will continue for a few more points. Baptism in that last verse must be addressed because it seems to be a precursor to salvation.
(picture credit: shutterstock.com; "Cute boy in red vest demonstrating hope")
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