Jesus also, that he might sanctify the people with his own blood, suffered outside the gate. Therefore, let us go forth to him outside the camp, bearing his reproach. For we have no continuing city here, but we seek one to come.
Select a thought to read by choosing a collection, the month, and then the day:
Paul wrote that "now is our salvation nearer than [it was] when we believed" (Rom. 13:11). So, God's salvation for the saints is in the future. That salvation is not a salvation for the soul from sin; Jesus saves our souls now from sin by giving us power to overcome "the flesh and the lusts thereof". The salvation promised to His people is salvation of the body; it is the changing of these earthly bodies to another form, an eternal form, like Jesus' glorified body.
Paul taught the congregation at Philippi that when Jesus comes from heaven for his saints, he will "change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body" (3:21). He told the saints in Rome that "the creature itself [our natural body] also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God" (8:21). To the saints at Corinth, he wrote, "Behold, I show you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the [sounding of] the last trumpet. For the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. For this corruptible [body] must put on incorruption, and this mortal [body] must put on immortality" (1Cor. 15:52-53). And he exhorted the saints in Thessalonica to "comfort one another with these words" (1Thess. 4:18).
If we are walking in the Spirit, then our souls are being saved today from committing sins. My father used to tell us of a line from an old Negro spiritual that he heard once that said, "I've been saved all day long". Then he would say, "I like that!" The reason he liked that line is because he understood that the only ones whose bodies will be saved from corruption in the end are those whose souls are being saved now by the sin-killing power of the holy Ghost.
If Jesus refuses to issue to you a glorified body when he returns for his bride, you will perish with the wicked, no matter how many ministers have told you that you are already saved and in right standing with God. None of the flattery, the honor, or the titles bestowed upon you by men will mean anything if you don't hear these precious words of the Lord, "Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world" (Mt. 25:34). Let him save you today from "the error of the wicked", so that he can save you later from their damnation.