Salvation Through Hope

I have just a few notes today on the one hope of the Gospel, as it states in Ephesians 4:4 that there is only “one hope.” First off we can allow the scriptures to show us what that hope truly is: “But let us, who are of the day, be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and love; and for an helmet, THE hope of SALVATION” (I Thess. 5:8). You may have noticed that it says “THE hope of SALVATION.” So it becomes immediately and clearly evident that salvation is that “one hope” of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Now let’s look at a very integral aspect of salvation that is just totally overlooked and set at naught by the Christian traditions and doctrines of this age: “For we are SAVED by HOPE: but hope that is SEEN is NOT hope: for what a man seeth, why doth he yet hope for? But if we HOPE for that we see not, then do we with patience WAIT for it” (Rom. 8:24,25). You are probably so familiarized with the instant gratification ‘salvation’ taught by Christianity that this passage of scripture seems out of place with the topic. But the truth is that the modern Christian ‘salvation’ of this age is totally out of place with the truth of the scriptures on the matter. Christianity teaches that salvation is at the very beginning of one’s supposed, or even real faith in Jesus. But according to this passage, if we ALREADY HAVE salvation like most teach, then it is NOT A HOPE! So who is wrong, the Bible, or the modern Gospel of Christianity? According to this passage of scripture salvation is something that we are supposed to be patiently waiting for. Speaking of these same things, this apostle said in another place, that we should “work out [our] own salvation with fear and trembling” (Philip. 2:12).

Jesus was in no disagreement with this thinking on salvation: “And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold. But he that shall ENDURE unto the end, the same shall be SAVED” (Mat. 24:12,13). I should point out that we are qualified TO hope for salvation only AFTER we are born again by means of the baptism of the Spirit which takes away our sins and places us in the “one body” of Christ (I Cor. 6:11; I Cor. 12:13; Rom. 8:9). If you have not been able to keep up with the simplicity of this truth to this point, blame it on today’s Christian religion that promotes nothing but distortion and confusion to God’s pure doctrine. But if you care to continue let’s take an even closer look at exactly what it is that the faithful are specifically waiting on with active patience or endurance. The same apostle Paul spoke of the one hope of the Gospel with these words: “Of THE hope and resurrection of the dead I am called in question” (Acts 23:6). So according to the apostle Paul, the one hope of the Gospel, which we know is salvation, is more definitively the resurrection of the dead. Now that makes plenty of sense with the passage from Romans 8 quoted above, regarding being saved by hope; because it is certain that we do not yet have the resurrection from the dead. And Brother Paul affirmed this in his own life experience: “That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death; If by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead” (Philip. 3:11). Those very plainly are not the words of someone who was claiming to already have salvation, which only concurs with the remainder of his writings that we have cited here from the Bible.

Speaking plainly of the one hope of salvation , meaning the resurrection from the dead, Paul stated the following: “Behold, I shew 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 last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed” (I Cor. 15:51,52). To be certain that this glorious event of the dead being raised is indeed the one hope of the Gospel, the beloved apostle lends his identical thoughts in the holy Ghost on the matter: “Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is. And every man that hath THIS HOPE in him purifieth himself, even as he is pure” (I Jn. 3:2,3). So there it is my friend, the BIBLE’S definition of salvation. Still not satisfied that salvation is at the END of our faith in Christ, instead of the beginning, as Christian tradition universally teaches? Well let us allow a third qualified party to add his words of truth to the testimonies of the apostles Paul and John: “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, To an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you, Who are kept [from sin] BY the power of God through faith UNTO SALVATION ready to be revealed in the LAST time… Receiving the END of your faith, even the SALVATION of your souls” (I Pet. 1:3-5,9). So my prayer and desire is for you my friend, that you would wholeheartedly agree with the truth of the holy scriptures, and forsake the empty, powerless traditions of the modern Christian religion. Reason being those traditions of men are very simply in stark error, and the truth of God is very simply true (I Jn. 4:6). Amen.