A Present Salvation

As God inhabits eternity, so that all time is present with Him, so all His promises and blessings for men are in the present tense. There can be no future or past time to Him. This makes Him “a very present help in trouble,” for we can live only in the present. We cannot live one moment in the future. We expect things in the future, and have hope of things to come, but the present is all that we can ever have, for when the things hoped for come, they will be present. Indeed, the things that we have reason to hope for in the future, will be only the continuation of the things which we have now. All things are in Christ, and His promise is, “Lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world.” Matthew 28.20

The apostle Paul blessed God because He “hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly things in Christ Jesus.” Ephesians 1.3. The promises of God for the future must be present realities to us, if we ever receive any benefit from them. “For all the promises of God in Him are yea, and in Him Amen, unto the glory of God by us.” 2 Corinthians 1.20. It is by these “exceeding great and precious promises” that we are “made partakers of the Divine nature.” The glories of the world to come will be but the revealing of that which we have now in the personal presence within us of the Lord Jesus Christ. The only hope of glory is Christ in us.

“Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, and today, and for ever.” Hebrews 13.8. The word of God “liveth and abideth for ever.” 1 Peter 1.23. We do not have to deal with a dead word, which was spoken so long ago that there is no more force in it, but with a word which has the same life as though it were just spoken. Indeed it is of benefit to us only when we receive it as spoken directly and personally to us. “When ye received the word of God which ye heard of us, ye received it not as the word of man, but as it is in truth the word of God, which effectually worketh also in you that believe.” 1 Thessalonians 2.13. “All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable.” 2 Timothy 3.16. It is all in the present.

For this reason we can never outgrow the Scriptures. There is not a single text in the Bible that has become obsolete. There is none that the Christian of the longest experience has outgrown, so that he has no need of it. There is none that can be laid aside. The text, which brings a man to the Saviour, is the text, which is ever needed to keep him there. And this, too, although his mind has expanded, and his spiritual sight has been greatly strengthened; and the reason is that every word of God is of infinite depth, so that as the Christian’s mind expands the word means more to him than it did in the beginning. The universe appears much greater to the astronomer than it does to the man who has never looked through a telescope. We look at the stars with the naked eye, and they seem very far off. Then we look at them through a powerful telescope, and, although we can see so much farther with it, the distance to the stars seems to be