Equipping University

The Christian life is often compared to a race in the Bible. Winning this race is the most important thing in anyone's life. Ironically, this race is the total opposite of the races we know today - particularly marathons. In today's marathons, officials are concerned with individuals who finish the race but do not start it. In the Bible, the more pressing concern is for those who start the race but do not finish it. The New Testament is filled with exhortations to run the race well so that you actually complete the race set before you. We must maintain this biblical train of thought: the reward that we receive by faith in Christ for winning this race is based or grounded on grace alone. However, only those who exercise faith in Christ and endure in their faith to the end will receive this reward. We see this truth in the biblical presentation of the nature of the type of faith that saves.

The Bible is not always as simplistic as we want it to be or perhaps think that it is. That is surely the case regarding the doctrine of salvation. To display the full understanding of all that is our salvation, the Bible uses a wide variety of metaphors or word pictures. We can understand the basis of these metaphors easily enough. However, we often miss a subtle difference in them ��� a temporal difference. For instance, salvation is depicted as a reality that is the actual possession of true believers right now by divine right as joint-heirs with Christ. At the same time, salvation is also depicted as a future reality that has not yet been inherited by those same true believers. This tension between past and future is usually termed the "already-but-not-yet" by theologians. Some passages describe the "already" and others the "not yet." However, a majority of the metaphors for salvation surprisingly fall into both categories. To emphasize one over the other is to fall into theological error. This type of error most easily creeps into our understanding of eternal security so we must grasp the Bible multi-faceted presentation of salvation.