A Vapor

Step outside on one of these cold winter days, and watch your breath as you exhale. In all seriousness. Don’t just read this article. Go outside, literally, someday soon, and observe the vapor of your breath as it eases from your lips … and then disappears, so very quickly, from before your gaze! Why? Why go out into the cold to take in such a sight? Because this is a portrait, says James, of your life in this world! “You are just a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away” (James 4:14). And it will do you good to go outside, and to envision what James has written, and to consider the brevity of your life. And, as you consider that brevity; as you meditate on the fleeting nature of the vapor, I hope three demeanors of heart and mind will come over you:

First, humility. This is the demeanor that James is promoting when he likens our earthly lives to vapors: ‘“You do not what your life will be like tomorrow.” Your life is so fleeting! And therefore you ought not to go making boastful plans about where you are going to go, and what you are going to do. “Instead, you ought to say, ‘If the Lord wills, we will live and also do this or that’”’ (see James 4:13-16). The fragile, fleeting, vapor-like nature of our lives ought to humble us into a constant awareness that our plans, and even our awaking tomorrow morning, are always ‘Lord willing.’

And then also, the vapor-like brevity of our lives in this world ought also to promote a sense of urgency. If life is a vapor, shouldn’t I want to capture the few brief ticks of the clock that I have been given, and use them well for the One who gave them? Life is too short for spiritual dilly-dallying! It’s too short for just whiling away the months and years, not really doing anything that will make an impact for eternity! You only have a few years (if the Lord even wills for you to have that long) in which to serve the gospel in this world! Don’t dawdle that time away! And let me remind you, also, that since life is so short; and since we don’t know how short (since we don’t know if we will even wake up tomorrow), it is great folly to put off being ready for your own eternity! You don’t know if you will have tomorrow, or next week, or next year to repent of your sins and trust in Christ! So do it before your vapor disappears!

And then also, as you consider the vapor of your life, may such a consideration, if you are in Christ, bring you serenity. For, if this life is a vapor that will soon fade away, then those who are in Christ don’t have very much longer to endure their trials, do they? The non-Christian will perhaps take some of his difficulties with him, even into the next life (and will then face even greater difficulties, to boot). But for the believer, “the sufferings of this present time” will evaporate along with the vapor of earthly life in which they arose! And since vapors are but brief, relief is not too far in the future! It won’t be long and we will be with Jesus! And all will be well! And that should make us just a little more calm in the face of our trials! Someday soon we will suffer, and struggle, and sin no more!

So step out, in the days ahead, into the cold winter’s air, and learn the lessons of the vapor.

Christ’s Resurrection … and Ours

Here is one of the great blessings of Christianity: “newness of life” (Romans 6:4). A Christian is a person who has been changed; made new; “born again” the Bible calls it. He has been given a new heart of love toward God and man. Her eyes have been opened to God, and to His Son, and to His truth. His mind has been changed about sin, and about righteousness, and about the remedy for our fallenness. Her life has taken on a whole new dimension, and direction, and set of desires. He or she has become a new person, spiritually and morally! Christianity brings “newness of life”!

And all of this newness ties back to that first Easter morning! We who are united to Jesus have “newness of life” because Jesus Himself has “newness of life”! “As Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life” (Romans 6:4). Our new life is bound up in His new life! Our resurrection (spiritually and morally, in the new birth) is tied to His resurrection. He is our trailblazer … such that, because He died for our sins, we die to them, too; and such that, just as He rose from the dead, “we too might walk in newness of life” (emphasis mine).

Do you want to be a new person – spiritually and morally – today?  Such a change comes to those who are united to Christ!  "If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature” (2 Corinthians 5:17).  May that happen for some of us, even today!

Or, if you have been made new in Christ, do you want to "walk", all the more, in that “newness of life”? Well then the resurrection of Jesus is good news! For, if you belong to Him; if you are united to Him, then you are new, and you may walk in that newness, too (Romans 6:4). You don’t have to keep sinning in the same old ways, with no recourse! 

But then let me ask you, also: Do you want, at the end of this age, to have a new body and to walk with new physical life in a new and perfected planet earth? This, too, is tied back to that first Easter morning! Christ is called “the first fruits” of the bodily resurrection (1 Corinthians 15:20). And if there is a first fruits, then there will also be other fruits as well, reaped from the earth where they were once buried like seeds. So that, first of all, Christ is risen, bodily, from the dead … and then His people are also given new, bodily, life as well!

And all of this makes Easter, and the fact of Christ’s resurrection, very personal, does it not? Or resurrection – both morally and spiritually (in the new birth), and physically (when Christ comes again) – are inextricably tied to the empty tomb, and to the literal, bodily resurrection of Jesus on that first Easter Sunday morning! And that is reason, among others, to celebrate this Easter Sunday (and every Sunday) the risen Savior!

The Verbs of Our Salvation

Often times, in our Christian vernacular, we use the word ‘saved’ in the past tense – ‘I was saved on such and such a date.’ Or we might say, ‘I date my salvation to such and such a time.’ This is how we often speak of the concept of salvation – in the past tense – such that that the words ‘save’ or ‘salvation’ refer to the point in time, in the past, at which we were brought to repentance and faith in Christ, and were forgiven and declared righteous in God’s sight. We were ‘saved’ (past tense) at that point in time. And that is a right use of the term.

It’s also right to speak of salvation in the present perfect tense. We have been saved – meaning that we were forgiven and justified at some point in the past, and that those statuses (forgiven and justified) are ongoing. If we were ever forgiven, well then we are still forgiven, right? And, in the same way, God’s declaration that we are righteous in Christ happened once, at a moment in time … and such that our standing in this blessings continues! We remain forgiven and justified. And so it’s right to speak of having been saved.

But, though we often use the words ‘saved’ and ‘salvation’ as shorthand for forgiveness and justification (which happened at a past moment in time, with continuing effect) … these words (‘saved’ and ‘salvation’) can be used to describe even more than that. Our complete salvation from sin, in other words, includes more than just our initial coming to faith, and being once-and-for-all-time delivered from sin’s penalty, at some wonderful point in our past. We can also use the word ‘salvation’ to refer to the process of progressive sanctification, whereby God is presently, gradually molding us into the image of His Son. In sanctification, we are being saved (in the present) from sin’s power! And, further, the words ‘salvation’ or ‘saved’ can also be used in reference to our glorification – that future moment in time when, at death or at Christ’s return, we will be completely made like Him; when will be saved, finally, from sin’s presence in our lives!

To distill all that down, here is how theologians and Bible teachers have put into words this multi-tense unfolding of our salvation:

• In justification, we have been saved from sin’s penalty.

• In progressive sanctification, we are being saved from sin’s power.

• In glorification, we will be saved from sin’s presence.

And so, yes, it is right to say ‘I have been saved,’ or to refer back to the date of your ‘salvation.’ But it is also right to realize that, while we were forever saved, at a point and time, from sin’s penalty … God is not finished with us. He is still saving us, no longer from the penalty of sin (which has been forever done away, if we are in Christ), but He is still saving us from sin’s power! And, when our lives in this world are complete, He will finally save us, even from sin’s very presence in our lives!

We have been saved in justification. We are being saved in sanctification. And some day, marvelously, we will be saved, finally, in glorification!

And, if you like grammar, you’ll notice that those are all passive verbs! It’s not that we have saved, are saving, and will save … but that we have been saved, are being saved, and will be saved! These passive verbs refer to things done for us … not by us! “Salvation is from the Lord” (Jonah 2:9). And therefore “blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ” (Ephesians 1:3)!