“For He (God) says, ‘In an acceptable time I have heard you, and in the day of salvation, I have helped you.’ Behold, now is the accepted time; now is the day of salvation.” 2 Corinthians 6:2
It is a Biblical concept that the believer in Christ, since the day when he was born of the Spirit, and Christ come to dwell in his heart by the Spirit, has been in a race, also waging war as a soldier, and patiently enduring as the wise and accomplished farmer. This life to which he has been called to live is that very life of Christ by the Spirit. It began the moment of the new creation, in an acceptable time, a “day” of salvation. In that moment, when sins were washed completely away in response to faith in Christ as the sole Savior from sin and death, a world of truth concerning what that person had become begins to be revealed to the saved soul. The importance of that point of beginning cannot be overly stated, for in that moment, the lost soul was placed into living union with Christ by the Father. He was saved for eternity, being justified by faith, but also, sanctified by the saving Life of Christ, having been set apart to live in a manner that would glorify God. The work of God had begun. The foundation had been laid in the heart and mind, confirmed to the soul by the assurance and conviction given by the Spirit. There was an awakening of the soul on that day when, as the songwriter put it: “Heaven above is softer blue, Earth around is sweeter green; Something lives in every hue, Christless eyes have never seen: Birds with gladder songs o’erflow, Flowers with deeper beauties shine, Since I know, as now I know, I am His (Christ’s), and He is mine.” What then occurred on that momentous day in the life of the believer, in that moment which the Scriptures declares it to be “an acceptable time,” a “day of salvation?”
With the forgiveness of sins, and the creation of a “new man” in Christ, God, by the Spirit baptized every believer into Christ’s death, the old man of sin, and all that pertained, and pertains to him, was buried forever with Christ. This is why the believer is to seize the truth that with regard to his old life “in Adam,” outside of, independently, before trusting Christ, God has dealt completely not only with individual sins, but with the entirety of the “sinner,” in order to bring forth, freed by the saving life of Christ, a new creation, one well-pleasing to God by virtue of all that Christ IS, which has been given to the believer. Christ has become his wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption. By virtue of this inseparable, eternal union with Christ by the Spirit, the believer has been made absolutely complete in Christ. As another hymnwriter put it: “Complete in Thee! Each need supplied, And no good thing to me denied; Since Thou my portion, Lord, wilt be, I ask no more, complete in Thee.”
There is more that occurred in that day of salvation, that moment of the new birth and new creation. Again, by virtue of the work of Christ on Calvary, and the Father’s work to place the believer into Christ, not only is there peace with God, and the certainty of an eternity, where one knows Christ as one is known, but there is the fact of being “raised up with Christ” to a new life, the participation in Christ’s life, or that communion with Him by the Spirit. This life to which the believer is called is one that is victorious over sin, Satan, and the world. It is one where the believer abides in Christ, and Christ abides in the believer. This is why the Apostle Paul could write: For me, “…to live is Christ; … to die is gain.” He also learned to live by the faith of the Son of God who loved him, having given Himself for him.
Dear Father, Dwell in us today. In Jesus’ name, Amen.