What Makes Salvation So Great
What Is More Wonderful?
In this modern world there is nothing quite so wonderful as this “so great salvation” (Hebrews 2:3). What is comparable to the knowledge of sins forgiven? What is more wonderful than to be able to put your head on the pillow knowing that if you die during the night it doesn’t matter, knowing that you have already passed from judgment to life and that you will go to heaven and wake up there as a child of God? Oh, how wonderful is the companionship of Christ.
But there is something still more wonderful—the world to come. This world is a doomed world. It is a sinful world, and the New Testament does not offer to make it better. In fact it tells us that it will get worse and worse. But it does offer us “new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness” (2 Pet. 3:13).
Oh, how wonderful is the companionship of Christ.
It tells us that Christ, the Son of God, is coming back to this world to render judgment. The elements will melt with fervent heat, and all will be made new. Who will live in the new heavens and new earth?
The Christian’s Treasure
You and I if we are Christians—“For unto the angels hath he not put in subjection the world to come”—“Are they not all ministering spirits, sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation?” (Heb. 1:14). “Heirs of salvation”—yes, we are that. “If children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ” (Rom. 8:17). “For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now, and not only they, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting . . . the manifestation of the sons of God” (Rom. 8:22–23, 19).
Perhaps an atomic bomb will destroy this world, but that does not trouble the Christian. His treasure is not in this world. His treasure is not his bank account or his profession. He lives for another world. He sets his heart upon the glory that is to come, “the world to come, whereof we speak” (Heb. 2:5).
That is what is offered by this “so great salvation” (2:3). We are being prepared for a glory that is indescribable. Listen to our Lord: “Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father’s house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also” (John 14:1–3). That is the world to come offered by this “so great salvation” (2:3).
Do you believe it? Are you rejoicing in it?
This article is adapted from A Merciful and Faithful High Priest: Studies in the Book of Hebrews by Martyn Lloyd-Jones.*
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