LIVING WATERS
For the proclamation of the Gospel and the edification of the Body of Christ
The Tripartite Salvation
The Word of God speaks about salvation in three stages and at three different times.
Gino Iafrancesco
Salvation is not a simple thing, but rather it is deep and complex. The Word of the Lord speaks to us about a salvation of three stages. Firstly, it tells us that we are saved by grace: "Because by grace you are saved through faith" (Ephesians 2:8a); that is to say, it declares an accomplished fact. Secondly, it speaks to us of working out salvation with fear and trembling: " …work out your own salvation with fear and trembling" (Philippians 2:12 b); that is to say that there is a salvation that is progressively given. Lastly, it speaks to us in the future tense, of a salvation that is "ready to be revealed" (1 Peter 1:5), and that we "shall be saved" (Romans 5:9).
Therefore, there are verses that tell us we are saved, verses that tell us we are working out our salvation, and verses that tell us we will be saved. What does all this mean? Are we, will we be, or are we being saved? The answer is that we are, we are being and we will be saved, because the Holy Spirit tells us these three things through the Word of God.
Because of this, we should carefully examine the topic of the salvation of God achieved through Christ Jesus and applied by the Holy Spirit. If we have understood our being's tripartite constitution: spirit, soul and body, we will also understand why of those three stages of salvation one relates to the spirit (you are saved), another relates to the soul (you are being saved), and another relates to the body (you will be saved). That is why it speaks in the past, in the present and in the future tense.
Past Tense: we are already saved in our spirit
This first stage can be seen by examining the Scriptures in the apostle Paul's epistle to the Ephesians, 2:1, 4-9: "And you did he make (notice the past tense) alive, when ye were dead through your trespasses and sins… but God, being rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us, even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive (again the past tense) together with Christ (by grace have ye been saved), (notice that this is an accomplished fact) and raised us up (in the past) with him, and made us to sit with him in the heavenly places, in Christ Jesus: that in the ages to come he might show the exceeding riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus: for by grace have ye been saved (again declared an accomplished fact) through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not of works, that no man should glory. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God afore prepared that we should walk in them."
With supreme clarity the Holy Spirit, by the apostle Paul's hand, is declaring that we are already saved, that is to say that we are no longer lost. Conforming to this biblical declaration, we can see that we are no longer in the claws of Satan so as to go to hell, that we are no longer under God's judgment, and that the judgment of God already fell on Jesus Christ, on the Lamb of God. We identify ourselves with the Lamb, we died with him, we were raised with him and we are already sat with him in the heavenly places. We are already spiritually saved. Our spirit already has life, because it has the eternal life, the life of God, that which has neither beginning nor end.
In the apostle John's first epistle, chapter 5:11-13, we read: "And this is the testimony: that God has given us eternal life (not that he will give us, nor that he is giving us); and this life is in His Son. He who has the Son, has (already has) life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life. These things have I written unto you, that ye may know that ye have (not that you will have) eternal life, even unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God (that is, not for everyone, but for those that have the Son). "
Brother and sisters, let us realise that these declarations here are firm, they don't allow for doubts; we already have the life of God, we already have the Lord in our spirit; the Lord has forgiven us, and gave us life. Being dead, he came, spoke, awoke our hearing, awoke faith; by the Word he gave us the Spirit, by faith we receive him and we received life; that is to say that the life of the Lord already came to our spirit, like 1 Corinthians 6:17 says: "But he that is joined unto the Lord is one spirit."
We have already called on him, we have asked him for forgiveness, therefore, Christ's Spirit already came and became one with our spirit. As a result, we were born again, and therefore, we were already regenerated, we received a new life, a new spirit, the eternal life and the divine nature.
We have received God the Father because we have received the Son, and we have received the Father and the Son because we have received the Spirit. We have what the Son obtained in his human life, that which the Spirit took, and what he achieved has been given to us. Where do we have it? In our spirit. Our spirit is already saved, because we already have eternal life. We already have the Lord, we already have the provision, and we lack nothing of His provision. God the Father put all His provision in the Son; all spiritual blessing is in the Son, and when receiving the Son, we receives life, we received the Father and we received everything.
But having life in the spirit doesn't mean that that life has grown in us.
Present tense: we should work out the salvation of our soul
It is one thing that Christ is revealed to us, but another altogether deeper thing is that Christ lives in us, and deeper still is that Christ is formed in us, and deeper still is that Christ will be magnified in our flesh.
Christ is already here, he already came, he was already revealed. Christ now dwells, he is already living in us; but the will of God is not only Christ living in us, but rather that he who dwells in us may also be formed in us; he regenerates us first, then he renovates us, and through renovation he transforms us and conforms us to the image of the Lord. First he was made flesh, so as to be able to give life to our mortal body and later to adopt it and glorify us into the likeness of His Son Jesus Christ.
This whole process of God goes from the inside out. As believers, the life of God came to our spirit, but God doesn't only want to have a human spirit. When God made man, he made him spirit, soul and body; so from this we can deduce that man's redemption consists of forgiving and cleansing his spirit, soul and body. To give life to his spirit, but also to win his soul.
The Lord used a phrase that catches our attention because if we don't understand that salvation was given in the spirit, and that salvation is being progressively applied to our soul then eventually to our body at His coming, then that phrase would seem very strange.
But when looking at these aspects attentively, it becomes clear to us. In Luke 21:19 the Lord Jesus says: " In your patience ye shall win your souls." The curiosity of this, and worthy of taking note of it, is that on the one hand it says that by grace we are saved, but on the other hand it says that with patience we will win our souls. We already know that the soul is the headquarters of our mind, of our thoughts, of our emotions, feelings and will. What this indicates to us is that to win the soul means not only Christ's life remaining in our spirit, but rather it must also saturate our thoughts, because we can have the Lord in the spirit, but our thoughts wander. How can we control that wild horse of our thoughts? That internal life, the spirit, grabs it and says: "Sir (or lady), come over this way, don't keep thinking such crazy thoughts." So our mind is being subjected to Christ, because our thoughts are brought to Christ's feet, but this is not an instantaneous matter, but rather a process.
Regeneration is instantaneous; regeneration is given in the moment in which one receives the Lord, the life of the Lord. The Spirit of the Lord comes to our spirit and becomes a single spirit with ours and we begin to have life. But that life is like a seed that was sowed. Now that life that is already complete, with all its potential, everything programmed to do a work of complete and entire salvation, has to begin to win the soul. It is then that the work of the soul comes, which is not as quick as that of the spirit. The Spirit already received life, but are all our thoughts in that life? Or is it the case that some are, from time to time, whilst others are still in darkness? Our emotions are sometimes governed and live with the Lord, but at other times they are conquered by sin. That is to say that to win the soul requires patience and a process.
Another important biblical verse is in Philippians 2:12: " So then, my beloved, even as ye have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling." Salvation is something that we already have, but it is also something that we are to work out; and working out salvation is the exercise of the soul in the life of God. Simply because the Lord has given life to our spirit doesn't mean that our emotions, our mind or our will are renovated. Often we have life in our spirit, but we are lazy in the flesh, or what is worse, sinful. God's intention is therefore that the life that is in the spirit also reaches the soul.
Let us pay attention to the Lord's intentions here. All that belongs to him, by His Spirit comes to our spirit, and has to flow out from our spirit. Let us call to mind that passage in Ezekiel 47, when it speaks of the throne of God and His temple. It says that under the throne, there in the Holiest Place, the river flowed: that is to say that the river of God comes flowing from the inside outwards. That tells us that life - because that is a river of life - is translated into living waters, which comes from the Holiest Place, and flows through the Holy Place, then through the atrium, and even out to the nations. And that is because the Lord wants to vivify everybody who enters into the river of His Spirit.
The river of His Spirit flows from the Holiest Place out to the Holy, to the atrium and outside. But let us remember that the Lord already gave us life, and we already have that life in the spirit, but not yet enough in our soul or in our body - although we are already feeding our resurrection body, and that's why we partake in the Lord's supper. That's why in John 6:54 the Lord says: "He that eats my flesh and drinks my blood has life eternal, and I will raise him up at the last day."
The curious thing about this is that there are passages like Ephesians 2:6 that says: "… and has raised us up together ", affirming that we were already resurrected. And in other parts, like in John 6:54, it says that He will raise us up; which means that the resurrection is already provided in the Spirit, and that Spirit is already complete in our spirit, but has to go on bringing us to life, winning, subjecting our soul and renovating it by the Spirit Himself, and then, eventually, our body. We read, for example, in Colossians 3:4: "When the Christ is manifested who is our life, then shall ye also be manifested with him in glory." This verse confirms that there is a process working from the inside out; the Lord works from the inside of us toward the outside. It is confirmed by the Lord in John 7:38: "He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, from within him shall flow rivers of living water." Where toward? Toward the outside; from the interior toward the exterior. Satan, in contrast, attacks from the exterior, dealing first with the senses, then the mind, then the emotions, so as to then be able to assault the will. Until that point, everything is temptation, but when it reaches and bends the will, it is then sin.
The devil attacks from outside in; but the Lord resists him from the inside toward the exterior, and so the fight is in the mind, or in the emotions, or in the will. The fight is in the soul; she is the battlefield. The Lord is inside, in the spirit, and the devil is outside, in the airs, and sin is in the flesh; and sin and the flesh are the runways where the devil landed, the spirit that operates in the children of disobedience.
We see then, that it is necessary to work out our salvation. It doesn't say that salvation will be lost in the verse, but rather it is necessary to work it out. It is necessary to apply salvation to our emotions, to our thoughts, to our decisions, to our soul. And that is a thing that requires time.
As Philippians 2:12 speaks of working out salvation, Hebrews 2:3 speaks of not neglecting it: "How will we escape, if we neglect such a great salvation"? This verse belongs together with the one of working out salvation with fear and trembling. Not neglecting salvation means that it is necessary to work at our salvation. If we said: "The Lord already saved me", we are speaking a truth, but it is necessary to speak the whole truth. The Word of God also says that we should work out and not neglect salvation, and that means that it is necessary to work in that salvation, which is a process.
Future time: salvation of the body at the coming of the Lord
This part is in several passages of the Bible. Let us take that of Matthew 24:13first: "But he that endureth to the end, the same shall be saved." Let us observe that it speaks in the future tense; that is to say, you are saved in the spirit, work out your salvation and don't neglect it (that is the application in our soul), but our body is not yet free of the Adamic condition, although it was bought. It needs to be transformed into the glorious body of resurrection that Christ obtained; then that will be the moment when the complete salvation will come to our body.
God wants the spirit, the soul and the body to be saved. Our spirit is already saved, our soul is being saved and our body must be saved, because our whole being was already bought and the Lord declares us glorified, as it says in Romans 8:30 b: " … them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified", but the life of the Lord that we received in the spirit has to be applied little by little, saturating our soul, and finally arriving at our body.
In the apostle Peter's first epistle we read: "Wherefore girding up the loins of your mind, be sober and set your hope perfectly on the grace that is to be brought unto you at the revelation of Jesus Christ." In this stage of the process our understanding is already girded, dominated; that is to say that it was necessary to pass the life from the spirit to the understanding, but now it is necessary to continue. To gird up the loins of our understanding is the life of the Lord that already reached our being. Now our will is renovated for the girding up of understanding, that is to say, to be able to govern our thoughts, because before we wanted to but were unable. Now the Lord can; the Lord gave us life, and now it renovates our soul.
Our soul now has power in union with the Lord to say: "thoughts, you will no longer think this, but rather that", and can do so because it is a renovated mind that thinks what it wants because it has recovered its dominion. Before whatever we didn't want to think, we thought it, and whatever we wanted to remember we forgot. Rather now understanding is programmed, renovated and used.
When the Word says: " set your hope perfectly on the grace that is to be brought unto you at the revelation of Jesus Christ", it demonstrates that there is a grace for the future. The Bible speaks of a determined grace for us since before the foundation of the world, but manifested in Jesus Christ, and that begins to operate with regeneration, and that continues operating with transformation and that will continue operating in our bodies. That's why it says: "The grace that is to be brought" (future). This is not that which refers to the forgiveness of sins, nor even that of the transformation of our understanding, of our soul, but rather it is grace for the adoption of the body, for the transformation of our body.
We read in Romans 8:22-23: "For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now. And not only so, but ourselves also, who have the first-fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for our adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body." Not only creation itself is in childbirth pains, but so too are those that have the first fruits of the Spirit. Why does it say the "first fruits"? Precisely to show that we are not yet complete; the first fruits are a down payment, but the down payment takes us toward everything. This groaning is the childbirth pains; it is the process of the soul being developed with patience; thoughts dying to themselves and being renovated in Christ; emotions dying to its independence, to its stampede, and being controlled by the Spirit; our will stopping being so obstinate, ceasing to be stubborn, being faithful to the Lord. That is a childbirth pain, and that is not from one moment to another, because it requires a lifelong discipline.
To adopt our body, the Lord says, is to take it as his. Before, we had sold it to the devil - with Adam we had sold him the human nature, including the body. And if it was sold to the devil, it is under the devil's power, and that's why the Lord has to adopt it, to take it as His own.
From there the redemption or adoption of our body has two stages. One stage is developed here, and consists of being vivified in our mortal body. We are sometimes tired, we are sick, but we invoke the name of the Lord and the Spirit gives us life and strengthens us. Then we get up and He renovates us, and it is medicine to our body, to our bones. That is a down payment; it is not yet the complete resurrection, but it is operated thanks to the power of resurrection; that is to say, it is the down payment of the powers of the coming age. The intention of God is that Christ's glorification, the whole resurrection that he got in its body passes to our body, be the adoption or complete glorification of our body.
In the Bible there are many passages for each one of these parts that we are now viewing in panoramic form, because our intention is not to exhaust the topic in this chapter, but it is worthwhile studying each one of those passages. For example, in Philippians 3:20-21, it says: "For our citizenship is in heaven; whence also we wait for a Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ who shall fashion anew the body of our humiliation, that it may be conformed to the body of his glory, according to the working whereby he is able even to subject all things unto himself " Colossians 3:4: " When the Christ is manifested who is our life, then shall ye also be manifested with him in glory." 1 John 3:1-3: " Behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called children of God; and such we are. For this cause the world knoweth us not, because it knew him not. Beloved, now are we children of God, and it is not yet made manifest what we shall be. We know that, if he shall be manifested, we shall be like him; for we shall see him even as he is. And every one that hath this hope set on him purifieth himself, even as he is pure. "
That we are now children of God is a fact; the Spirit of God gives testimony to our spirit that we are already children of God, and we have divine life in the spirit, but it has not yet been revealed what we must be. We are children of God in spirit, but God doesn't only want saved spirits, but complete children: spirit, soul and body in one; including the creation being freed of the slavery of corruption, and that's why you can understand when it speaks of something that is already, something that is being and something that will be.
First, what is already: Children of God. Second, what must be: what will be manifest. When he is manifested we will be like him. Third, that which is being. But, what is that part for now? "And every one that hath this hope set on him purifieth himself, even as he is pure. " Notice that it doesn't say that the Lord purifies him (although He does), but rather he purifies himself. That is the exercise of the soul, of the will, of ourselves acting in grace to be saved from what we are, undergoing the cleansing of the Lord.
We have seen that salvation is very complete and very complex. As man was affected in the spirit, in the soul and in the body, salvation comes to the spirit, to the soul and the body. It has already reached the spirit, it is reaching the soul, and will reach the body.