Salvation Goes On

What does the writer to the Hebrews mean when he says of Christians that they have "tasted ... the powers of the age to come" (Heb. 6:5)? We would all readily agree that there is a splendid future age to which we look forward. In it the kingdom that is now "in the midst" of us in terms of the mighty acts of the Spirit of God (Matt. 12:28) will then become universally visible and unchallenged. The kingdom of the world will have become the kingdom of our God and of his Christ (Rev. 11:15). But what, we may wonder, are these "powers" that now we only taste but cannot as yet feast upon? Clearly they are to be received and enjoyed, for the word "taste" implies not merely a doctrine to be thought about and analyzed, but something subjectively experienced and made our own. These powers are the preliminaries of a feast of which there is much more to follow but of which we already eat just a little.

We could list a number of such things to which Scripture looks forward. There is a salvation to be revealed in the last time (1 Pet. 1:5). There is a fresh aspect of eternal life in the age to come (Luke 18:30). There is a rest remaining to the people of God (Heb. 4:9). There will be the raising and renewal of our mortal bodies (Rom. 8:23; 1 Cor. 15:14). There will be a day when everything that stumbles men will be removed (Jer. 31:9; Isa. 57:14; 62:10). There will be a time when all shall know the Lord from the least to the greatest (Jer. 31:34; Heb. 8:11) and indeed when the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea (Isa. 11:9; Hab. 2:14). Of all these things we have now a real foretaste in Christ, but we do not yet see them in completeness.

More directly related to our present study are the following considerations. The Epistle to the Hebrews applies to our Lord Jesus the words from Psalm 8: "Thou didst put all things in subjection under his feet," and then goes on quite frankly to express what experience generally must compel us to admit, namely, that "we see not yet all things subjected to him" (Heb. 2:8). But alongside these two contrasting statements we must place also that of Jesus in Luke 10:19, where he already gives to his disciples "authority ... over all the power of the enemy." Surely this promises to us a present foretaste of that future day that we do not yet see.

Again, in the same Gospel passage, Jesus is recorded as saying, "I beheld Satan fallen as lightning from heaven" (10:18). This event John, in Revelation 12:9, seems to place far in the future. Yet clearly Jesus implies that from the standpoint of the witnessing Church it is already in some sense a present fact. Furthermore, in a later chapter of Revelation John is shown a day when Satan is to be bound with a chain for a thousand years (20:1-4). Yet Jesus speaks of "the strong man" as already bound, so that we may even now break into his house and despoil it (Matt. 12:29).

These are significant statements; for surely if we possess salvation and eternal life in the present, as we most certainly do, then we should also be knowing some foretastes today of the rest of these future "powers." For though not yet manifest universally, they are quite evidently fruits of the Cross and resurrection of Christ that must be, at least in principle, the Church's present possession.

God's eternal purpose is bound up with man. "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness," he said, "and let them have dominion." God intended man to wield power, to reign and rule, to control other created things. We cannot say that redemption was God's design-or even a part of it-for man was never intended to fall, still less to perish. Genesis 3 represents man's history, not God's purpose for him. A workman may fall from the fifth story of a building under construction, but that was never in the architect's plan!