Past, Present, and Future Salvation

 

Some Sundays ago, I spoke to the three tenses of salvation: past, present, and future. Those three tenses are represented by the theological terms justification, sanctification, and glorification. The reality is that God doesn’t save us just so that we can escape hell and go to heaven. Wonderful as our rescue is, His plan for us and the world is much grander than that!

 

Paul declares in Colossians 1:19-20 that in Christ, God is working to “reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.” The Fall resulted not only in a fatal and damning tragedy for the human race, but it also affected the entire creation. Sin destroyed the perfect harmony between creatures, and between all creation and the Creator.

 

The creation was “subjected to futility” (Rom. 8:20) and “groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now” (Rom. 8:22). One evidence of that is the Second Law of Thermodynamics, which proves that the universe is losing its