The Snatching Away is Not the Beginning! (A Re-Publishing)

 Howdy, y'all.

About a year ago, now, I gave a short blog post to our brother Simon on the Saviour of all Mankind wordpress blog while his arm was decommissioned. The following will be a copy of this blog. This post is not made at all to spite or disavow the work I had published on his blog -- in fact, I would prefer if you would show him love by reading it here, or by reading any other of his numerous writings.

However, I am re-publishing the article here, in light of recent disbelief demonstrated by the body of Christ. The fact of our justification seems to be completely dismissed in recent months by some whom I thought were believers! They have now directly and affirmatively stated that they do not yet believe themselves justified, and that this must occur at a later date.

Now, I do not believe that some of these men truly realize the statement they are making; they may simply be claiming that they become actually righteous in the future, which is indeed true. But this journey, this walk in faith, is not the "preparation" for justification through faith, for you cannot even be walking in faith unless you are constituted just.

The reality? If you have not yet realized that God has, at present, justified you, you cannot accurately lay claim to the notion that you are a believer. There would, simply, remain a perpetual doubt.

This has nothing to do with works. Belief is not about how "hard you study," or "feeling" the truth, or whether you are inside or outside of a church building. Justification does not occur according to perception (2 Cor. 5:7.) 

Now, I am no "unfeeling" man. My heart goes out to the many who have studied Paul's evangel, and believe many of the contents of his writings. But we are not speaking of random declarations made by Paul. We are speaking of the very evangel of God with which he was entrusted. This evangel does not make the claim that in some far off, distant future, you "shall be" constituted just, but that you are being justified gratuitously in His grace (Rom. 3:24.)

Disbelieving this means, logistically, that you do not yet see its true import. The following article, written over a year ago, aptly summarizes the matter. A believer should expect a snatching away, yes. But that expectation is not the beginning of your life. To claim that you are not yet justified means that you are not yet able to have peace toward God through Jesus Christ (Rom. 5:1.) It means you are not yet joined to Christ's death, entombment, and rousing (Rom. 6:1-3.) It means, then, that you are still stuck in the old, when Paul writes firmly of an introduction to the new.

Why allow any other to deprive you of the peace God Himself gives you through His justification of you? Who is any man to tamper with what God Himself has already given you?

Conciliation is not a propitiatory shelter. It is not the mercy seat, the blood which covers you. It is the effect therein.

There are some who are claiming that they shall be justified "at the dais of Christ." Those who are distinguishing things that differ, and refuse to place Paul's letters in a big blender and make a new truth out of them, know that the dais deals with deeds, not salvation (2 Cor. 5:9-10, 1 Cor. 3:9-15, Eph. 6:5-8, Col. 3:21-25.) These deeds do not affect your salvation, and no examination of your walk could even occur unless you are already in Christ Jesus (Rom. 8:2,) which, as previously stated, only occurs when you are joined to Christ's death (Rom. 6:3,) which only occurs when you are justified (Rom. 5:1.)

By saying "I shall be justified at the dais," you are expressing that

A) You are not, as of now, justified. And

B) You will be justified at an event which examines your works.

This is a blatant error. In Romanist fashion, the idea is that you are supposedly conformed to holiness prior to your justification, so that when you are presented at the dais, you are justified. This denies Romans 4:5, which would have to be changed to read, "God is not justifying the irreverent, but the holy, and his faith is reckoned for righteousness because it is the faith of the regenerate."

I understand that we all have a little logo we call "Morons, United." This is funny and cute, but it is only half the truth. We are called stupid to become knowing in Christ, not to remain ignorant to plain declarations. We were brought out of our religious institutions to get away from lies, not recontextualize the lie for a new narrative. Lest some fall into the same grave error as even the Galatians did, I highly recommend rightly dividing properly, here. We should not be inserting truths from Romans 14 into Romans 3. Where does Paul say to do this?

To rectify such a grave error, I present, once again, the simple truths of Paul's evangel, in simple fashion. Grace and peace.

*   *   *

The snatching away is not the beginning of your new life in Christ. We all look forward to it with fervent expectation, and for good reason! It’s the event that finally gets us off this silly rock, and gets the whole “ruling and reigning with Christ” process started! Why wouldn’t you look forward to such an experience??

That said, it is not the moment your ‘new life’ begins (nor is “justification by faith” the moment that your ‘new life’ begins. “Justification” concerns “righteousness,” which removes you from indignation. It is “conciliation” that concerns “life” – Rom. 5:9-10.) Your new life begins when you are baptized into Jesus’ death (Rom. 6:3.) This moment joins you with His spirit, and thus, you are now in Christ Jesus (2 Cor. 5:16-17.)

The peace that stems from this is overwhelmingly powerful.

It follows: what is baptism?

If you ask Mr. Born-Again-Baptist, they will say, “Baptism into Christ’s death is when you dip yourself in that little pool of water we have, and that saves you!”

People much smarter than me have written long, long essays about how utterly wrong this is. Baptism does not require water – it is a joining, or an imbibement, of one spirit with another. The water thing was a figure, not the requirement, for baptism to be made apparent. You can see this most apparently in Israel’s baptism, where they passed through the Red Sea without touching water at all (1 Cor. 10:1-2, Ex. 14:29.)

Nowadays, baptism is said to be through holy spirit (John 1:33, Acts 1:5.) This is the manner of baptism that Paul speaks of in Romans 6:3–

Or are you ignorant that whoever are baptized into Christ Jesus, are baptized into His death?

You have been spiritually baptized into Christ’s death, specifically. It is only through this that you are able to walk in a newness of life. Here’s Romans 6:4–

We, then, were entombed together with Him through baptism into death, that, even as Christ was roused from among the dead through the glory of the Father, thus we also should be walking in newness of life.

Here’s the million-dollar question:

Are you baptized into Christ Jesus’ death when you are snatched away?

For those of you playing along at home, the answer is ‘no.’

If you study the rest of Romans 6, the idea that your baptism is past becomes increasingly apparent. Your conduct and walk in Christ Jesus (including your service, and lack of condemnation – Rom. 6:12-14, 8:1,) are contingent on your imbibing into Christ’s death, per the above verse.

This reveals to us that there is a process by which you are saved; it is not immediate, but progressive. Here is the verse that breaks this down for us. Observe 2 Cor. 1:9-10–

But we have the rescript of death in ourselves, that we may be having no confidence in ourselves, but in God, Who rouses the dead, Who rescues us from a death of such proportions, and will be rescuing; on Whom we rely that He will still be rescuing also…

NOTE: "rescript" is "FROM-JUDGE-effect." This is a sentence which has already been carried out.

This shows us that there is a three step process to salvation. There is a past salvation (that is, your past) called “justification.” This is the immediate salvation. This is the “rescript of death in ourselves, that we may be having confidence in God instead of us” part of the verse above.

Step two is the present salvation that you are going through right now. This is the part of Paul’s evangel that discusses God’s peace with you – His love, all that jazz. It’s the “rouses the dead, rescuing us from death” portion of the verse. This is your deliverance from the power of Sin (sometimes called ‘sanctification.’) This is the “immaturity/maturity” side of Paul’s evangel that we never talk about!

It should be readily apparent to you that you are indeed living during your present deliverance from Sin (as God would not deliver a dead thing – He must rouse it from the dead first, shown in Christ’s resurrection, and then His ascent to the right hand of God.)

This firmly answers the objection that many Christian theologians like to present to you when you state the evangel as fact (as opposed to ‘interpretation’ or ‘theory,’ or ‘man’s reasoning.’) They ask, “Well, how do you know? You don’t know everything.” It’s a common statement, one I’m sure you’ve been confronted with a million times. The answer? Yeah, you don’t know everything, but everyone in Christ is at a different stage in their understanding, as we are all at different stages in this deliverance from the power of Sin!

God delights in this contrast! He loves creating this imbalance (Eph. 1:6, 1 Cor. 11:18-19, 12:12-31.) Shoot, I wouldn’t be surprised if it was His favorite hobby!

What does all of this have to do with the snatching away, you ask? Well, the snatching away just so happens to be the third and final step in your salvation! It is the fulfillment of your expectation. Your mortal frame will finally be discarded, and you will have a celestial body (see 1 Cor. 15:51-53.)

This moment – when you receive your new frame – is the end of your salvation, not the beginning. This is the moment that the physical reality finally catches up with what’s already been perfected in you. You already have the mind of Christ (1 Cor. 2:14-16.) You are already being conformed to the image of Christ (Rom. 8:28-30.) You are already living to Him (Rom. 6:9-11.) God did not misspeak. Your snatching away is the future conclusion, not the start of your understanding (2 Cor. 5:1-4.)

How exciting the prospect! That the new humanity’s spirit is nearly perfected, on God’s terms! It may not feel as though this is the case, but who said feelings were true as to fact? With this, we can rest in the peace that our Brother will not be ‘catching us up,’ when we are snatched, but celebrating how far our Father has truly snatched us out of this eon!

-       GerudoKing