Protected In Time And Safe In Eternity

The inheritance of the Christian, the full joy of God, is waiting for him in heaven; and of that Peter has two great things to say.

(i) On our journey through this world to eternity we are protected by the power of God through faith. The word which Peter uses for protect (phrourein, Greek #5432 ) is a military word. It means that our life is garrisoned by God and that he stands sentinel over us all our days. The man who has faith never doubts, even when he cannot see him, that God is standing within the shadows keeping watch upon his own. It is not that God saves us from the troubles and the sorrows and the problems of life; but he enables us to conquer them and march on.

(ii) The final salvation will be revealed at the last time. Here we have two conceptions which are at the very basis of New Testament thought.

The New Testament frequently speaks of the last day or days, or the last time. At the back of this is the way the Jews divided all time into two ages--the present age, which is wholly under the domination of evil and the age to come, which will be the golden age of God. In between came the day of the Lord during which the world would be destroyed and remade and judgment would come. It is this in between time which is the last days or the last time, that time when the world as we know it will come to an end.

It is not given to us to know when that time will come nor what will happen then. But we can gather together what the New Testament says about these last days.

(i) The Christians believed that they were already living in the last days. "It is the last hour," says John to his people ( 1 John 2:18 ). The writer to the Hebrews speaks of the fullness of the revelation which has come to men in Christ in these last days ( Hebrews 1:2 ). As the first Christians saw it, God had already invaded time and the end was hastening on.

(ii) The last times were to be times of the pouring out of God's Spirit upon men ( Acts 2:17 ). The early Christians saw that being fulfilled in Pentecost and in the Spirit-filled Church.

(iii) It was the regular conviction of the early Christians that before the end the powers of evil would make a final assault and that all kinds of false teachers would arise ( 2 Timothy 3:1 ; 1 John 2:18 ; Jd 18 ).

(iv) The dead would be resurrected. It is Jesus' promise that at the last time he will raise up his own ( John 6:39-40 ; John 6:44 ; John 6:54 ; John 11:24 ).

(v) Inevitably it would be a time of judgment when God's justice would be exercised and his enemies find their just condemnation and punishment ( John 12:48 ; James 5:3 ).

Such are the ideas which are in the minds of the New Testament writers when they use this phrase the last times or the last days.

Clearly for many a man such a time will be a time of terror; but for the Christian there is, not terror, but deliverance. The word sozein ( Greek #4982 ) means to save in far more than a theological sense. It is the regular word for to rescue from danger and to heal in sickness. Charles Bigg in his commentary points out that in the New Testament sozein ( Greek #4982 ), to save, and soteria ( Greek #4991 ), salvation, have four different, but closely related, spheres of meaning. (a) They describe deliverance from danger ( Matthew 8:25 ). (b) They describe deliverance from disease ( Matthew 9:21 ). (c) They describe deliverance from the condemnation of God ( Matthew 10:22 ; Matthew 24:13 ). (d) They describe deliverance from the disease and power of sin ( Matthew 1:21 ). Salvation is a many-sided thing. In it there is deliverance from danger, deliverance from disease, deliverance from condemnation and deliverance from sin. And it is that, and nothing less than that, to which the Christian can look forward at the end.