Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life. (John 5:24)
Many Christians take this verse among and others to mean that the moment one believes in Jesus Christ as his or her Lord and Savior that he or she receives final consummation of salvation and eternal life in heaven. Unfortunately, this is an incorrect understanding of John 5:24 (and others). Such a misunderstanding arises from a faulty comprehension of God’s plan of salvation and leads to an over-realized eschatology.
When a Christian becomes a believer, he or she receives the present entitlement to his or her salvation, glorification and eternal life in the future at the second coming of Christ. And the believer is considered to have spiritually passed from death to life at the moment he or she believes, although God’s consummation of his or her salvation, glorification, and eternal life is yet to come.
Upon belief in Christ Jesus through faith, the believer accepts Jesus as his or her Lord and Savior. Consequently, God justifies the believer or counts the believer as righteous (See Gen. 15:6 “And he [Abraham} believed the Lord, and he counted it to him as righteousness”).
Justification is a judicial act of God, in which He declares, on the basis of the righteousness of Jesus Christ, that all the claims of the law are satisfied with respect to the sinner. It is unique in the application of the work of redemption in that it is a judicial act of God, a declaration respecting the sinner, and not an act or process of renewal, such as regeneration, conversion, and sanctification. While it has respect to the sinner, it does not change his inner life. It does not affect his condition, but his state and in that respect differs from all the other principal parts of the order of salvation. It involves the forgiveness of sins, and restoration to divine favour.[1]
When God justifies the believer, He presently and absolutely promises and guarantees (Eph. 1:13) the final consummation of the believer’s salvation at the end of the age and grants the believer eternal life that starts spiritually when a person believes and is finally consummated at the general resurrection, and neither future salvation or eternal life can ever be lost.
Scripture refers to God’s plan and purpose regarding the salvation of human beings, “as a plan for the fullness of time” (Eph. 1:10). God’s plan of salvation is a unitary process by which God applies his grace to individual sinners. The apostle Paul wrote that this plan or process of the salvation of human beings was “the mystery of his [God’s] will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ” (Eph. 1:9). Louis Berkhof writes:
various movements can be distinguished in the process, that the work of the application of redemption proceeds in a definite and reasonable order, and that God does not impart the fullness of His salvation to the sinner in a single act. Had He done this, the work of redemption would not have come to the consciousness of God’s children in all its aspects and in all its divine fullness.[2]
There is an order to God’s plan of salvation. God’s gracious plan is finally consummated and completed for all elect believers at glorification on the Day of Judgment, at Christ’s second coming when all elect believers are saved from the eternal, condemning wrath of God and are ushered into heaven to their glorified state.
The triune Godhead―Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, in eternity, prior to any divine creation, agreed to a redemptive plan (the covenant of redemption) for redeeming out of the future creation certain sinful human beings (the “elect”) from eternal death as a result of their sin. This plan of salvation is God’s process begun in eternity before creation, manifested in creation, and finally consummated at the end of the age with the glorification of the saints in the new heaven and new earth.
The plan of salvation is applied to individual members of the elect beginning with regeneration and continuing through conversion and belief in Jesus Christ. Additional phases of the plan of salvation in the life of the elect are justification, reconciliation, adoption, and sanctification. This is why Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 1:18 For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved (Greek: σῳζομένοις sōzomenois) it is the power of God.
Once we believe in Christ and are justified, we “were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it” (Eph. 1:13, 14). The plan of salvation continues after physical death at the end of the age, at the general resurrection and on judgment day when each believer’s salvation is finally consummated and they are ushered into the new heaven and new earth where they receive their glorified bodies.
Salvation is a process from eternity to the end of the age and thus has a past, present, and future aspect―we were saved (E.g., Rom. 8:24), we are being saved (E.g., 1 Cor. 1:18), and we shall be saved (E.g., Rom. 5:9). Each of these phrases is correct and they all appear in Scripture. Though at the time of our belief in Christ our salvation is not finally consummated, as that will happen at the end of the age, we can correctly refer to ourselves at the point of belief as being saved. But it is important that we understand that salvation is a process that will not be finally consummated until the end of the age when Jesus returns (Rom. 8:23; 8:29,30; 13:11).
So, why do so many Christians believe that salvation is completed and fully realized when they become a believer? Attempting to fully answer this question is beyond the scope of this post. But we can say that those who hold that the believer really possesses a finally consummated salvation at the moment of belief are engaging in an over-realized eschatology.
Dr. B.B. Warfield, the respected Princeton Reformed theologian, wrote the following regarding God’s Plan of Salvation:
What is chiefly of importance for us to bear in mind here, is that God’s plan is to save, whether the individual or the world, by process. No doubt the whole salvation of the individual sinner is already accomplished on the cross: but the sinner enters into the full enjoyment of this accomplished salvation only by stages and in the course of time redeemed by Christ regenerated by the Holy Spirit, justified through faith, received into the very household of God as his sons, led by the Spirit into the flowering and fruiting activities of the new life, our salvation is still only in process and not yet complete. We still are the prey of temptation; we still fall into sin; we still suffer sickness, sorrow, death itself. Our redeemed bodies can hope for nothing but to wear out in weakness and to break down and decay in the grave. Our redeemed souls only slowly entered into their heritage. Only when the last trump shall sound and we shall rise from our graves, and perfected souls and incorruptible bodies shall together enter into the glory prepared for God’s children, is our salvation complete.[3]
[1] Louis Berkhof, Systematic Theology (The Banner of Truth Trust, 2012), 533.
[2] Berkhof, 416.
[3] B.B Warfield, The Plan of Salvation, (Great Christian Books, 2013), 100.
