Monday, April 28, 2014
1 Corinthians 15:20f But now Christ is risen from the dead, and has become the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. For since by man came death, by Man also came the resurrection of the dead.
THE ORDER OF OUR SALVATION
Do you remember doing flow charts in high school math classes or maybe in computer classes? In a flow chart, you had a beginning and an end. In the middle there were all of the events that had to occur in order to achieve the desired result. There was an order to the way that things had to be done to get from the beginning to the end. "C" could not happen before "A" and "B" were completed. If "A" and "B" then "C."
The same could be said of our salvation. Man's sin would be at the beginning of this flow chart and the end of the flow chart would be eternal life. In the middle would be an order of events that had to be satisfied before man could get to eternal life.
Our salvation began in eternity, where God determined His plan for our salvation, as it is written, "[God] saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His purpose and grace which was given us in Christ Jesus before time began ..." (2 Timothy 1:9).
God's plan was in place, waiting to be set in motion when it became needed. It wasn't a hasty plan thrown together in a panic when man sinned. It was carefully planned, a plan of love and grace, so that when the first space in the flowchart of salvation was filled in, "Man sinned ..." God's plan went into action to insure that through Christ Jesus the flowchart would end with the forgiveness of sins and life eternal.
He's risen, he's risen, Christ Jesus, the Lord;
Death's prison he opened, incarnate, true Word.
Break forth, hosts of heaven, in jubilant song
While earth, sea, and mountain the paean prolong.
(The Lutheran Hymnal, 198:1)
