Day of Salvation

"Working together with him, then, we entreat you not to accept the grace of God in vain. For he says 'At the acceptable time I have listened to you and helped you on the day of salvation." 2 Corinthians 2.2

Behold now is the Day of Salvation. 2 Corinthians chapters 3,4&5 contrasts the Old Law Covenant with the New Covenant the testimony of which is written on human hearts not tablets of stone.

Disobedience had caused separation from God. Salvation from God had meant that separation could now come to an end. In the unfolding purpose of God He had through the prophet Isaiah promised salvation, that there would be a Day of Salvation, and that day, wrote Paul, has arrived. Throughout his letters to the Churches Paul went to great length to show the need of saving from sin and that salvation could come through Christ whose death on the cross brought salvation.

Jesus having died, salvation was secured as Peter had declared on the Day of Pentecost.

Paul in 2 Corinthians 3 speaks of testimonial letters not paper nor stone but hearts ‑ written by God's Spirit, Paul makes this appeal following his long exposition about the Covenants and his appeal to 'Be reconciled' to God. He does so he says as a minister of the New Covenant. Explaining that the purpose of a covenant is reconciliation to God. There is no fear in seeing the glory of the Lord as there had been in Israel when Moses appeared among them in the desert of Sinai. In fact this vision of Christ has a transforming power in our lives.

His quotation from the Servant Song day of salvation is not a 24 day but an epoch or an unspecified long period of time, as days or epochs in Genesis 1. Paul quotes Isaiah 49.8 (part of the Servant Song) and states that day of salvation has come. Jacob, as Israel, was (Genesis 49.18) prophetically able as he was saying 'good-bye' to his family to say that there would come a 'day of salvation'. Just as Israel was in bondage in Egypt, God's people in bondage of sin are yet to enjoy a day of release from sin.

What is 'salvation'? - so Paul in Romans 3.23 "all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God" All need salvation. Humanity rebelled from the beginning ‑ Romans 1. Freedom of choice continues. "God gave them over …that he might have mercy on all (Romans 11.32) but some chose to walk with him, so touched were they by his great love. What is their salvation? When Peter and John at the Temple gate healed a crippled man (Acts 4.10,12) and were questioned by Jewish rulers they replied "by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth …there is salvation in no one else". In Romans 3.6 the Gospel is "the power of God for salvation to every one who has faith." The means of salvation is in John 3.16 'God so loved'… it is so simple yet so profound that it is often misunderstood and God is not taken at his word. In it lies Christ's comprehensive work of atonement. Colossians 1.13-20 'all things created through him and for him'. All things in earth and heaven reconciled ‑ through the cross.

Paul in Athens on Mars Hill (Acts 17.30-31) said "the times of this ignorance God overlooked but now he commands all men everywhere to repent, because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed and of this he has now given assurance to all men by raising him from the dead." "All men everywhere…now." It is the same teaching ‑ told from a different angle in a different way - man's need through sin and ignorance, and only God meets that need and provides a way of escape. He meets the need by man's belief in a resurrected Son whose return brings salvation for all.