Nowhere in the Scriptures is it taught that if we believe in Jesus we will go to Heaven when we die. What is stressed in numerous instances is that we receive eternal life through Jesus. It is not that eternal life is given to us as a reward for believing in Jesus but that receiving the Lord Jesus is equivalent to receiving eternal Divine Life—Life that always manifests itself in righteous conduct. To receive the Lord Jesus is to receive Eternal Life and Righteousness Himself.

Righteous, holy, obedient conduct flows from eternal life and leads to eternal life. Belief is not salvation but leads to salvation. When we receive Jesus we receive Life because He is Life. Receiving Jesus means receiving the Person of the living Jesus so we are enabled to turn away from the behaviors that produce death.

The end of the true Divine salvation always is righteous behavior and the worship of God. Residence in Paradise is the natural result of behavior acceptable to the Lord God. To have sinners in Paradise would be to change Paradise into Hell, because our Lord always will send tormenting fire on sinful behavior whether on the earth or in the spirit realm. The purpose of the Divine grace is not to provide a legal foundation whereby a holy God can dwell in peace with unholy people.

You can tell whether or not a person possesses eternal life by his deeds and words.

The Lord Jesus Christ did not come to earth primarily to forgive the sins of men. The Lord Jesus came to earth in order to destroy the works of Satan. The forgiveness of men is for the purpose of giving them the legal right to embark on the program of redemption.

The program of redemption is a process of salvation, of deliverance from sin and death. The Divine redemption is not salvation from Hell, it is salvation from what we are. It is salvation from our union with Satan and the bringing of us into union with God through Christ.

The new covenant includes the creating of a new kind of people, a new heaven, and a new earth. It is not the saving of the race of Adam, or the present universe, or the present earth. All these will be abolished. God is making all things new.

God is not saving Adam. God is slaying Adam and bringing forth a new race fashioned from the body and blood of Christ.

The elect who are called out from the world, first the Israelites, then the elect Gentiles, and finally the Jews in the last days, are not called out to be saved in the sense of escaping Hell and going to Heaven when they die. Rather, the elect are called out from the world in order that they may be fashioned into a firstfruits of God's creatures. Through them the rule and Virtue of God through Christ will be brought to the nations of saved peoples of the earth.

This has been God's plan from the beginning. It has not been changed. It has unfolded progressively in its several stages. It is nearing the point of the revealing of God's King, Christ and those saints who have overcome sin by the eternal Life that is in Jesus.

To be continued.