Our Inheritance

Dr. Couch, is our inheritance in salvation something we now have or is it only an inheritance that we finally get when we go home to heaven? ANSWER:   In Ephesians 1:14 we are told the Holy Spirit presently (Present Tense) is the "earnest" or Guarantor of our inheritance. He IS (Present Tense of the "to be" verb) right now the Earnest of our redemption. He will be so until our final redemption comes about, and takes place.    In Ephesians 1:18 Paul says he wants the eyes of the believer to "be enlightened" to the fact of knowing "the riches of the glory of God's inheritance (for) the saints." Paul uses a Perfect Tense with the words "enlightened" and "may know." He wants for the child of God this enlightenment and knowledge to have begun in the past and then come up to the present in his experiential knowledge.  "I want you to have gone through a process of enlightenment, and to have gone through the process of learning (knowing) ..."    While there is a present awareness of our inheritance, there is also a future inheritance that will bring to fulfillment and completion our salvation. The writer of Hebrews in 1:14 says "the angels are ministering spirits ... for the sake of those who are 'to be inheriting' salvation."    "To be inheriting" is a Present Infinitive. We are going forward in "inheriting" salvation that will be brought to completion in the future. While this is a Present Infinitive it has a future component to it. This inheritance is presently going forward and will be completed with our salvation in the future.    Even though "inheritance" is a Present Infinitive it has a "resultant" thought to it, or a future thought behind it. And the translators caught this and translate the Present Infinitive in the NASB in a future sense. "For the sake of those who WILL INHERIT salvation [in the future] ..."     In my commentary series, Ger in Hebrews caught this future idea in the inheritance in Hebrews 1:14, with the Present Tense, when he wrote "the ministering spirits, the angels, are still hard at work on behalf of those who WILL INHERIT salvation (the ultimate salvation in the future), the Son is pictured as seated and at rest, awaiting His FUTURE reign following the Father's final conquest of the Son's enemies."     Conclusion: In timing, we now have a Present Tense in our inheritance but we also have a future component of completion. Our inheritance will be fulfilled and brought to completion someday in the future when we're in glory! We have the inheritance now and it will be consummated in the future!    Thanks for asking.    Dr. Mal Couch (7/10)

Jews Losing Their Salvation on the Day of Atonement

Dr. Couch, I have heard some say if the Jews do not pray for twenty-four hours on the Day of Atonement (Leviticus 23:26-32) they may lose their salvation. What do you say? ANSWER:  That is an extreme view and one that is out of order even in the OT. The way of salvation for the Jews is given in Genesis 15:6: "The [Abraham] believed in the Lord and He reckoned it to him as righteousness." The Bible is written from a common sense viewpoint. By believing all that the Lord had said to Abraham constituted salvation for him. That belief was "accounted, reckoned, applied" to him for righteousness. In other words, God saw him as Positionally righteousness. This is what happens to us with God seeing us as righteous as Himself, and as righteous as His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. "Common sense" is part of good hermeneutics and interpretation. The Bible is not wild and woolly in its approach to reality!    In Leviticus 23:27 this Day is called "the Day of atonement," or (Capher), the Day of Covering. The sins of the Jews were covered for another year. Christ does not atone for us. And where the KJV uses the word "atonement" it is wrong, and that is why I don't use that "old" version. Christ's death was a one-for-all act whereby God is finished with our sins. We read in Hebrews 9:12: "He entered the holy place once for all, having obtained ETERNAL REDEMPTION." And, Christ "is a mediator of a new covenant, ... by which we receive the promise of the ETERNAL INHERITANCE" (v. 15).    Back to the issue of the Jews and the OT: In Leviticus 23 the Jews were to humble themselves and do no work or they would be cut off from their people. This is not an issue of loss of salvation but they could die physically, for God "will destroy them from among [their] people" (v. 30).    Thanks for asking.    Dr. Mal Couch (Mar., 10)