What is the day of salvation?

Now the important thing for us is to turn the grace of God to account. To receive it in vain means to profess to have received it and yet to be unaffected by it; like the seed sown among thorns or on the rock, it was fruitless. The apostle desired that the seed might prove to have fallen into good ground, so that there might be fruit. Where the grace of God is truly received there is always a response to it in the heart and life.

He draws their attention to the character of the present day. He says, "Behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation." This is the day when God is favourable to men. The literal application of the passage is to Christ, and the setting of it in the scripture is in connection with the world to come. That day will be in a very manifest way the accepted time and day of salvation, but the resurrection and glory of Christ has introduced it, and it is now testified of in the gospel. There is no public display of it yet, but faith can lay hold of it and anticipate the day in which it will be in world-wide display. This day, then, is the day of grace; grace is preached in the gospel and carries with it salvation for all. If it is the day of grace it is the day of salvation and the grace is not to be despised, the salvation is not to be neglected.

Verse 2 is parenthetical and in brackets. The first part of it is a quotation from Isaiah 49:8. The words quoted are addressed prophetically to the Messiah, who was to be rejected, and yet become a light to the Gentiles and salvation to the end of the earth. In spite of His rejection He should be heard and helped of Jehovah; and the hour when He should be heard and helped would be the time accepted and the day of salvation. The latter part of the verse points out that we are living in that very hour. He has been heard in resurrection, and with His resurrection the day of salvation has begun. It will continue until the day of Judgment supervenes. That of course is the reason why grace has visited us at all. We are not to receive it in vain.

Interesting is the quotation from Isaiah 49. A careful examination of Isaiah 49:4-8 is suggested. It is a prophecy concerning the Messiah. His rejection by Israel is there predicted, and the words of the eighth verse, quoted here, "I have heard thee in a time accepted and in the day of salvation I have succored thee" are addressed to Christ, whom Israel rejected. God raised Him from the dead, and though Israel is not gathered, He becomes the power of salvation for the Gentiles. This is the meaning of "behold now is the accepted time; behold now is the day of salvation." "Now" means this present dispensation when salvation is offered to the Gentiles. But grace rejected, neglected or perverted, as it is the case in this age in which grace reigns through righteousness, will bring judgment, followed by the blessings for Israel and the earth.

Since the beginning of the world there never has been such a day as the present, nor indeed shall there ever be such a dispensation again. It is spoken of as “the accepted time” and “the day of salvation” (2 Cor. 6:2). It is the day in which God presents Himself to men as the Saviour of the lost. It is the day in which His gracious interposition on our behalf is testified of to the whole world. The day in which He declares that His desire is that all men should be saved, and come to the knowledge of the truth. In grace and love He has intervened on behalf of all men universally. Such a day of privilege for man never was before and never shall be again.

Verse 2. "For He says," etc. In these words, which need not be read parenthetically, we have first a quotation from the prophet Isaiah, and then the Spirit's application of the prophecy to the present work of God. It is to Christ, as the despised of the people and abhorred of rulers, that this language is originally addressed. The whole passage is a magnificent prophetic anticipation of the facts which now characterize the existing dispensation. He has been heard in that He feared, and receives the promise of Israel's eventual blessing when the veil shall have been taken from their heart. He shall be given as a covenant to the people, etc. Meanwhile, He is heard in an acceptable time, and succoured in a day of salvation (Isa. 49:4-8). Raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, He becomes the power of salvation to the Gentiles, although Israel be not gathered. He is preached to the Gentiles, and believed on in the world (1 Tim. 3:16). This is the true force of the emphatic word "now." Israel's spiritual things are now ministered to men at large. Salvation is of the Jews, but their fall is the riches of the world (Rom. 11:12. Notes on Romans in loc.). The intercepted blessings therefore of Jerusalem fall, with additions of which no Jewish prophet was apprised (Eph. 3:5), into the lap of the Church, as the intermediate subject of the heavenly calling. Now, therefore, for the Gentile is the time of free acceptance, and now the day of salvation. But as the same witness has elsewhere (Rom. 11) warned us, that day, though long, is limited. The grace which still woos with such patient importunity the dull ear of the world will, if neglected or perverted to licentiousness, become the swift and inexorable judge of the despisers in the coming day (Heb. 2:3; Jude 4).

God offers to save you on the spot. Sometimes people will tell you they are waiting for God’s time. They cannot do that. It is an impossibility. If God promised to save you five minutes hence you could wait God’s time, but when He says, “NOW is the accepted time,” you cannot wait for NOW. Oh! that the loving importunity of a Saviour-God would lead to a wise and instant decision.

And I will tell you why “Now is the day of salvation.” Because the Saviour has died. Because the work of salvation has been gloriously and perfectly accomplished—the work whereby God can in righteous grace save the vilest sinner who puts his trust in Jesus.

There is no need of supposing in this case that a promise to the Messiah included at the same time His people, though we see how strikingly this appears in the use made of Isaiah 50 by the apostle in Romans 8. Here the blessing to the Gentiles is expressly mentioned, so that it seems more akin to James's use of Amos 9:11-12, in Acts 15. And this is confirmed, it would appear, by the fact that the apostle breaks forth into a strong expression of the grace God is now showing, surpassing as it does the actual fulfilment in the days of the kingdom, when the earth shall be raised and the desolate heritage is enjoyed; when the prisoners shall go forth and those in darkness show themselves; when hunger and thirst shall be no more, and heat and sun shall not smite, but the merciful Jehovah shall guide even by the springs of waters; when the mountains shall be made a way, and the scattered return from every quarter under heaven; when the heavens themselves shall sing and the earth be joyful in Jehovah's mercy and comfort for His afflicted people. Yet in presence of such an anticipation, bright as it was in the apostle's heart, there shone a light brighter by far in Him who is exalted into a new and higher glory at God's right hand, which leads him to say, "Behold now a right acceptable season, behold now a day of salvation:" words suggested by the prophecy, but designedly rising above them in strength as expressive of God's present display of grace in the gospel.

Now, in whatever way we look at the future, from whatever point of view we contemplate it, whether the object, which presents itself to the soul's vision be the Church in glory, or the world in flames, the coming of the Bridegroom, or the breaking in of the thief, the morning Star, or the scorching sun, the translation, or the deluge, we must feel the unspeakable importance of attending to God's present testimony in grace, to lost sinners. "Now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation." (2 Cor. 6:2) "God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself, not imputing their trespasses to them." (2 Cor. 5:19) He is reconciling now, He will be judging by and by; it is all grace now; it will be all wrath then; He is pardoning sin now, through the cross; He will punish it then, in hell, and that for ever. He is sending out a message of purest, richest, freest grace. He is telling sinners of an accomplished redemption through the precious sacrifice of Christ. He is declaring that all is done. He is waiting to be gracious. "The long-suffering of our Lord is salvation." "The Lord is not slack concerning his promise as some men count slackness, but is long-suffering to usward, not willing that any should perish, that all should come to repentance." (2 Peter 3) All this makes the present moment one of peculiar solemnity. Unmingled grace declared! — unmingled wrath impending. How solemn! How deeply solemn!

What a gracious time is the present! For the decree of judgment is enrolled among the immutable counsels of God, and not less sure than the exaltation of the Son as King in Zion. But His exaltation to the throne of universal dominion is delayed, and the judgment of the ungodly is held in check that the authority which the Lord Jesus has may be used in giving eternal life to those whom the Father brings to Him. Is not this patient waiting? The longsuffering of the Lord is salvation. And "salvation" is the word which gives the character of this present day, as judgment will of the coming day. For then there will be unsparing retribution upon those who have taken counsel against Him and who will be taken, as it were, red-handed in their guilt. None escape; Israel and the Gentile, the people and the heathen, all who are confederated in rebellion will feel the power of God's King when He sits on His throne in Zion. It is grace while He is on the Father's throne.

Now, for us there is soul salvation, as Cornelius and his company that day learnt. Life the centurion had already possessed - eternal life really. But salvation he had never known. Deliverance from the just consequences of his sins he had not previously enjoyed. So we see in him illustrated the salvation of the soul, of which Peter writes (1 Peter 1:9), before receiving full salvation of the person, which will come at a future day (1 Peter 1:5). Soul salvation, then, apart from final deliverance in the last time, is New Testament doctrine, and in its fulness and freeness is Christian doctrine. Prophets of old, we are taught by the same Apostle, learnt that they ministered really to coming generations, writing of that which was not in their own day to be enjoyed. At Pentecost the time had come for the salvation of the soul to be known by the believer. We say at Pentecost, because during the Lord's life on earth that blessing, like forgiveness of sins, was not preached nor generally dispensed. A woman in the Pharisee's house learnt that her sins were forgiven (Luke 7:48). To the house of the publican Zacchæus salvation came when the Lord entered under his roof (Luke 19:9). But these were exceptional cases, like drops of rain the prelude to a great shower. Now, however, consequent on the death and resurrection of the Lord, a great change was introduced: forgiveness of sins was to be preached and by consequence soul salvation was to be enjoyed. So the Apostle Paul could write of this dispensation as "the day of salvation" (2 Cor.6:2). Then, addressing the company in the synagogue of Antioch in Pisidia, he declared, "To you is the word of this salvation sent" (Acts 13:26). And when the Jews at Rome refused the truth, he told them, "This salvation of God is sent unto the Gentiles, and they will hear it" (28:28). It was present salvation; so he could say to Timothy, "Who hath saved us, and called us with an holy calling" (2 Tim.1:9). To the Ephesians he could write, "By grace are ye saved through faith," for they had received the Gospel of their salvation (Eph.2:8). Deliverance from the consequences of their sins they enjoyed, and knew it. So was it with Cornelius when he had heard the words whereby he could be saved. So is it with every one who rests on the Divine testimony of forgiveness of sins through the precious blood of Christ. To have spiritual life is one thing, to be saved is another. Not that God will stop short of perfecting His work in the soul; but He desires that the individual should believe the message of forgiveness and know that he is saved.