Don Preston "So, in prophecy, the coming of the Day, the Day of Salvation, was eschatological to the core. It involved the restoration of the “earth”, the resurrection of Israel, the kingdom, the New Covenant, and virtually every tenet of salvation that one can possibly imagine. It was deliverance from the darkness of sin, despair, alienation, and death. This means that when Paul said, “Now is our salvation nearer than when we first believed”, he was not saying that they were nearer to their personal death, or, that the passing of the few years from their conversion had brought them that much nearer to their salvation in some vague, elastic, ambiguous way. Paul was saying that the Day of Salvation, the fulfillment of the Old Covenant promises of the Day, stood on the very brink of fulfillment."
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