E. J. W by Ellet Joseph Waggoner

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Apr 19, 1883

E. J. W

By Ellet Joseph Waggoner

"And the Lord added to the church daily such as should be saved."—This expression does not indicate any purpose or decree that they must be saved; that certain ones were foreordained to be saved. The Revised Version is more faithful to the original: "those that were being saved." The word "saved" is used in two senses in the Bible. In its primary signification it has reference to the final condition of the righteous—saved from sin and death. But as those who will at last be saved in Heaven are those who turn from their evil ways here, it is used in a secondary sense with reference to the converted—those upon whose hearts the Spirit of God has worked. It is thus used in this passage, and also in 2 Tim. 1:9; Titus 3:5; 1 Cor. 1:18. The idea in all of these places is that those who have been renewed by the Holy Ghost are in such a condition that they will finally be saved if they continue in the same way. This is too often lost sight of by modern revivalists. The salvation is conditional. The idea is expressed in 1 Cor. 15:2: "By which also ye are saved, if ye keep in memory what I preached unto you, unless ye have believed in vain."