2 Timothy 2:10

‘Therefore I endure all things for the elect’s sake, that they also may obtain the salvation which is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory.’

And why did Paul allow himself to be treated like this? Why did he not just renounce his faith and be released? It was because he was enduring whatever came upon him for the sake of the unrestrainable word of God and for the sake of those whom God has chosen for Himself from the foundation of the world (Ephesians 1:4) who would be delivered through that word. It was for the sake of God’s ‘elect’, His chosen and called out ones (compare Matthew 20:16; Matthew 24:22; Matthew 24:24; Matthew 24:31; Luke 18:7; Romans 8:33; Colossians 3:12; Titus 1:1; 1 Peter 1:2; Revelation 17:14). And it was so that they might obtain the salvation which is in Christ Jesus to eternal glory.

‘The salvation which is in Christ Jesus to eternal glory.’ Such ‘salvation’ is to be found ‘in Christ Jesus’, by union with Him. The word here describes the whole of the process of salvation from start to finish, the process whereby we are forgiven and reconciled to God in Christ (2 Corinthians 5:20-21), made into new creatures in Christ (2 Corinthians 5:17), changed from glory into glory even as by the Lord, the Spirit (2 Corinthians 3:18), finally ending up in eternal glory (Colossians 3:4). And this because Christ is in us, the hope of glory (Colossians 1:27; Colossians 3:4; 2 Corinthians 4:17). For once the process truly begins as a result of a person being genuinely ‘saved’, it will be carried through by our Lord Jesus Christ right up to the consummation when it becomes complete and final (although we will always be ‘the saved’ or ‘the redeemed’ even then, just as He will always be ‘the Lamb as it had been slain’). This certainty of salvation is made clear in a number of Scriptures such as, 2 Timothy 2:13; 2 Timothy 1:12; John 6:27; John 10:27-28; 1 Corinthians 1:8-9; Philippians 1:6; Jude 1:24, but it must be emphasised that it is salvation from sin. We can only be saved if we want to be saved from sin.