What a rousing message Paul sent to the church at Corinth! "Behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation." II Cor. 6:2; compare Isa. 49:8. Paul's purpose, one Bible commentary explains, was "to underscore the urgency of immediate acceptance of God's grace." The Interpreter's One-Volume Commentary on the Bible (Nashville, Tennessee: Abingdon Press, 1971), p. 817.
How immediate is our acceptance of good? Do we tend unconsciously to postpone our own salvation by making it conditional on a passage of time, or a change in material conditions, or on what others do? Do we look back on the past as embracing more good than the present holds? What prevents us from accepting the nowness of all good? Understanding, now? Regeneration, now? Healing, now?
When God revealed Himself to Moses as "I AM," Ex. 3:14. He revealed His present individuality, His eternal unchangeability. "Going to be" could not properly describe either God or His perfect creation. God's messenger, the Christ, brings the message of a present, not future, salvation. In Revelation we read, "Now is come salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of his Christ: for the accuser of our brethren is cast down, which accused them before our God day and night." Rev. 12:10.
