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Salvation, for a people with an earthly hope, includes complete restoration in the
physical realm, and most of the miracles of Scripture can be clearly seen to be a foretaste
of that age of restoration to come. The Hebrew believers were said to have,
"tasted the good word of God and the miracles (dunameis) of the age to come" (6: 5 lit.).
The close association between salvation and healing is seen in a number of N.T.
passages. The woman with the issue of blood expressed an assurance in the Lord when
she said:
"If I may touch but His clothes, I shall be whole" (Mark 5: 28).
But the verb translated here "I shall be whole" is the Greek sozo, "to be saved". When
the Lord had perceived who it was that had touched Him, He said to her, "Daughter, thy
faith hath made thee whole" (sozo, `hath saved thee'). This very same verb was used by
the Apostle Paul, when he wrote to a company with a calling "in heavenly places",
"for be grace are ye saved through faith" (Eph. 2: 8),
yet there is no suggestion here that physical salvation is involved.
It is a matter of distinguishing things that differ. The miracles of healing recorded in
the N.T. are explicable when seen as a foretaste of coming good things: they do not
belong to a company whose blessings are all spiritual. Hence such miracles ended
abruptly with the change of dispensation at Acts 28: 28.
There is however one miracle which did not belong solely to the earthly purpose of
God, and which continues its influence today:
"The gospel of Christ . . . . . it is the power (dunamis, `miracle') of God unto salvation
to every one that believeth" (Rom. 1: 16).
Nothing short of a miracle is necessary to change the heart of man, who has turned his
back upon God, and corrupted His ways.
This miracle of God, which is effected through the gospel of Christ, is also to be
looked upon as a foretaste of restoration. Already it gives to the believer "the spirit of a
sound mind" (II Tim. 1: 7). He is enabled to see things as they really are, and not through
the eyes of the world. By the renewing of the mind the believer is being "transfigured"
(Rom. 12: 2), and the goal is associated with the "image" of God, the Creator of the
"new man" (Col. 3: 10). All that was lost in Adam is more than "restored" in Christ.
Effect of the destruction of the Temple
on believers living at the time.
It has been shown that the Acts believers, who had an earthly hope and expected the
early return of the Lord to the earth, looked towards Jerusalem as their centre. This was
not simply that the city was convenient in this respect, but because it was to become the