"If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God. Set your affections on things above, not on things on the earth. For ye ARE dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God." Col. 3:1-3. As long as we live on this earth, in these earthly bodies, our outward man is warring with our inner man. Salvation does not take that warfare away. Unless we are taken the moment we are saved. It's not a matter of how others see us, it's a matter of how God sees us. And it's not a matter of just letting the outward man have his way once we are saved. We are a new creature. Bound in this earthly body of vileness, yet spiritually seated with Christ. The outward man has already lost the war. But it doesn't keep him from trying to win battles.
"For I know that in me (that is, IN MY FLESH) dwelleth no good thing: for to WILL is present with me: but HOW to perform that which is good I find not...For I delight in the law of God after the INWARD MAN: But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which in in my members...Oh wretched man that I am: who shall deliver me from the body of this death? I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin...Ther is therefor NOW no condemnation to them which are IN CHRIST JESUS, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. For the LAW OF THE SPIRIT OF LIFE IN CHRIST JESUS hath made me FREE from the law of sin and death." Romans Chapters 7,8.
And round it goes, outward man warring against the inward man while we live on this earth. But like I said, the war is over, according to the law of the Spirit of Life IN CHRST. But that does not keep the outward man from waging battles daily. As we all know.
How we know Mad Dawg is deranged:
My first responses are, “Shut up! I AM complete. So THERE!
And to go around the house singing, “How long do I have to wait? Can I be finished now, or must I hesitate?” to the tune of the “Hesitation Blues”
I REALLY need a vacation.
So, is it fair to say that there’s a sense of Completion— but not yet.
My analogy for the eschaton is that we are like freedom fighters in eastern France after D-Day. The War is over. We know it. Hitler knows it. But Eisenhower’s establishing a beach-head in France means “his wrath is great because he knows his days are short.”
And there may even be a Battle of the Bulge in our future. (Remarks about my waistline are NOT appropriate here.) But the good guys have won.
So, of course, we would jam purgation into the “over,but not yet” stack. It’s over, but there’s still something left to do.