What happens to believers when they are translated at salvation?
At salvation, God the Father instantaneously translates believers, delivering them from the power of darkness into the kingdom of His dear Son. It is a past-tense, completed act, though they do not feel or sense a physical trip. God also makes them meet to share the inheritance of the saints in light.
Les explains that these things are part and parcel of salvation, done instantaneously the moment we believe, none of which we could do in the flesh; we appropriate them by faith. Using Colossians 1:12-13, Les teaches that God the Father has already delivered believers from the power of darkness and translated them into the kingdom of His dear Son. This translation is past tense and done, even though believers did not feel themselves suddenly taking a trip or sense moving from one place to another. God has also made them meet, or prepared them, to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light. Les notes that sermons on being translated into the kingdom are rare, and that this kingdom is literal, spiritual as well as physical, one day.
Who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son: