Eternally Secured!

                    

      

 

 

Jesus said:  “My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me.  I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one can snatch them out of my hand.  My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; no one can snatch them out of my Father's hand.”

John 10:27-29

 

 

The question of the eternal security of the believer has been the cause of much controversy in the church for centuries… and still creates confusion and distress for many Christians today.

 

Those who believe in falling away accuse those who believe in eternal security of promoting cheap grace. While it may be a convenient expression… to call it cheap is really a denial of grace, since it implies that too small a price has been paid.  Grace, however, must be absolutely free and without any price at all on man’s part; while on God’s part the price He paid was infinite. Thus for man to think that his works can play any part in either earning or keeping his salvation is what cheapens grace, devaluing this gift to the level of human effort and understanding.

 

To speak of failing from grace involves the same error. Since our works had nothing to do with meriting grace in the first place, there is nothing we could do that would cause us no longer to merit it and thus fall from it.  Works determine reward or punishment … not one’s salvation, which comes by God’s Amazing Grace. The crux of the problem is confusion about grace and works.

 

We must be absolutely clear that these two can never be mixed. Paul declares, “if by grace, then is it no more of works: otherwise grace is no more grace. But if it be of works, then is it no more grace: otherwise work is no more work” (Romans 11:6) Salvation cannot be partly by works and partly by grace.

 

We must be absolutely certain that works have nothing to do with salvation… period! The Bible clearly states, “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, 9 not of works, lest anyone should boast.” (Eph 2:8-9)

True to such Scriptures… evangelist firmly declares that we cannot earn or merit salvation in any way. Eternal life must be received as a free gift of God’s grace, or we cannot have it.

 

Salvation cannot be purchased even in part by us, because it requires payment of the penalty for sin… a payment we can’t make. If one were to receive a speeding citation, it wouldn’t help to say to the judge… I’ve driven many times within the 55 mph limit. Surely my many good deeds will make up for the one bad deed, or if you to say… if you let me off this time, I promise never to break the law again. The judge would reply, to never break the law again is only to do what the law demands. You get no extra credit for that, the penalty for breaking the law is a separate matter and must be paid.  Thus the Apostle Paul writes: “by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight” (Romans 3:20)

 

If salvation from the penalty of breaking God’s laws cannot be earned by good deeds, then it cannot be lost by bad deeds. Our works play no part in either earning or keeping salvation. If it could, then those who reach heaven could boast that while Christ saved them they, by their good lives, kept their salvation. Thus God would be robbed of having all the glory in eternity.

 

Salvation can be given to us as a free gift only if the penalty has been fully paid. We have violated infinite justice, requiring an infinite penalty. We are finite beings and could not pay it; we would be separated from God for eternity. God is infinite and could pay an infinite penalty, but it wouldn’t be just because He is not a member of our race. Therefore God, in love and grace, through the virgin birth, became a man so that He could pay the debt of sin for the entire human race!

 

In the Greek, Christ’s cry from the cross, “It is finished!” is an accounting term which means that the debt had been paid in full. Justice had been satisfied by full payment of its penalty, and thus God could “be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus”

(Romans 3:26).  On that basis, God offers pardon and eternal life as a free gift. He could not force it upon anyone or it would not be a gift. Nor would it be just to pardon a person who rejects the righteous basis for pardon and offers a hopelessly inadequate payment instead or offers His works even as partial payment.

 

Salvation is the full pardon by grace from the penalty of all sin, past present or future. Denying this cardinal truth, all cultist such as the Jehovah’s Witnesses for example reject salvation by grace and insist that it must be earned by one’s good works. They accuse evangelicals of teaching that all we need to do is to say we believe in Christ and then we can live as we please, in the grossest of sins, yet be sure to heaven. Evangelicals don’t teach that at all, yet a similar complaint is made by those who believe in falling away. They say that once saved, always saved encourages one to live in sin because if we know we cannot be lost we have no incentive for living a holy life. On the contrary, love for the One who saved us is the greatest and only acceptable motive for living a holy life and surely the greater the salvation one has received the more love and gratitude there will be. So to know one is secure for eternity gives a higher motive for living a good life than the fear of losing one’s salvation if one sins!

 

While those who believe in falling away are clear that good works cannot earn salvation, they teach that salvation is kept by good works. Thus one gets saved by grace, but thereafter salvation can be lost by works. To teach that good works keep salvation is almost the same error as to say that good works earn salvation. It denies grace to say that once I have been saved by grace I must thereafter keep myself saved by works.

 

Such teachings, say Hebrews 6:4-9, rather than glorifying Christ, once again holds Him up to shame and ridicule before the world once again for two reasons: if we lose our salvation, then (1) Christ would have to be crucified again to save us again, and (2) He would be ridiculed for dying to purchase a salvation but not making adequate provision to preserve it… for giving a priceless gift to those who would inevitably lose it. If Christ’s dying in our place for our sins and rising again was not sufficient to keep us saved, then He has foolishly wasted His time. If we could not live a good enough life to earn salvation, it is certain we cannot live a good enough life to keep it! To make the salvation he procured ultimately dependent upon works would be the utmost folly.

Falling away doctrine makes us worse off after we are saved than before. At least before conversion we can get saved. But after we are saved and have lost our salvation (if we could), we can’t get saved again, but are lost forever. Hebrews 6:4-6 declares, “If (not when) they shall fall away… it is impossible verse 4… to renew them again unto repentance.” That falling away is hypothetical is clear verse 9… But, beloved, we are persuaded better things of you and things that accompany salvation, though we thus speak” So falling away does not accompany salvation. The writer is showing us that if we could lose our salvation, we could never get it back without Christ dying again upon the cross. Such thinking if folly! He would have to die an infinite number of times, thus those who reject one saved, always saved, can only replace it with… once lost, always lost!

 

The Apostle John assures us, “I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know [present knowledge] that you have [present possession] eternal life. (1 John 5:13)  To call it eternal life would be a mockery if the person who had it could lose it and suffer eternal death. On the contrary, eternal like is linked with the promise that one cannot perish a clear assurance of eternal security.  John 3:16… promise those who believe in Jesus Christ that they “should not perish, but have everlasting life.” John 5:24 again says, “have everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation…” One could not ask for clearer or greater assurance than the words of Jesus: “I give unto them [my sheep] eternal life and they shall never perish” (John 10:28) If having received eternal life, we could lose it and perish it would make Christ a liar.

 

If sin causes the loss of salvation, what kind or amount of sin does it take? There is no verse in the Bible that tells us. We are told that if we confess our sins He is faithful and just to forgive us and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness, so apparently any sin can be forgiven. Even those who teach falling away rarely if ever say they got saved again. Rather, they confessed their sin and were forgiven. Hebrews 12:3-11 tells us that every Christian sins and instead that instead of causing a loss of salvation, sin brings God’s chastening upon us as His children.  If when we sinned we ceased to be God’s children, He would have no one to chastise, yet He scourges every son whom He receive. Indeed, chastening is a sign that we are God’s children, not that we have lost our salvation… “But if ye be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then are ye bastards, and not sons.”  Hebrews 12:8

 

Some teach that one must be baptized to be saved and others that one must speak in tongues. Both are a form of salvation by works. Some people lack the assurance of salvation because they haven’t spoken in tongues, others are confident they are saved because they think the have. Both are like those who say, Lord, Lord, have we not… in thy name done many wonderful works?  (Matt 7:21-23)  They are relying on their works to prove they are saved, instead of God’s grace. Nor does Jesus say… you were once saved but lost your salvation. He says, “I never knew you.”

 

Here is an important distinction... those who believe  in falling away would say of a professing Christian who has denied the faith and is living in unrepentant sin that he has fallen from grace and has lost his salvation. In contrast, those who believe in eternal security, while no more tolerant of such conduct, would say of the same person that probably Christ never knew him… he was never a Christian. We must give the comfort and assurance of Scripture to those who are saved; but at the same time we must not give false and unbiblical comfort to those who merely say they are saved but deny with their lives what they profess with their lips.

 

Are we not then saved by our works? Indeed not! In 1 Corinthians 3:12-15 every Christians works are tried by fire at the judgment seat of Christ before which we must all appear. Good works brings rewards and lack of the does not cause loss of salvation. The person who hasn’t even one good work (all of his works are burned up) is still saved; yet so as by fire. (1 Cor 3:15)  We would not think such a person was saved at all. Yet one who truly received the Lord Jesus Christ as his Savior, but who has no good works as evidence and may seem outwardly not to be a Christian, is saved as by the fire and shall never perish in spite of his lack of works.

 

Do we then, on the basis of eternal security encourage Christians to sin that grace may abound? With Paul we say… “Well then, should we keep on sinning so that God can show us more and more kindness and forgiveness?  Of course not! Since we have died to sin, how can we continue to live in it?  Or have you forgotten that when we became Christians and were baptized to become one with Christ Jesus, we died with him?  For we died and were buried with Christ by baptism. And just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glorious power of the Father, now we also may live new lives.  (Romans 6:1-4)

 

We offer no comfort or assurance to those who are living in sin. We don’t say, you’re okay because you once made a decision for Christ. Instead, we warn, if you are not right now to live fully for Christ as Lord of your life, how can you say that you were really sincere when you supposedly committed yourself to Him at some time in the past? And to all we declare with Paul… “Examine yourselves to see whether you are in the faith; test yourselves” (2 Cor 13:5)

 

Our confidence for eternity rests solely in His unchanging love and grace and the sufficiency of God’s provision in Christ, not in our worth or performance. Only when this is clear do we have real peace with God. Only then can we truly love Him and live for Him out of gratitude for the eternal life He has given to us as a free gift of His grace… a gift He will not take back and which He makes certain can never be lost!