July 2000

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Christian Chronicles, July 2000 - Volume 3, Issue 56

The Editor's Pen

It seems almost silly that the debate should continue to rage as to whether or not a person can be lost again once he has been saved. Yet, the flames have never been higher, nor the passions hotter, on this issue.

As is frequently the case, the debate over eternal security is not a factor among conservative theologians, but is between the liberals and conservatives. And as always, the issue must be determined by its harmony with all other doctrine, although in this case the doctrine is fairly clear standing alone, without any reference to any other doctrine. When the weight of Scripture concerning security is added to its harmony with all the other doctrines, then the answer becomes so indubitably clear as to make one wonder why there is any debate at all.

The fight is between light and darkness, between hope and despair, life and death. The debate is between the saved and the unsaved. Make no mistake about that.

Perspectives: Saved by God; Lost by Self

These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God;
that ye may know that ye have eternal life...
(1 Jn 5:13)

Many Christians are unsure of their salvation. And many of those who are certain that they have been saved live in fear that they might do something that will cost them their salvation. Their lives become prisons in which they fear to upset the Warden rather than boundless opportunities to minister and be ministered to.

The first aim of the devil is to prevent lost souls from hearing the gospel. He does not do this by tempting them to sin. They do that just fine by themselves, thank you. No, if the devil is to prevent lost souls from hearing the gospel, then he must attack those who are charged with spreading the gospel. In order to keep men from responding to the gospel, the devil must stop the preachers. For the lost are already predisposed not to listen to anything concerning a God whom they fear.

One of the chief ways the devil seeks to divert Christians from their ministries is to minimize their hope. If he can make them as fearful of God as the lost are, then they will not be inclined to talk much about Him. So many churches today present the gospel of grace clearly enough, but then take away God’s grace with countless sermons that dwell only on the morality of the believer.

Certainly, there can be no question that Christians are to be as moral as they can possibly be, but that is not the goal of the Christian. The Christian is to be fruitful. As long as our attention is focused upon the deeds of the flesh (both ours and others), we are not looking at the Light, but at ourselves. And since we are all still sinners, we immediately lose hope. While we should strive to maintain integrity and honor, walking in the Spirit and not in the flesh, the way to achieve those noble ends is by focusing our hearts and minds on Jesus Christ, not on ourselves. What did the Apostle Paul say? “Walk in the Spirit and ye shall not fulfill the lusts of the flesh” (Gal 5:16). It is absolutely impossible to walk in the Spirit while remaining mindful of the things of the flesh. For what did Jesus Himself say? The lamp of the body is the eye: if therefore your eye is good, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness (Mt 6:22-23 NKJV).

An evil eye is always accompanied by an evil conscience (see Heb 10:22). The way to fill your body with light is to gaze upon that one true Light and be filled with the Spirit of God.

The issue is not whether a Christian can be lost again. As we have stated elsewhere in this edition of CC, if we could be lost again, we assuredly would be lost. The issue for the Christian is whether or not he is being fruitful. And the only way to be fruitful is to attend to the things of the Spirit rather than the things of the flesh (see Rom 8:1-9).

Even Paul continued to sin after he was saved (Rom 7:15-25), but John said, “And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous” (1 Jn 2:1). When we sin, Jesus Himself points to the blood that He shed on the cross to pay for our sins, so that we cannot be lost again once we are saved, for that blood is shed once for all.

Mid-East Update

The death of Hafez el Assad came before he expected it. It was his often-stated hope that he would be able to enter into some sort of final peace agreement in the Middle East. It was his desire that such a peace would be his legacy. It was not to be. In the end, he remained intransigent too long, too stubborn over minor issues that might have been resolved honorably with much greater ease than he was willing to acknowledge.

There are those who believe that his son, and heir to the throne, Bashar, will be less recalcitrant, that peace will now be possible much sooner than might have been possible had Hafez Assad lived. Perhaps it is so. If it is, the peace will be no more genuine than it might have otherwise have been. It will be a treaty of convenience far more than it will represent any genuine rapprochement between the peoples indigenous to the region.

Governments will make peace for the sake of security, but more, for the sake of commerce. The resentment of millennia, however, will continue to simmer and fester in the hearts of the people, threatening constantly to erupt into violence. While the Western nations continue to press for a comprehensive peace agreement, they do not realize that they are pressing for their own destruction, prophesied to come upon them for the partitioning of the land that God gave to Israel (Joel 3:1-8). The whole world, including many Jews, is screaming, “Peace, peace!” But there will be no peace. Not any real peace. And the agreement that is ratified by the signatory nations will be broken when it is halfway through its covenanted time.

At the time of this writing, the leaders of Israel and the Palestinians are meeting at a summit in Washington, D.C., in the hope of establishing a separate peace between those two peoples. Prime Minister Barak of Israel faces a crumbling coalition at home as the ceding of land to the Palestinians is hotly debated, though he has promised to bring any agreement to a public referendum. It should be noted that this separate agreement will precede that comprehensive agreement which will mark the beginning of the time of Jacob’s trouble (Jer 30:7). However, this is the treaty that is to determine the “final” settlement concerning Jerusalem. Pray that it shall fail.

Fruit of the Vine

Those who would be fruitful in their witness and testimony to lost souls must be ever mindful of the fact that it is the goodness of God that leads men to repentance (Rom 2:4). We will never scare anyone into heaven with threats of hell, but rest assured that we may always welcome them into eternity with the grace of God. There is not a lost person on the face of the earth who does not know in his heart of hearts that he is a sinner, though he may deny it vehemently to himself and others. Everyone is aware of the severity of God to judge sin, but very few people know of the goodness of God, or of His amazing grace, by which even the worst sinner may be saved. It is by learning that God is love that men come to accept the gospel of grace. Those who preach the judgment of God usurp the work of the Holy Spirit, whose work it is to convict sinners of their sins. God has not given us a ministry of condemnation, but of reconciliation (see 2 Cor 5:18-21). Hell’s fire and damnation preachers scare more people away from God than they can ever hope to lead to Him. The word Gospel means good news, and that is what we are charged with bringing to the lost of this world.

O Wretched Man!

That is the way the Apostle Paul described himself. He said, “O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from the body of this death?” (Rom 7:24). If the Bible ended right there, we would have no hope at all. For, if Paul was a wretched sinner seeking deliverance, what chance would we have of finding deliverance ourselves? No chance at all.

But the Bible does not end there. Fortunately, we do not have far to look in our search for a Deliverer. In fact, our deliverance is found in the very next verse. Paul continues, “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. There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus...” (Rom 7:25-8:1). Though Paul remained willful in the flesh, God remained faithful to save him. To the church at Thessalonica, Paul also wrote, “And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. Faithful is he that calleth you, who also will do it” (1 Th 5: 23-24; cp. 2 Th 3:3). To Timothy, Paul wrote, “If we believe not, yet he abideth faithful: he cannot deny himself” (2 Tim 2:13). Our salvation does not depend upon our faithfulness, but upon God’s. It does not depend upon our righteousness, but God’s (see Phil 3:9). Our eternal security is not guaranteed by our behavior, but by God’s promises. If our eternal security depended upon our sinlessness, none of us would be saved. We are cleansed forever with the washing of water by the Word (Eph 5:26), so that God alone receives any glory for the salvation of any person who is ever saved. If our works saved us, then grace would become unnecessary, and Christ would have died in vain (see Gal 2:21). If our works were necessary to keep us saved, then Jesus would have lied when He shouted, “It is finished!” (see John 19:30). What He finished on the cross was the work of our salvation.

Eternal Life: When is it Applied?

“Father, the hour has come;
glorify Thy Son, that the Son may glorify Thee,
even as Thou gavest Him authority over all mankind,
that to all whom Thou hast given Him,
He may give eternal life.
And this is eternal life,
that they may know Thee,
the only true God,
And Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent.”
(Jn 17:1-3)

The Lord’s Prayer. This is the real prayer of Jesus. The one that we commonly identify as the Lord’s prayer is not really His prayer at all, but is the prayer which He gave to His disciples when they asked him how to pray (Mt 6:9-13; Lk 11:1-4). It should rightly be called the Disciples’ Prayer. The Lord, however, is here praying fervently to the Father just prior to his trial and crucifixion. There are other instances in the Scriptures when Jesus prayed, e.g. John 11:41-42, but this is Christ’s high-priestly prayer, and is one of the high points of the entire Bible. Jesus’ prayer occupies the entire seventeenth chapter of John’s gospel. Many wonderful tidbits of understanding may be gleaned from these twenty-six verses.

To all whom the Father gave Him, Jesus is authorized to give eternal life. And this is eternal life: that we may know God the Father and Jesus Christ, whom the Father sent. If you have eternal life, then you may know God. If you do not have eternal life, you cannot know God, nor does He know you (Mt 7:21-23). What a terrifying thought, to be unknown to God. Yet, this is the estate of almost everyone we know, for many are called, but few are chosen (Mt 22:14). But who are these of whom Jesus speaks? Who are those to whom He imparts eternal life? Let us examine the Scriptures.

Jesus went on to say in His prayer: “...the words which Thou gavest Me I have given to them; and they received them, and truly understood that I came forth from Thee, and they believed that Thou didst send Me” (Jn 17:8). Those whom God the Father gave to God the Son were those who believed the words that the Son gave them, and not only them but also those who would believe on account of the words of those to whom He spoke (see v. 20). Thus, all down through the ages, those who believe the words that the Father gave the Son, and who believe that the Father sent the Son, will be given eternal life.

Now, let us back up just a bit and examine some earlier words of Christ, this time not words that He spoke to God, but words that He spoke to men — specifically one man, Nicodemus. In the third chapter of John’s gospel, these familiar words are found: “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life.For God did not send His Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world should be saved through Him. He who believes in Him is not judged; he who does not believe has been judged already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God” (John 3:16:18). Jesus had earlier told Nicodemus that if one desired to see the kingdom of God, then he must be born again (see v.3). There could be no exceptions. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit (see v. 6). All of us have been born of the flesh if we are alive, but not everyone is born of the Spirit of God. Jesus did not leave Nicodemus ignorant of the way in which one might be born again. He spoke very clearly. He said, “... as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up; that whoever believes may in Him have eternal life” (v. 14). Now, those words may not seem very clear until one understands the story of the serpent in the wilderness. Let us look briefly at that story.

Moses had led the Jews out of Egypt. He had parted the Red Sea, and some two million Jews left their chains behind as they went out into the wilds of the Sinai Peninsula where they would wander for forty years. It was during this time that God gave them manna to eat, and it was also in this time that Moses struck the rock so that water flowed in sufficient quantity to provide for the needs of all those people. But the Jews grew tired of manna. They remembered the onions and garlics and vegetables that they had had to eat while they were enslaved in Egypt, and they began to grumble and to mutter against God. They began to say that it would have been better if they had just stayed in Egypt. Of course, God was indignant, hurt that they should think so little of His miraculous deliverance and provision, and angry over their rebellion. He sent a plague of serpents into the camp and many Jews were struck by these serpents and killed. Moses fashioned a serpent out of bronze and fastened it to a pole. He raised this serpent up on that pole, and any Jew who looked upon it and trusted God would not perish.

Of course, we all know that the serpent is a symbol of sin and the devil (cp. Gen 3:1-4; Rev 12:9, 14, 15; 20:2). When Jesus was lifted up on the cross at Calvary, He bore in His body the sins of the entire world. In order for one to be born again, in order for him to have eternal life, he must look at that crucified Christ and trust that His death on the cross was sufficient to pay for all his sins, past, present and future. In the moment a person understands the significance of the cross, he is born again, given eternal life. That is what Jesus was telling Nicodemus. He was saying, “Nicodemus, if you want to go to heaven, do not look to your own good deeds to get you there. Instead, look to my sacrifice on your behalf. If you want eternal life, trust me, not yourself. You are a sinner, but I will pay for all your sins with My blood on Calvary. If you believe that, you will be born again and will have eternal life. You will never be judged, for I shall suffer your judgment for you.”

But how do we know that we cannot be lost again once we are saved? It is simple, my friend. If God gives you eternal life and then takes it away from you, it wasn’t eternal in the first place, was it? If your salvation depends upon your own goodness, then why did Jesus have to die in the first place? Well, how do we know that this eternal life is not a future hope rather than a present possession? What did John say? “...but these have been written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing you may have life in His name” (John 20:31). And, “These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God; that ye may know that ye have eternal life...” (1 John 5:13). Notice the tense of this verb. John doesn’t say that we should hope that we might eventually gain eternal life but that, if we believe in the name of the Son of God, we already have this eternal life. It is not a future hope, but a present possession

Do you want to know how you may know that you have not been lost again once you have been saved? Are you still alive? Then you are still saved. What did Paul say? “I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and delivered Himself up for me” (Gal 2:20). The life that animates the flesh of every believer is the very life of Christ Himself. If you lose your salvation, you would immediately drop dead, for that life must necessarily leave you if you lose your salvation.

Even knowing this, Paul still admitted that he was a wretched sinner (Rom 7: 15-25 Stop here and read those verses!). How can this be? That old nature that we were born with when we were born of the flesh remains with us until that flesh dies. It can do nothing but sin, for to will remains with us just as it remained with Paul. He told the churches in Galatia that the flesh wars against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh so that we do not do the things we would like to do (5:17), but that if we are led by the Spirit we are not under the law (v. 18). We now have two natures — one born of the flesh and one born of the Spirit. And what does the Bible have to say about this new nature? That it cannot sin. John wrote, “Whoever has been born of God does not sin, for His seed remains in him; and he cannot sin, because he has been born of God” (1 Jn 3:9 KJV).

Now then, if one is born again by understanding and believing that Jesus’ death on Calvary paid for his sins completely, and if that new birth amounts to the seed of God being born in him, and if the seed of God being born in him means that he has eternal life, then it is impossible for him to lose that eternal life. Paul’s occupation prior to his salvation was delivering Christians up to be persecuted and killed. After he was saved, he continued to be a wretched sinner. He wanted to do right, but found that he continually did wrong. He was still willful, still disobedient, still headstrong. If he could possibly have lost his salvation, he certainly would have lost it. If keeping one’s salvation means that he must not sin any longer, then Paul surely was lost. And if Paul could not keep his salvation, how can we possibly have any hope of doing so ourselves? Both logically and theologically, the notion that one might lose his salvation appears silly. And so it is. As we have stated elsewhere, if we could lose our salvation, we would certainly lose it. No one would have the slightest chance of being saved, and we might as well throw our Bibles in the trash, for it would then become, not a word of reconciliation (see 2 Cor 5:18-21) but a word of only condemnation. Romans 8:1 would become a lie and the entire Bible would fall apart.

Rather, we are taught that when we accept the gospel, in that very instant, we are born again, of the seed of God, given eternal life, told that we shall never perish (John 10:28), are baptized into Christ by the Holy Spirit (1 Cor 12:13), are sealed by the Holy Spirit (2 Cor 1:22; Eph 1:13; 4:30), and we are kept by God the Father and the Holy Spirit (Jn 17:11, 12, 15; 2 Th 3:3; 2 Tim 1:12; 1 Pet 1:5; Jude 24; Rev 3:10).

Everywhere we are taught that we are secure in Christ. Those who tell you otherwise are those who are the enemies of Christ, enemies of the cross, enemies of the grace of God, and enemies of God Himself. If you could possibly lose your salvation, then God’s grace would be no more than a cruel joke, for once lost again, you could never again be saved, for Christ has died already, and will not die again for any future sins. If He was not aware of your future sins when He hung upon that cross — sins that you would commit after you were saved — then those sins can never be forgiven, and you have no hope in God. That being so, you might as well go ahead and commit suicide now, for there is no hope for you at all. If our salvation is not assured by God’s faithfulness and not our own, then we are hopelessly lost. But our God is not only a just God, punishing every sin ever committed, but He is also the Justifier of those whose faith is in Christ (see Rom 3: 20-26). We can know from the Word of God that we not only already have eternal life, but that it shall never be taken from us. We can rest in the promises of God, looking to His righteousness, and not our own, not only to save us, but also to keep us saved. To God be the glory for everything!

Security and Assurance

Assurance is different from Eternal Security in that it is subjective whereas Eternal Security is objective. It is possible for a Christian to lack assurance but not eternal security. It was said by John Calvin that assurance is of the essence of saving faith. It wouldn’t be true to say that if a person has no assurance, then they have no saving faith but it would be true to say that if a person has NEVER had assurance, then that person has clearly never believed in the sacrifice of Christ for the forgiveness of sins having received His righteousness by grace through faith.

The main reason for a lack of assurance among Christians today is the false teaching of many whereby they seek to add to the simplicity of the grace, which is in Christ Jesus received by faith alone. A famous quote from these so-called teachers of the gospel is this: “We are saved by faith alone but not by faith that is alone.” A careful consideration of this statement will make clear that grace is given with one hand and taken back with the other. It’s offered in its purity and then immediately adulterated.

To them, good works are the automatic outflow of grace received, according to their rendering of James 2:24 which says, “You see then that a man is justified by works, and not by faith only.” Could it be possible that there are two kinds of justification – a justification by works and a justification by faith only? This verse could read, “You see then that a man is justified by works, and not [justified] by faith only.” And this is indeed the correct interpretation, according to the Apostle Paul, for he wrote, “If Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God. For what does the Scripture say? ‘Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness’” (Rom. 4:2).

What we find in the Scriptures is that there is indeed a place for works in the believer’s life but if good works were automatically produced by the Christian, the thousands of exhortations to “walk worthy of the calling” with which we’ve been called would be an absurdity. When our walk and responsibility is made to be somehow a part of our salvation, the issue of justification before God is clouded. Speaking only of our justification, hear again the Apostle Paul, “If by grace, then it is no longer of works; otherwise grace is no longer grace. But if it is of works, it is no longer grace; otherwise work is no longer work” (Rom. 11:6).

The real problem is carnality in the believer’s life. This is what those errant teachers seek to correct (or do they?) by this subtle misrepresentation of the gospel. But what it does, in reality, is turn the believer away from Christ and to his own good works for assurance of salvation. If good works can’t save us, and we know they can’t, then they definitely can’t keep us or prove our salvation. Jesus is our proof! If you have believed in Christ, rest assured, you will be fruitful! The proper focus of the Christian is certainly not the other way around – if you are fruitful, rest assured, you have believed in Christ.

Steve Brown makes a true observation about Christians today. He writes, “The fact is, so many Christians are horribly burdened with guilt and fear, thinking that God is angry because they haven’t done all they could do for Him. I believe that horrible fear of God and of failing Him is the major cause of people being disobedient to Him. Paul said, ‘…do you despise the riches of His goodness, forbearance, and longsuffering, not knowing that the goodness of God leads man to repentance?’ (Rom. 2:4). That is the secret of faithfulness.”

Truly if salvation is by faith alone in Christ alone, and it is, then assurance of that salvation is by faith alone in Christ alone as well. It is only when conditions other than faith are added to the free gift of salvation that these conditions are also added to the grounds of assurance as well. You simply cannot have conditions for assurance that don’t exist for justification. There is no work to be performed, no penance to be paid and no “special kind” of faith to be exercised. What there is is a Man to be believed – a Man who, 2000 years ago, bore our sins in His own body, took our place and wore our shame. It is through simple trust in Jesus, and Jesus alone, that not only our salvation, but also our blessed assurance, is found.

The bottom line is this: If you look to God to provide the resources and the means of your salvation, then you ought not look to yourself to supply the assurance of your eternal security. If your salvation has depended upon yourself through baptism, good works, speaking in tongues or in any other manifestation of your own goodness, then you certainly have no assurance whatsoever, for you are as prone to failure and sin today as you were yesterday. But if your salvation is dependent upon the finished work of a crudified Messiah, without any works or goodness on your part, then you may rest comfortably in the assurance that His sacrificeon your behalf on Calvary cannot be undone by anything that you might do or not do today. The very pinnacle of the Bible, Romans 8, is concluded with these comforting words:

If God is for us, who can be against us?
He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all,
How shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?
Who shall bring a charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies.
Who is he who condemns? It is Christ who died, and furthermore is also risen,
Who is even at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us.
Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation or distress,
Or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?
As it is written: ‘For your sake we are killed all day long; we are accounted
As sheep for the slaughter.’ Yet in all these things
we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us.
For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Rom 8:31-39)

From Whence the Doubting

But where does it all come from, this doubt concerning the assurance of the believer, this skepticism concerning our eternal security? What sort of heart is it that breeds these fears? Why would anyone love such a God as One who would give you salvation and then take it away from you again? But that is the key to this whole question, you see. It is not that they love God, but that they fear Him so desperately that they cannot take their eyes off their sins long enough to see that He has already lovingly paid for their sins. Many of those who believe that we can lose our salvation — indeed, most of them — have never had a salvation which they could lose. For how can one understand and accept the wonderful grace of God and still fear His judgment for those sins which He has already forgiven?

Not in almost every case, but in every case indeed, those who believe that one can be saved and then be lost again fail to understand the very nature of grace. Grace is no more nor less than unmerited favor. When we were saved, it was not because we deserved to be saved, and we are not kept by the power of God because we now deserve to be kept. We are kept, preserved and sealed, not because of any beginning of or continuing righteousness on our parts, but because the God who loved us and died for us has chosen to keep us saved, not according to our works, but according to His grace.

The doubting comes, not from a lack of understanding concerning the doctrine of eternal security, but from a lack of understanding of the doctrines of salvation, of grace, of imputation, propitiation, and justification. Those who doubt their eternal security must reason among themselves that God will judge our future sins apart from our past sins, as though Jesus’ death were not sufficient for those. They lack the basic understanding that all our sins were judged in Christ when he paid that awful redemption price in order to save us once and for all. Their god is not as big as our God, their savior not as powerful or effective as our Savior, their hope not as real or as permanent as our hope. Pity them. Pray for them. Witness to them.

Judgment Imposed on Every Sin

A just God must judge every sin. If we sin after we have been saved, how shall those sins be judged? That is the question that is posed by those who believe that a person can be saved and then lost again. Its purpose is to strike a chord of fear on the heartstrings.

The answer is as simple as it is direct. It is also posed in the form of a question, or questions: How many of your sins were yet future when Christ died on the cross? Did He exclude those sins that you would commit after you understood the gospel? Did He not know of those sins, or did He only know about the sins you would commit before you were saved when He paid for the sins of the world? Did He look into that cup and determine that He would only die for this sin and that sin, but not for these other sins? Since we all continue to sin, and since, if we could be lost again we all surely would be, why did He die at all? It would have been foolish of God to die for our sins if that death were not going to be effective in actually saving a single soul. Jesus died once for all. God knows our weaknesses and loves us anyway. He has judged all our sins.

My friend, when Jesus died on that cross, He knew about every sin you would EVER commit, and He lovingly paid for each and every one prior to your having committed any sins at all.

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