Salvation Provides A Secure Salvation Part 1

Salvation Provides A Secure Salvation

Selected Scriptures

 We spent the first 10 months of this year looking extensively into the gospel and the work of salvation. My plan is to wrap this up before the end of the year and move on to the verse by verse study through a book in the Bible. Right now I am leaning toward Galatians.

Before we wrap up this series there are a couple more things that I feel it is important to include. It is important to understand the secure and certain nature of God’s saving work. There is much confusion, and there has been much debate over the issue of the security of the believer. I want to explore what the Bible says about our secure standing in Christ and what it means to persevere in the faith.

Then, I will wrap this whole thing up with a look at what the Bible teaches about the eternal state of the Christian. What is our eternal reward for faithfully following Christ? What are the eternal implications of this work of salvation? Once we have done that, we will have studied this issue from beginning to end. We began with the sin problem and we will end with an understanding of our eternal glory.

I want to read a passage to introduce the topic I want look at today. This is a different kind of message. We won’t go specifically into any verse deeply, but we will look at several verses in a meaningful manner. Let’s begin by reading Romans 8:31-39. If I gave you the assignment of putting a title on this passage we might all have different titles, but we would all come to the same conclusion. These passages describe an important reality regarding the work of salvation. That reality is this. What God starts, God finishes. Or, those whom God saves, God keeps saved to the end. What God starts in the work of salvation, God brings to completion.

I would be remiss if I concluded this study of the work of salvation without teaching about the security we have as a child of God. Salvation is forever. If our salvation is not eternal it is of little, if any value. What is God’s point of saving us if it not a secure transaction? We have learned of the work of God in our regeneration, or causing us to be born again? What are we born of? We are born of God? God is eternal. We are given spiritual life, from God. Spiritual life is eternal life. If this birth is the product of the work of the Spirit of God, what can I, or anybody else do to undo what He has done? In fact, what is the point of regeneration, sanctification, if there is not guarantee of glorification? If you have an understanding of the work of salvation, you will come to the conclusion that salvation is something I cannot walk away from, nor can someone else cause to be undone.

The security of the Christian in the salvation provided through Jesus Christ is an important issue to understand. The doctrine is often called “eternal security.” I first heard the gospel in a Baptist church that loved the statement, “once saved, always saved.” Unfortunately, there was a lot that went on in that church that, looking back, would not convince me that all were saved in the first place. But those who are saved are saved for good. The statement “once saved, always saved” is stating a sound biblical truth.

I have grown in my appreciation of the Westminster Confession of the Faith. This Confession appropriately describes this doctrine as “the perseverance of the saints.” Whether we are call it the doctrine of eternal security, or sum it up in a catchy phrase like “once saved – always saved,” or we discuss the perseverance of the saints, all of these state a well-established biblical reality. Those who are truly born again and are genuine Christians are secure in their salvation and they will persevere in the faith to the end. The work of salvation provides a secure salvation.

The Westminster Confession states this: “They, whom God hath accepted in His Beloved (Son), effectually called and sanctified by His Spirit, can neither totally or finally fall away from the state of grace; but shall certainly persevere therein to the end, and be eternally saved.” This is what the Bible teaches. Those whom God saves can never totally or finally fall away from the grace by which they have been saved.

Critics of this doctrine attack it because they say it leads to a false sense of security that does not exist. They say that it allows the Christian to believe and be saved, and then to go out and live any way they want to live. Regardless of how they live, they are saved. Their criticism has some merit. Far too many people have made some kind of profession of faith in Christ and gone through the motions to attach themselves to the church for a while, then walked away into debauched lifestyles. If you ask them if they are Christians they may still claim to be, because of some previous experience. We can probably all point to examples of people we know. 

The doctrine of eternal security, or the perseverance of the saints does not provide security for a person who claims to be saved, but lives the lifestyle of an unbeliever. The Bible never teaches that and provides no example of anyone who did this. The doctrine of the perseverance of the saints teaches that all those who are truly born again will be kept by God’s power and will persevere as Christians until the end of their lives, and that only those who persevere until the end have been truly born again.

Let’s turn to John 6:38-40. “This is the will of My Father…” Listen, it isn’t my will that assures I persevere to the end. This is the will of God. If it depends on me, I am probably not going to make it. This is the will of God. “…that everyone who beholds the Son and believes in Him will have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.” Our study of the work of salvation has explained in detail what it means to behold and believe in the Son of God. Here Jesus states clearly. Those who behold and believe, “will have eternal life.” It doesn’t say maybe they will, if they do enough, or try hard enough, or don’t mess up too much. They will have eternal life.

Jesus concludes this with, “and I Myself will raise him up on the last day.” Look at the emphatic way this is stated. “I Myself…” Do you think that might have some significance? Jesus declares that it will be “Me, Myself” who is going to raise up all who are truly saved. What assurance do we have of that resurrection promise? We have the assurance this will happen because He Himself was raised from the dead as the first-fruits of all who will be raised.

Look at John 10:27-29. Read these verses. I find a lot of assurance in the fact that Jesus calls us “My sheep.” That implies ownership. We belong to Him by virtue of the fact that He has purchased us with His precious blood. We have been bought with a price. We are His. He knows us. We follow Him. We don’t just believe in Him. We follow Him, just as the sheep follow the shepherd. We know His voice. We hear His voice, and we follow Him. 

Verse 28 says, “I give eternal life to them, and they will never perish; and no one will snatch them out of My hand.” The gift of eternal life comes from Jesus. It is God’s work. Eternal life is the free gift of God. It is by grace alone through faith alone. It is not earned by our good works. We have nothing about which we can boast. Jesus gives eternal life as a free gift. Those who are saved will never perish. No one can snatch those who are saved from the hand of Christ.

Jesus goes on to further emphasize this security in verse 29. “My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand.” I love this picture of how secure we are in the hands of God. We are in the hand of Christ. We are in the hands of the Father. Someone who wanted to snatch us away has to get us out of the Father’s hand and the Son’s hand. This simply isn’t going to happen.

Some object to this by saying that we can exercise our free will and decide to snatch ourselves from His hand. We can walk away, they claim. They give as evidence the lives of many who claim to have been saved but no longer live like it. I want to ask you a question. If Jesus said, “No one will snatch them out of My hand…” would that not necessarily include even the one who is in His hand. My friends, if Jesus said, “No one” He means “no one.” More importantly, the most forceful phrase in these verses is “they will never perish.” The Greek construction is especially emphatic and could be translated, “they shall certainly not perish forever.” Those whom God saves, He saves securely.

This does not mean that Christians do not fall into sin. We do fail. We can fail repeatedly and severely. We cannot fail completely and finally. While we will not experience perfection this side of eternity, and because of the reality of our confinement to “the body of this death” as Paul describes it, we will fall in this life. We will not, however, fall from grace. We will not, if we are truly saved, loose the salvation which God has provided.

There are reasons for our failures even as those who are truly redeemed.  Our redemption is not complete until we are glorified in the presence of the Lord. Until then, we live in a world that is full of temptation. We live in a corrupt world while still carrying the residual of our fallen condition with us. We are capable, even as Christians, of grievous sins. We are warned by the Apostle Paul in 1 Cor. 10:12, “Let him who thinks he stands take heed that he does not fall.” Paul does not mean “fall from grace.” He means “fall into sin.”

We must understand that we cannot neglect those things that keep us from failing. Jesus said in John 8:31, “If you continue in My word, then you are truly disciples of Mine.” Those who are truly born again will obey the Lord who has saved them. They won’t be perfect in their obedience, but the pattern of their lives will be nothing like that of an unbeliever. 

We fall into sin when we do not take seriously our responsibility to flee temptation. Too often we fail to heed the conviction of the Holy Spirit. When we do this we grieve Him. We do this too long and our hearts become hardened and our conscience can become dull. This will bring about the chastisement of God. Those whom the Lord loves He chastens. If we are His child and we are disobedient we will incur His discipline. We may even bring a reproach on the name of Christ and damage the reputation of Christ’s body through our foolish rebellion. But God will not let us fall away to the point where we forfeit salvation and incur eternal wrath. In fact, it is impossible to fall to the point where we forfeit salvation and incur eternal wrath.

We must admit that there are some who, having claimed to be Christians, have renounced their faith and walked away. Some see this as proof that we are not eternally secure in salvation. It does not prove this at all. What this proves is that these people were never truly saved. They are among those who are described in the parable of the soils. They received the word with joy, but it was received in hearts that were contaminated with the pleasures of sin and the pursuits of the world. They initially hear the word and think they want to follow Christ, but they do not repent and they do not believe. They are not truly regenerated. They do not become the children of God. They do not truly belong to Christ as His sheep. They are tares sown among the wheat.

There are some of those in this category who believe they are secure in their salvation because the doctrine of eternal security is true. There are a lot of people who, in some way, responded to the gospel. They prayed a prayer and asked God to save them, or asked Jesus to come into their hearts. They were baptized. They participated in the “program” for a while. But then they walk away. By their lifestyles they deny the faith. But they remember one thing they learned. They learned that the Bible teaches that those whom God saves are eternally secure in that salvation. Because they think they were saved, they now live like unbelievers, but they are somehow secure in their salvation. They are deceived. These people do not have faith in Christ, or they would be continuing in His word. They have faith in a sound biblical doctrine. They believe in the doctrine of eternal security. We are not saved by faith in a doctrine. We are saved by faith in Christ.

Any professing believer who lives a willfully sinful, unrepentant, rebellious lifestyle while having no fear of judgment and hell because he or she thinks they are eternally secure is deeply delusional. Eternal security, or the doctrine of the perseverance of the saints, does not mean that anyone who professes Christ can live anyway they want with no fear of hell. There is a reason the Bible, specifically the Apostle Paul in 2 Cor. 13:5 commands us to examine ourselves to see if we are in the faith. Satan is good at his role as a deceiver.

Not too many years ago we studied 1 John. First John 3:9-10 states this clearly. “No one who is born of God practices sin, because His seed abides in him; and he cannot sin, because he is born of God. By this the children of God and the children of the devil are obvious; anyone who does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor the one who does not love his brother.” Sin will not be the unbroken pattern of the Christian’s life. The teachings of the Bible are clear. If there is a consistent, unbroken patter of sin in a person’s life, there is no salvation, no matter what that person claims. 

We have been looking at several things produced by the work of salvation. We can summarize those things produced as a transformation. We become followers of Christ who have been delivered from the domain of darkness and transferred into the kingdom of God’s own Son. We once were the enemies of God but we have been made His own dear children, heirs of God and joint heirs of Christ. We have been delivered from the judgment of God as sinners and made to be partakers of the divine nature and seated with Christ at the right hand of the Father. There is too much New Testament truth presented to believe that one can be saved and still live a habitual lifestyle of sin. God’s work of salvation is better than that. The work of salvation is more profound than that.

Salvation is a supernatural work because it is the work of God in us. Salvation is not something we make happen to ourselves. It is God who makes us alive spiritually, and places His Holy Spirit in us. It is God who opens our blind eyes and gives us ears to hear. It is God who gives us saving faith. 

I have a lot more on this important doctrine but I am going to close this message and we will pick it up again next week. I want us to understand the secure nature of God’s saving work. It really doesn’t make sense that God would save those whom He saves and then not secure us in His salvation. There is just no other conclusion that can be drawn from the careful consideration of the truth of Scripture.

Let’s pray.