This article titled Eternal Security is the 4th in the series Fundamentals of the Faith.
God’s Grace
In a previous article in this series we discussed the grace of God. Grace is God’s plan to bless those who do not deserve it and are not able on their own to earn His blessing. Grace is based on the perfect work of Jesus Christ that He accomplished for us, in our place. On the cross, Jesus paid our sin debt and in His resurrection, He defeated death on our behalf. When He had finished His work, He had made a way for anyone who would believe in His work to receive God’s blessings forever. The gospel, the good news is that anyone who will believe that Jesus died for their sins and rose again, will be saved and be given eternal life.
Asked and Answered
The question we will ask and answer in this article is can someone who has been saved, become unsaved? Can a believer lose his/her salvation? Can a person who has been declared righteous in the courtroom of heaven, adopted into God’s family and indwelt by the Holy Spirit, reach a level of sinfulness that God will rescind all of these blessings? Why do some churches teach that a believer can lose salvation? What is the biblical basis of their logic and does it hold water? My answer to these questions is an emphatic, absolute and unbending NO! This article will briefly explain the biblical basis of eternal security and the assurance of the believer and challenge the error that seeks to steal the believer’s assurance that comes from eternal security in Christ.
God’s Integrity
God never lies. He is not able to lie. Heb 6:18 says it is impossible for God to lie. When He makes a promise, it is a promise worthy to be trusted in spite of any and every circumstance. When God tells us that He has made us secure, then we have the biblical basis for assurance. Our assurance comes from the Holy Spirit witnessing with our human spirit that we are children of God (Rom 8:16). Our assurance is based on the certainty of God’s promise and our certainty that His promise is backed by His integrity.
Let’s look at a two promises the bible makes about our security.
Security in Christ
When Jesus promises eternal life to those who believe in Him, eternal means forever. He gives life that lasts forever. He gives life that never ends.
John 10:28 and I give eternal life to them, and they shall never perish; and no one shall snatch them out of My hand. 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.
This promise guarantees eternal life and those who receive it will never perish. The word never is ouk me, a double negative, the strongest way to say “no way” in the Greek. The life spoken of is a present possession not a future one. This life puts us in the hand of Christ who is in the hand of the Father and in these hands no one is able to get to us. We are safe, we are secure and we can feel assured that nothing can cause us to be separated from Him. I cannot conceive of losing salvation while remaining in the hands of God.
If the devil and his minions were able, they would separate us from God. It would bring their sin twisted minds great joy to take one of us down with them. If they were able…
Romans 8:38 For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, 39 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.
Paul was convinced that we are secure in the love of God. He had been persuaded. In vs 38 he uses perfect passive indicative of peitho meaning that God has totally and completely proven to him that nothing in all of creation has the power to separate us from God’s love in Christ. Look at the list of possibles that he lays out and then shoots down. Death, life, evil angels, now, future, high, low or any other created thing will be able to separate us from the love of God. To be able means to have the power. Nothing that has been created, meaning everyone but God, has the power to take us out of God’s hands.
When we trust in Christ, He gives us eternal life, we will never perish, we are in His and the Father’s hands and nothing that has been created, including ourselves, has the power to separate us from God. How much more secure can we get??
Importance of Security
Eternal security and the assurance of salvation are the right of every believer. As the perfect parent, God wants His children to be secure in their relationship with Him. As children in any home need and crave secure love, so it is for the newborn Christian. As security in the home is necessary to grow healthy children into healthy adults, the same principle applies to children of God. Jesus gave the concept in Mat 7:9-11. If we who are corrupted by sin take good care of our children, how much more will God take care of His? If we who are flawed, love and give security to our children, how much more does God want His children to feel secure in His love? What parent purposely warns his children that there is a level of failure that will bring about abandonment? None that has any love at all.
Security Necessary for Love
The goal of spiritual growth is to grow into a love relationship with God. As we grow into maturity in Christ, all of our fears are eliminated and replaced by the assurance of God’s love. John, the disciple Jesus loved, who lived the longest and saw the most, came to understand that mature love casts out fear (1Jn4:18). As we realize that we are secure in Christ and have nothing to fear from God, love for God becomes the overwhelming experience in our souls. Fear is replaced with confidence and love for God becomes our motive for service. Only those who understand their security in Christ are able to grow into all out love for God. Those who fear the loss of salvation live their lives trying to hang onto what they can’t lose. They serve out of fear not love. Their growth stops in the baby stage where they implement pseudo faithfulness and service attempting to keep their salvation. I can imagine nothing more pitiful and I will not suffer this error to rob me of my security and love.
Eternal Insecurity
If we are secure in Christ, and the bible is so clear about it, why do some believe that we can lose what God has given us? Why do some insist that we are not safe and that there is a level of sinfulness for which Christ did not pay? What causes these people to interpret difficult passages in this way instead of in the light of the promises of security?
Let me suggest what I believe to be the primary reason and challenge one of the proof passages used to support this position, Gal 5:4.
Returning the Compliment
I believe that the primary reason that some people believe that a saved person can lose salvation is that mankind instinctively projects its human characteristics and limitations onto God. We look at ourselves, at how we think/feel and assume that everyone else thinks/feels the same way, including God. If we have limited patience, then so does everyone, including God. If all of our relationships are conditional, then so are everyone else’s, including God. Voltaire is credited with this famous quote, “If God has created us in His image, we have more than returned the compliment.” Man is egocentric meaning that we see our own views as universal. If I feel a certain way about an issue, then all others should feel the same way, including God. Let me reveal 2 ways that projection influences the way the bible is interpreted to proof text the error of eternal insecurity.
Limited Patience
The first is the limitation of man’s patience. Man in contrast to God, has a limited amount of love and patience. Man may try to suffer long, but at some point long suffering wears thin and we seek an end to behavior that offends us. If I see a point where my patience would wear thin with someone’s sin so that I would banish them, then everyone else must feel that way. Humans do not have infinite patience and all of us have a point where ours will give out. Since we have a breaking point, we project our human flaws onto God and assume that He also has His breaking point. Based on the projection of our finite patience, we re-create God in our own image. Believing God to be like us, we interpret certain passages in keeping with this idea.
Conditional Relationships
A second commonality among mankind is that all of our relationships are conditional. Only God has the infinite resources to relate unconditionally. Mankind, born without God, builds his/her beliefs without God. We build our ideas and relational strategies without any experience of God’s unconditional love. We build our ideas based on human love, which always has conditions that must be met for the love to exist or continue. When the conditions exist, love exists. When the conditions cease, then the love also ceases. Without God, man is unable to conceive of unconditional love or grace. Grace, which is unmerited, undeserved favor comes from the mind of infinite God who has the infinite inner resources to give unconditionally. So, we project our way of relating onto God and conclude that at some level of sinfulness, God will reject us.
Limited Atonement
Based on these human limitations, we recreate God in our own image. We credit Him with our limited patience and limited capacity to endure in love. We fail to realize that He is infinite in all of His essence and that he has no limits to His patience or love. Hyper-Calvinists define Limited Atonement as Christ dying only for the elect. Legalists who believe in the insecurity of the believer could define Limited Atonement as Christ dying for only a limited level of sinfulness. I must ask, are there certain sins that He didn’t die for? Is there a limited number of sins that He paid for each of us and when we exceed that number are we out? Those who believe that salvation can be lost do not hold a high view of the cross. They hold an equally high view of human works and especially human sinfulness.
Falling from Grace
My family of origin had an interesting dichotomy. One side was very religious and believed that man was kept secure by his works. The other side were bootleggers who only entered a church in a casket. One of the phrases I heard often was, “be careful, you can fall from grace”. Falling from grace, meaning that you could lose your salvation, was a misunderstanding of Gal 5:4. Let’s look at the context (5:1-4) that gave occasion for Paul to coin the term, “fallen from grace”.
Galatians 5:1-4 It was for freedom that Christ set us free; therefore keep standing firm and do not be subject again to a yoke of slavery. 2 Behold I, Paul, say to you that if you receive circumcision, Christ will be of no benefit to you. 3 And I testify again to every man who receives circumcision, that he is under obligation to keep the whole Law. 4 You have been severed from Christ, you who are seeking to be justified by law; you have fallen from grace.
Notice first that Paul is discussing our freedom in Christ. He was battling Jewish legalists that were teaching that salvation and the Christian life consisted of faith in Christ and following the Mosaic Law. These Jewish believers insisted that Gentile Christians had to be circumcised and follow the dietary codes in the law. It was these same Jewish believers that caused Peter to withdraw from eating with Gentile believers in the church.
Paul tells them that if they allow themselves to follow the law in one area (circumcision), they are obligated to follow it all the way. These Jewish believers had been saved by grace but believed that they stayed saved by following the law. They had been severed from Christ meaning that they had cut themselves off from the power in Christ, the Holy Spirit. Notice who it was that had fallen from grace. Those who are seeking to be justified (made righteous) by the law were the ones who had fallen from grace, not those committing terrible sins. It was those living by works of the law who had drifted off course from grace. The word fallen is ekpipto, a nautical term meaning to drift off course or run aground. In Paul’s day circumcision and dietary codes were the emphasized work. Today, it is baptism, the Lord’s Supper and following the 10 Commandments that are used to keep people in line.
Anyone who interprets the phrase “fallen from grace” in Gal 5:4 as losing your salvation because of excessive sinfulness, has failed to read the passage. They have literally ripped the phrase out of its moorings in the context and read into it a meaning not ever intended by the writer. None of this discussion is intended to condemn those who hold to the insecurity position, but to discredit their view.
As a believer in Jesus Christ, you have become God’s dearly loved child. He has imputed your sins to Christ and pronounced you righteous in the courtroom of heaven. He has prepared a place for you so that where he is you might be also. It is our glorious privilege to worship Him, love Him and serve Him without fear. Do not allow any one to steal your freedom and assurance but hold tight to your confidence in His grace.
