BLESSED ASSURANCE

               Salvation — A Gift for Eternity

                                  by

                            Alan Morrison

          
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    The Christian’s story and song is the blessed
assurance that "Jesus is mine!" To be "in
Christ" in this life is truly "a foretaste of glory
divine!" But how many Christians — even if
they heartily sing about it — actually believe it? It
seems that there has almost been a
deliberate desire, bordering on the fanatical, to
undermine the "blessed assurance" of the
believer during the past few decades. It is now
commonly taught that a believer can lose his
or her salvation. Indeed, to think that salvation is
an irrevocable gift for eternity is often
disparaged as being highly dangerous to the believer’s
spiritual health, as it could lead him to
imagine that he can behave however he wishes because
his salvation is secure, come what
may.

    As a pastor, one of the most common questions I am
asked is whether salvation is a
once-for-all-time gift of God. I am constantly
astonished by the widespread notion that it is
not. It can only be in the interests of Satan to
undermine assurance to such an extent that
today there are probably more professing Christians
who believe they can lose their salvation
than there are those who believe that they are
irrevocably saved for eternity. In Thomas
Brook’s book "Precious Remedies Against Satan’s
Devices", he devotes nearly one hundred
pages to showing that one of the devil’s main aims is
to put believers in a "sad, doubting,
questioning and uncomfortable condition". (And he also
supplies the remedies!). Surely
the widespread delusion that a believer can lose his
or her salvation must be one of the main
devices of Satan for attempting to undermining the
faith of the faithful.  (He cannot make
them lose their faith, anymore than he can make then
lose their salvation. But he can certainly
undo their assurance).

    What is the clear teaching of Scripture on the
matter? The clear teaching of Scripture is
that the believer has been taken forever out of the
power of darkness (Col.1:12-13), that he
has been adopted into God’s family by the power of the
Holy Spirit (John 1:12-13;
Gal.4:4-7; Rom.8:15), that he is an heir of eternal
salvation (Rom.8:16-17; Eph.1:11-14),
that he will — by divine preservation — persevere to
the end (Scripture proofs follow), and
that he will never, ever be disowned by his Saviour
(Matt.28:20b; Heb.13:5). Salvation is a
gift for eternity. It is true that the believer can
temporarily "backslide" through disobedience,
and he can fall into sin; but he will always repent
and return to the Lord and can never finally
fall away (apostatize) and be lost. This is known as
the doctrine of "The Perseverance of the
Saints". Here are the abundant Scripture proofs that
believers cannot possibly apostatize and
are kept faithful to the end of their lives by the
power of God:

     "The steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord,
and He delights in his way.
     Though he fall, he shall not be utterly cast
down; For the Lord upholds him with His
     hand" (Psa.37:23-24)

     "The righteous will hold to his way, and he who
has clean hands will be stronger and
     stronger" (Job 17:9)

     "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus
Christ, who according to His
     abundant mercy has begotten us again to a living
hope through the resurrection of
     Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance
incorruptible and undefiled and that does
     not fade away, reserved in heaven for you, who
are kept by the power of God
     through faith for salvation ready to be revealed
in the last time" (1 Pet.1:3-5)

     "All that the Father gives Me will come to Me,
and the one who comes to Me I will
     by no means cast out. For I have come down from
heaven, not to do My own will,
     but the will of Him who sent Me. This is the will
of the Father who sent Me, that of all
     He has given Me I should lose nothing, but should
raise it up at the last day. And this
     is the will of Him who sent Me, that everyone who
sees the Son and believes in Him
     may have everlasting life; and I will raise him
up at the last day" (John 6:37-40)

     "My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and
they follow Me. And I give them
     eternal life, and they shall never perish;
neither shall anyone snatch them out of My
     hand. My Father, who has given them to Me, is
greater than all; and no one is able to
     snatch them out of My Father’s hand" (John
10:27-29)

     "In My Father’s house are many mansions; if it
were not so, I would have told you. I
     go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and
prepare a place for you, I will come
     again and receive you to Myself; that where I am,
there you may be also" (John
     14:2-3)

     "And this is the testimony: that God has given us
eternal life, and this life is in His Son.
     He who has the Son has life; he who does not have
the Son of God does not have life.
     These things I have written to you who believe in
the name of the Son of God, that
     you may know that you have eternal life..." (1
Jn.5:11-13)

     "Most assuredly, I say to you, he who hears My
word and believes in Him who sent
     Me has everlasting life, and shall not come into
judgment, but has passed from death
     into life" (Jn.5:24)

     "For the gifts and the calling of God are
irrevocable" (Rom.11:29)

     "Sin shall not have dominion over you, for you
are not under law but under grace"
     (Rom.6:14)

     "And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by
whom you were sealed for the day of
     redemption" (Eph.4:30)

     "In Him you also trusted, after you heard the
word of truth, the gospel of your
     salvation; in whom also, having believed, you
were sealed with the Holy Spirit of
     promise, who is the guarantee of our inheritance
until the redemption of the purchased
     possession, to the praise of His glory"
(Eph.1:13-14)

     "And the Lord will deliver me from every evil
work and preserve me for His heavenly
     kingdom" (2 Tim.4:18)

     "For our citizenship is in heaven..." (Phil.3:20)

     "Now unto Him that is able to keep you from
falling, and to present you faultless
     before the presence of His glory with exceeding
joy, to the only wise God our
     Saviour, be glory and majesty, dominion and
power, both now and ever. Amen"
     (Jude 24-25)

    Added to these irrefutable Scriptures there is the
teaching of the eighth chapter of Paul’s
letter to the Romans, which is devoted to proving that
the saints are saved forever, and that
there is nothing which can come between them and their
faith. Just look at the relevant
verses:

    Verse 1: "There is therefore now no condemnation
to those who are in Christ Jesus...".
The price has been paid, the condemnation was poured
out on Christ on the cross. So if the
penalty for the believer’s sin has already been dealt
with on the cross, how could there be
any further condemnation remaining for him? "By His
stripes, we are healed" — the healing
of the soul and of our relationship with the Lord. It
is a healing which lasts.  Jesus's healings
are not partial or temporary.

    Verse 11: "But if the Spirit of Him who raised
Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who
raised Christ from the dead will also give life to
your mortal bodies through His Spirit who
dwells in you". Believers are indwelt by the Holy
Spirit. This is our guarantee of future glory
in the resurrection (cf. 2 Cor.1:21-22; 2 Cor.5:5;
Eph.1:14-15. God’s guarantees are never
broken.

    Verses 15-17: "For you did not receive the spirit
of bondage again to fear, but you
received the Spirit of adoption by whom we cry out,
‘Abba, Father’. The Spirit Himself
bears witness with our spirit that we are children of
God, and if children, then heirs — heirs
of God and joint heirs with Christ, if indeed we
suffer with Him, that we may also be glorified
together". The believer has been adopted by grace into
the family of God and is an heir of a
certain future glory. The indwelling Holy Spirit — who
is the guarantee of that future glory —
bears witness to that.

    Verse 30: "Moreover whom He predestined, these He
also called; whom He called, these
He also justified; and whom He justified, these He
also glorified". This verse contains what is
known as the Golden Chain of Redemption. It is an
unbreakable chain. One thing leads to
the other. Predestination, effectual calling,
justification, and glorification. Although the last
element — glorification — does not happen in fullness
during the believer’s earthly life, it is
plain from this verse that it is an irrevocable
reality for the believer. The same tense is used in
the Greek for each of the elements in this verse,
signifying that they have already been ratified
— including being "glorified". The believer going to
glory is as good as done in the eyes
and mind of God. That is a hearty expression of
eternal security.

    Verses 31-39: "What then shall we say to these
things? 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". Nothing — not even their
own foolish sins — can break the reality
of future glory for believers. What place could there
be here for a believer to fall away and
go to eternal punishment? The whole passage is a hymn
to the divinely-assisted Perseverance
of the Saints.

    Paul plainly believed in "once saved, always
saved". He was inspired by the Holy Spirit to
write it down for us. How come so many professing
Christians today would rather believe
otherwise?

    This was also Jesus’s teaching in the parable of
the prodigal son. The prodigal son does
not represent everyone in the world, for everyone in
the world is not a son of God. He
represents a child of God — one of the elect — who
wanders off from his heavenly Father
for a while but soon finds that the world cannot
satisfy his spiritual hunger and eventually
returns to his Father. This is the perseverance of the
saints in action — just as Jesus had said
about His children elsewhere: "No one can snatch them
out of My hand".  They cannot
finally fall away, but will always return.

    Having said all the above, there are many who
would still be waving their hands at us,
anxious to point out a handful of Scriptures which
they believe undermine any other
Scriptures and which prove conclusively that salvation
can be lost. However, in their almost
frantic desire to undermine the faith of the faithful,
they have forgotten the great principles of
Bible hermeneutics (interpretation): That passages
must be taken in their context and that
darker passages must always be read in the light of
what is everywhere plainly taught.

    The Scriptures which are commonly said to prove
that Christians can lose their salvation
are Rom.14:15; 1 Cor.8:11 and Heb.6:4-6. Now there can
be no genuine contradiction in
Scripture; so these texts cannot possibly contradict
what is plainly taught elsewhere about the
divinely ordained perseverance of the saints. So what
could they mean? Let us first take
Rom.14:15 and 1 Cor.8:11 together as they express more
or less the same thing:

     "Do not destroy with your food the one for whom
Christ died" (Rom.14:11)

     "And because of your knowledge shall the weak
brother perish, for whom Christ
     died?" (1 Cor.8:11)

    These two verses cannot be referring to the
possibility of eternal punishment for believers
because we already know — as shown above from abundant
Scriptures — that those for
whom Christ died are saved forever and that, as He
Himself said, no one can snatch them
out of His hand. So when these verses speak of the
destruction and perishing of the one for
whom Christ died, they surely refer not to the soul in
eternal punishment but to the material
aspects of life — either earthly ruin as a result of
our sins or physical death accelerated by
our own actions. Even the saints can be severely
chastised and even dealt an early death by
the Lord for their behaviour (e.g. 1 Cor.11:30). The
verses in Romans 14 and 1 Corinthians
8 are simply speaking about the possibility of a
weaker Christian being led into sin to such an
extent that he could meet earthly ruin or an early
death. Paul is merely showing us that we
must be sensitive to the weaknesses of our brothers
and sisters. There is nothing here to
provide us with proof about lost salvation or eternal
punishment for believers.

    Then we have what must be the prime influential
text on those who believe that the
Christian can lose his or her salvation:

     "For it is impossible for those who were once
enlightened, and have tasted the
     heavenly gift, and have become partakers of the
Holy Spirit, and have tasted the good
     word of God and the powers of the age to come, if
they fall away, to renew them
     again to repentance, since they crucify again for
themselves the Son of God, and put
     Him to an open shame" (Heb.6:4-6)

    We need to be quite clear about the person to whom
this passage refers. If we already
accept — as we must — that Scripture everywhere
teaches that it is impossible for the true
believer to fall away, then the "falling away"
mentioned in these verses cannot possibly refer
to a true believer. In fact, what we have here is a
classic description of a cleverly disguised
false Christian, one who professes faith but who, in
reality, is not a true Christian. Churches
are full of such people. They may even be ministers!
To the undiscerning eye, they look like
the real thing; but they will be revealed for who they
are in the Day of Judgement. Jesus
referred to such people as "tares", compared to the
"wheat" or true believers
(Matt.13:24-30, 36-43). Just look at how such a person
is described in Heb.6:4-6.  Let us
here blow this text wide open.

    This man has indeed been "enlightened".  He has
sat under numerous sermons and read
much, if not all, of the Bible -- maybe a number of
times. He has heard many Gospel
messages. His mind has been enlightened by what he has
heard and read, but there is no real
work of grace in his heart. Balaam was a man whose
"eyes were opened" and who had
"the knowledge of the Most High" (Num.24:15-16), but
that did not alter the fact that for
him "is reserved the blackness of darkness forever" (2
Per.2:17).

    The man in Heb.6:4-6 is also said to have "tasted
the heavenly gift". He has had some
notions about the work of God and the gift of faith —
after all, he has most likely had some
kind of religious experience and even been baptised.
He has read the Bible. He might even
have taught Bible! He has tasted, but he has not
received it. One may go into a cheese shop
and sample a cheese and even like it; but if one
doesn’t buy it, one doesn’t have it!

    Furthermore, such a person may indeed also have
been a "partaker of the Holy Spirit".
One does not need to be a Christian to be a partaker
of the Holy Spirit, or to have some
operations of the Holy Spirit in one’s life, for this
is not the same as being permanently
indwelt by the Holy Spirit. Look at King Saul. He was
a classic case of an unbeliever who
had outward trappings of faith. He also had some
operations of the Holy Spirit in his life (e.g.
1Sam.10:10; 11:6). The Bible also shows that
unbelievers can be partakers of the Holy
Spirit if they cast out demons and perform miracles in
Christ’s name through some
operations of the Spirit. Judas Iscariot was surely a
prime example. Along with the other
apostles he must have performed such works. He was a
partaker of the Holy Spirit, but he
was never a believer. The Lord Jesus spoke about such
people in Matt.7:21-23:

     "Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall
enter the kingdom of heaven, but
     he who does the will of My Father in heaven. Many
will say to Me in that day, ‘Lord,
     Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast
out demons in Your name, and
     done many wonders in Your name?’ And then I will
declare to them, ‘I never knew
     you; depart from Me, you who practice
lawlessness!’"

    These are just the kind of people referred to in
Heb.6:2-4. They can be "partakers of
the Holy Spirit". However, they are false believers,
fooling themselves and usually all those
around them throughout their lives. But they can never
fool God.

    Another element mentioned in Heb.6:5 is that these
false Christians can "taste the good
word of God". Well this is another mere tasting
experience. It is identical to the man in the
parable of the sower, who "hears the word and
immediately receives it with joy"
(Matt.13:20). He has "tasted the good word of God",
but ultimately he rejects its
teachings in his life. For "he has no root in himself,
but endures only for a while. For
when tribulation or persecution arises because of the
word, immediately he stumbles"
(Matt.13:21). It is not enough merely to taste the
good word of God. One has also to do the
things it teaches (cf. Matt.7:24-27; Jas.1:22-24). It
must find a real place in our hearts,
otherwise great will be our fall (Matt.7:27), just as
it says in Heb.6:4-6.

    Such people also can "taste...the powers of the
age to come" (Heb.6:5). They can
have some fantasies about what heaven is like and can
be very afraid of hell. But even these
notions are not enough to save them. The demons also
have similar head-knowledge and
beliefs as the man in Heb.6:4-6 and, like him, they
are not true believers (Jas.2:19). So the
man in Heb.6:4-6 can have all these experiences and
feelings, but if he subsequently loses
interest and falls away even from his pretence, he
will receive a double blow for not acting on
the privileged knowledge he has received.  For from
him, "even what he seems to have
will be taken away from him" (Luke 8:18).

    One of the great precursor signs of the revealing
of the Antichrist is a global falling away
on a vast scale of many in the church (2 Thess.2:3).
However, they will not have fallen away
from true faith but from their former pretence of
Christianity. True Christians do not finally fall
away. As C.H. Spurgeon put it: "The believer, like a
man on board a ship, may fall
again and again on the deck, but he will never fall
overboard".

    The fact that people have imagined that a true
believer is being described in Heb.6:4-6 is a
great sign of the superficial view people today have
of the Christian faith. For the believer has
SO MUCH MORE than what is described there. The true
believer is not merely
"enlightened" but he has "the mind of Christ"
(1Cor.2:16) and "knows all things" (1
Jn.2:20). The true believer does not merely "taste the
heavenly gift" but He has received it
completely (Rom.6:23). The true believer is not merely
a "partaker of the Holy Spirit" but
the Holy Spirit has made His home with him (Jn.14:23).
The true believer does not merely
"taste the good word of God", he lives it!
(Rev.14:12). The true believer does not merely
"taste the powers of the age to come", for he has
entered into that age and is a citizen of
its kingdom (Phil.3:20). Only those with a superficial
or defective understanding of
Christianity could ever imagine that a real Christian
is being described in Heb.6:4-6.

    It is nothing short of wicked to attempt to
convince Christians that they can finally lose
their salvation and that they do not have eternal
security. There is no more pitiable thing than
a Christian who is forever doubting that he or she
will spend eternity with Christ. The Word
of God makes it very clear that the children of God
have a right to complete assurance. After
all, "we know we have passed from death to life" (1
Jn.3:14). "It is no longer I who
live, but Christ lives in me" (Gal.2:20).  We have
been "bought at a price" (1 Cor.6:20),
and He will never leave us or forsake us (Heb.13:5).

    There are those who say that the doctrine of the
Perseverance of the Saints will cause
people to abandon themselves to sin because they know
they cannot lose their salvation
under any circumstances. But such antinomian thinking
and acting is impossible for a true
Christian, who is only too well aware of the awful
price which was paid to secure His
salvation. The love of Christ constrains us.

    It is surely no coincidence that the notion that a
Christian can lose his or her salvation has
prospered most readily in circles which involve what
is known as "easy believism". If you can
become a Christian simply through making some
superficial decision of your own as a result
of an outwardly emotional appeal, then you can just as
easily lose the kind of "Christianity"
which that decision brings about.  Easy believism
leads to easy UNbelievism! If you saved
yourself through your own decision then you can just
as easily undo that through your own
actions. But if you were saved entirely by the power
of God, then you will also be preserved
by that same power, and certainly raised by that same
power at the Last Day.  For "we are
His workmanship", not our own (Eph.2:8-10).

    So the real question is not "Can believers lose
their salvation?"  It is: "Am I a real
Christian?"  And if you have truly believed and been
born again, then this is a question to
which one can provide an undeniable answer, "being
confident of this very thing, that He
who has begun a good work in you will complete it
until the day of Jesus Christ"
(Phil.1:6).

    Amen.

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