Archives for August 2003

The phrase “once saved, always saved” is not found in the Bible. Our salvation is past, present, and future. That implies a continuous relationship and an unfolding process rather than a fixed state. The person who has given himself or herself to Jesus Christ and has truly repented from sin can find repeated assurances of the eternal covenant given to His people by a God who cannot lie. The Bible tells us that the gifts and calling of God are without repentance (see Romans 11:29).

The work of Jesus Christ is eternal. It will never be revoked. Apart from the Bible, the greatest assurance any Christian has of eternal security is the day-by-day witness of the Holy Spirit in his life that he is a child of God and the fact that day-by-day he is becoming more like Jesus.

The Bible teaches security in the Holy Spirit and in the things of God. Jesus said, “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 10:29). So we are secure in the hand of God, and we are to rest secure in the Lord. God has put His Spirit within us; He has given His Word to us. Jesus Christ is at the right hand of God, constantly making intercession on our behalf; (see Hebrews 7:25) and God has sent angels to watch over us (see Hebrews 1:14). In other words, we are surrounded by tremendous helps. We should constantly remind ourselves that we are secure, that God loves us, and that we belong to Him.

The reason we are saved is not because we are holy or do good works, but because of the blood of Jesus. Salvation comes through faith, and it stays because of faith. So we should have a feeling of security. But, at the same time, there should be a healthy fear of falling. We should not presume on God and say, “I am saved, so I can do anything I want to.” Paul condemned people who were teaching that a person could sin boldly so that God’s grace could abound (see Romans 6:1-2). If we truly are dead to sin, then we are not going to live in sin any longer, but we will aim to serve God.

We should walk with reverence, because God is a consuming fire, a very awesome Being (see Hebrews 12:29). I would not counsel anybody to presume on God because of a doctrine of eternal security. Anybody who says, “I believe that once I am saved, I am always saved, so I am going to go out and commit adultery and steal and lie and cheat and rob,” is being very foolish. If somebody really loves God, those things would not be present in his life.

An act of sin does not cost you your salvation. There are people who teach that if you sin once after you have accepted Jesus, you must be saved again. But that is not what the Bible teaches.

Can you conceive of somebody adopting a child and then telling the child that if he walks on the floor with muddy shoes he will be thrown out in the street? We would not do that to a child, and God will not do it to us, either. When you are saved, you are adopted into the family of God. You must, out of love on one hand and godly fear on the other, try to live a life that is pleasing to Him. But the idea that one act of sin would cause someone to be thrown out of God’s family is just not in agreement with the Bible. The Bible says, “If we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin” (I John 1:7).

And we are told in the little book of I John, “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (I John 1:9).

Acts of sin or rebellion will take away the joy of your salvation. When David committed adultery with Bathsheba and had her husband killed, he lost the joy of his salvation. When he wrote Psalm 51 about it, he said, “Restore to me the joy of Your salvation” (Psalm 51:12). He had no joy, because he had rebelled against God. Then he said, “Do not take Your Holy Spirit from me” (Psalm 51:11). Even though he had committed adultery and had been responsible for an innocent man’s death, by his clear statement he still had the Holy Spirit. But, David did not get away without being punished. He had a rebellion in his own household and actually lost his throne for a time. Nevertheless, God forgave and loved him because David was repentant before the Lord.

If you continue in a course of known sin, you will lose the assurance of your salvation, however. You will not know if the Holy Spirit is with you because you will be at odds with God. I am not referring here to an actual loss of your salvation or to the Holy Spirit, only to your awareness and assurance of salvation and the Holy Spirit. The Bible says, “Anyone born of God does not continue to sin” (I John 5:18, NIV). It does not say that a Christian never commits an act of sin, but that he does not continue in a course of sin, refusing to confess and repent of his sins. So if someone has been born of the Spirit of God, there will be something inside of him drawing him back to repentance every time he sins.

Beyond that, we can gather from reading in the book of Hebrews that if somebody actually says the blood of Jesus Christ is a despised thing and renounces the salvation he has received, then that person may have lost it all. But then the Bible immediately says, “But, beloved, we are confident of better things concerning you” (Hebrews 6:1-9). It is very hard to believe that someone who has been born again will turn that far away from God.

But you might ask, if we are new creatures in Christ, why do we even have the capacity still to sin? The answer is that perfection for the Christian awaits us in heaven: “When this corruptible has put on incorruption, and this mortal has put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written: ‘Death is swallowed up in victory.'” ( I Corinthians 15:54) We are united with Jesus at salvation, but we are being progressively transformed into His nature.

The Bible says, “We all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory.” (II Corinthians 3:18) We are being changed throughout our lives, but there is no instantaneous moment, short of death, when the believer becomes sinlessly perfect. The apostle John said, “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.” (I John 1:8)

To be saved you must turn away from sin, believe in the death and resurrection of Jesus, and receive Him as Lord and Saviour of your life.

Here is the step-by-step-process. First, you must consider your life and then turn away from everything in it that is contrary to what God wants. This turning away from selfishness and toward God is called repentance (see Matthew 3:7-10, Acts 3:19).

Second, you must acknowledge that Jesus Christ died on the cross to forgive you of sin. You take Him as your Saviour to cleanse you from sin–as the substitute who paid the price due you for your sin (see Romans 5:9-10, Titus 2:14).

And third, you must ask Him to be Lord of your life, acknowledging openly and verbally that Jesus is not only your Saviour but your Lord.

The Bible says that as many as received Him were given the power to become the sons of God (see John 1:12). So when you open your heart and receive Him, He comes into your heart, your inner person, through His Holy Spirit, and begins to live His life in you. From that point it is a question of confessing what God has done. “If you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved” (Romans 10:9).