There is a serious theological problem
with those promoting you can lose your salvation; for there should be no
fellowship with those advancing the idea that you can lose your salvation no
matter how religiously courteous and cooperative they may be (Eph 5:11). For
these folks salvation is grace through faith plus doing something in order to retain
being saved. In essence, they have work-based salvation (God plus man equals
redemption). There is simply no getting around that conclusion which falls
under the ominous category of Gal 1:8-9,
“let him be accursed” or eternally condemned (anathēma, cf. Rom 9:3; 1Cor 12:3; 16:22), “a thing devoted to God without
being redeemed, doomed to destruction” (Robertson’s
Word Pictures). Advocating anything other than a grace-based Gospel is a serious
and sinister matter.
I may have mentioned this before, but
I was involved in a church activity of canvassing surrounding neighborhoods and inviting people to our church. This one man greeted us on his front porch. We
told him who we were and what we were about. He mentioned he attended a church
of another denomination nearby. I asked him if I could ask him a question about
his faith. He was a friendly fellow and gave me permission. I asked him if he
believed that salvation was by grace through faith alone. Knowing a little
about baptismal regenerationists, I intended to get right to the heart of the
matter.
He replied immediately, “Oh, yes!” I
responded, “Can I ask you another question?” He nodded his head affirmatively.
“What if you don’t get baptized?” I inquired. He spoke without hesitation, “Well,
you’re damned of course!” Cult groups embrace the Christian language but
possess a predilection for taking verses out of their context and injecting an entirely
different meaning into words like grace and faith. Living in a diverse culture,
when someone indicates they believe in God, we cannot assume they are referring
to Yahweh.
If an individual or an organization
adds anything to grace-based salvation it represents an intentional
corruption of the Gospel of grace, contrary to the Gospel message of historic
Christianity. This young man was as nice as he could be, but his theology was
not aligned with the teaching of Scripture; he was adding baptism to his faith
for salvation. We left, but he remained spiritually bankrupt banking on the
regenerative properties of the baptismal waters for the saving of his soul. For
this misguided soul, he saw his faith plus baptism (works) as equating to personal
salvation. Baptism is the first step of obedience after salvation, a public
profession of faith; there is simply no power in the tub, only in the blood of Jesus Christ.
It is very dangerous in failing to
discern between positional salvation (placed into the body of Christ) and
progressive salvation (growing and maturing in the body of Christ). Positional sanctification addresses the
penalty of sin once and for all; progressive
sanctification deals with the presence of sin on a regular basis (which God
left in our bodies at salvation by the way). Sin has a different effect in
relation to being born again (positional salvation) and living for Christ
(progressive sanctification). Both are serious, but only the former is spiritually
lethal to the soul, while the latter is spiritually harmful to fellowship with
God in the daily routine of life.
If you believe in doing good in order
to be saved, you are not a genuine believer in Jesus Christ for the Scriptures
are crystal clear that salvation is by grace through faith alone (Cf. Eph 2:8-9
and Titus 3:5). We must be extremely cautious about making the essentials of
the faith relative; no one enters into heaven by mistake or accidentally. The
reality is that an unbeliever has no personal relationship whatsoever with
God; for he or she is literally an enemy of God (cf. Deut 32:41-43; Psa
21:8; 68:21; 72:9; 110:1-2; Isa 42:13; Nah 1:2, 8; Lk 19:27; Rom 5:10; 8:5-7;
1Cor15:25)! I was enemy of Christ without even realizing until I received
Christ on 1.19.1976, and my eyes were opened to the truth of the Gospel.
The Holy Spirit does not live within
the heart of a lost person, and therefore, such a person has no peace with God
for he or she is wrath-bound for hell. A believer is not only at peace with God (Rom 5:1), no longer an
enemy (Rom 5:10; Col 1:21), but he or she also has the peace of God (Php 4:7, 9; Col 3:15) and access to fellowship with
God as long as the heart remains holy through obedience to His Word (Psa 66:18;
1 Cor 1:9; 1 Jn 1:3); personal holiness is quintessential in having fellowship
with God (1 Jn 1:6, 7).
Unlike those who are at war with God
where sin has the potential to bring catastrophic failure that comes with the second
death, fellowship with God for the believer is broken due to personal sin (Psa
66:18). Such disobedience is not irrevocable should a soul die out of fellowship;
this is where 1 Jn 1:9 comes into play for believers that are still breathing
terrestrial air. If we confess or agree with Yahweh about our sins, He is
faithful and just to forgive us of our sins and to cleanse us from all
unrighteousness! Fellowship is restored, not salvation.
We are expected to be holy as God is
holy, but also obeying is really a reflective demonstration of our love for God,
a natural byproduct. Obedience to God’s Word says, “I love you, Lord” (cf. Jn
14:15). If a person has been claiming to be a believer but his or her life
tells another story, it is very possible such a person never knew the Lord. I do
agree that the absence of fruit is very concerning and possibly indicative of a
person who honors God with the lips but whose heart is far from him (Mt 15:8).
Listen, the bottom line is this. If you and I are claiming to be an apple tree,
we need to show the world our apples (cf. Mt 12:33; 7:16; Jas 2:18): no apples,
no faith (Jas 2:17, 26). When people are born again, they are translated to the kingdom of light and become children and “heirs of God and
joint heirs with Christ (Rom 8:17),” Abraham’s seed, and “heirs according to
the promise” (Gal 3:29) and “heirs according to the hope of eternal life” (Titus 3:7, emphasis mine, “hope” (Gk, elpis) always means in the NT
expectation or anticipation, never uncertainty).
Now with that in mind, who declares
what sins of knowledge or what areas or amount of ignorance can get you
disowned and kicked back into the sphere of darkness from an heir back to an
enemy? What about sins of non-commission? What about refraining from doing
good? We have all been guilty of that one! Remember this verse by the Lord’s
half-brother, “Therefore, to him who knows to do good and does not do it,
to him it is sin” (Jas 4:17). Well, that will just about bar every one of us
from going to heaven according to the harsh standards of temporary security
advocates!
Will an evil thought cause a person
to lose their salvation like breaking
one statute of the Law of Moses if you are inclined to be a law-keeper (cf. Jas
2:10)? There are 613 Mosaic laws in the Book which are a lot of laws to keep track of in
order to keep from losing your salvation! 365 are negative, and the rest are
positive commands. Our judicial system makes decisions from the perspective that
ignorance of the law is no excuse. So, would it be a leap to say that being
ignorant of Scripture is a sin provided your elevator reaches the penthouse or
your river runs to the ocean? Surely God has a higher standard than man?
It would probably be safe to say that
no one has ever been in compliance with all 613 laws every day of his or her
whole life, except for Jesus the God-Man. Not even Moses or the Aaronic
priesthood after the Law was given could keep the Law perfectly because they
were imperfect like everyone else, sinners. There is no evidence anyone other
than Jesus kept the Decalogue or Ten Commandments precisely as God intended!
Remember, guilty of one guilty of all (Gal 5:3; 3:10)! Jesus was guiltless
which testifies of His Deity!
The Law of Moses was pedagogical in
nature to drive us to the need for a personal Messiah. The law could head us in
the right direction, but it could not deliver us the goods of eternal life
because we are sinners incapable of keeping the Laws of God perfectly. It took
saving faith to accomplish that; the kind that Abraham had even though he was a
sinner, “He believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness” (Rom
4:3; cf. Gal 3:11).
Temporal security is motivated by a
lust for control and reveals a serious misunderstanding of the position,
liberty, and accountability of the believer in Christ because the agenda behind
disavowing eternal security is alien to the teaching of Scripture. Teaching the
gullible a fearful and false theology can have a profound negative effect. It
is a terrible bondage of fear to be subjected to, resulting in a deprivation of
peace and joy of never knowing if saved or not. There are many souls
incarcerated in Hell that based their salvation on good works to get them to
heaven…. They are in the abyss because the remedy for the penalty of sin was
rejected by every single one of them. In other words, they are there by choice;
they are volunteers, not victims.
With eternal security, it is not a hope-so
(bad news if you lose) but a know-so based upon the Word that you can know that
you know that you know that you know that heaven is home. You desire to be holy because you are excited about the
imminent return of Christ and going home to be with Him forever. So, the
pursuit is to experience the knowledge of Christ and the power of His
resurrection (Php 3:10)! Eternal security is just the icing on the cake, beloved! <><
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| To Part 3 |
