Sitting on our blessed assurance
and living like the devil is obviously not a picture of godliness or God’s will
for our lives; those whose lifestyles are chronically characterized by ungodliness are either
(1) unsaved (Gal 5:19-21) or (2) backsliding (Gal 5:16-17, 25-26). There simply
is not a license to sin to be found anywhere in Scripture. You can’t lose what
you never had, and how long will God allow a believer to slide backward can
only be answered by Him, but we can biblically stand in doubt of a person's claim to be saved, particularly when he or she is advocating a works salvation (Gal
4:20) or possessing a fruitless faith (Jas 2:18).
Eternal security has nothing
to do with afterlife insurance. It is not an emergency fund. It is not
something we check off to make sure our derriere is covered: health insurance,
car insurance, home insurance, life insurance, eternal life insurance, and so
forth. Eternal security is simply a
byproduct of God’s nature and eternal way of doing things. There is no doubt
that eternal security is an awesome thing, but it is only effective with
genuine conversion. It is a byproduct of salvation, but it is characteristic of
everything God does which is eternal in nature; the Holy Spirit through Solomon
wrote,
“I know that whatever God does,
it shall be forever. Nothing can be added to it, and nothing taken from it. God
does it, that men should fear before
Him” (Eccl 3:14).
We are saved to the uttermost; in
other words, our salvation will last forever because it is of God alone. Those
who promote and propagate that God’s offer of salvation is conditional impugn
the very nature of God. He is eternal; He lives in the eternal; He operates in
the eternal. He only does things that are eternal in nature. There is no
temporality with God Almighty. Think of it another way.
Whatever God does is His will.
His will remains forever. If we do God’s will it has eternal results. In 1 Jn
2:17 John is contrasting the permanency and unchangeableness of God’s will with
the temporariness and changeableness of the world system and its lusts which is
in direct opposition to God’s will, heading non-stop towards destruction (Gk,
present tense, “passing away”).
Since the will of God is
eternal, everything done in the will of God for the believer has eternal
ramifications as well – “the one who does the will of God lives forever”
(NASB). This is not a conditional statement or another example of conditional
salvation – “who does” (Gk, present tense) is not intermittent but durative, continual, or habitual action, hence, a godly lifestyle. Eternal life is not the result of being
moral or ethical or doing this or that for it would make salvation by works
(cf. Eph 2:8-9; Gal 1:8-9). Doing the will of God continually in life is
evidence of a change of heart, a mark of true conversion, heading non-stop to
glory! We are either living with eternity in mind, or we are not.
All of mankind will live forever
because we were created to live forever. Some people do not like that idea so
they come up with the concept of the annihilation of the soul at death. Ever
hear of the expression, “You live and die like a dog; afterward there is
nothing?” There is no such thing as the non-existence of the soul, obliviousness, or absence of conscious awareness of the surroundings after death, similar to before you were
born.
Since Adam was created in the
image of God, all of his descendants are eternal. Ever wonder why people insist
on treating Genesis chapters 1-11 as allegorical? Man does not want to be
intellectually and experientially accountable to a concept of a Creator God.
Evolution didn’t take root because humans had nothing better to do with their time.
Man is always straining to find ways to circumvent accountability to God in the name of intellectual honesty and academia; there
are many who don’t like having to answer to a transcendent being for the way
they think and act. They prefer and desire self-directed over God-directed. In other words,
they oppose the will of God. They want and demand a life of “no God.” It is
foolishness (Psa 14:1).
Ironically, God gives the
desires of any man or woman, who loathe the thought of being held accountable
or having to answer to the God of the Bible in their life, a place to spend an
eternity where there is “no God” – the lake of fire. God doesn’t send anyone to
such a horrific place; people in their blindness due to unbelief choose to go
there (cf. 2 Cor 4:4; Mt 25:41)! Man is free to refuse to believe in a God or a
devil and heaven or hell, of course, but according to the authority of the
Scripture, there is only an either/or alternative. Anyone can dismiss the
authority of Scripture and take their 50-50 chances, philosophically speaking,
with some other authority about life, but if the Bible is correct, eternity is an incomprehensible length of time to live out a
tragic mistake for countless zillions of “years” in conscious awareness.
God will
not create a world and put all the “no God” people on it to live out their
existence according to their will. The sin issue must be addressed. God did not
offer up His Son for man to bypass His great sacrifice. It is as one fiery
evangelist used to say in all of his sermons, “Heaven or hell, Jesus or the
devil, turn or burn.” Sounds too direct in our age of love, huh?
No, it was spot on then, and it
is still right now. Those are the choices whether we like it or not. We need
to cut through all of this lovey-dovey and over-sensitivity stuff and get to
the chase. We are “loving” people right into hell because we are worried we might
offend them! Paul cried out, “I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to
salvation for everyone who believes” (Rom 1:16). Brethren, the cross, and verses like John 14:6 are highly offensive
to the world of the lost! So offend on for God’s glory unashamedly! Call sin
for what it truly is! “…unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of
God” (Jn 3:3), right? The Holy Spirit convicts of sin through His word, not via political correctness. Enough of preaching,
let me get back on track.
Physical death is only a doorway
into eternity. The entrance of sin into the world does not change man’s
eternality, only his or her destiny and quality of foreverness. There is eternal
life (union) and eternal death (separation). Man is given the freedom to choose
life or death. God already knows our choice, but God’s knowledge due to His attribute
of omniscience does not alter or cancel personal choice.
We could debate this
providential paradox until the cows come home, but the point is this; mankind was
created to live eternally and will either live forever in union with God in
glory or separated from Him forever in the lake of fire. After 40+ years as a
believer, I still maintain that “whoever believes” is God’s genuine and
graceful offer of salvation to all of
mankind (Jn 3:16; cf. Jn 3:17-18, 36; Rom 10:13).
Whenever believers willfully
misrepresent or disobey the teaching of Scripture, they are challenging the
authority of the triune Godhead. This is simply asking to be chastened by God
(Heb 12:6). Naturally, no one is perfect, but it is arrogant, unthankful, and unwise for believers to see how long God will allow the backsliding to continue before chastisement
takes place. Such delusional daring would be nothing short of crazy and
unloving! I have been there; it is a rough place to be dancing in the temporal
nature of this world.
Though I never spoke against God
or His Word, my backsliding sent the wrong message to my family, friends, and the
world. Ignoring God’s authority spells nothing but trouble, and all sin is
against God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. To my shame and
stupidity, I have been there done that in failing to glorify God in a season,
of my own choosing, that tries the soul of a man that invariably leaves him
empty and bereft of eternal blessings within those days “under the sun.” This
is the harsh environment of temporality, a life lived apart from God – “Vanity
of vanities, all is vanity” (Eccl
1:2).
Though some people will
invariably push the envelope of the boundaries of God’s will, it is still
unwarranted to twist the truth of Scripture to justify controlling sinful
behavior; this is the modus operandi
or MO of false teachers and Pharisaical practices. They are fully aware that
people are going to deviate from God’s standards and take advantage of that
regression by injecting standards of their own for others to follow.
As agents of the devil false
teachers pervert the Gospel message by getting people to seek righteousness or good standing by any means other than grace through faith alone before God.
Fear has a way of getting people’s attention and controlling behavior. If you
can convince someone you can lose your salvation, fear has done its work
(contrast Rom 8:15; 2 Tim 1:7; Heb 13:5-6). Some false teachers do not
necessarily throw out faith in the salvation equation; they just add to it, and
that is of course a major theological problem as well; faith becomes degraded,
and works are elevated for salvation. It is all about grace for salvation and all about works in service to the King of Kings.
Believers have a responsibility not to take advantage of our freedom in Christ by defying, testing, or
redefining those boundaries of the will of God as disclosed in His Word. The
fence jumpers should be accountable. Nowadays, taking responsibility or being
held accountable is a lost art form but never with God. The answer is not in doing
nothing or throwing the baby out with the bath water or getting through the
season or letting it run its course. What about good old repentance of the
abusers rather than political correctness of no accountability lest we offend others?
The Pharisees of old were masters of the art of control.
The serious nature of wanting to
pervert the Gospel (Gal 1:7) whether you strip it of grace through faith or
make it conditional falls under the category of a “different gospel” (Gal 1:6)
or “any other gospel” as in opposition to “what we have preached” (Gal 1:8) and
“what you have received” (Gal 1:9). MacArthur observed that of the 13 Pauline
letters, Galatians is the only one absent of any commendation (The MacArthur
Bible Commentary on Gal 1:2). As JM goes on to say, “This
omission reflects how urgently he [Paul, added] felt about confronting the
defection and defending the essential doctrine of justification” (Ibid). We see
the tone of the Holy Spirit through inspiration that God doesn’t take too kindly of man replacing His good
news with any other gospel which is not good news in Gal 1:8-9, “let him be
accursed,” also cf. Gal 4:20.
The first instance of “let him
be accursed” is part of a third class conditional sentence in Gal 1:8 or
hypothetical, “if (Gk, ean) we,”
showing potential action, while the second occurrence of “let him be accursed”
in Gal 1:9 is part of a first class conditional sentence, “if (Gk, ei, speaks of a fulfilled condition, not
an unfulfilled one) anyone,” revealing factual activity, the actuality of the
present preaching of the false teachers.
Both occurrences of “let him be”
are in the Greek present tense, meaning that “accursed” is effective now and
will continue to be in effect. Paul, any true Galatian believers, or true
believers today could never be “accursed” for all genuine believers are not
appointed to God’s wrath (Jn 3:18; Rom 8:1; 1 Thes 5:9, 10). Paul’s emphasis in
Gal 1:8 was that it doesn’t matter what their credentials are; whoever attempts
to preach any other gospel or a different gospel than the one they had received
from him, the only true authoritative version of the Gospel, is false and
accursed. This is strong language, folks, very strong. <><
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| To Part 3 |
