Matt Pavlik

Jesus’s kingdom is secure and, by association, you are also secure. Jesus’s love holds you; it isn’t a jealously possessive grip, but an energizing and free grip. Once you have entered Jesus’s kingdom, there will never be a reason to leave!

I propose an argument for the final perseverance of saints on the virtue and efficacy of the Savior’s prayers. I know it cannot be refuted, and I know it cannot be attacked, without calling the Savior a liar.

The Savior says “Father, thank you for hearing me. You always hear me” (John 11:41-42 NLT). Mark the words, “You always hear me.” God always answers Jesus’s prayers!

Jesus prays, “My prayer is not for the world, but for those you have given me, because they belong to you” (John 17:9 NLT). After praying for His disciples, He adds, “I am praying not only for these disciples but also for all who will ever believe in me through their message” (John 17:20 NLT). He prays that they may be with Him where He is, that they may behold His glory.

Furthermore, Jesus prays, “I have revealed you to them, and I will continue to do so. Then your love for me will be in them, and I will be in them” (John 17:26 NLT). In Romans 8, Paul tells us, “He also makes intercession for us.” From all this, it cannot, without irreverence, be doubted that Jesus prays for every believer and that they may be one with Him. So then we know this prayer cannot be answered if falling from grace is true. Christ tells us, that His Father always hears Him pray. The final perseverance of saints is secure from this standpoint.

Jesus’s Kingdom Has No End

Next, let’s consider Matthew 20:20:

Then the mother of the sons of Zebedee came up to him with her sons, and kneeling before him she asked him for something. And he said to her, “What do you want?” She said to him, “Say that these two sons of mine are to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your kingdom.” Jesus answered, “You do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I am to drink?” They said to him, “We are able.” He said to them, “You will drink my cup, but to sit at my right hand and at my left is not mine to grant, but it is for those for whom it has been prepared by my Father.”

Matthew 20:20-23 ESV

This kingdom is endless for Luke 1:33 says, “Of his kingdom there will be no end.” To whom will it be granted to sit by Jesus? To them whom God prepares for it. See also Mark 10:37. When was this kingdom prepared for those persons? The Savior tells us,

Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.’

Matthew 25:34 ESV

This kingdom cannot mean the church, and cannot be given on account of works or character, but must be given to them for whom it is prepared, and for whom it was prepared before the foundation of the world. Falling from grace melts away before these passages, like snow before the hot sun of mid-summer.

Jesus Chooses Those Who Can Enter His Kingdom

The Savior says in John 10:14 “I know my sheep.” Again, “I know whom I have chosen” (John 13:18) and

God’s truth stands firm like a foundation stone with this inscription: “The Lord knows those who are his,” and “All who belong to the Lord must turn away from evil.”

2 Timothy 2:19 NLT

This is true today; He knows all His sheep; all that have this seal and all He has chosen. But in the last day, He will say to the wicked, “I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!” (Matthew 7:23 NIV).

Now, if these two sayings of our Savior are true,

1. “I know my sheep; ” “I know whom I have chosen;” “ The Lord knows them that are his; ” and
2. “I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!”

then, among those who are finally lost and bound for hell, there will not be one who ever was a sheep, or chosen, or sealed with the Holy Spirit unto the day of redemption.

Consequently, if any do fall from grace they are not among those who are finally lost; but by reference to Hebrews 6:4, it is seen that, if it were possible for one to fall, he could not be renewed. Put all these together, and it is manifest that falling from grace is impossible.

Can you think that there will be some in the last day, who have lost their grace, that could turn upon Christ and say, you did know me once, for I was once your sheep? I was once a believer, and you said of me, “They will never die.” I ate the flesh and drank the blood of Christ, and it was said, I should live forever. I was once sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise unto the day of redemption.

I was once an heir of God and a joint heir with Christ; it was said I was kept by the power of God to salvation; the kingdom was prepared for me before the foundation of the world; I was once born of an incorruptible seed, even of the word of God, which lives and abides forever; I was born of God, and it was said of me, “He cannot sin; for he is born of God.” I was also once one of Christ’s people; and Gabriel said, “He will save his people from their sins;” but now I must sink down to hell.”

The falling from grace of only one of God’s children would render false all that is on this list. All believers should consider and stand firm in the evidence found in scripture.

This is post 12 in a series; you can read the previous post. This post started as the public domain works of J. H. Oliphant. While sections are the same in many ways, I modernized the language and added my thoughts to provide greater clarity for my readers.
Image by Karen .t from Pixabay

Flowers and most other things in this life will fade away eventually. But the person who is born again possesses an unfading spirit and inheritance. God’s children, born of His Spirit, are “Born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible” (1 Peter 1:23). The incorruptible Holy Spirit implanted within believers preserves them from wasting away from ongoing sin.

No one born of God makes a practice of sinning, for God’s seed abides in him; and he cannot keep on sinning, because he has been born of God.

1 John 3:9 ESV

So the saints are born of incorruptible seed. If it is incorruptible, who can corrupt it? Falling from grace involves the absurdity of corrupting that which God’s word says is incorruptible. Also, His word says he cannot sin. But if he can fall from grace, he can go to hell, too.

Believers’ Inheritance Is Unfading

Romans 8:17 says we are “heirs of God, and joint heirs with Christ.” How can Christ be brought into the inheritance, and those who are joined with Him be cast down to hell? Therefore, we are both heirs and unfading.

All praise to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. It is by his great mercy that we have been born again, because God raised Jesus Christ from the dead. Now we live with great expectation, and we have a priceless inheritance—an inheritance that is kept in heaven for you, pure and undefiled, beyond the reach of change and decay. And through your faith, God is protecting you by his power until you receive this salvation, which is ready to be revealed on the last day for all to see.

1 Peter 1:3-5 NLT

Because the heirs are unfading, so is the inheritance. It is reserved for you, and the power of God keeps you. You can’t gain an unfading inheritance, without first having God become your keeper. If God’s power can keep a saint, my case is proven. He keeps you ready, ready to be revealed in the last time. If He keeps you ready, then there is no moment in which you are not ready.

It is not left to your faithfulness, nor the vigilance of angels, but God takes an interest, and He becomes our keeper and secures the inheritance to us, and us to the inheritance. These two, the heirs and inheritance, must be brought together, despite the opposition of the world, the flesh and the devil.

To accomplish this, the heirs are born of an incorruptible seed; the inheritance is also incorruptible, and cannot fade away, and these heirs have an earnest of this inheritance and are sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise unto the day of redemption. Our earthly possessions sometimes take wings and fly away, or are consumed by thieves, or in some way, we lose them. But not so with the unfading children of God; their inheritance is kept far, far above this world, and above the most distant possibility of destruction. God’s unseen hand is certainly preserving each heir for that inheritance.

We have found that both the inheritance and heirs are unfading. In Galatians 4:7, they are declared to be heirs through Christ; not only adopted legally, but “begotten of him;” and “made partakers of the divine nature.” Is this proceeding in court legal? Is this will a good one, that secures the estate to each heir? Is it immutable? or can it be broken? I know that lawyers sometimes break the wills of men, leaving impoverished some of the heirs named in the will.

But, let’s remember that here Jesus is the executor of the will, and He knows the spirit of the will, and all the heirs in the will; and it is simply slander on Christ, to charge that some of the heirs will miss their inheritance and go to hell. Disobedience in a child does not destroy its relation to its father, nor make void the legality of a will.

The Heir’s Unfading Life is Hidden in Christ

For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.

Colossians 3:3-4 ESV

“You also will.” Christ will no more certainly appear in glory than that all His heirs shall appear there. Christ’s destiny and theirs are the same. If He shall appear in glory, so shall they also appear with Him. His glory as the Savior would be eclipsed without them; His glory as the Captain would be dimmed if any one of His mighty army should be found missing. When the great book of life is opened, and the roll called, all will and must be there, to maintain the great name of Jesus as a deliverer. Paul assures us that Jesus will say, “Here am I and the children you have given me.”

Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is.

1 John 3:2 ESV

“Because I live, you will live also.” Why? “Your life is hidden with Christ in God.” For you to lose your spiritual connection with Jesus, Satan must climb up to the throne of God, dethrone the Almighty, tear out His heart, paralyze His arm, and capture and destroy Jesus Christ. All this, Satan must do before he can get your life; for it “is hidden with Christ in God.”

Focus now on this image of your life hidden within Christ. Nothing can reach you or cause you harm!

This is post 11 in a series; you can read the previous post. This post started as the public domain works of J. H. Oliphant. While sections are the same in many ways, I modernized the language and added my thoughts to provide greater clarity for my readers.
Image by Aberrant Realities from Pixabay

When God makes a promise, He never fails to keep it. All His covenants are ultimately fulfilled in Jesus (2 Corinthians 1:20). Jesus is the first in everything; He defeated death when God resurrected Him. All believers will follow after Jesus and be raised to eternal life. God promised us the New Covenant which will last forever.

And I will make him the firstborn,
    the highest of the kings of the earth.
My steadfast love I will keep for him forever,
    and my covenant will stand firm for him.
I will establish his offspring forever
    and his throne as the days of the heavens.

Psalm 89:27-29 ESV

God’s Covenant Means He Disciplines But Does Not Abandon His Children

In Acts 13:34, Paul calls Christ the sure blessings of David; this covenant was confirmed by God in Christ; the law could not annul it or make the promise of it of no effect. How can the children of this covenant fall away and be lost forever? God might discipline them, but never stop loving them.

If [the children of this covenant] do not obey my decrees
    and fail to keep my commands,
then I will punish their sin with the rod,
    and their disobedience with beating.
But I will never stop loving him
    nor fail to keep my promise to him.

Psalm 89:31-33 NLT

Now, does God’s faithfulness to His Son demand that His children (redeemed by His blood) shall be saved? Unquestionably it does because His word says that He will not stop loving them.

I will not violate my covenant
    or alter the word that went forth from my lips.
Once for all I have sworn by my holiness;
    I will not lie to David (Christ).
His offspring shall endure forever,
    his throne as long as the sun before me.

Psalm 89:34-36 ESV

The author of Hebrews refers to the same when he says:

So when God desired to show more convincingly to the heirs of the promise the unchangeable character of his purpose, he guaranteed it with an oath, so that by two unchangeable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled for refuge might have strong encouragement to hold fast to the hope set before us. We have this as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul, a hope that enters into the inner place behind the curtain, where Jesus has gone as a forerunner on our behalf, having become a high priest forever after the order of Melchizedek.

Hebrews 6:17-20 ESV

How, I ask, is this covenant mutable? Can it be altered or changed? No, it is immutable; the oath of God secures it, and all is confirmed in Christ. Therefore, the blood of Christ is called “the blood of the everlasting covenant;” this covenant is called the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.

This truth gives them confidence that they have eternal life, which God—who does not lie—promised them before the world began.

Titus 1:2 NLT

God, who cannot lie, promised eternal life before the world began; also, grace was given to us in Christ before the world began, and we were chosen in him before the foundation of the world. This proves the existence of an everlasting covenant, which is related not only to the crucifixion of Jesus, but to the eternal salvation of all His children; and not only is the death of Jesus a subject of appointment in this covenant, but also the result of His death. So David could say:

Is it not my family God has chosen?
    Yes, he has made an everlasting covenant with me.
His agreement is arranged and guaranteed in every detail.
    He will ensure my safety and success.

2 Samuel 23:5 NLT

Nothing about Jesus’s death — its time, manner, and purpose — was left uncertain.

But Israel is saved by the Lord
    with everlasting salvation;
you shall not be put to shame or confounded
    to all eternity.

Isaiah 45:17 ESV

Here is salvation certain, that shall reach even to eternity.

God’s Covenant Means He Does Not Forget or Fail to Fulfill His Promises

Can a woman forget her nursing child,
    that she should have no compassion on the son of her womb?
Even these may forget,
    yet I will not forget you.
Behold, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands;
    your walls are continually before me.

Isaiah 49:15-16 ESV

God uses a powerful illustration here. Do these words look as if fading from grace is possible? No, not until God lies under oath, nor until the everlasting covenant is annulled, nor until Christ, who is one in covenant with us, is dragged down from His throne of power, and hurled into hell. God made Christ a high priest forever…

• after the order of Melchisedec (Hebrews 6:20)
• over the house of God (Hebrews 10:21)
• by the power of an endless life (Hebrews 7:16)

As a priest of this order, and over this house, He procures endless life. He is the captain, to bring many sons to glory. For this work, He is made perfect through suffering. He is the wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption of all His people; He will be to them a God, and they shall be to Him a people. From what we have seen, the salvation of God’s people depends on the success of Christ as the surety of the better testament; and as he cannot fail, the salvation of all his people is certain.

The New Covenant is such good news because of all that Jesus has fulfilled for us believers. The security of your faith, of your very life, is only as strong as the object of your faith. If your faith is fully in Christ, you will experience full assurance of your salvation.

This is post 10 in a series; you can read the previous post. This post started as the public domain works of J. H. Oliphant. While sections are the same in many ways, I modernized the language and added my thoughts to provide greater clarity for my readers.
Image by Meranda D from Pixabay

God has purpose in everything He does. Tomorrow portions of the USA will experience a total eclipse of the sun. The moon is about 400x smaller than the sun while also being about 400x farther away from the sun than it is from the Earth. This combination allows the sun and moon to appear as if they are the same size in the sky. Websites like this physics one claim this to be a complete coincidence, but we know it was God’s plan. God designed the planets so that only us on Earth can experience this (someone living on Mars would never experience this because the distances and sizes are not right).

God is known in the Bible as the God of purpose, who works all things after the counsel of His own will. Therefore, what we see produced by the hand of God, is not the product of chance or accident, but the fulfillment of His purpose. The whole universe, sun, moon and stars, the earth and its fullness, are now as God purposed them before their creation; and as He had no pattern to work by, they are an exhibition of His wisdom and true creative power.

God has planned the heavens down to the smallest details of who you are. You are who you are on purpose. You are no coincidence!

The Lord of hosts has sworn:
“As I have planned,
    so shall it be,
and as I have purposed,
    so shall it stand.”

Isaiah 14:24 ESV

Reader, did God ever think He would save anyone, and yet that one’s salvation fail?

For the Lord of hosts has purposed,
    and who will annul it?
His hand is stretched out,
    and who will turn it back?

Isaiah 14:27 ESV

If God’s hand is stretched out to save His people, is it not wicked to contend that His hand can be turned back? “The Lord has spoken—he who made these things known so long ago” Acts 15:17-18 NLT.

God Made Us for His Purpose

“For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works” Ephesians 2:9 ESV. Conversion is God’s work and not the work of chance or accident; it is one of the works which He does according to His purpose. “God decided in advance to adopt us into his own family” Ephesians 1:5 NLT. Our being children is the result, not of chance, or human appointment or agency, but of the predestination of God. Our regeneration is an inheritance we have, not for our works, but for God’s purpose.

In him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will.

Ephesian 1:11 ESV

Here our being born again is the result of our being predestined; Therefore, we were predestined to this end by “him who works all things according to the counsel of his will.” Therefore, our being made to possess this inheritance was in the mind of God long before, and accordingly, we are blessed.

How will those be saved whom God has appointed to salvation, and who, in harmony with that appointment, have obtained their inheritance? “According to his eternal purpose that he accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord” Ephesians 3:11 NIV. So, let us ask, what is that eternal purpose?

And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day.

John 6:39 ESV

So this eternal purpose, counsel, and will is that all given to Christ shall be saved. “You shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins” Matthew 1:21 ESV. Will He fail? Will God’s eternal purpose be defeated, and His will unexecuted?

Falling from grace argues that He may fail; and if He may fail to save all given him, all His people, He also may fail in His blood, and the cross may be a failure. If so, then God’s purposes, counsel, and will may be a failure, and the Holy Spirit may fail; and there might well be a song of triumph in hell; all Heaven might be clothed in sack-cloth and mourning; and Christ might be mocked, thus: “This man began to build and was not able to finish” Luke 14:30 ESV.

We also learn that God possesses foreknowledge in the highest conceivable perfection; therefore, all His works are in perfect harmony with perfect wisdom, love, and power; and where He has begun a good work, He will perform it until the day of Christ. I would argue the truth of the final perseverance of every saint, upon the ground of the covenant of grace.

For our shield belongs to the Lord,
    our king to the Holy One of Israel.

Of old you spoke in a vision to your godly one, and said:
    “I have granted help to one who is mighty;
    I have exalted one chosen from the people.”

Psalms 89:18-19 ESV

And of this chosen one he says: “‘I will establish your offspring forever, and build your throne for all generations” Psalm 89:4 ESV.

He was whipped so we could be healed. All of us, like sheep, have strayed away.
    We have left God’s paths to follow our own.
Yet the Lord laid on him
    the sins of us all.

Unjustly condemned,
    he was led away.
No one cared that he died without descendants,
    that his life was cut short in midstream.
But he was struck down
    for the rebellion of my people. When he sees all that is accomplished by his anguish,
    he will be satisfied.
And because of his experience,
    my righteous servant will make it possible
for many to be counted righteous,
    for he will bear all their sins.

Isaiah 53:5,6,8,11 NLT

The many justified are the many whose sins are borne; the bearing of sin results in justification. These two things are tied together so inseparably in each of these passages, that anyone willing to see truth can see it.

While His soul is being offered, He shall see the anguish of His soul, and be satisfied. He shall see the end and object of His death and be satisfied; what would satisfy Him but the ultimate salvation of all His people? Do lashes heal us on their own or we are healed because of His lashes? In all these passages, we are presented as one with Christ in the covenant; so our release from suffering is a necessary consequence of His suffering.

Consider today how strongly you are tied to God’s purposes and rejoice that you are no coincidence!

This is post 9 in a series; you can read the previous post. This post started as the public domain works of J. H. Oliphant. While sections are the same in many ways, I modernized the language and added my thoughts to provide greater clarity for my readers.
Image by Susan Cipriano from Pixabay

The scriptures teach that God is love (1 John 4:8) and that salvation’s plan, in all its parts, is the fruit of that love. God did not give His Son to die for us, that He might love us; but He loved us and, because of that love, He sacrificed His Son for us.

But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

Romans 5:8 NIV

You might have been told that God only loves you because of Jesus. But this is not true nor biblical! God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit loved you and agreed on the plan of salvation. The trinity is always unified in everything. God’s love toward us, even when we were sinners, was sufficiently intense to cause Him to give up His Son Jesus to death. Jesus laid down His life willingly (John 10:18; 1 John 3:16). We are not told just when this love began to exist, but it is written:

But he alone is God, and who can oppose him? God does as he pleases.
He is always the same and never makes dark shadows by changing.

Job 23:13; James 1:17 CEV

Therefore, God who is love, has loved us as long as He has been what He is now; but, if He is unchangeable, we cannot say He ever began to love us. Therefore, God’s gifts, Jesus and the salvation inseparably joined to Jesus, are the fruits of God’s everlasting love. But not only is it true that God’s love comes before the giving of Christ as a Redeemer, but it also produces our delivery from sin.

But God was merciful! We were dead because of our sins, but God loved us so much he made us alive with Christ, and God’s gift of undeserved grace is what saves you.

Ephesians 2:4-5 CEV

We are not regenerated and saved, and therefore loved, but loved, and therefore regenerated and saved.

We love Him because he first loved us. God’s love to us has “causative power,” and produces in us love for God. “Love (in us) is of God,” and “He that loves is born of God.” The thought that God loved us before the world began is incomprehensible; yet we have seen that God’s gift of Jesus is a fruit of that love. As grace was given to us in Christ before the world began, so we know that God loved us before the world began. Therefore, there is nothing older than God’s love for us. Thousands of years have come and gone, and yet God’s love exists and bears the most precious fruit.

God’s Love is Not Fickle

No saint can say that he has loved God and obeyed Him, and that God loved him as a consequence; but certainly God loved us, and our loving Him and obeying Him is a fruit of that love.

You cannot believe that God’s love is directed by perfect wisdom, is given fully to us, and that it could possibly be removed at some point. For instance: He loves you today; His perfect wisdom comprehends not only what you are now, but what you ever will be; therefore, he is not disappointed in what He loves. You never can become worse than He knows you will be; and, in fact, He loved you while you were dead in sin, and certainly you can never be worse than dead in sin. Therefore, to say that God will cease to love you is to reject His wisdom, and charge him with misplacing His love, and attribute changeableness to Him.

But, if it is argued that God loves character, and that He loves persons only as they produce that character, we would answer, that every grace of the Christian is produced in him by the Lord; and it is simple nonsense to say that God clothes His people with every benefit of the cross, and then loves them only because of that dress. Instead, He loved us first and then saved us.

But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against these things!

Galatians 5:22-23 NLT

For those who believe in God, He provides the fruit of love in their hearts, so that they can return the love. Therefore, He loves none of us for our good character, but our good character grows out of His love for us. If He had not loved us, given His Son to die for us, regenerated us, and worked in us all that makes up the difference between our present selves and former selves, we could never have good character.

You cannot conceive of an immutable God, with mutable, changeable love, affectionately embracing believers today, and tomorrow casting them down to hell; today calling one an heir of Heaven, beholding his name written in the book of life, and tomorrow erasing that name and disinheriting that heir. The Bible gives no account of such a God; neither do we, poor, sinful, erring beings, need such a God.

God’s Love is Stronger than a Parent’s Love

Have you never thought of the tenderness of a parent’s love toward a prodigal son or daughter? Though that child goes away in sin and disgrace, and others have forsaken and cast the child out of their hearts, yet that good father never stops loving the child, and that mother wets her pillow with tears, as she thinks, in the stillness of the night, of her erring child; and they both lift their petitions to God, to save the wanderer.

Few children know how much parents love them, till the parents are cold in death; so, few Christians know how much God loves them, and how carefully He watches them. We admire pure, disinterested love in parents (love from God for their child); love that floods cannot sweep away; that will follow their offspring as long as life lasts; love unchangeable, unalterable, constant.

Could such a high, noble, and perfect love be possible for parents, and yet God is destitute of it? Should we measure the perfection of creature love by this standard, and throw it aside as too glorious for God?

If God’s love for His children is fickle, changeable, dependent on changing circumstances, alternately given and taken away, then, in my opinion, God’s love is imperfect, and therefore He is imperfect. But if God loves those whom He loves eternally, infinitely, and perfectly, then is His love directed in wisdom, and He is perfect; and one sweet thought here is, that the evidence that He loves me now, or ever did love me, is a certain, unalterable, and irreversible title to Heaven.

The Savior prays:

I am in them and you are in me. May they experience such perfect unity that the world will know that you sent me and that you love them as much as you love me.

John 17:23 NLT

Jesus desires the world to know a great truth here: that as God loves the Son, so he loves His children. And a little further he says: “You loved me even before the world began!” (John 17:24 NLT). So, if God loves us as He loves His Son, and loved His Son before the foundation of the world, then He loved us before the foundation of the world. If the Son lives by the Father, so we shall live by the Son (John 6:57).

God Disciplines Those He Loves

It is for our profit that we are chastened, and not for our destruction. God says:

then I will punish their sin with the rod,
    and their disobedience with beating.
But I will never stop loving him
    nor fail to keep my promise to him.
No, I will not break my covenant;
    I will not take back a single word I said.

Psalm 89:32-34 NLT

And in Hebrews, He speaks:

And I will forgive their wickedness, and I will never again remember their sins. If God doesn’t discipline you as he does all of his children, it means that you are illegitimate and are not really his children at all. No discipline is enjoyable while it is happening—it’s painful! But afterward there will be a peaceful harvest of right living for those who are trained in this way.

Hebrews 8:12; 12:8, 11 NLT

How delightful the thought that God never changes, and that, though we are prone to wander, God never forgets nor forsakes us. Our own experience will bear out this thought. We have left undone the things we should have done, and done many things we should not have done; yet God has not turned his back upon us, and we can sing:

“Oh, Lord, you never change;
But because I stray;
Lord, guide me by your Spirit,
And keep me in your way.”

The Christian may apply the following lines to himself:

“So close, so very close to God,
I cannot nearer be;
For, in the person of his Son,
I am as near as he.

So dear, so very dear to God,
More dear I cannot be;
The love with which he loves his Son,
Such is his love for me.

Why should I ever careful be,
Since such a God is mine?
He watches o’er me night and day,
And tells me, ‘Mine is thine.’”

A Mind at Perfect Peace

This is post 8 in a series; you can read the previous post. This post started as the public domain works of J. H. Oliphant. While sections are the same in many ways, I modernized the language and added my thoughts to provide greater clarity for my readers.
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What can motivate us to follow in Jesus’s footsteps? What helps us know we are okay to express our faith boldly? We can express gratitude for God’s tender care for us and Jesus’s example of suffering which ended with glory. As Jesus suffered and was glorified, so the same is true for us. We will suffer in this life but be glorified in the next.

So be truly glad. There is wonderful joy ahead, even though you must endure many trials for a little while. These trials will show that your faith is genuine. It is being tested as fire tests and purifies gold—though your faith is far more precious than mere gold. So when your faith remains strong through many trials, it will bring you much praise and glory and honor on the day when Jesus Christ is revealed to the whole world.

1 Peter 1:6-7 NLT

When you review the whole history of the Savior in his life and death; his nights of care and prayer; his agonies in the garden; the stressful night he endured before his crucifixion; his despairing cry, “My God! My God! Why have you forsaken me!” (Matthew 27:46). Think how faithful he was to you; many nights alone in some cold mountain he persisted in solemn prayer to God. He suffered all this not for himself, but for you who were ruined. It was for you he toiled all his life of care — it was your miserable sins that crushed him in the garden.

Gratitude for God’s Attention to Detail

Oh, Christian! Christian! Remember with gratitude that you are not your own, but that you are bought with a price, and that price was the life of the Lord Jesus; therefore, glorify him in your body and spirit, which are his.

Make your home with Him. Tell your wants often to him in prayer, and when you are worried, tired, and distressed, cast all your care on him, for he cares for you. His all-seeing eye is always upon you, and he never will leave nor forsake you. He feeds the sparrows that have neither a barn nor a storehouse. There is not a living thing but that he keeps it, and why should we fear that he will not keep us? The very hairs of your head are numbered.

Again, we have been created in Christ unto good works, and these good works God has before ordained that we should walk in them. I am sure we should love God all the more and serve him all the better, when we feel that he is a fire around us and that he is engaged to save us, despite all our foes whether inside or outside of us.

Gratitude for Christ’s Example

Christ’s example motivates us. He pointed our feet in the way he would have us go. Yes, even more, he showed us by example the way.

There is gratitude even in a dog when you give him no more than a bone. Then let us think that we were poor, starved, rebellious dogs, who have been fed on the very flesh and blood of Christ, who has stooped to bind and heal all our wounds. When we were lost, poor, starving, and friendless, he hunted us from every place where we had wandered, took away all our grief and made our eyes overflow with tears of joy, astonished us with tokens of his wonderful love, forgiving, sweetly forgiving all our sins.

Dear reader, have you forsaken him, or left off following him? Are you tired of his service or company? Let me exhort you; I need it as much as you. Christians should never complain; why should servants complain when the Master complains not, though his suffering be greater than all the suffering of all his servants? Let us learn patience by looking at the sufferings of Christ. Homeless, often tired and wearied, and yet not a complaint escapes his lips — these are the best thoughts to stir us up to duty and not the fear of apostasy.

Instead of fear, we focus on gratitude for Jesus’s finished work and the assurance that our suffering provides as it confirms our faith.

This is post 7 in a series; you can read the previous post. This post started as the public domain works of J. H. Oliphant. While sections are the same in many ways, I modernized the language and added my thoughts to provide greater clarity for my readers.
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Whoever has God’s gift of grace, unmerited eternal life, can also have assurance that they will be in heaven because the Holy Spirit guides them into all truth. The true believer’s very nature is changed from being a slave to sin to being a slave to righteousness. Being a slave to righteousness does not mean that a true believer no longer sins, only that he is under grace, not the law.

Some people are against accepting the Bible’s teaching of eternal security because they think it allows (or encourages) genuine believers to continue in sin, putting their salvation in danger. Is it unsafe to set up the safety of saints in such strong terms because this will encourage them to be careless with their lives? If you feel that you are licensed to sin by the security that God has granted, you have not been rightly taught.

Believers are Under Grace Not Under the Law

Believers will sin less over time because they are under grace; they have been set free from the law of sin and death (Romans 8:1-2). Note that the Bible does not specify an exact time length that the believer must demonstrate this, except a lifetime.

What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it?

Romans 6:1-2 ESV

Here, we have this objection named in the scriptures, showing that it was brought against the apostles–that their doctrines suggested carelessness and living in sin. The fact that such an objection was brought against them is evidence that there was something in their preaching that led many to think that they did not believe in obedience to God. But let us hear Paul’s reply that highlights the new nature of believers. How can we who died to sin still live in it? This plainly shows that the Christian is dead to sin and that this is the reason why he does and should obey God. He has lost his delight in sin; he is dead to it.

For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace. Are we to sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means!

And why not do evil that good may come?—as some people slanderously charge us with saying. Their condemnation is just.

Romans 6:14-15; 3:8 ESV

Believers are far removed from the law with its curse and are under grace. They do not do evil to bring about good! Who can doubt from these passages that the apostles taught that salvation was wholly of grace, and not in any degree of works? We see now that people who teach that possessors of salvation are free, are charged and slandered just as Paul was in his day.

For this is the will of God, that by doing good you should put to silence the ignorance of foolish people. Live as people who are free, not using your freedom as a cover-up for evil, but living as servants of God.

1 Peter 2:15-16 ESV

These foolish men say, “If my works can neither make nor keep me holy, I would not care how I live. I would enjoy the pleasures of sin all the time.” But God’s will is that His people will silence such nonsense by a godly life–showing to the world that we are the sons of God and that it is our highest pleasure to obey him–that we feel grateful to him for what he has done for us in the past. Yes, even more, that sin has become exceeding sinful to us, so that we flee from and dread it as poison.

Grace is a More Powerful Motivator Than Fear

God’s grace grants us the precious gift of eternal life that we don’t deserve and cannot earn. We have found that all misery was brought by sin, and all our happiness is the hope of being delivered from sin. The scripture exhortation is “by the mercies of God” not by the fear of hell or apostasy.

I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.

Romans 12:1 ESV

Your greatest incentive to obedience is to think of all that Christ has done for you on the cross: his groans and death. If this will not prompt you, it is not worthwhile to threaten you with “falling from grace.” Mercy is more powerful than fear. Love drives out fear (1 John 4:18).

So, we believers can see that God’s gift of eternal life, and the security of it, are more than worth our obedience; we can delight in obedience, with thanksgiving, because of it. Look now to the Holy Spirit to reveal Christ’s love and guide you into all truth. Let nothing but His love motivate you to do the good works that God has planned in advance for you to do.

This is post 6 in a series; you can read the previous post. This post started as the public domain works of J. H. Oliphant. While sections are the same in many ways, I modernized the language and added my thoughts to provide greater clarity for my readers.
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Physical birth is a passive process for the one being born. No one takes credit for being born. The same is true of our spiritual birth. We are not asked to be brought into the physical world or the spiritual kingdom of God but are summoned by God. God causes our spiritual birth.

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God’s power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.

1 Peter 1:3-5 ESV

God Wills New Birth

In John 3, the Savior tells Nicodemus that he must be born again and that without it he could neither see nor enter the kingdom of God. New birth is not of the will of the flesh or man, but it is of God.

But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.

John 1:12-13 ESV

Spiritual birth is of the Spirit and the Spirit acts however the Spirit pleases; it elevates one to be a son of God. He can say, Abba, Father! He is an heir of God, and a joint heir with Christ (Romans 8:15-16). Do not forget it; he is a joint heir with Christ. He is a partaker of the divine nature (2 Peter 1:4).

Now, being born from above by God’s will, God guards us by His power. Jesus holds us securely. The evil one cannot remove our salvation. We have eternal life.

God Keeps Us Safe Because We are His Children

For every child of God defeats this evil world. We know that God’s children do not make a practice of sinning, for God’s Son holds them securely, and the evil one cannot touch them.

1 John 5:4, 18 NLT

The eternal God is his keeper; and more, he keeps him as the apple of his eye, and “the evil one cannot touch them.” God’s children have overcome the world “because the Spirit who lives in you is greater than the spirit who lives in the world” (1 John 4:4 NLT).

Oh, to know for sure that we have this wonderful and secure plan of salvation — to feel that the strong arm of Jehovah is around me as a tender husband and that I am a plant of his own planting, that shall never be rooted up. If such thoughts as these would not encourage and comfort his poor, tried ones of earth, then I confess I am a stranger to all the sweets of the gospel.

David, in his affliction, would say:

Wondrously show your steadfast love, O Savior of those who seek refuge from their adversaries at your right hand. Keep me as the apple of your eye; hide me in the shadow of your wings.

Psalm 17:7-8 ESV

If David needed such a Savior, can we do with less than this? If he felt his need to be kept, we also need it. We, “who by God’s power, are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time” (1 Peter 1:5 ESV). It is marvelous loving kindness in our God to be so intent on saving us.

We have evil adversaries, but thankfully, God who is all-powerful, justifies and Jesus intercedes for us. Therefore, no one can overpower Him to remove us from His grasp and kill us with condemnation (Romans 8:1, 33-34).

New birth is a miraculous transformation from spiritual death to life. Only God’s power is capable of creating us anew, and keeping us safe from all harm.

This is post 5 in a series; you can read the previous post. This post started as the public domain works of J. H. Oliphant. While sections are the same in many ways, I modernized the language and added my thoughts to provide greater clarity for my readers.
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Where the conscience is once cleansed from sins, it can never again be contaminated with sins. Proof: “He himself bore our sins in his body”; not part, but all of our sins (1 Peter 2:24 ESV). “He has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself” (Hebrews 9:26 ESV). Also, “the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin” (1 John 1:7 ESV).

Certainly, we are to learn from such passages that each and every sin of all his people was “borne” and “put away” by him; and, if put away by him, salvation to his people is the inevitable result; for what is there to condemn us when all sin is put away? To say all our sin is not put away, is to deny the Bible; and to say that we can be lost, is to say we can be condemned when we are without sin.

Forever Cleansed by the Scapegoat

And when he has made an end of atoning for the Holy Place and the tent of meeting and the altar, he shall present the live goat. And Aaron shall lay both his hands on the head of the live goat, and confess over it all the iniquities of the people of Israel, and all their transgressions, all their sins. And he shall put them on the head of the goat and send it away into the wilderness by the hand of a man who is in readiness. The goat shall bear all their iniquities on itself to a remote area, and he shall let the goat go free in the wilderness.

Leviticus 16:20-22 ESV

None can doubt this being a type of our Savior, and in it we see every sin and transgression, by this ceremony, put away. Then may we not reasonably suppose that every sin of ours, great and small, in word, thought, or action; yes, every transgression of ours, over which the law has cognizance, were all laid upon the head of our Redeemer, and by him forever borne away? This thought is full of sweetness to every Christian.

Jesus bore all our sins, past, present, and future, and made complete satisfaction for them. How can you despair? What surer basis could our hope have, and what could so fill us with love to Christ, and so inspire us with obedience? No thought so encouraging as, “Jesus paid it all, all the debt I owe.”

Forever Cleansed by the Blood

Otherwise, would they not have ceased to be offered, since the worshipers, having once been cleansed, would no longer have any consciousness of sins?

Hebrews 10:2 ESV

If one’s conscience is cleansed from sins, then what? “They have no more conscience of sins”; thus showing that whatever is washed by the blood of Christ remains clean eternally. Again, “For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified” (Hebrews 10:14 ESV). Query: By what are they perfected? Answer: By the one offering. Query: How long shall this perfection last? Answer: For all time. Forever. The word “forever” may be used in a limited sense, in some places, but here it is used in its most extended sense.

Jesus said to him, “The one who has bathed does not need to wash, except for his feet, but is completely clean. And you are clean, but not every one of you.”

John 13:10 ESV

Jesus is saying that His “bathing” of believers results in a permanent clean (“completely”) at the deepest places in the heart. It is internal; it symbolizes the changed nature. The cleaning of feet represents the remembrance of, and dependence on, what has already been accomplished. It is an external cleansing. Confession of day-to-day sins, after a one-time bathing, restores outward behavior into alignment with the inner reality, keeping fellowship with Jesus fully unhindered.

The Savior also speaks of permanence through the analogy of bread. “This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die” (John 6:50 ESV); “If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever” (John 6:51 ESV). “Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day” (John 6:54 ESV); with many more such sayings.

Now let us ask, what is the state of those who eat his flesh and drink his blood? They “have eternal life;” “They shall never perish;” “They shall live forever;” “I will raise him up at the last day.” If one of them could be lost, would the Savior’s words be true when he says, “I will raise him up at the last day?” or, “He shall never die?”

Let’s consider Paul’s words to be true. “They have no more conscience of sins.” “One offering forever perfects.” This is what the Holy Spirit testifies in every saint; he breathes the sweet words in our hearts that the offering of Jesus by means of his blood, has secured eternal redemption (Hebrews 9:12).

Is it possible that this eternal redemption could be overturned, or reversed, any day? Can we eat the flesh of our Savior today, and drink his blood, and tomorrow die and be lost? Is this what our Savior calls living forever? Is this eternal life? No, verily, such was not in his mind when he uttered these words; but he saw and well knew the safety of all who “taste that God is gracious” (1 Peter 2:3) and he spoke these words for their comfort.

This is post 4 in a series; you can read the previous post. This post started as the public domain works of J. H. Oliphant. While substantially the same in many ways, I modernized the language and added my thoughts to provide greater clarity for my readers.
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The Gospel is Good News only because salvation is permanent and not dependent on human effort to maintain it (Romans 9:16). If salvation were dependent on my efforts in any amount, I would not be able to keep it very long. The Good News is a positive motivation to abide in Christ and bear the fruit of His love.

The motive to love cannot come from fear of not performing. On the contrary, perfect love drives out fear (1 John 4:18). God doesn’t love us because He fears negative consequences. He loves us because He is love. Being made in His image, our love will have the same motive.

Good News: Salvation is Initiated, Maintained, and Completed By Jesus

God does not wait for people to turn, or even do anything else, but saves sovereignly. It would have been unlawful to deliver us without first redeeming us. “For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified” (Hebrews 10:14 ESV). The Holy Spirit testifies in us and to us of Christ’s death showing us the Good News, how:

• our cruel sins received their due in the sufferings of Christ;
• God is satisfied;
• the law is honored, justice fully met with all its claims, as if you had suffered eternally in hell;
• it was for you and in your place that Jesus died, and
• all this is true, and we poor, guilty sinners are saved.

This was Paul’s mind when he exclaimed with triumphant joy:

Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. Who then is the one who condemns? No one.

Romans 8:33-34 NIV

The Eternal Judge solemnly and in all truth (because of the death of Christ), says of us, “Just.” He says this not for anything in or of us, or done by us, but because of what Christ has done for us. Paul asks, “Who is the one who condemns?” Where is a power that can unsay what God has said? Where is the court of appeals? Who can say guilty of those whom God justifies?

Now, if there is no power above God, and none can set aside his decision, then the final salvation of everyone so justified is certain, unless God reverses his judgment. But this he will not do because with him “there is no variation or shadow due to change” (James 1:17 ESV). Besides, he knows who and what he justifies, and no evil conduct can come from one that he justifies that was not foreseen by him. Neither can any evil influence beset them that was not also of him foreseen.

Therefore, those whom God justifies are securely “sealed for the day of redemption” (Ephesians 4:30 ESV). To say otherwise is to say that God has taken to himself a bride, an heir, and a child, one that he knows will desert him and prove unworthy of the relationship in the end, or to say he did not know those he loves. Now, because we are sure God is free from such monstrous imperfections, we are sure the doctrine of the possibility of falling from grace is a libel on the character of God.

Paul also assigns the very reason why he justifies, saying, “Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised” (Romans 8:34 ESV). He understood that Christ’s death was the whole ground of our hope and that because of his death, God could justify; but after showing that Christ has died, turning our eyes to the cross, where our elder brother and Savior was crucified, he leads us on to his resurrection, as though we were destined to enjoy the same glorious mercy; and that his being raised from the dead is a pledge to us that our bodies shall participate in his whole glory.

Then, the apostle makes another glorious revelation of Good News. Jesus “is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us” (Romans 8:34). This shows that Christ, after his death, resurrection, and ascension, is still intently interested in us — “who indeed is interceding for us” as though it gives additional strength to our hope. In all, showing that the heart of Jesus is set for us, to die for us, to rise even to heaven for us, and there before God, like a mighty advocate, to plead for us. All this because we are such poor, erring, sinful beings, so forgetful, so unmindful, that no part of our salvation dare be left for us to make sure.

Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.

Romans 8:35, 37 ESV

Good News: Salvation Comes Not Through Our Strength or Doings

What a blessed faith we have! What Good News it is! The believer only needs Christ to have eternal life, not self-effort to attempt to obey the law (John 14:6, 17:3; Romans 6:14). This happy, triumphant faith in Jesus hushes all fears. He is our hiding place from every wind and shelter from every storm. Because of this, David could say:

I love you, O Lord, my strength.

Psalm 86:1 ESV

The Lord is my light and my salvation;
    whom shall I fear?
The Lord is the strongholdof my life;
    of whom shall I be afraid?

Psalm 27:1 ESV

Oh, Christian! Christian! If God is your light, life, and strength; if he is your shelter from the storm, what can harm you? Danger and deep trouble may be and are before you. But oh! Look, do look, “To the hills from which my help comes” (Psalm 121:1-2 ESV) and at the mighty bulwarks around you and sweetly and safely sing praises to God. Christ, as our advocate, has securely guarded every weakness.

To pay our fearful debt of sin, the dagger of Justice he received into his own heart, poured out his blood, not to make anything possible, but to make it sure with his eye fixed on one objective, our salvation. He suffered on the cross, and there, as a true and faithful shepherd, died. Language fails to express the intensity of his love for us. Our imaginations cannot do it justice, and when he arose from the dead, he still remembered the objective of his death, and now at the right hand of God, he prays for us making intercessions for us.

So, if apostasy or falling from grace is possible, it is also possible that:

• Christ’s blood is ineffective;
• Those purchased by his blood will remain forever in hell;
• God will not hear and answer Christ’s prayers, for he intercedes for us, and prays for every believer;
• Jesus, after all his pains, and after all that has been said of the virtue of his blood, and his power to save, and after all that we have hoped or believed of his influence and power in winning the hearts of sinners — yet after all this, he may be sadly disappointed;
• Heaven’s expected guests dragged down to hell;
• Seats in heaven unoccupied;
• God’s will not done (which was, “I should lose nothing of all that he has given me” John 6:39 ESV);
• The devil is a victor (at least to some extent).

Good News: We know that such fearful events as these cannot occur as long as God is the God of heaven and earth, and therefore we know that apostasy cannot be possible.

Learn more about the Good News of the Gospel.
This is post 3 in a series; you can read the previous post. This post started as the public domain works of J. H. Oliphant. While substantially the same in many ways, I modernized the language and added my thoughts to provide greater clarity for my readers.
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What is the Good News of the Gospel? Those who believe God raised Jesus Christ from the dead and testify to this publicly will be saved (have the assurance of eternal life). The Good News is nothing short of astonishing. When it is considered at face value, it should sound unbelievable. Can I really have freedom for free? Believing (having faith) doesn’t cost us anything, but it cost Jesus His life.

If you openly declare that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is by believing in your heart that you are made right with God, and it is by openly declaring your faith that you are saved.

Romans 10:9-10 NLT

Good News is Permanent

Believers have eternal life. Eternal life is unending because God transforms us from spiritual death to spiritual life. Eternal life starts the day you first believed. Christ’s work on the cross cuts away our sin and forever destroys the record of our sin. Christ living in believers provides them the hopeful assurance of sharing in His glory (Colossians 1:27; 3:3-4).

You were dead because of your sins and because your sinful nature was not yet cut away. Then God made you alive with Christ, for he forgave all our sins. He canceled the record of the charges against us and took it away by nailing it to the cross.

Colossians 2:13-14 NLT

Good News is Complete

God forgives all our sins, not some. All includes past, present, and future sins. If it didn’t include future sins, Christ would need to be crucified again. It would mean that His death was not sufficient. But Christ has defeated death once and for all time. He has forever changed how believers relate to God. We have a new relationship with God as friends, not enemies. This new relationship is based on love, not fear.

This includes you who were once far away from God. You were his enemies, separated from him by your evil thoughts and actions. Yet now he has reconciled you to himself through the death of Christ in his physical body. As a result, he has brought you into his own presence, and you are holy and blameless as you stand before him without a single fault.

Colossians 1:21-22 NLT

Good News is Faith-Based

Having been reconciled with God, we are close to God. We can approach Him with boldness. We have no need for fear, doubt, or uncertainty. We can know with full assurance that we are blameless. This has nothing to do with our efforts, but only with Christ’s effort on our behalf. We must fully place our trust in Christ for salvation. There is no room for the belief that our effort in any way has the power to save. To consider other options is to deviate from the Gospel message found in the Bible.

But you must continue to believe this truth and stand firmly in it. Don’t drift away from the assurance you received when you heard the Good News.

Colossians 1:23 NLT

Did any of us earn the right to be saved? No. Was there anything we could do to persuade God to save us? No. It is only because of Christ’s initiative and plan to defeat death that being reconciled to Him is possible. Once a person becomes aware of God’s goodness, love, and mercy, there would be no reason to give that up. There is no better love, no higher power to run to. Once saved and adopted into the family of God, there isn’t anything a believer can do to become unsaved. The gift of salvation is that amazing.

More about eternal security.
More on understanding Colossians 1:23
How Paul supports eternal security in Colossians
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