Salvation in Christ

Everyone will not be saved, but those who are saved cannot be lost. Salvation is priceless like a fine pearl or a hidden treasure. Those who have it, value it above all else and act accordingly in the primary aspects of life. Jesus contrasts two groups of people in Matthew 25. Five virgins are respectful, prepared, and discerning; they are wise by the Spirit of God. But the other five virgins are impulsive, entitled, and careless; they are foolish, lacking God’s Spirit. In this parable, God only saves the wise.

Then the kingdom of heaven will be like ten virgins who took their lamps and went to meet the bridegroom. Five of them were foolish, and five were wise. For when the foolish took their lamps, they took no oil with them, but the wise took flasks of oil with their lamps.

Matthew 25:1-4 ESV

So, the foolish did not prepare to endure to the end, like the wise.

Then all those virgins rose and trimmed their lamps. And the foolish said to the wise, ‘Give us some of your oil, for our lamps are going out.’ But the wise answered, saying, ‘Since there will not be enough for us and for you, go rather to the dealers and buy for yourselves.’

Matthew 25:7-9 ESV

God Does Not Save the Unprepared

Some believe this text teaches it is possible to lose salvation. They tell us that all of the virgins are saints, the lamps are the hearts of God’s people, and the oil is the grace of God; and when the lamps of the foolish virgins went out, they lost their salvation. The first objection to this interpretation is that the text says, “They took no oil with them” and if the oil is grace, they had no grace, to lose.

Whether they had “no oil,” or “not enough oil” makes no difference. The result is the same. God says to both, “I do not know you.” The foolish ones did not think to take (enough) oil to last however long was needed. They were not thinking about heaven, but only the immediate circumstances in this life. They did not have in mind what was necessary for eternal life and were unprepared. It is not like they had sufficient oil, but then decided to dump it out to forfeit their inheritance. No! They were insufficient from the very beginning.

The foolish virgins said their lamps had gone out. Certainly, their lamps were never properly lighted for someone heaven-bound. They were insufficiently prepared from the beginning because only a genuine Christian will persevere until the end. A lamp without oil will not burn long; likewise, a profession without grace will not last long.

Afterward the [foolish] virgins came also, saying, ‘Lord, lord, open to us.’ But he answered, ‘Truly, I say to you, I do not know you.’

Matthew 25:11-12 ESV

And, this is even more strongly stated earlier in Matthew, where amazing spiritual works do not guarantee anyone entrance into heaven:

On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’

Matthew 7:22-23 ESV

No doubt these foolish virgins thought their lamps would burn long enough, and felt secure and ready for the approach of the bridegroom. “Therefore let anyone who thinks that he stands take heed lest he fall” (1 Corinthians 10:12). They thought they were standing complete in Him, and felt that all was well, but when the cry was heard, they found, to their astonishment and grief, that they were unprepared. All their hopes had been built on the sand.

These foolish virgins more closely represent the unsaved who are only professors. They were among the ten virgins, so unsaved professors are in the church. They thought their lamps would keep burning, so carnal professors have a form of Godliness but are strangers to its power. They were disappointed in the end, so all mere professors will be astonished when they hear it said, “Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels” (Matthew 25:41).

God Saves by Oil not by Works

Oil represents the Spirit of God. To be content without oil, therefore, means to rely on some other working for salvation. These foolish virgins thought they had been doing all that was necessary. Perhaps they lived under the impression that salvation was by works, and their lamps would be kept fueled by their works. But to their astonishment, in the presence of the assembled world, God himself will say, “Depart; I never knew you.” All your profession was without real knowledge of Him; you flattered yourselves that you were earning Heaven and His approval by your works, while your works were at best fifthly rags.

The righteousness of the best of men will not bear the test here; the righteousness of God is all that will pass. The fools were professors, but not clothed in Christ’s righteousness, which is the “wedding garment.” They have ever trusted in their works, while nothing but grace will save sinners.

The five wise virgins had their own oil. The foolish virgins lacked their own and so attempted to borrow others, which was impossible (verse 9). People will not be saved by borrowing another’s righteousness, except if it is Christ’s righteousness.

If these ten virgins represent the church, and all of them were Christians, it appears the visible church would be composed entirely of Christians. But since a large part of the professed followers of Jesus are utter strangers, having never been broken in heart for sin, or brought low at the feet of Jesus, nor been true mourners, or truly contrite in heart, yet seem to have more assurance than those who have felt what is it to be sinners. How many professors are there nowadays, who are even leaders in their churches, and yet not safe in the common business of life, whose words cannot be relied on by anyone, when there is anything at stake?

It does seem fitting that these wise and foolish virgins should represent the whole church. The foolish virgins are so foolish as to be content without enough oil; likewise, thousands in the church are foolish as to be content, though they have not even tasted that God is gracious. Only the people who have truly experienced God’s grace are aware of having been heavy-laden souls and guilty, condemned sinners before God.

It does seem from this that many poor, deluded souls will believe to the very last that their lamps are burning and that they are ready to meet God, and shall learn that all their hopes were vain. What a disappointment to fully believe that many wonderful works will save you, and in the end, when you need everything, to find you have nothing.

What a pity that so many of our preachers, instead of preaching the plain, simple gospel of Christ in its raw power, are declaring that salvation is by works, and in this way turning the minds of the people from Christ, and fixing their confidence in duties. Let each of us ask ourselves the question. Have I the real grace of God, or am I a mere Christian in name only? Have I real hope, and can I give a reason for that hope? Is all my hope fixed on God? Do I trust him for every grace?

These five virgins were foolish. It is said in Proverbs 1:7, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.” If these virgins were foolish, they were not wise, and if the first principle of wisdom is to fear God, these foolish virgins did not fear him and therefore were not real Christians. I fully believe that all who do not fear God are unconverted, and I am not arguing that unconverted ones cannot be lost. Thus, we have seen that the parable of the virgins cannot be made to teach apostasy.

This is post 23 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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Adam was at first good, and very good. But he fell into sin and experienced spiritual death. He broke like a jar of clay. Some believe this to be an instance of apostasy. The following shows this cannot be possible.

Adam Did Not Lose His Salvation When He Fell

Adam did not have salvation before the fall, so he could not have lost it. God brought Adam (and Eve) into this world differently than all following humans. God created them directly but the rest of us were brought into this world through physical birth. Adam was created without sin but with the potential for sin. The rest of us are born into sin without a choice in the matter. We don’t only have the potential to sin, we are born spiritually dead, sinning from the beginning. Adam knew what it was like to be without sin but he did not know what it is like to be immune to sin because he always had the potential to sin.

Although Adam was good, he was but a natural man. God formed his body from the dust, perishable. But when God raises a person, the body is spiritual, imperishable.

So is it with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable; what is raised is imperishable. It is sown in dishonor; it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness; it is raised in power. It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body.

Thus it is written, “The first man Adam became a living being”; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit. But it is not the spiritual that is first but the natural, and then the spiritual. The first man was from the earth, a man of dust; the second man is from heaven. As was the man of dust, so also are those who are of the dust, and as is the man of heaven, so also are those who are of heaven. Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the man of heaven.

1 Corinthians 15:42-49 ESV

Adam was under the law, while saints are not under the law, but under grace, and sin shall not have dominion over them (Romans 6:14). God does not impute sin to saints.

In Christ, God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation.

2 Corinthians 5:19 ESV

God considers the saints as righteous without them performing any works. David calls the saints blessed because their sins are never counted against them (Romans 4:6-8). So he does not impute sin to his people, and he did impute sin to Adam. We know this because Adam died spiritually and God removed him from the garden.

Christ dwells in His saints, but He did not dwell in Adam. “Little children, you are from God and have overcome them, for he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world” (1 John 4:4 ESV). “He who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you” (Romans 8:11 ESV). Many passages show that Christ dwells in his people; and there is no evidence that he did dwell in Adam, for before the fall there was not (yet) the need of a Christ.

Saints do not stand justified for their righteousness, while Adam’s only hope was in his record of keeping the law.

God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. And because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption.

1 Corinthians 1:28-30 ESV

Therefore, Christ is the righteousness of saints. No human can boast in their righteousness but must rely solely on Christ’s. The saints’ justification comes from God, not by any self-effort.

But in that coming day
    no weapon turned against you will succeed.
You will silence every voice
    raised up to accuse you.
These benefits are enjoyed by the servants of the Lord;
    their vindication will come from me.
    I, the Lord, have spoken!

Isaiah 54:17 NLT

Saints Cannot Lose Their Salvation

Saints are not vulnerable to sin like Adam because they have experienced a spiritual rebirth. If Adam’s righteousness had been of the Lord, and if Christ had been his righteousness, he would not have fallen; but such was not the case with him, and therefore he fell; yet such is the case with saints, and therefore, they will not fall.

Saints are inclined to keep the law, or to do the will of God; for God works in them both to will and to do of His good pleasure (Philippians 2:13). If God had worked in Adam to do His pleasure, the result would have been different. God not only makes His saints sufficient to meet the demands of the law, but He also keeps them to that standard by His Holy Spirit dwelling in them. They are shielded, so that the wicked one cannot touch them.

Christ is the strong tower into which the righteous run and are safe. He is the rock of ages and is to them a high rock in a weary land. God has appointed salvation as walls and bulwarks around the saints.

I have never heard an argument made in favor of apostasy, without a false foundation: that salvation is by works. The Bible abounds with obvious contradictions of this position. Have you ever heard any man defend the doctrine of apostasy, urging that it is by works that we become saints and continue to be saints, but also admit that there is no merit in works and that all the merit is in Christ? What a messy contradiction.

If salvation is by works, then Christ’s blood is to be of no avail, and the whole plan of salvation is a failure. If by works, then Heaven could be empty, and hell full of the purchased by the Savior’s blood. No matter how often or how positively God’s word says it is not of works, despite all this, the advocates of apostasy invariably declare salvation to be of works.

How shocking the thought that a man may miss Heaven, though he has

• been redeemed by the blood of Christ.
• been born of the Spirit and incorruptible seed, even born of God.
• in him the very Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead.
• Christ within him and his life hidden with Christ in God.
• eaten the Savior’s flesh and drank his blood.
• drank of the water of life.
• been built upon Christ as a sure foundation.
• been joined to him as a wife to a husband.
• rejoiced in the thought that the God of the whole earth is his shepherd and that he shall not want.
• said with joy, The Lord is my rock and my fortress, my deliverer and my God, my strength in whom I trust, my buckler and the horn of my salvation, and my high tower.

Despite all this, some believe he may lose his salvation and go to hell forever. How discouraging such an idea would be to those who are weak, who say, “When I would do good, evil is present with me. Oh, wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me from this body of death?” If there is a doctrine calculated to starve the weak, to discourage mourners in Zion, to fill the wicked with carelessness on this subject, this is the doctrine. Who could or would with courage seek the blessing of salvation, if the odds are a thousand to one against remaining saved?

Thankfully, the Bible is clear that salvation is for eternity. This never means that saints can sin as much as they want–that would be the attitude of the unsaved. Only the saved, by God’s power, leave behind the constant desire to sin.

This is post 22 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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Genuine servants will inherit God’s kingdom; false servants receive nothing but ongoing suffering. Therefore, knowing what distinguishes a true servant from a false one is of utmost importance.

Matthew chapter 25 illustrates the differences between genuine and false believers. A careful interpretation of Jesus’s parables will show the contrast between these two groups. God’s plan for life and redemption focuses on sorting people by their conversion status.

True Servants are Active

In the parable of the ten virgins (v. 1-13), the five faithful virgins act decisively on their convictions. They know God is real and prepare accordingly.

In the parable of the talents (v. 14-30), the two faithful servants also act decisively. They use the abilities God has given them, having the faith to produce results.

During the final judgement (v. 31-46), the sheep actively lived out their faith by ministering to others.

False Servants are Passive

In the parable of the ten virgins (v. 1-13), the five foolish ones lacked conviction. They could not see the reason to be prepared until it was too late to avoid destruction.

In the parable of the talents (v. 14-30), the fearful servant lacked understanding. Being an imposter, he did not know how to use his talent. So he could only make excuses when the master returned.

Finally, during the final judgement (v. 31-46), the goats did nothing to demonstrate the genuineness of their faith–because they had none.

Jesus Contrasts His Servants

I agree with most of Oliphant’s writings, but occasionally he misinterprets scripture, as with Matthew 25:14-30. According to him, all three servants are believers, with God only disciplining the third servant for his lack of productivity.

Let us inquire what is meant by this parable. It is used to define something about the kingdom of heaven, the church. And, by a little thought, you will observe that they were his servants, without these talents; for, “He called his own servants to him and delivered to them his goods.” Then, if they were his servants before they received the talents, they were not the servants of the wicked one; consequently, these talents were some gifts or graces he bestowed, not to make them his servants, or according to their needs, but “according to their abilities.”

Oliphant page 101

However, there are several reasons this interpretation isn’t the best:

• Every person God has created is a servant. A person can be a servant, but not be saved.
• The place of “outer darkness with weeping and gnashing” is most often used to describe the place of eternal torment.
• The context of this parable is between the other two parables, which make sharp contrasts between the eternally saved and the eternally condemned.
• The master calls the servant “wicked.”

But his master answered him, ‘You wicked and slothful servant! You knew that I reap where I have not sown and gather where I scattered no seed? Then you ought to have invested my money with the bankers, and at my coming I should have received what was my own with interest.

Matthew 25:26-27 ESV

The master cuts right through the excuses to expose the true condition of his heart. A genuine believer would have at least invested the money to collect interest. But this man had a wicked heart that resulted in slothful behavior. He had no care or concern for building God’s kingdom.

I certainly agree with Oliphant in his conclusion, that a truly saved person cannot lose his salvation. But in this case, we differ on what the scripture teaches. Either way, the point is that Matthew 25 does not teach that a person can lose salvation. It teaches that true believers will naturally act on the faith that God provides, while false believers, those who only profess Jesus in name, will not act for the simple reason that they do not hold enough conviction to motivate them to action.

What are we to do with such tough parables? True believers do not need to panic because they will consistently desire to grow God’s kingdom. They can be discouraged, but not without the hope of eternal life. They can be unproductive for a season, but cannot help but bear fruit because they are connected to the true vine. All you need to ask yourself is, “Am I willing to use whatever God has given me to serve His purposes?” God then works in the willing heart to produce many times over in fruitfulness.

This is post 21 in a series; you can read the previous post.
https://www.bibleref.com/Matthew/25/Matthew-25-30.html
https://archive.org/details/doctrineoffinalp00olip/page/100/mode/2up
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Are infants born qualified for heaven but then as they grow up, they become involved in sin and lose salvation? If so, it could be claimed that every person who crosses the supposed “line of accountability,” loses salvation. I do not believe infants can lose their salvation any more than adults. No one can be saved without being born again.

Original Sin is Highly Relevant To Infants and Adults Alike

The doctrine of original sin is that at the moment of conception, every human already has a sinful nature. Paul describes the Ephesians as having been children of wrath by nature like everyone else (Ephesians 2:1-3) so that their nature must be changed. A clean thing cannot be brought out of an unclean thing; infants born of women are unclean. David says:

Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me.

Even from birth the wicked go astray; from the womb they are wayward, spreading lies.

Psalm 51:5, 58:3 NIV

These references are sufficient to prove that infants are not holy by birth. If they are by nature children of wrath, then, by nature, they are unfit for Heaven. Our Savior taught that none can see or enter the kingdom of God, except they be born again.

Some people might object: “Doesn’t God grant infants an exception?” Answer: No, because if adults are saved by being born again, and infants without it, then we have two ways of salvation — one for infants and one for adults — while the Bible speaks of but one way, Christ. The important reason why people must be born again is that their nature must be changed. It is not the change of conduct that results in salvation, but the change of nature.

Certainly, infants, as to nature, are like the parents and therefore need as great a change of nature as the parents. Christ came to save sinners; if infants need saving, they must start as sinners. “He shall save his people from their sins;” and if infants are a part of His people, they have sins, otherwise He could not “save them from their sins.” If they have sins and are sinners, they need to be “cleansed from all sin,” as much as you or I. As to anything we can see about them, they seem innocent, but they are “by nature children of wrath.”

For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God…
Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all people, because all sinned.

Romans 3:23, 5:12 NIV

Here we learn death to be a fruit of sin, and as infants are subjects of death, evidently, they are sinners, and as such need “washing,” “cleansing,” “purifying,” “being born again of incorruptible seed,” just as all others do who shall be saved. Therefore, if you can learn how any one person (descended from Adam) is saved, you will know how all people are saved.

The only difference between infants and adults is infants are not developed. If you could impart to infants your physical maturity, you would see that their nature is evil as fully as your own. The tender, smooth sprout of the thorn only needs age to manifest its nature. The same is true of children; age does not give them a different nature, it only develops the nature they have. I hope I have now said enough to show that infants are not, by natural birth, fit for Heaven. They need a spiritual birth. If there is any other way for Christ’s atonement to reach us, I have not learned that way.

Infants Can Become Born Again Because of Christ’s Atonement

God is able, because of Christ’s atonement, to prepare infants for His service as adults.

he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit,

Titus 3:5 NIV

John the Baptist praised God before birth, and certainly this is evidence that the Spirit can regenerate infants so they can love God. “He that loveth is born of God.” As we have before seen, it is by being born of God that the church is prepared to love and serve Him. Now if all infants are not born of God, then all infants are not fit for Heaven.

Nicodemus (and anyone else) needs to be born again. But if he had been born again in infancy, then he would have needed a third birth; and who ever read of such a thing as a third birth? If all infants were born again and afterward lose salvation, then it follows that every adult who experiences the new birth is born a third time. The idea of a third birth is nowhere hinted at in the bible; neither is there the shadow of testimony that all infants are born of the Spirit. Therefore, the claim that infants lose their salvation when they become adults has no support.

Let us consider the following things: Saints are spiritual, having been born of the Spirit. Have we any evidence that infants are so? He that loveth God is born of him. Saints do this; have we any evidence that infants do? “This is life eternal, that they might know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.” Saints do this, and there is no evidence that infants do.

The case of John the Baptist is recorded, not as an ordinary one, but as an extraordinary one, and therefore is no evidence that God deals so with all infants. But I may properly ask, did John lose his salvation? I see no evidence of it. And if all infants, as John was, are born of the Spirit, then universal salvation is the consequence; for that which is born of God, is born of incorruptible seed—so it cannot become corrupted again.

The whole notion of infant fitness for Heaven is based on the opinion that God has two methods of saving — one for adults, and one for infants. There is no foundation for such an opinion in the Bible. “One Lord, one faith, one baptism, one way,” and Christ that way. Regeneration and spiritual birth are that way. The result being, that in Heaven, all are to see and be like Christ. Christ is the pattern after which all are to be formed.

Remember that the atonement (reconciliation), and the receiving of it, are two things.

More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.

Romans 5:11 ESV

This is spoken about our conversion, and says, “Now received;” showing that:

1. It is one thing for there to be an atonement, and another to receive it.
2. They had not received it earlier.

If they had received it in infancy the words would have been, “again received.” Apostasy and its advocates are hard-pressed when they attempt to sustain their system by such arguments as this. There isn’t one solitary passage that teaches us that infants are spiritual, or that they know God, or that they have been born again, or that they are believers; and in contradiction to many scriptures, that substantially tell us, that they are unfit for Heaven; and in contradiction to the Savior, who taught that all, who see or enter the kingdom, must be born again.

This is post 20 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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Some people argue that Judas was a saint, an apostle, and a Christian for all intents and purposes; and that he lost his salvation and went to hell. But as we will see, it is clear that he never had a saving faith. God keeps and protects anyone with genuine faith by His power (1 Peter 1:5).

There are two classes of wicked men spoken of in the scriptures. One of these classes is called sinners. They readily claim no allegiance to Jesus.

“If the righteous are barely saved, what will happen to godless sinners?”

1 Peter 4:18 NLT

The other is called “hypocrites,” “Pharisees,” “false teachers,” “false prophets,” and “wolves in sheep’s clothing.” They are the tares that grow among the wheat. They have a form of godliness, but know not the power of it; if possible, they would deceive the elect. They are also called “professors” because they claim to be of the faith, but in reality, are not true believers.

Simon Magus was among the saints, and yet he was in the gall of bitterness and bond of sin. The magicians in Moses’ day did very much like Moses; when they cast their rods down, they became serpents and many other wonders they wrought, yet they knew not God. Piety has been counterfeited, and every feature of faith has been abused in this way since the world began. We learn from 1 Corinthians 13, that men may speak with the tongues of men and angels, have the gift of prophecy, understand all mysteries and knowledge, and have all faith so that they could remove mountains, and after all this be nothing.

Judas: A Christian In Name Only

Charity seems to be needed to give real value or importance to the other gifts or graces. There is no evidence that Judas ever had this charity. Judas was undoubtedly chosen to the office of an apostle, took part in the ministry, and was numbered with the twelve. He may have had all the qualifications spoken of in 1 Corinthians 13 except charity.

Some people claim that when Satan entered him, he lost his salvation (John 13:27) but when you consider John 12:6, you will see he made a complaint when the ointment was poured on our Savior, saying it should have been sold and given to the poor. He said this, not because he cared for the poor, but because he carried the bag. So he cared not for the poor long before Satan entered him.

By examining Matthew 26:14, you will see that Judas made sale of Jesus before Satan entered him. It would seem that Satan entered him, not to give him the will to do the deed, but to nerve him; for he had before this sought to betray him. Long before this was said of him, “He cared not for the poor;” so that if he was a Christian earlier, he cared not for the poor, and he had sought opportunity to betray the Lord.

Christ says, “Have I not chosen you twelve, and one of you is a devil!” (John 6:70). He spoke of Judas, who should betray Him, being one of the twelve. Here Christ calls him a devil, at least from seven to nine days earlier, for it was he that should betray Him. So, how can any honest man say he was a Christian?

Indeed Herod and Pontius Pilate met together with the Gentiles and the people of Israel in this city to conspire against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed. They did what your power and will had decided beforehand should happen.

Acts 4:27-28 NIV

Here the whole work of the crucifixion was a subject of divine appointment; not to be done by Christian hands, but by “wicked hands.”

The part Judas took was important because it was fit for a devil more than a meek and lowly follower of Christ. Therefore Judas, “a devil,” was the man “that should betray Him.” This same Judas was seen and known by the Lord hundreds of years before, and pointed out as the traitor; and he then said of him, “Let his habitation be desolate, and let no man dwell therein.” He is also said to have fallen, that he might go — where? — to his own place; therefore, if he went to hell, hell was his own place, and his own place before he fell.

Our Savior did not need anyone to testify to Him of what was in man, for He knew all things. He therefore knew that Judas would betray Him; for God had pointed him out as the betrayer long ago. To say Christ did not know this is to trample upon His perfections. To say He loved and trusted Judas as a Christian is to say that He loved the man who would betray Him, being a poor covetous wretch who did not care for the poor. Yes, even more, and if possible worse, it is to say He loved as a Christian one that He calls a devil.

You cannot say that Christ did not know he would betray Him, for that would make Him ignorant, not only of what was in man but of the scriptures; for Judas had been pointed out by the prophets. His being visibly a servant of God is no proof that he was a good man, and even now one’s being a professed minister of Christ is no evidence that he is a good man. Bad men always were, and always will be, in the church. It is not my business to show why they are there, but we all know that bad men always have been allowed to be in the church.

If our Savior needed to be betrayed by one in His church, there was at least a necessity that there should be one “son of perdition” in the church, and Judas was that one. God always has fulfilled His purpose with wicked men. Pharoah filled an important place in the world’s history. Haman, Herod, Pontius Pilate, Judas, and the wicked rabble, who, like so many jackals, were thirsting after the blood of Christ, were but making manifest the will of God in the salvation of sinners; and yet there is no proof that any of them were saints.

Like Joseph’s brothers, they all meant it for evil, but God Almighty meant it for good. The rage of the multitude, the criminality of Judas, the timidity of Pilate, and the heartlessness of Herod, all in their place, were but unfolding the purpose of God, as His hand and counsel had determined. “Oh, the depth of the riches, both of the wisdom and knowledge of God; how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out!”

Unlike Judas, Genuine Believers Will Persevere

John speaks about the difference between genuine believers and mere professors.

They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us. But they went out, that it might become plain that they all are not of us.

1 John 2:19 ESV

Now, what conclusion are we forced to concerning this text? He says, “if they had been of us, they would have continued with us.” We cannot doubt that John believed that every real child of God would persevere to the last.

The sentiment of final perseverance is interwoven with every principle of the faith. To deny it is to strike at the heart of the Christian faith. It is a fearful attack on the whole plan of salvation and especially the death of Christ. It substantially puts the success of heaven’s plan of salvation upon the puny arm of man. Poor, fallen, sinful, corrupt man, is to determine the greatest question ever thought of. It is for him to say whether the blood of Jesus is to be a failure; whether all the good designs of God are to be accomplished; whether the Spirit’s work shall be a failure.

Those who have realized the Spirit’s power know that He controls our hearts, and brings us into love and affection for Christ. Oh, how fully our confidence is destroyed in self and lifted up in the Lord; and I certainly think that every Christian feels that it can only be the goodness of God that keeps him. Christian reader, if your continuance in the faith was left for you to make sure, you would certainly fail.

This is post 19 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 Sarah Richter from Pixabay

God can raise the spiritually dead to life, but He never murders the spiritually alive, returning them to spiritual death. God is of life not death. He transfers people from the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of light. Nowhere does the Bible say that He transfers people from the kingdom of light into the kingdom of darkness.

All sin comes from spiritual darkness, but even those who are spiritually alive can sin. A pattern of ongoing sin might indicate spiritual death, however, God is the sole determiner of who has life and who has death. Therefore, we must be careful not to judge (eternally) believers based on sin that surfaces in their lives.

Saul and Spiritual Death

We all start in spiritual death. No one is born into this physical world spiritually alive. Did Saul become alive and then dead again?

On the ground that King Saul did a great deal of evil, some say that he “fell from grace” and was lost. First, I grant that Saul did very many wrong things, and had he been dealt with according to his life, he would have been lost. But if our sins were marked against us, we would all be lost. If Saul ever had been born of the Spirit, which I will not deny, then, notwithstanding his life had many things connected with it that were evil, yet in God’s account these evil things were not imputed to him.

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

Have you or I the right to say that King Saul was not interested in this text?

Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me.

Romans 7:20 ESV

Romans 7:20 explains 1 John 3:9. Who has a right to say that King Saul shall be excluded from the benefit of this text? Paul claimed it, and Saul needed it as much as Paul. But I deny that any man has a right to say that Saul had no interest in these passages. But I know that if he was born of God, he could not continue in sin. To say he could is to flatly deny God’s word.

“Blessed is the man unto whom God will not impute sin.” Who knows that Saul was not such a man? If God did not impute sin to him, how could he fall? If God should mark but one sin, and that the least of all our sins, none of us could be saved. So, the reason why Saul or anyone else is saved, is that God does not impute sin to him. We are told that “God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them.” Here we see that God’s way of reconciling is by not imputing sin to those whom he reconciles.

Now, if Saul was one that God ever reconciled, he was one that sin was not imputed to, and if sin was not imputed to him, we can know what happened to him; he experienced physical death, not spiritual death. The sin against the Holy Spirit is the only unpardonable sin, and I am certain there is no evidence that Saul had committed that sin.

There is not a single passage that proves Saul was lost. There were marks of repentance in Saul at different times. An evil spirit troubled him from God, and if you take pains to examine the whole history of Saul, you will be convinced that no man living has a right to say that the plan of salvation would not embrace him. He was rejected from being king over Israel, and truly this was a sore punishment, both to him and his posterity, but who has the boldness to say that God not only afflicted him but also sent him to hell?

Suppose Saul did, in the heat of battle (seeing himself about to be delivered into the hands of his enemies), prefer death at his own hands. Shall he for this be called a murderer in the sense that excludes him from Heaven? Let no man say that Saul’s sins were not all washed away in the blood of Christ unless he has some evidence of that fact.

When Samuel arose from the dead and communed with Saul, he said, “Tomorrow shall you and your sons be with me.” Therefore, if Saul went to hell, Samuel must have been in hell. Not only he but also Jonathan, the man whom David so greatly loved. If there is nothing better than the case of Saul to sustain apostasy, it will have to fail.

Israelites and Spiritual Death

Some say that the Israelites, who died in the wilderness, all “fell from grace” and went to hell. Question: What evidence have we that they were all Christians, or that they all went to hell? Where is Miriam, the sweet singer, who led in praise to God on the banks of the Red Sea? What about Moses, the mighty man of God, who appeared on the Mount of Transfiguration with our Savior, and many other devoted servants of God that might be named? They all must have gone to hell, to make this argument good.

When a righteous person turns away from his righteousness and does injustice, he shall die for it; for the injustice that he has done he shall die.

Ezekiel 18:26 ESV

Read the entire chapter. Some say this chapter teaches the possibility of apostasy. But this could only be a valid argument if eternal salvation was the intended subject.

I do not deny that many of the Israelites did die, as a penalty of law, from the time Moses went up into Sinai, and amid smoke and fire received the law. All Bible readers know that the law, or first covenant, did not require men to keep its conditions in order to live naturally (if there were so everyone would die instantly). However, physical death (not spiritual death) was a penalty attached to the violation of that law. There never was a law given to men that could give eternal life.

Is the law then contrary to the promises of God? Certainly not! For if a law had been given that could give life, then righteousness would indeed be by the law.

Galatians 3:21 ESV

There is no place in the scriptures where eternal life is promised to those (non-believers) who keep the law of Moses, or eternal death to those (believers) who violate it.

Consider Deuteronomy 28 to see what is promised to the obedient, and also to the disobedient. Here we have the obedient blessed in the city, field, the fruit of his body, his cows, sheep, store, and basket. His enemies shall be smitten and all people shall fear him. Not one promise of eternal life, but every solitary blessing there named is of a natural kind. Why? Because men never did nor ever will go to Heaven for their works of any kind. We also see in that chapter that the wicked is cursed in the city, field, basket, store, and the fruit of his body, etc.

The Lord will send on you curses, confusion, and frustration in all that you undertake to do, until you are destroyed and perish quickly on account of the evil of your deeds, because you have forsaken me.

Deuteronomy 28:20 ESV

Not one word about being lost. Compare Deuteronomy 28 with Ezekiel 18, and you will see that it is plain that the prophet is setting forth God’s purpose revealed to Moses. Neither of these chapters mentions eternal life or eternal death, in connection with obedience or disobedience. If you carefully compare these two chapters I am sure you will not find either of them referring to saving faith in Christ.

Besides, we have the plain words of scripture, setting all this aside. In Hebrews 8 we learn that God’s people are not under the old covenant of works, but under one of grace, — a new one. “For sin shall not have dominion over you, for ye are not under the law, but under grace” (Romans 6:14). The Bible says sin shall not have dominion over you; apostasy says it may. Reader, which do you believe?

In verse 15, Paul considers the reasoning of those who believe apostasy is possible, saying, “What then? Shall we continue in sin, because we are not under the law, but under grace?” Apostasy and its friends say, “Yes, go your length in sin if you are to be saved freely by grace.” But true piety says, “How shall we that are dead to sin live in it any longer?”

Therefore, we have shown the argument for apostasy to be a straightforward misapplication of God’s word, as you will find every other argument brought in favor of apostasy.

Spiritual Life and Spiritual Death

The spiritually dead remain so without the fullness of God’s help. The spiritually dead can only change their appearance, to look like life, for some time.

What the true proverb says has happened to them: “The dog returns to its own vomit, and the sow, after washing herself, returns to wallow in the mire.”

2 Peter 2:22 ESV

So that you may see clearly that this has no reference to losing salvation, consider the following:

1. The whole chapter shows that these are mere external professors; “spots they are, and blemishes;” “having eyes full of adultery;” “hearts exercised with covetous practices;” “cursed children;” “they are servants of corruption.”
2. “It is a true proverb.” It is a proverb that never fails; therefore, all such referred to in this chapter will certainly go back into open sin.
3. They are compared to the dog that vomited up his foul contents. However, he yet has the stomach of a dog and consequently goes back to the old mess. The sow likewise, being only washed on the outside, retains her swinish nature.

Because this is a true proverb, it is one that never fails. Therefore, if it even proves that God’s children can fall, it proves that all will certainly fall. We have seen enough to declare that the advocates of apostasy are ready to grasp at anything to support their beliefs.

We can see that how much a person sins does not primarily determine whether a person is saved, but it is their status before Christ that matters. Who does God see when He looks at you? Does He see His forgiven child, with all sin cast onto His Son Jesus, or does He only see a person yet living in spiritual death, separated from life in Jesus? Only God can truly know and judge this for anyone other than yourself.

I would not knowingly falsely comfort God’s children; but certainly, we are kept by the power of God, are in his hand, and none can take us from him, for he is greater than all; he keeps us as the apple of his eye. A woman may forget her baby, but God will not forget us. No weapon shall prosper against us. He that has begun a good work in us, shall perform it till the last.

Oh, let us praise God for His faithfulness. In the last day, Jesus will say, “Behold I and the children which God hath given me.” All will be there — none left behind. Praise the Lord, all His saints!

Thy works, not mine, oh Christ,

Speak gladness to this heart,

They tell me all is done;

They bid my fear depart.

To whom, save thee —

Who can alone

For sin atone —

Lord, shall I flee?

Thy pain, not mine, oh Christ,

Upon the shameful tree,

Have paid the law’s full price,

And purchased peace for me.

To whom save thee —

Who can alone

For sin atone — Lord, shall I flee?”

This is post 18 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.
https://www.gotquestions.org/was-King-Saul-saved.html
Image by Daniel Bahrmann from Pixabay

Even though believers can stumble and become barren and unfruitful, God never abandons them. God might deliver them “to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus.” Saints may go so far astray as to be delivered to Satan, yet the spirit is saved. We are told that Jonah “cried out of the belly of hell,” and yet he was not lost. So, men may fall so low as to be in the power of Satan, and even “in hell”, and yet not be finally lost.

The Lord directs the steps of the godly.
    He delights in every detail of their lives.
Though they stumble, they will never fall,
    for the Lord holds them by the hand.

Psalm 37:23-24 NLT

In Luke 15, three parables show our Savior’s care for us. He never abandons, rejects, or forgets His children.

God Does Not Abandon the Lost Sheep

In a flock of one hundred, one goes astray. Christ is the shepherd; He does not wait for it to return, or abandon it to the harsh elements, but pursues it, and brings it upon His shoulders to His flock again. Then there is joy among His friends when they see the wanderer delivered from his lost state. He was Christ’s sheep while wandering, and, although he was lost, the shepherd’s eye was upon him. And thus God watches you, dear Christian, and will not suffer you to wander beyond His grace and care.

God Does Not Abandon the Lost Coin

The next is that of the ten pieces of silver, which a woman had. She lost one of them; she lighted a candle, swept her house, and diligently sought until she found it. She does not abandon the coin to ill fate. Now, consider it was silver all the while, both before and after it was lost, and had it remained among the dirt eternally, it would still have been silver, and this is true of God’s children; they are born of incorruptible seed, and therefore cannot be corrupted. They are partakers of the divine nature, and Christ has said, “Because I live, you shall live also.”

This shows that the life of Christ and His people are equally secure. They are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ being the chief cornerstone. They are all fitly framed together, growing into a holy temple as living stones. They are built on Christ and in Him, and if built in Him, they are equally secure with Him.

God Does Not Abandon The Prodigal Son

The prodigal son, by riotous living, wasted all his wealth. He left his father’s house and went into a far country, and there experienced a grievous famine; he became desperately hungry and would have eaten with the swine, but no man allowed him. But, when he came to himself, he spoke of the abundance at his father’s house and of his perishing with hunger. He still remembered his father, his house, and plenty, and said, “I’ll arise and go to him; I’ll tell him how I have sinned, and confess all to my father.” When he was a great way off his father saw him, loved him, ran to him, and kissed him.

Now, let us consider some things about this parable. He was the son while in the strange land; and if a son, then an heir — heir of God, and joint heir with Christ. He said, “My father,” while in this strange land, and when his father saw him a great way off, he said, “My son.” The relationship between the father and son was not destroyed. Though the son had done badly and wandered far away into a strange land, he was still the son. He was received as a son.

If he had fallen from grace, that relation would have been destroyed; but we know it is impossible to destroy the natural relationship between parent and child. Your son may disobey you, go astray, and even be hung; yet he is your son, and yet you will love him. So, with our Savior; He will visit their transgressions with a rod, and their iniquities with stripes, yet He will not take His loving kindness from His children, or suffer His faithfulness to fail; having loved His own which were in the world, He will love them to the end.

God Remains Faithful Even When Believers Are Unfaithful

There is no thought more cheering than that our Savior will never abandon, leave, or forsake us. When you are sad, dejected, and cast down, ask yourself, “Was God ever precious to me; is there one spot in my life where I did love God?” If so, I know that all things will work for good to me; for this I know, that if He ever loved me as a child, He does yet, and always will.

Though His countenance is hidden now, and every sense of His love is clean gone, and I am left as a chattering sparrow on a roof, a pelican in the wilderness, or a wrecked sailor on a dark and stormy sea; yet I can in the dim distance remember when He was my friend, and when I did love Him and sweetly sing His praise. I remember the first time God forgave my sins, and felt I knew He was mine. Know that He is yours yet; though you may have forgotten and lost sight of Him, He remembers you, and the eye that keeps you never slumbers nor sleeps.

Oh, how desirable is faith that binds us to our Savior, with an anchor sure and steadfast. How valuable is that inheritance that God secures for us so that nothing can take it from us. How precious is that Savior and His love, that nothing in earth or hell, or even in our poor sinful selves, can turn from us. Dear reader, is such a Savior yours? If so, reverence, oh, reverence Him.

Consider that the saints are God’s workmanship; He fashioned their hearts. The saints are trees of His planting, plants set by His hand, that shall never be rooted up — their names are written in Heaven, not to be erased; even written in the Lamb’s book of life from the foundation of the world.

The saints are saved and called with a holy calling, not according to their works, but according to His purpose and grace given them in Christ before the foundation of the world; chosen in Him before the foundation of the world, that they should be holy and without blame before Him in love; have received an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of Him who worketh all things after the counsel of His will; sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise unto the day of redemption (see Ephesians).

Jesus died to save His people, remove their sins, and secure, not abandon, their hearts for Him. If all this provision will not infallibly save us, then tell us what will. Every attribute of God employed, and His unchangeableness pledged to that end; all this being true, apostasy cannot be true. God is faithfully committed to those He chose to be His children for eternity.

This is post 17 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 TRANG NGUYEN from Pixabay

Whether a person is a Jew or a Gentile, if he or she is a believer, God will save that person. Romans chapter 11 discusses how God manages His special relationship with Israel, according to His sovereign plan. At Christ’s arrival (birth), God hardened His nation Israel, and opened His favor to the Gentiles. When Paul speaks of God breaking off and grafting in, it is in the context of God’s mercy to choose the people He wants for salvation (Romans 11:5-10; 25-32).

God Saves By Grace

So too at the present time there is a remnant, chosen by grace. But if it is by grace, it is no longer on the basis of works; otherwise grace would no longer be grace.

Romans 11:5-6 ESV

Verse 6 clearly states that God saves by grace alone which has nothing to do with the person’s efforts. Because we depend on God’s mercy alone, we should not be arrogant and boast of being chosen. Paul wants to be sure that our attitudes about being saved fit with the reality of the situation.

But if some of the branches were broken off, and you, although a wild olive shoot, were grafted in among the others and now share in the nourishing root of the olive tree, do not be arrogant toward the branches. If you are, remember it is not you who support the root, but the root that supports you. Then you will say, “Branches were broken off so that I might be grafted in.” That is true. They were broken off because of their unbelief, but you stand fast through faith. So do not become proud, but fear. For if God did not spare the natural branches, neither will he spare you.

Note then the kindness and the severity of God: severity toward those who have fallen, but God’s kindness to you, provided you continue in his kindness. Otherwise you too will be cut off. And even they, if they do not continue in their unbelief, will be grafted in, for God has the power to graft them in again. For if you were cut from what is by nature a wild olive tree, and grafted, contrary to nature, into a cultivated olive tree, how much more will these, the natural branches, be grafted back into their own olive tree.

Romans 11:17-24 ESV

God broke off some natural branches from the olive tree “because of their unbelief.” That which is wild by nature, God grafted in among the natural branches. Also, “if God did not spare the natural branches, neither will he spare you.” Those who believe apostasy is possible, think:

• those broken off were persons who had been born of the Spirit
• they have fallen from grace, and
• “neither will he spare you” teaches that those grafted in may also be broken off, or fall from grace.

I propose to show that such is not the meaning of the above scripture.

In verse 23, we learn that God can graft them in again. We also learn from Hebrews 6, that it is impossible to renew such to repentance as have fallen from grace. Falling from grace, in this context, means to give up on grace and return to the former sacrificial system prior to the Messiah.

The apostle is there showing the impossibility of falling from grace, and mentions, as one reason why men cannot fall, that it would be impossible to renew them. Therefore, if this breaking off were falling from grace, it could not be said, “God is able to graft them in again.” Therefore, the text teaches something else. Paul is speaking about God’s favor to nations, not a specific person. God’s favor has shifted in a global sense, but God is not fickle, He never “unsaves” His true believers.

God Saves Completely, Irreversibly

Paul says, “Neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us,” etc.

An objector might insist that God can and does separate us. I answer with John 6:37: “All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out.” Therefore, God will, under no circumstance, cast out one that comes to him.

An objector might insist that we can cast ourselves out. But these branches did not cast themselves out, or break themselves off; and besides, it is not possible that one who is a saint, and has been born of the Spirit, and has the divine nature, can change that nature. A leopard cannot change his spots. The stony-hearted sinner cannot change his heart to one of flesh, and vice versa. Therefore, let Romans 11 teach what it may, it does not, and cannot be manipulated to, teach apostasy.

God Saves Each Person Only Once

The olive tree is the witness of God in the world. The Jewish nation had been this witness for hundreds of years. Although many of the servants in and about the temple were wicked men for those hundreds of years, yet their service perpetually testified of Christ. But now there is to be a change of the service as to the form of it, and as to the servants themselves. All are to know God and worship in spirit and truth.

Although it is the same olive tree or witness, yet it is spiritual Israel, service, and servants. From this service or olive tree, all unbelieving Jews, that is, those who never knew God, are broken and separated, not to be as witnesses in any sense, unless they should become believers. If this happens, they will again be united in the service of God, not as they were before for that was superficially ceremonial, but knowing for the first time the true spiritual service of God. John, in Revelation, calls the two witnesses the two olive trees, referring to Zechariah 4. Therefore, I think it safe to consider this olive tree a witness.

We may view the entire revelation of God as a complete whole. Under this view, David spoke of the beauty and strength of Zion. He saw the spirituality of the service, although many who served did not see to the end of that service. The church today answers to the ancient house of Israel. Although we learn in Hebrews 8:13, “In speaking of a new covenant, he makes the first one obsolete. And what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away,” yet the true essence of that service is retained, and it is the ceremonial part that is to be rejected, and all true saints among the Jews are retained.

Jesus, the end of all ceremonies, has come, and these believe on him. Many Gentiles also believe on him, and they are taken (grafted) into the service, as witnesses of God. The evidence that these rejected Jews ever were believers is entirely wanting. The believing Gentiles are a part today of the real Israel of God. “But a Jew is one inwardly, and circumcision is a matter of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the letter” (Romans 2:29 ESV). Romans 11:26 says “And so all Israel shall be saved.” Therefore, all Israel is every believer, and all Israel shall be saved. How can this text teach apostasy when it teaches that all believers will be saved?

God Keeps His People Saved

“The steps of a man are established by the Lord,
    when he delights in his way;
though he fall, he shall not be cast headlong,
    for the Lord upholds his hand.”

Psalms 37:23-24 ESV

So good men may fall, and not be lost. “Therefore let anyone who thinks that he stands take heed lest he fall” (1 Corinthians 10:12 ESV). Also, Paul commanded certain ones to be delivered to Satan, for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit might be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus. From all of this, we may learn that God’s people may be cast out of the visible service, or broken off from being witnesses of God, and yet the “spirit be saved,” and not “utterly cast down.”

Our light before the world is sometimes dim, or even hidden, so that we cease practically to be witnesses for God and Christ, and under these circumstances, sometimes are delivered to Satan, not to be lost eternally, but for correction, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus. In this breaking off, then, there is not the shadow of evidence that they may be lost eternally. To escape these misfortunes and save the cause of Christ from reproach, we are exhorted to give diligence to make our calling and election sure — sure to ourselves, our fellow believers, and the enemies of the church.

If we do these things, we shall be saved from the rod of our Father; for he chastens everyone he receives, not for destruction, but for correction. God’s correction keeps us healthy spiritually, preventing apostasy. All believers, having been born again, God foreknew, predestined, called, justified, and glorified (Romans 8:29-30). This process once begun cannot be interrupted.

This is post 16 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 guentherlig from Pixabay

Our salvation is our greatest treasure. But how many of us live by a different gospel other than the one defined in the Bible?

Maintaining trust in Christ alone humbles our pride, destroys all confidence in self, and constantly redirects our confidence to be in God. The opposite view necessarily inclines people to trust themselves, or their works. Nothing is clearer than that people would be inclined to trust themselves, by being continually taught that their eternal salvation depends upon their works. In its very nature, it is inclined to take people’s confidence away from Christ.

The Christian who is conscious of indwelling sin, and is taught to believe that his salvation depends upon his moral behavior, is necessarily filled with trouble and distress, as to his status before God, when the truth on the subject would relieve him. If he were taught that people are saved simply for Christ’s sake; that Christ’s blood cleanses from all sin; that Christ saves sinners, as sinners, and that God does not expect us to furnish the grounds of justification; if we were taught that justification is not obtained by sanctification, but freely by God’s grace, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, he would look out of self, and up to God, for what he needs.

Salvation By Faith Alone

As long as people are taught that sanctification is the root of justification, they cannot, they dare not, trust in Jesus Christ crucified; for by this, their justification depends, not on Jesus and His blood, but on their inward state. What a pity that so many professors, instead of trusting Christ, are trusting their faith, believing it to contribute to what Christ has accomplished. Instead, it is the business of faith to look for nothing good in us, but to lay hold on Christ; not to trust self, or plead self, as a condition of salvation, but to discard everything in self and the world, and trust simply in Jesus.

How fearfully ignorant thousands are of the nature of faith, even claiming that faith is the condition upon which our salvation rests. I tell you that faith rejects everything as a condition — even itself is denied as it anchors in Jesus. Ask the man of faith, why he is saved; he answers, “Jesus, and Jesus only.”

Faith does not create truths and then believe them, but it embraces existing truths. It does not create its Savior, and then embrace Him, but embraces the eternal truth — “Jesus is my Savior.” It never claims to be worthy of Heaven but knows and acknowledges itself to be unworthy of Heaven’s notice. Genuine believers:

• are waiting for complete sanctification within,
• believe that Jesus alone saves for His own name’s sake, and
• love God and His children.

Let me say to such, the grounds of your acceptance are not your outward reformation or your inward sanctification, but Jesus, and Jesus only. If you think your justification for salvation depends on something in or about you, you are looking in the wrong place.

If you realize that you are poor in spirit — that you are destitute of every good thing or quality — this argues nothing against you. Don’t feel bad about yourself because you cannot contribute to your salvation.

Oh, how simple is the gospel! It is so free and simple that no one can understand it until they are made willing to drop confidence in everything but Christ. The saved person must look at reformation, sanctification, and all kinds of obedience and works of every kind, as being worthless in the great matter of justification. When the vilest sinner that ever breathed gets this view of Jesus, it gladdens his heart.

The poor thief on the cross, doubtless, had this view of Christ. He could not, he dared not trust in himself, or think of anything done by him, as a condition upon which he was to get to Heaven; but by faith, he looked to Jesus! Oh, what a work it is to look to Jesus. I said a work but it is not a work, it is a ceasing from works of every kind, and giving all up to Jesus.

And to the one who does not work but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness.

Romans 4:5 ESV

The greatest objection to the gospel is that it is simply free. People are so proud that they do not want Heaven unless they perform the conditions necessary to get it. When they are told that they must have it freely, or not at all, they turn away saying, “It is a hard doctrine.”

Salvation By Christ Alone

As long as people expect Heaven upon conditions to be performed by them, they cannot rely wholly and solely on Christ. And as long as people believe in the possibility of apostasy, their confidence cannot be undividedly in Christ.

But blessed are those who trust in the Lord
    and have made the Lord their hope and confidence.
They are like trees planted along a riverbank,
    with roots that reach deep into the water.
Such trees are not bothered by the heat
    or worried by long months of drought.
Their leaves stay green,
    and they never stop producing fruit.

Jeremiah 17:7-8 NLT

It is right to trust in Christ. It is safe and right for every poor, broken-hearted sinner, who feels poor and needy, to trust in Christ — not to make Him your Savior, but because He is your Savior; not to cause Him to save you, but because He will save you. To say trusting Him as your Savior makes Him your Savior is mere foolishness, and even worse. Neither should people trust Him to make Him faithful to keep us to the end, but because He is faithful, and never will leave or forsake you. This is real faith.

One of the greatest obstacles to receiving Christ as Savior, and honoring Him, is the foolish idea that some condition must be performed on our part to entitle us to what is free. Some tell us that one thing, and some another, is the condition, while real, true faith discards everything as conditions.

Christian, think back over your life, when you most sensibly felt that Jesus was your Savior, had you performed any condition to obtain that salvation? No, you will say, and can truly sing, — “Why was I made to hear his voice, and enter while there was room, while thousands make a wretched choice, and rather starve than come? ’twas the same hand that spread the feast, that sweetly forced me in, else I had still refused to taste, and perished in my sin.”

Samuel Medley was a strong advocate of personal election, special redemption, spiritual revelation, and the final perseverance of the saints. On his deathbed, he supposedly uttered: “Farewell; God bless you. I die, a poor sinner, saved by sovereign, rich, and free mercy. I am now a poor, shattered ship, just about to gain the blissful harbor; and, oh, how sweet will be the port after the storm.”

He further said, “Sweet Jesus, thou art my strength, support, and salvation. Tell my dear friends, I am going to Jesus, and He is with me. I am not at all dejected; I am full of comfort and consolation; able yet to recollect God’s precious word. I never saw so much of my unworthiness, nor so much of Christ’s excellency, glory, and suitableness as an all-sufficient Savior. As to my sentiments, I am in no way doubtful. The doctrines I have preached, I am fully persuaded are truth. They are now the support and consolation of my mind.”

Reader, I only hope you may go as happy as he.

This is post 15 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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The Bible is clear that heaven will not be empty. It will be filled with the people that God has saved. Likewise, the Bible is clear that hell will not be empty. It will be filled with the people that God has not saved. What evidence is there that to be saved is to be secure, but not everyone will be saved?

If there is a possibility for a fraction of the saints to be lost, is it possible for all of them to be lost? Or is it true that some of them are infallibly secure, and some not so? If it is not possible that all can fall, what percent, or portion of them is secure? Where is the line? Certainly, there is no difference in the degree of security that God has given His children; if one is infallibly saved and secure, all are — or if one is in jeopardy, all are. Therefore, if it is possible for one (of the declared saints) to be lost, it is also possible for all to be lost.

How Many Saved People Will Worship God?

Is it infallibly certain that Jesus shall be praised eternally by His saints, whom He has redeemed out of all people? Or, is it uncertain whether He will be praised at all? Is it possible that His death shall avail nothing? Could all that God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit have done avail nothing? Or, can you view the work of salvation on the part of God as a mere experiment, without any definite or fixed end in view?

Would you invest all you had in an enterprise if there was the least possibility of a complete failure? Or would you prefer a certain and fixed end in view? Can you think that, when Jesus died, it was not certain that someone should love and praise him in Heaven for that death? Or can you believe there was the remotest possibility for the whole plan to be a complete failure? You must certainly conclude that the death of Jesus was attended with no uncertainties.

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 53:11 NLT

Would He be satisfied, were His death to avail nothing? Would He be satisfied with half of His ransomed ones to go to hell, or any of them to perish?

If you can get the idea that Jesus will receive unceasing praise, you must also see that it is certain that a part of His people will be saved, and if a part then all; for we have seen that it is either certain that all of them will be saved, or possible that all of them will be lost; and we cannot believe all of them will be lost; for then it would be possible for Heaven to be empty — possible for Christ to lose all His honor — possible for His blood, pains and sufferings to be wasted. Therefore, it is certain that all true believers will be saved.

Being Saved Depends on God’s Will Not Man’s Will

Being saved is made certain, either by the appointment of God or the will of men. If the will or wills of men make it certain, or its certainty is at all dependent upon the will of men, then the whole scheme of redemption is left, as to its success or failure, to the will of men. But is it true, that so momentous a matter is left to so imperfect a thing as the will of men?

Is the simple whim of the will of men to decide whether Heaven is to be occupied, or hell overflowed — whether Jesus’s name, is to be praised, or blasphemed? Certainly, matters of such vast importance are governed by Divine appointment. Therefore, the appointment of God has a fixed end in view, and that end is the certain and infallible salvation of all His people.

At the beginning of His work, an angel gave notice of His coming into the world.

And she will have a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.”

Matthew 1:21 NLT

In coming into the world, He cast His lot with them. “In all their afflictions, he was afflicted.” The prophet Isaiah said:

“he poured out his soul to death
    and was numbered with the transgressors”

Isaiah 53:12 ESV

Therefore, he came to endure the fate of a transgressor — to be so united to His people that, with them, He will either rise or fall joined to them, as a head is joined to its members.

So now Jesus and the ones he makes holy have the same Father. That is why Jesus is not ashamed to call them his brothers and sisters.

Hebrews 2:11 NLT

All one party in the covenant, as the principle and security are one party; so that the fate or destiny of one, is the common fate or destiny of all. For we are “heirs of God, and joint heirs with Christ.” The inheritance will as certainly fall to us as to Christ. He becomes the very life of His people, so that He Himself must be destroyed before they can be.

Though He was sinless, He became so joined to His people that their very sins were made His, and when they were demanded to satisfy the claims of a broken law, He made bare His breast and received the dagger of Justice into His heart. This He did as a guarantee; for He was so related to them, that Justice was as well satisfied (and even better,) when Jesus was left pulseless and dead on the cross, as it would be if you and I were to be in torment forever. It was right and proper for Him to die because He was one with us; bound in the same bond, under the same covenant.

For, as a wife is one with her husband, so Christ became one with His people; for He loved His people, as a husband loves his wife, and gave Himself for them.

Suppose a poor, destitute woman, under disgrace and debt of millions, exposed to prison life for her debt and crimes, knowing herself to be justly under the control of her creditors, and exposed to the disapproval of all the world; and some rich millionaire, of the highest possible credit and standing, clad in garments becoming his wealth and honor, comes to her in her poverty, rags, and disgrace, and offers her his hand. She is astonished, that a person of so vast wealth and honor and beauty should offer his hand to her, so uncomely and unworthy. She tells him of her debts. He assures her that her debts can be paid without visibly affecting his wealth.

She then speaks of her rags, her guilt, and disgrace, and scans his noble personage again, and mutters within herself, “It cannot be that one so vile as I can be the wife of this lord.” But he fully explains all, and she casts herself into his arms, with all her rags, debts, and disgrace.

Her name is now lost, and she assumes his; he is now between her and all her creditors; he clothes her in his righteousness, and tells her, “I’ll never leave or forsake thee.” This our Savior did for us; He stooped to become one with us and make us His bride, and it cost Him His blood, His life, His all; but He arose from the dead (for He could not be held by death,) as a certain pledge that all His people should come from the dark and dreary abodes of death, and participate with Him in the vast ocean of bliss above. Therefore, it is said,

Who is this who comes from Edom,
    from the city of Bozrah,
    with his clothing stained red?
Who is this in royal robes,
    marching in his great strength?

“It is I, the Lord, announcing your salvation!
    It is I, the Lord, who has the power to save!”

Isaiah 63:1 NLT

The hosts of Heaven believe Him to be a mighty Savior; and they have not a doubt but that the last day will witness Him approach the burning throne of God, and exclaim in melting notes, “Behold, I and the children God has given me” (Hebrews 2:13 ESV).

His entire body will be there, not a member left behind. Isn’t this a friend that sticks closer than a brother? Doesn’t this look to you more like the work of God, and that Jonah was right when he said, “Salvation is of the Lord?” No wonder Toplady could sing:

“Rock of ages, cleft for me,
Let me hide myself in thee;
Nothing in my hand I bring,
Simply to thy cross I cling.”

No wonder John…

… looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands,and crying out with a loud voice, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!” And all the angels were standing around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures, and they fell on their faces before the throne and worshiped God, saying, “Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God forever and ever! Amen.”

Revelation 7:9-12 ESV

God will not leave the saving of His people to chance. There are no coincidences with God. He saved you because He chose you. God Almighty will have all the praise in the world to come; therefore, everything that contributes to make the salvation of His people certain originates in Him. Ponder well before you dismiss this.

This is post 14 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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Security can be elusive as no one is without doubts. However, God’s elect possess God’s security. Under what circumstances do you feel most secure? We can consider being secure from different perspectives:

• Building a foundation on the Rock (Jesus)
• Unwavering mental fortitude
• Unable to be deceived or led astray
• Holding firm against an attack
• God grasping us even if we let go

For false christs and false prophets will arise and perform signs and wonders, to lead astray, if possible, the elect.

Mark 13:22 ESV

God’s word is a stubborn truth that cannot be denied. Doubtless, all believers are the elect. And this text affirms it to be impossible to deceive the elect. God’s elect can discern the difference between the real Christ and imposters.

Yet the righteous holds to his way, and he who has clean hands grows stronger and stronger.

Job 17:9 ESV

Unquestionably, authentic salvation strengthens believers. Paul asks:

Who dares accuse us whom God has chosen for his own? No one—for God himself has given us right standing with himself. Who then will condemn us? No one—for Christ Jesus died for us and was raised to life for us, and he is sitting in the place of honor at God’s right hand, pleading for us.

Romans 8:33-34 NLT

Why can’t God’s elect be charged? God justifies His elect exclusive of all others. No one is above God, able to condemn His elect. Christ died for God’s elect exclusive of all others.

The plain reasoning here is, that those whom God justifies, and for whom Christ died (justification and redemption being equal in their comprehensive accomplishments), cannot be condemned. The eternal justice of God forbids it. The apostle confines these blessings and privileges to the believer. In the same passage, it is asked,

Since he did not spare even his own Son but gave him up for [the elect], won’t he also give us everything else?

Romans 8:32 NLT

Here we learn that all spiritual blessings — faith, repentance, sanctification, and salvation — are involved in the gift of Christ, and bestowed freely for His sake. If God has delivered up His Son for them, how much more will He bestow all things necessary to their eternal salvation. The gift of Christ’s sacrifice for us (the elect) is a certain pledge that God will give us all things for salvation.

Secure in Jesus’s Hands

God has indeed given all His chosen believers to Christ for eternal redemption. The elect are secure with Jesus.

Those the Father has given me will come to me, and I will never reject them. For I have come down from heaven to do the will of God who sent me, not to do my own will. And this is the will of God, that I should not lose even one of all those he has given me, but that I should raise them up at the last day.

John 6:37-39 NLT

The elect were given to Christ before they came to Him, and God said they will come to Him. The objective of giving was that they should come. All who are thus given to Christ by the Father shall come to him, or believe upon him (verses 39 and 40 use these phrases interchangeably). Those who come, he will in no way cast out; they will all be saved.

The whole doctrine of this passage is that God, in the covenant before mentioned, did give the people of His choice to Christ, and it is the will of God that not one given will be lost; but that all of them (the elect) should be raised up at the last day. The great Savior came into the world to carry out that will of God; and all given to Him will come to Him, believe in Him, and obtain eternal life. With this view, the Savior prays:

For you have given him authority over everyone. He gives eternal life to each one you have given him.

John 17:2 NLT

Those God gives to Jesus—no more, no less—He also gives eternal life. Those who have Jesus, have eternal life. Those who don’t have Jesus, don’t have eternal life.

All these passages point to one objective: the certain and infallible salvation of all God’s elect. And now, as God is omnipotent, there can be no failure.

I am the good shepherd; I know my own sheep, and they know me just as my Father knows me and I know the Father. So I sacrifice my life for the sheep. But you don’t believe me because you are not my sheep. My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish [not ever].

John 10:14-15, 26-28 NLT

If this text is true, falling from grace is impossible.

Secure Because of God’s Choice

Those God chooses for salvation are secure in God’s choice. God initiates and completes the work of salvation for the elect.

But when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things that have come, then through the greater and more perfect tent (not made with hands, that is, not of this creation) he entered once for all into the holy places, not by means of the blood of goats and calves but by means of his own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption.

Hebrews 9:11-12 ESV

Will eternal redemption save a sinner? Certainly. If not, what kind of redemption will? I would be willing to rest the whole argument here on this one text; for I feel sure that an eternal redemption is long enough to save to the greatest limits possible. Do not forget this point.

But God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners. And since we have been made right in God’s sight by the blood of Christ, he will certainly save us from God’s condemnation.

Romans 5:8-9 NLT

If we have been justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath. We have God’s word plainly for this, and let God be true, but every man a liar that denies it. Further, consider:

When the Gentiles heard this, they were very glad and thanked the Lord for his message; and all who were chosen for eternal life became believers.

Acts 13:48 NLT

In this case, only those who were ordained to eternal life believed. This passage cannot be manipulated to sustain any human reasoning. To consider apostasy, these words of God must be denied. But we have seen many places where scripture, just as plainly as language can be, secures the salvation of everyone born of God.

This is post 13 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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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.
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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.
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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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