When it comes to "Eternal Security" there are two sides to every coin. One side uses the Bible and says, "Once Saved Always Saved", believing that the vow or commitment "they" made to the Lord months or years ago is still valid and cannot be broken. However, in doing so they seem to conveniently ignore the rest of the scriptures, especially those that clearly warn "Christians" of falling away.
In the long run they are both half right and they are both half wrong! Both seem right and can be defended in that there is a "half-truth" to what each one says about their beliefs. Yet they are both wrong because neither of them take scripture; the whole counsel of God, at face value. You see neither one takes into account that the coin landed upright.
For instance, those who believe they cannot ever fall away (regardless of what they might do or become in the future) don't believe that scriptures as: Luke 8:13; Hebrews 6:4-6; 2 Peter 2:1-2; etc. (the many warnings about apostacy) are for them at all.
Again, neither do those who believe that you can lose your salvation believe in the face value of scriptures as: John 10:27-29; 17:11-12; 2 Timothy 1:12; Hebrews 7:25 etc. which say that you can't, either.
Now let me tell you what I find wrong with both stands ---
The OSAS (Once Saved Always Saved) Calvanistic type stand is one that is based wholly on God's doing, making the man nothing more than a willing robot, getting him to cooperate, believing that it is "GOD" who will save who He will and destroy who He will, and there's nothing anyone can do about it. They believe that a man has no choice or say in the matter! They believe that God both initiates the salvation and ends it for them.
On the other hand, those who think they can lose their salvation may never really have been saved after all! Either that or they have allowed the error of such teaching to blind (deceive) them to the truth. (But then again, I can say the same for the OSAS'er as well.) The whole problem is that they probably don't really know what being "SAVED" is all about in the first place. By that I mean they don't know the POWER of receiving the born-again life and what it's like. Because if they did they wouldn't talk like that.
I am talking about the "change" or "transformation" that comes over a person who has just experienced the Love Of God, through being filled with the Spirit. There is nothing that can match that! "And just how is one supposed to know if they receive such a love", you may say? It is IMPOSSIBLE not to know!
In the meantime the other side says, "You Can Lose Your Salvation at the drop of a hat", again, reading what "they" want to read out of the Bible while conveniently ignoring and/or changing what the rest of scripture has to say on this.
Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him. John 14:23
God is different than man in that when He gives something (i.e. eternal life) He doesn't take it back! (But you had better make sure you've "got it" first!) When He gives eternal life He gives eternal life! The working word here is: "Eternal". Yet this life is NOT without cost: Cost both to His Son (who died and rose again) as well as to all who receive Him and are found ETERNALLY IN HIM!
Once a person is blessed with the "Preciousness of having and knowing the living Christ", and experience first hand this glorious mystery for themselves and what possessing Him alone is like, then I most solemly assure you that they (like Paul) will and have considered everything else placed next to Him as but the purest... DUNG! (And I do mean "everything"!)
What happens when a man is born again is absolutely supernatural! When one becomes born of above - of God - they become NEW CREATIONS - NEW CREATURES - "IN" Christ! The OLD has passed away! Everything becomes new and is made anew! Blessed with New thinking! New peace! New love! New joy! A New Man! Everything hinges in, with, through, around and upon "Christ"! IN Him and Him alone is eternal life! Outside of Him, as always, is death and destruction!
Now the man who first made that altar call or the man who first had the urgency to call upon Christ, were then "Babes" at best! There is some growing up to do first - some re-evaluations and worth (or worthlessnesses) made of our "old" lives first ---
Then said Jesus to those Jews which believed on him, If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed; And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. John 8:31-32
---some sitting down and weighing the costs are in order - some touching upon and walking with the Lord - some coming to the end of all our self-made ropes are in order before we are capable of realizing the meaning of such parables as the Pearl of Great Price or the Treasure Buried in the field, and the Joy Unspeakable shining in the face of Jesus Christ!
So the prize doesn't go to the man who thinks they can lose their salvation nor to the man who thinks he can't lose it. The prize goes to the man who has already been "Crucified with Christ"! For them: THIS LIFE IS OVER! KAPUT! FINISHED! Nothing can ever again capture their interests here! They are dead to the world and the world is dead to them - for such is the POWER of a New Life, bringing with it a New Love and a New Hope! And if any man can tear this New Life, Love and Hope from Jesus' grasp, then I say more power to 'em, because they are mightier than God and His Sovereign word!
God initiates the salvation! But it's up to man to come and follow it through by agreeing and allowing the Lord to bring us to that place of Change, of No Return, of seeing ourselves as the wretched sinners we really are, and bring us to a place much like Jacob's Jabbock (Genesis 32:24), a place where we are ALL going to have to come to in our own personal struggles with the Lord and ourselves, if we intend to war against the flesh and get serious with Him and the Salvation He is offering to all who come and get it freely!!! I see no exceptions here! Salvation is a FREE GIFT wrought by Christ, yes, but this "Gift" comes both AT and AFTER the Cross, and not BEFORE it!
I say this because His death without a resurrection will save no one, and neither will ours!
This isn't just some dark "Positional" stand I'm speaking about, that needs to be appropriated by faith. It is ones full-fledged birth through the death and resurrection of the Living Christ, causing one to have unspeakable joy and be full of glory upon their recognition of seeing Him in glory as He is, through the Spirit.
It's Free! Only our own 'Jabbok' stands between us and the way of how badly we want what He has to give verses what we have to give up in order to unburden ourselves to be able to reach out for it. What He has to give is... "Himself"! Now the Lord knows hearts! He NEVER pours out His Spirit indiscriminately as He's not interested in dual governments. So either we go, or He goes! Yet this is all done by an "Agreement on our part based in Love", not by force!
Anything LESS than this is but... "A TASTE"! And like all "Tastes" it is in danger of being forgotten, and this raises the definite possibility of ones later "Falling Away" back into the rudiments of this world again. And chances are that it will be so gradual that they won't even know it, probably all the while remaining "religious"! (Mark 4:16-19)
(You see, the Lord doesn't want us to lay down our (to us) semi-precious stones. He wants the big one. He wants us all, lock, stock and barrel!)
One needs a good "SPIRITUAL DUNKING" - "A FLESHLY CLEANING OUT OF SELF" - "A FULL BATHING IN THE FIERY MELTING LOVE OF GOD" - in order to NEVER FORGET the goodness and kindness of the Lord, and that's exactly what one receives when one becomes "Born-again of the Spirit of God", in a reception and supping of Him that lasts forever, one that is filled with joy unspeakable and full of glory. Therefore....
"My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me:
As anyone (with ears) can plainly hear: "They are "HIS" Sheep! They Know Him! That's why they Follow Him! There are no "Conditions"! They already have ETERNAL Life! And because they are "His" Sheep, they will Never Perish."
There's more...
So the questions that solves the mystery and straightens out the problem are these: "HAVE YOU TRULY BEEN BORN AGAIN? Do you know that God is Love and do you personally know Him as such? Have you come to the end of yourself, or do you still hold something or someone in reserve? Does this world and life still hold flavor for you? Do you still have driven worldly ambitions or is it all over for you? Have you been brought to new life WITH and IN Christ?"
In the end it's not a matter of being always saved or of always being in danger of falling away and losing your salvation, but of a New Life! It's all a matter of defining the word, "Saved"! Seeing how the word "Saved" is in the "Past Tense", it stands to reason that it represents something already done.
Can Jesus take back His death? His life? His promises? His salvation? Neither can He take back our being called to be crucified with Him (if we really are) because our being "Saved" is in the "Past Tense" and is what this whole "Present Tense" (The New Testament in His Blood, sealed and made real and active by the Power of the Spirit) represents: "A NEW LIFE IN CHRIST!" That's what's important, and NOTHING can replace that or overcome it!
It all has to do with the way one thinks. If a man thinks he can sin, he will. If he thinks he can't, he deceives himself. But the man who has been crucified with Christ thinks/reckons like this: "I am D-E-A-D and am made alive in the Power of the Spirit forever more!"
The man who has been crucified with Christ and born again is the man who no longer thinks of himself in terms of his either falling away or of being incapable of falling away. He knows all about his fallen nature and that if it weren't for the Lord giving him a new nature he would have fallen away and flew the coop long ago. So no one has to tell him about the dangers of falling away. He thinks of being "Saved" on a different plane, and because he does he reckons himself dead.
"I have been crucified with Christ, yet I live..." is the cry of every born again Christian. These: Death With and Life In Him, are both Facts! This is what happens when one becomes baptized into Christ with the Holy Spirit.
Remember, Christ was first made empty before He came to life and rose again. This is what it means to do the Father's will! This is what it means to become "born again" in order to serve another ("God") other than the flesh, the world or the Devil, and Know it!
So, the greater we see and admit our depravity and sin in His Light: "Oh WOE is me for I am undone", the greater becomes our faith, the less become our struggles, and the faster we come to the end of that road we all must travel: "The end of ourselves", where only then are we capable of unburdening ourselves and reaching out to Him freely and openly with BOTH hands and humbly and rightfully accept BOTH the Grace and the Truth that comes into our heart by way of Jesus Christ, including Jesus Christ; the Author of Grace and Truth, Himself.
So in order to receive of Him fully one must be made emptied fully of self first. Else how can one make room for Him?
And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand." (John 10:27-28)
(That's what God said!)
Only those who don't do the things He says are not, and never really were His sheep (Luke 6:46) in the first place, no matter how much they scream foul.
He can no more bring himself to will his death than he can to will his life! Taking and crucifying him with Christ is God's job. Likewise is giving him a new and eternal life in Christ!
On the other hand even if the man could (because he knows he has been raised to new life in Christ, and for him its just begun) he still wouldn't dare presume that God hasn't the sovereign power necessary to keep him from falling and hold onto the one who loves Him... forever. Yet that is precisely what happens when such an attack is hurled against the Eternal Security of the believer, effectively eliminating all of the many scriptures that show the clear differences between the "carnal" Christian (which the falling away scriptures are aimed at in the first place) that produces fruit after the flesh verses the "crucified" Christian who is producing fruit in the power of the Spirit.
By saying that no one can say or know with conviction that they are eternally secure, stems from the kind of thinking that opposses the whole counsel of God as they take and make all scriptures and all men genetically fit into one and the same bill. In this way they disregaurd the truth, namely that when one "puts on the mind of Christ" one hears everthing and everyone clearly and where their base of operations are coming from: either Life or from Death!
His sheep are brought to Life, wrought by Life, come from Life, led by Life, and follow hard after Life! They know Him because He alone and the words that He alone speaks is who and what gives them Life and they will follow no other. Therefore they will never perish, nor can any power (man made or otherwise) remove them from out of His hand!
Why? Simply because they have already passed from Death into Life, and for them there is no coming back!
This isn't Kansas anymore Toto! Here we play by a whole different set of laws and rules: Spiritual Principles founded and based upon Love, Grace and Truth alone and all stemming from one and the same source: "The reception of the saving knowledge of Christ, and the fruit of the Spirit that such a life in receiving such knowledge of Christ produces"!
"WHO DO YOU SAY THAT I AM?"
"YOU ARE INDEED NONE OTHER THAN THE CHRIST THE SON OF THE LIVING GOD, AND I WILL FOLLOW NO OTHER!"
and Jesus' reply?: "Matthew 16:17"
May every blessing in Christ be yours,
Biff
