Category Archives: Eternal security (once saved always)

Once saved for always? Oh really?

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Imagine this scenario.

Suppose I bought a car on credit.  Each month, they deducted a certain amount from my checking account. And finally, I get it paid off.  And then…

At the end, I get a certified letter saying something like this:

“Dear Customer: It has been our pleasure to receive your bank draft for $428.51 each month over the past year and a half. We here in the corporate offices of Auto Financial Services have come to a decision and want to inform you that we wish to continue receiving this amount from you after the contract has expired.  We know that you are enjoying your new automobile and therefore will want to do your part to maintain this wonderful relationship.  However, our legal department informs us that we should alert you to the reality that if you discontinue making these monthly payments, we will be forced to repossess the car.  Have a nice day.”

So, even after the car is paid for, I must keep making the payments if I wish to continue owning their car.  Miss a payment and they take it back.

Yikes.

All right.  It’s just a little fantasy. Or perhaps a parable.  Now, imagine this.

What if the Lord in Heaven said to us, “I have given you salvation.  It is eternal. Salvation is a free gift.  You did nothing to deserve it. In fact, quite the opposite. After all, the wages of sin is death but the free gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord. You no doubt have read that in Romans 6:23. Now, that’s all well and good, but there is something in the fine print which you might have missed.”

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Lots of reasons to rejoice, and one really big one

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It’s Friday night and the home team is struggling.  The coach walks up and down the sideline in front of his players.

“Get your heads up! All of you!  Take those stupid towels off your head!  Let’s show some courage around here!  The game is not over yet.  You’re not defeated until you quit fighting.  Lift up your heads!  Look like champions!”

The disciples had returned from a trial run in which they had practiced preaching the gospel of Jesus.  Since the time would come when Jesus would be absent and they would be doing this “for real,” the Lord wanted them to get a taste of what to expect.

They returned sky high.  “Lord! It was wonderful!  We saw miracles.  Lives changed.  People healed. It was great!”

Jesus agreed.  “You’re right.  In fact, I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven.”

“However,” He said, “I need to tell you something.”

Do not rejoice because the spirits are subject to you. Rejoice because your names are written in heaven. (Luke 10:20)

It wasn’t that He didn’t want them joyful and excited.  He loves overflowing praise and exuberance in His children.

He just wants it based on something more substantial than the latest results.

The Lord knew what the disciples would find out. The days would come when they would return empty-handed from their preaching missions, their evangelistic trips, their revivals and door-to-door visitations, and their overseas outreach.

Yes, there would be times of great successes and glorious testimonies. But at other times, they would return empty-handed, with no glowing stories, no big numbers, no sparkling testimonies of victories.  Sometimes they would do well to get out with their lives, and occasionally they didn’t even manage that.

If their joy was based on impressive victories and big numbers, it would be constantly fluctuating.  Sometimes they would be happy in the Lord and overflowing with praise, and at other times, they would be depressed and discouraged.

He wants none of that.

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People who teach salvation can be lost are missing something…

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I was raised in a church of the Arminian persuasion that holds a person can be saved multiple times.

As a teen, I recall my mother mentioning some in our large family who were Southern Baptist–“missionary Baptists” she called them–who believed in the doctrine familiarly known as “once saved, always saved.”  Mom would say, “They believe you can go out tonight and get drunk and still be saved tomorrow.” Which is true, of course. We do believe that, although that’s not our favorite way to express it. Smiley face, please. (And most definitely not something we encourage. But a person’s salvation has to be stronger than Jack Daniels or we are all in big trouble!)

Now, to be fair, I never once heard a pastor of our home church teach that people may lose their salvation.  The pastors have always seemed certain of our security in Christ. But losing-one’s-salvation-and-getting-it-back was part of their doctrine.

Some random thoughts on this subject….

ONE.

Those who believe in the possibility of losing their salvation will quote scriptures which speak of “falling from grace” and “making shipwreck.”

They will emphasize that this refers to losing one’s salvation.

My response:   Anyone who believes in the possibility of losing salvation must answer a thousand statements to the contrary that are found throughout the Word. And they can start with John 3:16 where Jesus says “Whosoever believeth in me shall not perish but have everlasting life.” What does “shall not perish” mean, and what does “everlasting life” mean?

When they finish, they can stay in the same chapter and look at verse 36. “Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life.”

Why in the world would the Lord say such a thing if it could be reversed by something we do?

We’re not proof-texting here (that comes later!), but simply pointing out that there are hundreds of references in the New Testament to eternal life, never die, shall not perish, and such.

Does the Bible mean what it says?

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7 things to keep in mind when discussing religion

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If anyone advocates a different doctrine, and does not agree with sound words, those of our Lord Jesus Christ, and with the doctrine conforming to godliness, he is conceited and understands nothing; but he has a morbid interest in controversial questions and disputes about words, out of which arise envy, strife, abusive language, evil suspicions, and constant friction between men of depraved mind and deprived of the truth…. (I Timothy 6:3ff).

Some people debating religion are this way, Paul.  Conceited and ignorant, rabble-rousers and mean-spirited.  I’ve sat across the table from them more than once.  It’s no fun, as you know.

But some are sincere and faithful brethren trying to get this right.

Help us, Lord.

If you are a Southern Baptist, as I am, you may find yourself having a problem with the theology of some people whom you happen to like and respect as brothers and sisters in Christ.  You respect them and would like to be closer friends, but this “thing” they believe and teach stands between you. So…

You ask if the two of you can discuss those differences.  Not a debate, you insist, and certainly not an argument.

Some would say you’re being naïve for thinking you can have such a discussion without emotions entering into it, and the rhetoric heating up.  But you decide to see if you can.  The prize is worth the effort.

Understand going in that…

One.  People don’t just believe doctrines; they have a whole belief system.  And that system usually results in them flocking with others of similar beliefs, so that ends up becoming their culture, their entire world.  And when you question their beliefs, in their mind you are undermining their entire set up. So, they quickly become defensive, as though you had attacked their mother.

A Mormon–someone belonging to the LDS faith (or system)–doesn’t just believe some things about Joseph Smith and some other things about the Scripture, which, if you can refute you have dislodged them from their errant beliefs (as you believe).  They are part of an entire set-up.  All their friends are in that system.  So, for them to consider dropping their religion because they learned it was in error is also asking them to drop their friends and change their entire lives.  So, helping someone transition out of that system becomes a huge process.

Lord, help us to be patient with each other. 

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Where are my old, forgiven sins?

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“Their sins and iniquities I will remember no more” (Jeremiah 31:34 and Hebrews 10:17).

In the former days of computer technology, back when we preachers were finding what a help it could be to our writing, Pastor Frank Pollard retreated to the mountains to work on sermons and a book.  At one point, as he told later, in the midst of a chapter he was laboring over, he accidentally stroked a certain key and the entire piece disappeared.  Nothing he did retrieved it.  We all know that experience and identify with the frustration he felt.

So, later, he asked a computer-savvy friend to explain this.  “Where did my writing go?”

“It didn’t go anywhere,” said the friend.  “It just disappeared.”

Frank insisted, “It had to have gone somewhere.”

“Nope,” said the computer friend.  “It did not go anywhere; it went nowhere.”

Now, being the preacher constantly in search of illustrations and metaphors to make the Christian life understandable and the gospel applicable, Frank decided that this is how it is when “the blood of Jesus Christ, God’s Son, cleanses us from all sins.”  Where are those sins now? They’re just gone.

I can think of three scriptures that pretty much voice the same reality.

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Some believe we can lose our salvation. Here’s what they are missing.

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In an article on this website, I shared a couple of the strongest affirmations of Scripture which declare that our salvation, once given by the Lord Jesus Christ, is forever secure.

Our salvation in Christ is safe, solid, secure.  This is called the doctrine of the security of the believer.  We are saved forever.  It’s basic scripture.

Or so I thought.

Some readers objected and even protested.

I should not have been surprised. After all, I was raised in a denomination of the Arminian persuasion which teaches the possibility of losing one’s salvation and then regaining it.  Now, I never heard our home church pastor say anything like that.  But it seems to have been part of that church’s doctrine.

I recall hearing a family member speaking disparagingly of Southern Baptists.  “They believe you can get saved today, go out tonight and get drunk, and still be saved tomorrow.”

Which is true, of course.

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