Unwrapping the Doctrine of Eternal Security

Without a question, the doctrine of eternal security is one of the most hotly debated and misunderstood doctrines in Christianity. Once you get past all of the denominational influences and cultural philosophies, you still have to deal with the failure by most to engage this doctrine through a deep and committed study of what God’s Word has to say on the matter.

Normally, when people ask me whether I believe in the doctrine of eternal security, my answer is simple: This issue a not whether there is eternal security for those who are genuinely saved; the issue is how many believe they are save but are not. When you actually have a lucid understanding of soteriology (the study of salvation) and hamartiology (the study of sin) you will have the foundation to truly engage the doctrine of eternal security.

What is Sin?

There are a number of words in the Bible that are translated from the original Hebrew and ancient Greek as sin. We will only take a look at several to gain an understanding of what sin is:

                                      

 -  חטּאת    חטּאהchaṭṭâ'âh  chaṭṭâ'th - khat-taw-aw', khat-tawth' From Stong’s H2398; (used nearly 300 times) an offence (sometimes habitual sinfulness), and its penalty, occasion, sacrifice, or expiation; also (concretely) an offender: - punishment (of sin), purifying (-fication for sin), sin (-ner, offering).

 רשׁע - râshâ‛raw-shaw' - From Strongs H7561; (used more than 250 times) morally wrong; concretely an (actively) bad person: -  + condemned, guilty, ungodly, wicked (man), that did wrong.

פּשׁע - pâsha‛ paw-shah' A primitive root (rather identical with Strong’s H6585 through the idea of expansion); (used 41 times) to break away (from just authority), that is, trespass, apostatize, quarrel: - offend, rebel, revolt, transgress (-ion, -or).

ἁμαρτάνω - hamartanō - ham-ar-tan'-o - Perhaps from G1 (as a negative particle) and the base of G3313; properly to miss the mark (and so not share in the prize), that is, (figuratively) to err, especially (morally) to sin: - for your faults, offend, sin, trespass.

Sin is missing the mark, transgressing the standard of God, falling short of a set and uncompromising expectation. God is not only righteous he is absolute righteousness, and because of this absolute righteousness, God cannot accept anything less than what measures up to His righteousness. The act of sinning immediately creates a wall of separation between man and God. This separation is actually the death that God promised Adam when he told him that the day that he ate from the “tree of the knowledge of good and evil” he would surely die (Gen. 2:17).

We know that the death that God was speaking of was not physical death, because Adam lived several centuries after he ate from the tree. What was this death that Adam experienced? It was spiritual death, absolute separation from God. Paul tells us that the wages of sin is death (Rom. 6:23). He also tells us that when Adam sinned as the corporate head of mankind, we all sinned. How is this possible? Adam is the progenitor of the entire human race, meaning that at the time he committed the original sin of humanity, we were all seminally present in him. So, when he sinned we all sinned (Rom. 5:12). This means that we are all born spiritually dead. Being that the wages or penalty for sin is death, sin created a chasm between man and God, that man – on his own – could not cross.

Sin Created the Need for a Savior

God’s remedy to reconcile fallen man to himself was “salvation”. This called for sending his only son (God the Son, the second person of the Trinity or Godhead) to die for the sins of the world. While Christ hung on the cross at Calvary, God the Father judged Him, first for the sin of Adam (which is actually the sin that condemned all of us to spiritual death [Rom. 5:12]), and then every sin of mankind – past, present and future.

When a person acknowledges, through faith, that Christ’s work on Calvary served as substitutional atonement for their sin – and they openly receive Him into their lives as both, Lord and Savior, they are justified. Being justified is the act of being declared righteous by God, not by your own actions, but by the actions of Christ and your acceptance through faith. God imputed (accredited) your sins to Christ at Calvary, and he judged Him for every one of them. When you or any individual receives that magnanimous gift provided by Christ on Calvary, God imputes the righteousness of Christ to you. This means that you have been declared righteous, allowing God to once again fellowship with you.  (John 1:29; 3:3-8; Rom. 5:12-21; 8:1-4; Eph. 2:5, 8; Titus 2:11; Heb 1:3; 2:10-18; 5:9; 9:28; Rev. 1:5, 6; :9, 10; 12:11)

The key to understanding this is act of faith (Eph. 2:8, 9) requires the apprehension of two things: 1. You must understand that in accepting Christ you are accepting him as your Lord and Savior. Many have attempted to only accept Him as their Savior without placing Him on the throne of their lives. 2. You must understand that although salvation comes through faith and not actions, saving faith – itself – produces actions.

¹⁴ What is the use (profit), my brethren, for anyone to profess to have faith if he has no [good] works [to show for it]? Can [such] faith save [his soul]?

¹⁵ If a brother or sister is poorly clad and lacks food for each day,

¹⁶ And one of you says to him, Good-bye! Keep [yourself] warm and well fed, without giving him the necessities for the body, what good does that do?

¹⁷ So also faith, if it does not have works (deeds and actions of obedience to back it up), by itself is destitute of power (inoperative, dead).

¹⁸ But someone will say [to you then], You [say you] have faith, and I have [good] works. Now you show me your [alleged] faith apart from any [good] works [if you can], and I by [good] works [of obedience] will show you my faith. (James 2:14-18, AMP)

The Apostle James is bringing elucidation to the fact that simply saying that you believe means nothing. True faith produces action; it is dynamic – not static. One of the greatest hindrances to understanding the doctrine of eternal security is the fact that many misunderstand salvation. The introduction to the sinner’s prayer and the promise that repeating it will save you has crippled many. Salvation doesn’t come by stated words, but by an act of the heart. Paul tells the Corinthian church that if a man is truly in Christ, he has become a new species (2 Cor. 5:17). This means that this believer has some outward manifestations of the faith that they claim.

One of the most difficult challenges to many people being able to accept the doctrine of eternal security, which guarantees that those that have been adopted into the family of God will make it into heaven, is the perpetual sin of so many that claim the faith. The question is not: Can they lose their salvation? The question is: Were they ever saved in the first place. Although good works can be acts of self-righteousness, there has to be an outward manifestation of the inward reality or something is wrong. This does not mean that you will be perfect and sinless, but sin in your life will convict you because the Holy Spirit now indwells you (1 Cor. 6:19).

The Perseverance of the Saints (Eternal Security)

The questions that must be answered here is: Can true Christians lose their salvation? How can we know if we are truly born again? What provides the guarantee that we remain in the family of God forever?

The perseverance of the saints – the truth that all those who are truly born again will be kept by God and will persevere as Christians until they pass away – must be understood in the light to major truths:

1.      All who are truly born again are grafted (adopted) into the royal family of God forever.

2.      Only those that persevere to the end have truly been born again.

There are multitudinous passages in the Bible that reveal that those who are born again (spiritual rebirth) and genuinely become Christians, will continue in the Christian life until death and will then go to be with Christ in heaven.

³⁸ For^(AZ)I have come down from heaven, ^(BA)not to do My own will, but ^(BB)the will of Him who^(BC)sent Me.³⁹ This is the will of Him who sent Me, that of ^(BD)all that He has given Me I ^(BE)lose nothing, but^(BF)raise it up on the last day. ⁴⁰ For this is the will of My Father, that everyone who^(BG)beholds the Son and^(BH)believes in Him will have eternal life, and I Myself will ^(BI)raise him up on the last day.” (John 6:38-40, NASB)

The thing that I wish to focus on here first is the term “eternal life” Jesus says that everyone who believes (believes to the point of saving faith – accepting Him as Lord and Savior) will be raised up to eternal life. Everyone means all, without exclusion. The word eternal leaves very little room for question. Once one receives eternal life, they cannot lose it or it was never eternal in the first place. When you examine this verse of scripture you will not find a conditional clause, creating an exception to the statement. You can see this same truth emphasized in another passage in the book of John:

²⁷ The sheep that are My own hear and are listening to My voice; and I know them, and they follow Me.

²⁸ And I give them eternal life, and they shall never lose it or perish throughout the ages. [To all eternity they shall never by any means be destroyed.] And no one is able to snatch them out of My hand.

²⁹ My Father, Who has given them to Me, is greater and mightier than all [else]; and no one is able to snatch [them] out of the Father’s hand. (John 10:27-29, AMP)

There have been some who have made an objection to this being a foundational scriptural passage for the doctrine of eternal security based on the argument that even though no one else can remove a believer from the hand of God, a believer themselves could. This argument call for Christ’s statement to be ambiguous and for one to really reach in its interpretation to find any validity in the assertion. With so much on the line, it would seem that if there was an exception, we would have been told.

The most forceful phrase in the passage is “they shall never perish” (verse 28). The Greek construction “ou – (absolutely not) “me” – (a negative imperative, meaning absolutely not) in the aorist conjunctive, makes this passage especially emphatic; it could actually be translated in the more explicit rendering: “and they shall certainly not perish forever.” There are other passages that reveal that those who believe will have “eternal life” (John 3:36, cf. John 5:24; 6:4-7; 10:28; 1 John 5:13). If the references to eternal life literally refer to true eternal life (which it does – the Greek “aionis” means eternal – without end), then that life lasts forever. Eternal life is the gift of God as a part of salvation. This magnanimous gift stands in stark contrast to its alternative – condemnation and eternal judgment – culminating in eternal separation from God (John 3:16-17, 36, 10:28).

In his epistle (letter) to the Romans, the Apostle Paul addressed eternal security from a different perspective. He makes the connections between God’s purposes in predestination and His working out of those purposes through the life of the believer, and by finally glorifying them by giving them resurrection bodies.

⁹ For those whom He^(BI)foreknew, He also^(BJ)predestined to become^(BK)conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the^(BL)firstborn among many brethren;³⁰ and these whom He^(BM)predestined, He also ^(BN)called; and these whom He called, He also^(BO)justified; and these whom He justified, He also^(BP)glorified. (Rom. 8:29-30, NASB)

Paul views the future event of final glorification as such a certainty that he speaks of it as if it has already taken place (“he also glorified” – past tense)

The Sealing of the Holy Spirit

The sealing ministry of the Holy Spirit is further evidence that God keeps those who are truly born again safe for all eternity. The Bible tells us that this seal serves as a guarantee of the fulfilled promise – through which believers will receive their inheritance.

 ¹³ And you also were included in Christ^(AB) when you heard the message of truth,^(AC) the gospel of your salvation. When you believed, you were marked in him with a seal,^(AD) the promised Holy Spirit,^(AE) 14 who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance^(AF) until the redemption^(AG)of those who are God’s possession—to the praise of his glory.^(AH) (Eph. 1:13-14, NIV)

The Greek “arrabon” translated “guarantee” in this passage is a legal term which means “first installment, deposit, down payment or pledge, and represents a payment which guarantees payment of the balance that is owed. This means that the Holy Spirit servers as the guarantee of the fulfilled promise of eternal life. Paul says that the Holy Spirit is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire it. If you are truly born again, you have the Holy Spirit resident within you, and His indwelling serves as a guarantee of the greater fulfillment of life eternal with God in heaven.

Paul also gave the Philippian church a clear understanding of this same guarantee.

“I am sure that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.” (Phil. 1:6) In verse 5 of this passage, Paul tells the Philippian believers that they are those “who by God’s power are guarded through faith for salvation ready to be revealed in the last time” Here the word translated guarded (Greek - phroureo) has the dual meaning of “kept from escaping and protected from attack”. The verb is used in the present participle, which in the Greek means “You are continually being guarded.” Paul emphasis that this act is performed through God’s power, meaning that it is God that keeps and protects, not the believer. The believer supplies the faith and God provides the power.

For those that would like to conduct their own categorical study of this phase of eternal security, you can use the following outline as a launching pad.

I. The Positional Approach – Every believer is in union with Christ from the point of salvation (Rom. 8:1; Eph. 1:3-6; Jude 1)
II. The Logical Approach – If God did the most for us when we were His enemies, the a fortiori logic (greater than reasoning) follows the point the He will do much more for us as member of His royal family (Rom. 5:9-10, 15, 17, 20; 8:32)
III. The anthropomorphic approach – The believer is held in the hand of God and He will never let go (Ps. 37:24; John 10:28)
IV. The family approach – We are born into the royal family of God at the point of salvation and we are also spiritually adopted into the family of God (John 1:12; Gal. 3:26; Rom. 8:14-17)
V. The “body” approach – Christ is the head of the body which is join together in unity through his magnanimous gift on Calvary (1 Cor. 12:21; Col. 1:18)
VI. Exegetical approach which examines the Greek tense of the word “pisteuo” which in the aorist tense means to believe once, for all time; the perfect tense of “sozo in Eph. 2:8-9 means you are saved in the past with the result of you going on to be saved forever. 
VII. The inheritance approach – We have an inheritance which is incorruptible and unchanging waiting for us in heaven (Eph. 1:11; 1 Pet. 1:4-5)
VIII. The Sovereignty approach – God’s decision to keep us (2 Pet. 3-9; Jude 24)
IX. The sealing ministry of the Holy Spirit – A guarantee that the name of every believer remains in the Book of Life forever (2 Cor. 1:22; Eph. 1:13; 4:30; 2 Tim. 2:19; cf., Rev. 20:13)

Only Those Who Persevere to the End

The scriptural passages that I have presented to this point, and others, clearly present the fact that those who are born again are guaranteed eternal life in fellowship with God. The issue is what constitutes being truly born again. Does simply confessing that you believe or claiming Christ as your savior initiate rebirth, or is there something more than superficial proclamation that many are missing.

I would urge those who struggle with the doctrine of eternal security to spend more time on the doctrine of salvation. It is my belief that the issue is not in whether those who are saved are eternally saved, but how many think they are saved, but are not. When the doctrine of eternal security is erroneously taught and misunderstood, it leads to abuse – much in the same way that the teaching of cheap grace has led to the abuse of that doctrine. When you don’t understand salvation, the doctrine of eternal security may lead you to believe that you can confess Christ and then return to your life as usual and inherit eternal life. The very desire to return to your old life is the first red flag that your salvation is fraudulent.

There is a multiplicity of scriptural passages that reveal that those who are truly of the royal family of God will persevere to the end of their lives. Continuing in the faith is an action that is indicative of authentic believing faith, culminating is salvation.

⁴ to obtain an^(T)inheritance which is imperishable and undefiled and^(U)will not fade away, ^(V)reserved in heaven for you,⁵ who are^(W)protected by the power of God^(X)through faith for^(Y)a salvation ready ^(Z)to be revealed in the last time. (1 Pet. 1:4-5, NASB)

It is God’s power working through our faith that allows us to continue believing and functionimg in that faith. God’s power keeps us through our faith. Without that faith, there can be no power. There must be a perseverance through faith, in order to receive the promise of eternal life.

“Jesus then said to the Jews that believed in Him, ‘If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will make your free.’” Jesus is making it clear that those who possess genuine faith will continue in his Word. Continuing in His Word means to continue believing in His word and obeying His commands.

Jesus also said, “He who endures to the end will be saved. (Matt. 10:22)

This is another exhortation from Christ to resist falling away. He is clearly revealing that those who truly believe will continue to move toward Him. This does not mean that believers will not sin, but it means that there must be a heart for Christ that drives them to seek him, even when you are struggling in a certain area. In most cases, it is not the sin that is the issue, because the sin was paid for on Calvary – it is how you view sin that is the issue. When your sin has no effect on your heart, there is an issue.

Profession of the Christian faith does not always reflect the true condition of the heart. We have to be careful with teaching people that simply repeating the sinner’s prayer constitutes salvation and guarantees the benefits therein. This type of teaching falls significantly short of what we are called to do. There are no action outside of faith required for salvation, but that faith conjoined with your salvation produces fruit that is indicative of the faith you claim. Jesus said that we shall be known by the fruit we bear. If your life is not bearing the fruit of the Spirit, then you must return to the beginning for a reevaluation.

Paul tells the Colossians that it is Christ that has reconciled them to God, “in order to present you holy and blameless and irreproachable before Him, provided that you continue in the faith, stable and steadfast, not shifting from the hope of the gospel which you heard” (Col. 1:22-23).

Paul, like his contemporaries – John and Peter – make statements like this because they are addressing people who claim to be followers of Christ, without having the ability to look into that person’s heart to see its true condition. There could have easily been people in Colossae that had become a part of the fellowship with other believers, claiming to be a part of the faith, but never having truly accepted Christ. Paul must avoid giving those that are not truly born again false assurance of an inheritance that does not belong to them. Paul understands that those whose faith is not genuine will eventually fall away. Paul is saying that the falling away is an indication that the salvation didn’t take, so to speak.

The writer of Hebrews brings home the same point:

“For we have become partakers of Christ, if we hold fast the beginning of our assurance firm to the end.” (Heb. 3:14, NASB)

This verse is further clarified by another that precedes it:

“Take care brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God.” (v. 12)

So, it is the lack of faith that causes the person to fall away. Well if there is no faith, salvation cannot be accomplished.

I believe the Apostle John does a great job of bringing this final point home:

“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 be plain that they are all not of us” (1 John 2:19, NASB)

John makes it clear that those that fell away were never really actually apart of the fold. They may have showed some external signs initially, but their failure to persevere uncovered the true condition of their heart.

I will close with this final passage:

Dr. Rick Wallace

³⁵ Therefore, do not throw away your^(BV)confidence, which has a great^(BW)reward. ³⁶ For you have need of^(BX)endurance, so that when you have ^(BY)done the will of God, you may ^(BZ)receive^[j]what was promised.

^37 (CA)For yet in a very little while,
^(CB)He who is coming will come, and will not delay.
^38 (CC)But My righteous one shall live by faith;
And if he shrinks back, My soul has no pleasure in him.

³⁹ But ^[k]we are not of those who shrink back to destruction, but of those who have faith to the^[l]preserving of the soul. (Heb. 10:35-39, NASB)

Those who are truly of the faith remain faithful. We are not perfect but we strive for perfection and live to be obedient. When we fall short of the mark, our heart hurts and we yearn to do better.

Is there such a thing as eternal security? Yes, there is, but it comes at a much steeper price than simply repeating a few words and continuing with business as usual. ~ Dr. Rick Wallace