justbyfaith
Well-Known Member
Unfortunately my friend many people today, and some on this forum, have claimed their salvation and believe, or at least say they believe, that nothing they can do will cause them to lose it. In this of course they make God a respecter of persons as they effectively are saying He gave them an opportunity that He did not give to Adam and Eve nor to the multitudes who lived and died under the laws given to the OT writers and prophets.
I would remind everyone of the three specific verses on eternal security that are most often quoted; which must be integrated into our theology as holy scriptural truth:
Jhn 5:24, Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life.
Believing in Him who sent the Lord after hearing His word, will have the effect of 1) the person shall not come into condemnation, 2) they have passed from death into everlasting life; and, 3) they currently have everlasting life.
Jhn 6:47, Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me hath everlasting life.
Whoever believes on Jesus Christ currently has everlasting life; and the nature of everlasting life is that it will never come to an end. And therefore, if the life spoken of is salvation, salvation cannot be lost; because if salvation is lost then the life is lost and therefore came to an end; and therefore the nature of the life being spoken of was not everlasting but temporal. Yet the promise of the Lord is that we shall have everlasting life.
Jhn 10:27, My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me:
Jhn 10:28, And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand.
Jhn 10:29, My Father, which gave them me, is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father's hand.
Jhn 10:30, I and my Father are one.
There is a threefold assurance here: 1) there is eternal life; which again, exists throughout eternity; and, 2) they shall never perish; and, 3) no one can pluck them out of God's hand.
With 3), there is often an objection made, that a person can walk away themselves. I will say that if the fear of the LORD is not present, this is possible. However, if you do have the fear of the LORD, it is an everlasting fear (Psalms 19:9); and it will also serve to keep you so that you don't walk away from Him (Jeremiah 32:38-40 (kjv)).
I will mention also that the promise is given to Jesus' sheep, whom Jesus knows; and that therefore, if someone is a worker of iniquity, he cannot presume to think that he is a recipient of this threefold assurance/promise. For it is written that Jesus said,
Mat 7:23, And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.
We are under a new covenant that has different specifics than the old.