Judging from the contents of the Bible, I think I would have to say that God likes a good story—especially if you think about the Old Testament. The Old Testament is the first two-thirds of the Bible, and much of it records the story of Israel in ancient times, and frequently the narrative zooms in on certain individuals. Most of us are intrigued by the Old Testament, but we’re not sure that its all that important for us. After all, the people in the Old Testament lived in very different times and places, and they lived under different commands from God than we live under today.
So why do we even have the Old Testament in the Bible? Why don’t we just focus on the New Testament, which records the commands from God that we are supposed to follow today? Well, according to 1 Corinthians 10:11 the events recorded in the Old Testament “happened to them as an example, but they were written down for our instruction, on whom the end of the ages has come.”
So the Old Testament is here to instruct us, to give us examples to follow and examples to avoid as we seek to live out God’s commands. It has been said that those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it, so God has recorded sacred history for us so that we can be instructed by it.
Last week, we talked about some ideas that may have been very new to you—like the idea of being rewarded for the way that we live for Jesus today, and particularly the idea of being rewarded with the privilege of reigning with Him in His earthly kingdom. I stressed that God has offered us both a gift and a prize. The gift is eternal life, which we receive by faith, and prize is a special role of service for Jesus, which we receive by faithfully following His commands.
This idea may have been somewhat new to you, but its not new to Scripture at all, because the Old Testament tells us that God related to Israel in the same way—through a gift and a prize. Today we’re going to focus on God’s relationship with Israel and how it provides a pattern for the way that God relates to us. As with our own lives, we will see a gift that is secure and a prize that can be won or lost. Let’s begin with the gift, which is redemption.
1. Israel’s Redemption
Israel’s redemption took place when God delivered them from their slavery in Egypt. This act was a very fitting picture for the word “redemption” because the word refers to paying a ransom for someone or rescuing them from bondage. In the first message that Moses delivered from God to the people of Israel, God spoke in terms of redemption. Turn with me to Exodus 6:2-6, and follow along with me as I read [READ Ex. 6:2-6].
Later, in the book of Deuteronomy, when Moses is looking back on what God had done, he again describes their rescue as redemption. Let’s read Deut. 7:6-8 [READ Deut. 7:6-8]. Notice how these verses highlight the reason why God gave the people this gift of redemption. It wasn’t because of anything special in the people; it wasn’t because they were a great and mighty nation, because they were just the opposite. No—God redeemed them simply because He chose to set His love on them and because He had made promises to Abraham, their ancestor and the founder of the nation.
And in the rest of the Old Testament record, we see that the people hadn’t earned their redemption in any way; it wasn’t any sort of reward. God hadn’t appeared to them and said, “Do this for me and then I will redeem you.” He simply did it because He chose to love them and He made promises to Abraham about a future for His descendents.
The only response required from the Israelites to escape from slavery was a response of faith in God, which they demonstrated on the night of the Passover when they put the blood of a sacrificial animal on their doors to escape death. That response of faith was all that God required for the people to leave their slavery in Egypt, and once they were gone, they were gone—never to return.
I think its important for the question of eternal security to note that even when the people were unfaithful to God later on, God never reversed their redemption. He never sent them back into Egypt to live as slaves. They certainly faced some severe discipline from God, but their status as God’s redeemed people never changed.
So God redeemed Israel by His grace, and after He did, He gave them a task to carry out, with a reward that was promised to them if they would be faithful in carrying out their task.
2. Israel’s Task
Israel’s task can be summarized in two parts, both of which can be found in Deuteronomy 6. Why don’t you turn there with me? First, as we see in verses 16-17, the people were to live before God and worship Him according to the Law of Moses, which consists of all the commands that God communicated to the people through Moses. Let’s read vv. 16-17 [READ vv. 16-17].
God had given the people a very specific way to worship Him and some very specific commands for life, which covered many, many different situations that they might encounter. Thus, if they wanted to live a lifestyle that pleased God, they knew exactly what to do.
Second, God also commanded the people to conquer the land of Canaan and take possession of it. Look at vv. 18-19 [READ vv. 18-19]. Many years before this, God had promised Abraham that He would give the land of Canaan to His descendents, for two reasons. First, it was a good, fruitful land. It is part of what archaeologists have called “the fertile crescent,” because it was a well-watered oasis compared to the desert areas southwest of it. Second, the people who were living in the land of Canaan were evil in the sight of God. Remember—cities like Sodom and Gomorrah were there, and the nations that lived there worshiped their gods with child sacrifices and various sexual acts. So by giving Israel the land, He was not only blessing the children of Israel—He was also judging the nations who lived in the land.
So the people had a clearly defined task, and God offered a reward to them if they would faithfully complete their task.
3. Israel’s reward
The reward that God promised them was an abundant life in the land of Canaan. He promised to bless them in every facet of life if they would be faithful to their task. Turn with me to Deuteronomy 28, and let’s see the blessings that were promised to the people [READ 28:1-14]. What an incredible set of blessings that the Israelites had offered to them! Every general area of life was covered in that set of verses, and God said He would bless them in every area.
But remember—the people would only receive these blessings if they were faithful to obey God. These blessings were generous, certainly, but they were not a gift—they were a reward, and the next section states that the people would miss out on this reward if they failed to obey God. In fact, they would receive just the opposite of all the blessings that were just mentioned—their land would be unproductive, their health would be poor, and their enemies would subdue them.
But again, its important to note that their redemption was secure. God would not and did not sever the relationship with them that He established through their redemption. All throughout the prophetic books, as the prophets were scolding the people for their rebellion against God, they kept talking about a day when God would renew their hearts to follow Him so that He could give them their reward. But the generations who were unfaithful to God failed to receive the reward, and that is still true of Israel to this day, which is a sobering and humbling thought.
But this example from the Old Testament sets a precedence of sorts, because it turns out to be the same way that God deals with us.
4. Our redemption
We see in the New Testament that God’s gift to us is also described in terms of redemption, but our redemption of course is in a spiritual sense. In our redemption, God delivers us from the debt of our sins. Ephesians 1:7 states, “In [Christ] we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace.” Colossians 1:13-14 speaks of our rescue in very dramatic terms when it says, “[God] has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.”
Like Israel in the Old Testament, all that God requires from us to receive this gift of redemption is a response of faith in Him to deliver us from the bondage and danger that our sins have put us in. His gift is nothing that we have to earn, its nothing that we have to prove ourselves worthy of—it is truly a gift that He has given us in His love.
But now that God has redeemed us and adopted us into His family, He has given us a task to carry out with a reward that is promised for faithfulness.
5. Our task
Our task can also be summed up in two parts. First, we are called to live before God and worship Him according to the law of liberty. James 2:12 tells us to speak and to act as those who are to be judged under the law of liberty. This refers to all of the commands that we read in the New Testament for the church age that we live in today.
We are no longer required to live under the Law of Moses today because it fulfilled its purpose with the coming of Jesus. The Law of Moses was meant to teach people about sin and the need for a sacrifice to atone for sin, and as Jesus said in Matthew 5, He came to fulfill the Law and He offered Himself as the true sacrifice for sin once and for all.
So we no longer live under the Old Testament laws today even though we can still learn some valuable things from them. Rather, we are to live under the commands of the New Testament, and some of those commands comprise the second part of our task, which is to serve as representatives of Jesus to make disciples throughout the world. The final command that Jesus gave before He returned to heaven was for us to make disciples of all nations (Matt. 28:19). 2 Corinthians 5 says that now that we have been reconciled to God, He has entrusted to us the message of reconciliation, making us ambassadors for Christ. We are now on a spiritual peacemaking mission to present God’s terms of peace to the rest of the world.
If we will be faithful to represent Jesus well today, then He will allow us to represent Him as an official in His government during His earthly kingdom. That is the reward that is held out to us—the privilege of reigning with Jesus in His kingdom on Earth.
6. Our reward
Jesus has returned to heaven for the time being, but one day He will return to establish a kingdom in this world, and He will reward us if we have been faithful to our task. This truth is expressed very clearly in a parable that Jesus tells in Luke 19. In this chapter, Jesus used the backdrop of a current event to teach us a lesson about His return and His kingdom [READ Luke 19:11-27].
In that parable, Jesus used an event from the people’s recent past to teach them a lesson about their present and their future. Likewise, we can learn from the distant past some lessons for our present and our future. Just as God redeemed Israel by His grace, gave them a task, and offered them a reward, He has done the same for us. His gift of redemption was a free gift to us from His grace and mercy, and now, with the foundation of that gift firmly in place, He offers us a reward for the way that we build on that foundation. The hope of a reward for faithfulness should be a powerful motivation for us to be faithful to Christ today, no matter what comes our way. There is a reason to endure suffering for Christ’s name; there is a reason to press forward when we feel like giving up. The finish line is just ahead, and there is a prize to be had if we will follow the Judge’s rules. Let us never give up in the race!
Monday, November 21, 2011
Monday, November 14, 2011
"But What About..."--Eternal Security series
Over the last few weeks, I have presented what I believe is a strong case for the belief that a Christian can never lose his or her salvation. Along the way, I’ve mentioned a few times that there are Christians who disagree with me over this issue, and I’m sure many of you knew that before we ever started this series. People whom I consider brothers and sisters in Christ have come to a different conclusion about this subject, and I think our disagreement is sad and unfortunate, but nevertheless, it is the reality that we face today.
Now, as I’ve mentioned this disagreement, perhaps you’ve thought to yourself, “What’s led to all of this? Why do Christians disagree about whether or not we can lose our salvation?” Well, to put it simply, as we read through the Bible, we encounter verses that seem to give us every reason to believe that our salvation is secure, but we also encounter verses that give us strong warnings about the possibility of losing something through disobedience or unbelief. Let me show you what I mean through the words of a few of the authors of Scripture:
From Jesus
• John 6:37—“All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out.”
• John 10:27-28—“My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand.”
• John 15:6—“If anyone does not abide in me he is thrown away like a branch and withers; and the branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned.”
• Matthew 10:33—“Whoever denies me before men, I also will deny before my Father who is in heaven.”
From Paul
• Romans 8:38-39—“For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor power, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
• 1 Corinthians 9:26-27—“So I do not run aimlessly; I do not box as one beating the air. But I discipline my body and keep it under control, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified.”
From Peter
• 1 Peter 1:4-5—“…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.”
• 2 Peter 3:17—“You therefore, beloved, knowing this beforehand, take care that you are not carried away with the error of lawless people and lose your own stability.”
You can probably see for yourself why there have been disagreements over the question of eternal security. Most of the time, people gravitate toward either the “security” verses or the “loss” verses. We tend to emphasize one set of these verses, and then we try to pretend like the other verses don’t exist because they make us uncomfortable!
Various attempts have been made over the years to reconcile the security verses and the loss verses. On the one hand, some of those who believe that we CAN lose our salvation have said that all of the security verses should be read with an unspoken condition in our minds. That is to say that God will never cast us out of His family unless we choose to leave; then, under that condition, He would choose to cast us out. I said last week, however, that I don’t think an unspoken condition does justice to the security verses because their wording is so emphatic.
On the other hand, some of those who believe we CANNOT lose our salvation have said that the loss verses are merely hypothetical. In other words, God is telling us how terrible it would be if He ever cast us out—even though He will never do it! I can’t agree with that solution, however, because I don’t think it does justice to the loss verses. I think the loss verses are meant to warn us about a real danger, and they would lose their power to motivate us if they were only hypothetical. If I tell my daughter someday that I will hypothetically ground her if she doesn’t listen to me, I don’t think that warning will be very motivating for her!
So how can we reconcile the security verses and the loss verses? It will not do to minimize or ignore one set of verses because they are both in the Bible. So how can we reconcile them? By remembering an easily-forgotten observation from Scripture.
1. There is more to our future destiny than heaven or hell!
So often, when we think about our future destiny, our thoughts turn immediately to heaven and hell. That’s understandable in a way, because we all want to be really, really sure that we don’t go to hell. Once we’re sure that we’re not going to go to hell, we kind of breathe a deep sigh of relief and then forget to ask whether there’s anything more to our destiny than escaping hell and going to heaven.
But when we study Scripture, we find that there is more to our destiny than simply escaping hell and going to heaven. In fact, as believers, there is a period of time that we will all go through before we settle into our eternal home in heaven, and that period of time is known as the Millennium. This is a period of time in which Jesus will return to the earth to set up a kingdom over which He will reign for a thousand years. The Millennium and our eternal home in heaven are both described at the end of the book of Revelation.
Revelation 21-22 describes our eternal home in heaven, but before we arrive there, we as believers will go through the events of Revelation 19-20. Revelation 19 describes an event known as the marriage supper of the Lamb, which will be a celebration of the union between Jesus and Christians, because Christians as a group are described in the New Testament as the bride of Christ.
After this, Revelation 19 says that Jesus will return to the Earth—with all of us in tow—to fight against an alliance of armies that will be gathered against the Jewish people at Jerusalem. This is the battle known as the Battle of Armageddon. Jesus will destroy this alliance of armies, and then according to Revelation 20, He will establish a kingdom on this earth that will last for a thousand years. Other prophetic passages tell us that this kingdom will usher in a time of unparalleled peace and prosperity in the world.
We are also told in other passages that we have the opportunity to serve as officials in Jesus’ government if we are faithful to Him in our lives today. However, we are also warned that we can lose the opportunity to reign with Christ if we are unfaithful to Him. In my opinion, this observation is the key to reconciling the security verses in Scripture and the loss verses in Scripture. I believe these verses are talking about two different aspects of future destiny. The security verses are talking about our eternal home in heaven, because that is a gift from God. He gives us that blessing as a gift when He forgives us, as we learned a few weeks ago. But the loss verses, on the other hand—at least the vast majority of them—are talking about the danger of losing the privilege of reigning with Christ during His earthly kingdom. This privilege is never described as a gift in the Bible—it is always described as a reward for faithfulness, a prize that we can win by living for Christ today.
Let me direct your attention to a small set of verses which summarize these two different aspects of our future destiny. Turn with me to 2 Timothy 2:11-13.
2. A summary of the Christian’s life and destiny
Follow with me as I read vv. 8-13 [READ vv. 8-13]. Many translators and interpreters have detected a poetic feel in vv. 11-13 which has led them to believe that these verses may have been part of a hymn that first-century Christians sang, or perhaps some kind of creed that they recited prior to baptism. Whatever they may have been, they give us a concise summary of the Christian’s life and destiny in just four statements.
A. The promise of life with Jesus
The first statement says, “If we have died with him, we will also live with him.” Notice that the words “have died” are in the past tense. They are referring to the spiritual unity that we have with Christ and His death when we accept Him as our Savior. As Colossians 3:3 taught us last week, “you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.”
So our lives are now hidden in Christ, which gives us the assurance that we will live with Him in the future, as this verse says. And notice that the only condition for living with Jesus in the future is dying with Him, which happened to us spiritually when we accepted Christ. So if you have accepted Christ, you have the assurance that you will live with Him. However—notice that there is more to our destiny than just living with Christ!
B. The prize for living for Jesus
The second statement says, “If we endure, we will also reign with him.” In addition to living with Jesus in the future, we have held out to us here the opportunity of reigning with Him in His kingdom on earth. But notice that this privilege will be ours only if we endure, which refers to faithfully living for Jesus through the ups and downs of life. In our lives, we face many difficulties from temptations, the sins of others, and world events in general. Here we have the promise that if we will endure all of these things as faithful representatives of Jesus, then He will allow us to represent Him in His future kingdom as well.
But as you can see, this privilege is conditional, and it is based upon whether or not we are faithful to Christ. So what happens if we are unfaithful to Him? That’s the point of the third statement.
C. The penalty for denying Jesus
The third statement says, “If we deny him, he also will deny us.” At first glance, we might think that “denying Christ” refers to totally rejecting Him. But this word is used in the Gospels in the story of Peter’s denials of Christ, which were not a complete rejection, but unfaithfulness in the face of temptation.
I think that’s what we’re talking about here, especially since this statement is contrasted with the statement about enduring. So if we do not endure, if we don’t remain loyal to Christ in the face of temptation, then the last part of the statement says “he also will deny us.” Here, at first glance, we may ask if this is talking about the loss of our eternal home in heaven, but I think the first statement and the fourth statement prevent us from drawing that conclusion. I think this third statement is just the opposite of the second statement—if we are faithful to Christ, we will be allowed to reign with Christ; if we are not faithful to Him, He will deny us that privilege.
But if we are unfaithful to Him, how will He respond in light of His promises to us? That’s the subject of the fourth statement.
D. The promise of faithfulness from Jesus
The fourth and final statement says, “If we are faithless, he remains faithful—for he cannot deny himself.” The second and third statements have raised the possibility that we may not be faithful to Jesus in our lives in the face of temptation, so what then? Will He back out on His promises to us?
The fourth statement assures us that He never will. He cannot be unfaithful to the promises that He has made to us. We may lose the reward, but we will never lose the gift. The reward is the right to reign with Christ in His earthly kingdom; the gift is the life that we will enjoy with Jesus during His kingdom and on into eternity.
So how are we to deal with the loss verses in the Bible? By remembering that there are two aspects to our destiny—the place that you will spend eternity, and the role that you will play for Christ during His earthly kingdom. In my opinion, this is the only way to make sense of both the security verses and the loss verses. If we try to relate both the security verses and the loss verses to our home in heaven, we will have contradictions in our doctrine that can never be solved. In that case, its no surprise that Christians disagree about this subject, because we’re simply picking sides of a debate that has no solution to it! But if we remember that there are two aspects to our destiny, then as our AWANA theme verse puts it, we can rightly divide the word of truth and thus be a worker who does not need to be ashamed.
Now some people would say that this solution to the subject of eternal security does not do justice to the loss verses that I have mentioned. They would say that the loss being described is far too great to simply be the loss of a privileged role in Christ’s future kingdom. But consider this—when God put human beings on this planet, he put us here to reign! He told Adam and Eve to “have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth (Gen. 1:28). We were made to reign over this planet as God’s representatives. Jesus now holds out to us a second chance—an opportunity to share in the authority that He will one day have over this world. But if you and I are unfaithful to Him today, we could miss out on a chance to do the very thing that humanity was created to do. In my opinion, that is a bitter, bitter loss—one that should not be underestimated.
Our life with Jesus is secure, but our role for Jesus is being determined every day with every choice that we make. Don’t let the reward slip out of your grasp!
Now, as I’ve mentioned this disagreement, perhaps you’ve thought to yourself, “What’s led to all of this? Why do Christians disagree about whether or not we can lose our salvation?” Well, to put it simply, as we read through the Bible, we encounter verses that seem to give us every reason to believe that our salvation is secure, but we also encounter verses that give us strong warnings about the possibility of losing something through disobedience or unbelief. Let me show you what I mean through the words of a few of the authors of Scripture:
From Jesus
• John 6:37—“All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out.”
• John 10:27-28—“My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand.”
• John 15:6—“If anyone does not abide in me he is thrown away like a branch and withers; and the branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned.”
• Matthew 10:33—“Whoever denies me before men, I also will deny before my Father who is in heaven.”
From Paul
• Romans 8:38-39—“For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor power, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
• 1 Corinthians 9:26-27—“So I do not run aimlessly; I do not box as one beating the air. But I discipline my body and keep it under control, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified.”
From Peter
• 1 Peter 1:4-5—“…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.”
• 2 Peter 3:17—“You therefore, beloved, knowing this beforehand, take care that you are not carried away with the error of lawless people and lose your own stability.”
You can probably see for yourself why there have been disagreements over the question of eternal security. Most of the time, people gravitate toward either the “security” verses or the “loss” verses. We tend to emphasize one set of these verses, and then we try to pretend like the other verses don’t exist because they make us uncomfortable!
Various attempts have been made over the years to reconcile the security verses and the loss verses. On the one hand, some of those who believe that we CAN lose our salvation have said that all of the security verses should be read with an unspoken condition in our minds. That is to say that God will never cast us out of His family unless we choose to leave; then, under that condition, He would choose to cast us out. I said last week, however, that I don’t think an unspoken condition does justice to the security verses because their wording is so emphatic.
On the other hand, some of those who believe we CANNOT lose our salvation have said that the loss verses are merely hypothetical. In other words, God is telling us how terrible it would be if He ever cast us out—even though He will never do it! I can’t agree with that solution, however, because I don’t think it does justice to the loss verses. I think the loss verses are meant to warn us about a real danger, and they would lose their power to motivate us if they were only hypothetical. If I tell my daughter someday that I will hypothetically ground her if she doesn’t listen to me, I don’t think that warning will be very motivating for her!
So how can we reconcile the security verses and the loss verses? It will not do to minimize or ignore one set of verses because they are both in the Bible. So how can we reconcile them? By remembering an easily-forgotten observation from Scripture.
1. There is more to our future destiny than heaven or hell!
So often, when we think about our future destiny, our thoughts turn immediately to heaven and hell. That’s understandable in a way, because we all want to be really, really sure that we don’t go to hell. Once we’re sure that we’re not going to go to hell, we kind of breathe a deep sigh of relief and then forget to ask whether there’s anything more to our destiny than escaping hell and going to heaven.
But when we study Scripture, we find that there is more to our destiny than simply escaping hell and going to heaven. In fact, as believers, there is a period of time that we will all go through before we settle into our eternal home in heaven, and that period of time is known as the Millennium. This is a period of time in which Jesus will return to the earth to set up a kingdom over which He will reign for a thousand years. The Millennium and our eternal home in heaven are both described at the end of the book of Revelation.
Revelation 21-22 describes our eternal home in heaven, but before we arrive there, we as believers will go through the events of Revelation 19-20. Revelation 19 describes an event known as the marriage supper of the Lamb, which will be a celebration of the union between Jesus and Christians, because Christians as a group are described in the New Testament as the bride of Christ.
After this, Revelation 19 says that Jesus will return to the Earth—with all of us in tow—to fight against an alliance of armies that will be gathered against the Jewish people at Jerusalem. This is the battle known as the Battle of Armageddon. Jesus will destroy this alliance of armies, and then according to Revelation 20, He will establish a kingdom on this earth that will last for a thousand years. Other prophetic passages tell us that this kingdom will usher in a time of unparalleled peace and prosperity in the world.
We are also told in other passages that we have the opportunity to serve as officials in Jesus’ government if we are faithful to Him in our lives today. However, we are also warned that we can lose the opportunity to reign with Christ if we are unfaithful to Him. In my opinion, this observation is the key to reconciling the security verses in Scripture and the loss verses in Scripture. I believe these verses are talking about two different aspects of future destiny. The security verses are talking about our eternal home in heaven, because that is a gift from God. He gives us that blessing as a gift when He forgives us, as we learned a few weeks ago. But the loss verses, on the other hand—at least the vast majority of them—are talking about the danger of losing the privilege of reigning with Christ during His earthly kingdom. This privilege is never described as a gift in the Bible—it is always described as a reward for faithfulness, a prize that we can win by living for Christ today.
Let me direct your attention to a small set of verses which summarize these two different aspects of our future destiny. Turn with me to 2 Timothy 2:11-13.
2. A summary of the Christian’s life and destiny
Follow with me as I read vv. 8-13 [READ vv. 8-13]. Many translators and interpreters have detected a poetic feel in vv. 11-13 which has led them to believe that these verses may have been part of a hymn that first-century Christians sang, or perhaps some kind of creed that they recited prior to baptism. Whatever they may have been, they give us a concise summary of the Christian’s life and destiny in just four statements.
A. The promise of life with Jesus
The first statement says, “If we have died with him, we will also live with him.” Notice that the words “have died” are in the past tense. They are referring to the spiritual unity that we have with Christ and His death when we accept Him as our Savior. As Colossians 3:3 taught us last week, “you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.”
So our lives are now hidden in Christ, which gives us the assurance that we will live with Him in the future, as this verse says. And notice that the only condition for living with Jesus in the future is dying with Him, which happened to us spiritually when we accepted Christ. So if you have accepted Christ, you have the assurance that you will live with Him. However—notice that there is more to our destiny than just living with Christ!
B. The prize for living for Jesus
The second statement says, “If we endure, we will also reign with him.” In addition to living with Jesus in the future, we have held out to us here the opportunity of reigning with Him in His kingdom on earth. But notice that this privilege will be ours only if we endure, which refers to faithfully living for Jesus through the ups and downs of life. In our lives, we face many difficulties from temptations, the sins of others, and world events in general. Here we have the promise that if we will endure all of these things as faithful representatives of Jesus, then He will allow us to represent Him in His future kingdom as well.
But as you can see, this privilege is conditional, and it is based upon whether or not we are faithful to Christ. So what happens if we are unfaithful to Him? That’s the point of the third statement.
C. The penalty for denying Jesus
The third statement says, “If we deny him, he also will deny us.” At first glance, we might think that “denying Christ” refers to totally rejecting Him. But this word is used in the Gospels in the story of Peter’s denials of Christ, which were not a complete rejection, but unfaithfulness in the face of temptation.
I think that’s what we’re talking about here, especially since this statement is contrasted with the statement about enduring. So if we do not endure, if we don’t remain loyal to Christ in the face of temptation, then the last part of the statement says “he also will deny us.” Here, at first glance, we may ask if this is talking about the loss of our eternal home in heaven, but I think the first statement and the fourth statement prevent us from drawing that conclusion. I think this third statement is just the opposite of the second statement—if we are faithful to Christ, we will be allowed to reign with Christ; if we are not faithful to Him, He will deny us that privilege.
But if we are unfaithful to Him, how will He respond in light of His promises to us? That’s the subject of the fourth statement.
D. The promise of faithfulness from Jesus
The fourth and final statement says, “If we are faithless, he remains faithful—for he cannot deny himself.” The second and third statements have raised the possibility that we may not be faithful to Jesus in our lives in the face of temptation, so what then? Will He back out on His promises to us?
The fourth statement assures us that He never will. He cannot be unfaithful to the promises that He has made to us. We may lose the reward, but we will never lose the gift. The reward is the right to reign with Christ in His earthly kingdom; the gift is the life that we will enjoy with Jesus during His kingdom and on into eternity.
So how are we to deal with the loss verses in the Bible? By remembering that there are two aspects to our destiny—the place that you will spend eternity, and the role that you will play for Christ during His earthly kingdom. In my opinion, this is the only way to make sense of both the security verses and the loss verses. If we try to relate both the security verses and the loss verses to our home in heaven, we will have contradictions in our doctrine that can never be solved. In that case, its no surprise that Christians disagree about this subject, because we’re simply picking sides of a debate that has no solution to it! But if we remember that there are two aspects to our destiny, then as our AWANA theme verse puts it, we can rightly divide the word of truth and thus be a worker who does not need to be ashamed.
Now some people would say that this solution to the subject of eternal security does not do justice to the loss verses that I have mentioned. They would say that the loss being described is far too great to simply be the loss of a privileged role in Christ’s future kingdom. But consider this—when God put human beings on this planet, he put us here to reign! He told Adam and Eve to “have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth (Gen. 1:28). We were made to reign over this planet as God’s representatives. Jesus now holds out to us a second chance—an opportunity to share in the authority that He will one day have over this world. But if you and I are unfaithful to Him today, we could miss out on a chance to do the very thing that humanity was created to do. In my opinion, that is a bitter, bitter loss—one that should not be underestimated.
Our life with Jesus is secure, but our role for Jesus is being determined every day with every choice that we make. Don’t let the reward slip out of your grasp!
Monday, November 7, 2011
Just in Case--Eternal Security Series
In the world of engineering, there is a practice known as “redundancy” that is used to keep machines running and buildings standing. Engineers sometimes choose to duplicate certain parts of a system in order to keep the whole system running even if one of the duplicated parts fails.
You actually use redundancy all the time if you back-up the files on your computer. All of the work we do on our computers is normally saved on the hard drive, but just in case the hard drive crashes, we also save the files on a CD or a jump drive or with some kind of online service so that we have multiple copies of our files. I often e-mail things to myself so that I have a copy in my e-mail account as well. That’s the idea of redundancy at work!
Now, I mean no disrespect or irreverence by what I’m about to say, but from a certain perspective, it seems like God has built some redundancy into His work to secure our salvation. Last week, we looked at what God the Father does to secure our salvation, and we learned some impressive things. I think the Father’s work alone is enough to let us conclude that our salvation is secure, but as if that wasn’t enough, the Bible tells us that God the Son and God the Spirit also work to keep our salvation secure. Today we’ll look at these two persons of the Trinity to see how they work to secure our salvation.
1. How does God the Son secure our salvation?
A. He has promised eternal life to all who believe in Him
By His own words, Jesus has staked His reputation on whether or not believers will ultimately arrive in heaven. On numerous occasions in the Gospel of John, Jesus stated that those who believe in Him have escaped from judgment, will never perish, and will never be cast out. Let’s look at some of His promises:
• John 5:24—“Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life.” Notice that the words “has passed” are in the past tense; Jesus is saying that this action has already happened. The verb tense that is used in Greek describes action that has been completed yet which has ongoing results. The believer has passed from death to life, and is still in the realm of eternal life.
• John 6:37-40—“All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out.” In the Greek text, Jesus uses one of the strongest possible ways of saying no to something when He says, “I will never cast out.” Now to v. 38—“For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will but the will of him who sent me. 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. For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.”
• John 10:27-29—“My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand.”
• John 11:25-26—“I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believe in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die.”
So with these statements—and even a few others—Jesus has confidently proclaimed that whoever believes in Him will not perish, will not be lost, and will not be cast out. Now some of my brothers and sisters in the Lord who do believe that you can lose your salvation have said that these promises have an unspoken condition attached to them. In other words, these statements tell us that Jesus will never cast us out as long as we are faithful to Him.
But the problem that I have with unspoken conditions is that they are just that—unspoken. They are not found in these verses. Now I know my brothers and sisters are attempting to interpret these verses in light of other statements that Jesus made, and that is good. We ALL have to reckon with some other statement that Jesus made if we’re going to be true to the Bible, but I don’t believe that adding an unspoken condition to these promises is the proper approach. Because of the strength of the wording in these statements, I think we should take them as promises from Jesus that He will not fail to carry out.
B. He is serving as a priest and an advocate for us in heaven
Have you ever wondered what Jesus is up to these days? He returned to heaven 40 days after He rose from the dead, and He left with the promise that He will return someday. But what is doing in heaven right now? Well, the Bible says that He is serving as a priest for us. A priest is simply someone who represents other people before God, and according to the book of Hebrews in particular, Jesus is representing us in the presence of God today.
There is a significant statement in Hebrews about Jesus’ priestly activity that is relevant for our discussion of eternal security. Why don’t you turn with me to Heb. 7:23-25? Here the author is contrasting Jesus with the priests of the Old Testament, and he writes [READ vv. 23-25]. There is an interesting word picture with this adjective “to the uttermost” (or your translation may say “forever” or “completely”). This same Greek word was used in Luke 13 to describe a woman who couldn’t stand up straight because she was possessed by a demon. The text says that she couldn’t stand up completely; she was always hunched over. Well, that poor lady couldn’t stand up completely, but Jesus is able to save us completely—not just part of the way or even most of the way, but completely.
The Bible also says that Jesus is in heaven acting as an advocate or a defense attorney for us. 1 John 2:1 states, “My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.” The apostle Paul pictures Jesus in the courtroom setting that we looked at last week in Romans 8. Why don’t you turn there with me? Last week we focused on v. 33, now let’s continue to v. 34 [READ Rom. 8:33-34]. Paul pictures a courtroom scene in which God is our judge and Jesus is our defense attorney. That’s even better than having Matlock on your side!
And as we noted last week, who could possibly win a case against us in that courtroom? If we could lose our salvation, that would mean that Jesus either failed in His defense of us, or He chose not to defend us. But 1 John 2:1 seems to give us the assurance that Jesus will always take up our case! And remember, its not as though God the Father could be persuaded to rule against us anyway. He has already ruled in our favor. That’s why I mentioned the idea of redundancy when we started this morning. God the Father has ruled in our favor, and God the Son is defending us.
So we are doubly safe in the courtroom of God. But we even get a third layer of protection when we consider the work of the Holy Spirit.
2. How does God the Holy Spirit secure our salvation?
A. He acts as a seal to secure our salvation
The purpose of a seal is to keep something safe and secure. The idea is to keep whatever is inside the seal from getting out and whatever is outside the seal from getting in. For example, if you seal up a letter in an envelope, your intention is to keep the letter safely inside the envelope until it arrives at its destination. You are also intending to keep other people out of the envelope to protect the privacy of the letter.
Or, if you seal your windows, the intent is to keep wind and rain from coming in and to keep the hot or cold air in your house from getting out. Or, you may encounter a safety seal on food packaging at the grocery store. The idea of the safety seal is to keep the product in the package and to keep anyone from tampering with the product from the outside.
The idea of security is the same idea behind this ministry of the Holy Spirit. Let’s look together at Ephesians 1:13-14. Notice the word picture in v. 13 [READ v. 13]. The picture is that when we believed, we were placed into Christ, and then the Holy Spirit was placed upon us to seal us in, to keep us safe and secure. And then as we learned a few weeks ago, v. 14 says that the Holy Spirit is the guarantee of our inheritance. He is like a down payment that we’ve received from God until God gives us everything that He has promised—like a heavenly body and a home with Him.
Paul writes about all of this again in 2 Corinthians 1:21-22, where he says, “It is God who establishes us with you in Christ, and has anointed us, and who has also put his seal on us and given us his Spirit in our hearts as a guarantee.”
Now as stated a moment ago, a seal is meant to keep things that are outside from getting in, and things that are inside from getting out. I believe the Holy Spirit functions the same way with respect to our salvation—He protects us to keep anyone else from tampering with our salvation, and He keeps us from ever losing it or rejecting it. Now I realize that if this conclusion is true, then, as Ricky Ricardo used to say, I’ve got some ‘splainin to do, because there are many verses in the Bible that speak of the possibility of a Christian losing something. We will start to talk next week about what to make of those verses, but please hear me out and consider with me one final work of the Holy Spirit.
B. He places believers into the body of Christ
In 1 Corinthians 12, Paul compares our connection to Jesus and to each other to the connection that exists between different parts of the human body. The parts of our body have their differences—the hand is not the same as the eye or the foot, for instance—but they are all connected to form just one body. There is a unity to them that joins them all together.
Well, the Bible says that we have a spiritual unity with Christ that is very similar. Colossians 1:18 states that Jesus is the head of this spiritual body, and all of us are like the various parts of His body. So we enjoy a unity with Christ, one that is so close that Paul can say in Galatians 2:20, “I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.”
Our lives are now wrapped up in His life, and that includes our destiny as well. Turn with me to Colossians 3:1-4. Notice how these verses describe your connection to Christ [READ Col. 3:1-4].
Pastor F. B. Meyer once wrote about two German thrill-seekers who wanted to climb the Matterhorn. They hired three guides and began their ascent at the steepest and most slippery part. The men roped themselves together with the two amateurs between the guides, so they climbed in this order: guide, traveler, guide, traveler, guide. They had gone only a little way up the side when the last man lost his footing. He was held up temporarily by the other four, because each had a toehold in the niches they had cut in the ice. But then the next man slipped, and he pulled down the two above him. The only one to stand firm was the first guide, who had driven a spike deep into the ice. Because he held his ground, all the men beneath him regained their footing. F. B. Meyer concluded his story by drawing a spiritual application. He said, “I am like one of those men who slipped, but thank God, I am bound in a living partnership to Christ. And because He stands, I will never perish.”1
As Jesus said in John 14:19, “Because I live, you also will live.” My friends, does Jesus live today? Praise God that He does! And if you are certain of that, you can be just as certain of your salvation. The Holy Spirit has united us to Christ, so that “[our lives are hidden] with Christ in God.” Your life and destiny are bound up with Jesus, so you can be certain that “you also will appear with him in glory.”
Notes:
1. From http://bible.org/illustration/because-he-stands-i-will-never-perish. Accessed 10-26-11.
You actually use redundancy all the time if you back-up the files on your computer. All of the work we do on our computers is normally saved on the hard drive, but just in case the hard drive crashes, we also save the files on a CD or a jump drive or with some kind of online service so that we have multiple copies of our files. I often e-mail things to myself so that I have a copy in my e-mail account as well. That’s the idea of redundancy at work!
Now, I mean no disrespect or irreverence by what I’m about to say, but from a certain perspective, it seems like God has built some redundancy into His work to secure our salvation. Last week, we looked at what God the Father does to secure our salvation, and we learned some impressive things. I think the Father’s work alone is enough to let us conclude that our salvation is secure, but as if that wasn’t enough, the Bible tells us that God the Son and God the Spirit also work to keep our salvation secure. Today we’ll look at these two persons of the Trinity to see how they work to secure our salvation.
1. How does God the Son secure our salvation?
A. He has promised eternal life to all who believe in Him
By His own words, Jesus has staked His reputation on whether or not believers will ultimately arrive in heaven. On numerous occasions in the Gospel of John, Jesus stated that those who believe in Him have escaped from judgment, will never perish, and will never be cast out. Let’s look at some of His promises:
• John 5:24—“Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life.” Notice that the words “has passed” are in the past tense; Jesus is saying that this action has already happened. The verb tense that is used in Greek describes action that has been completed yet which has ongoing results. The believer has passed from death to life, and is still in the realm of eternal life.
• John 6:37-40—“All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out.” In the Greek text, Jesus uses one of the strongest possible ways of saying no to something when He says, “I will never cast out.” Now to v. 38—“For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will but the will of him who sent me. 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. For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.”
• John 10:27-29—“My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand.”
• John 11:25-26—“I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believe in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die.”
So with these statements—and even a few others—Jesus has confidently proclaimed that whoever believes in Him will not perish, will not be lost, and will not be cast out. Now some of my brothers and sisters in the Lord who do believe that you can lose your salvation have said that these promises have an unspoken condition attached to them. In other words, these statements tell us that Jesus will never cast us out as long as we are faithful to Him.
But the problem that I have with unspoken conditions is that they are just that—unspoken. They are not found in these verses. Now I know my brothers and sisters are attempting to interpret these verses in light of other statements that Jesus made, and that is good. We ALL have to reckon with some other statement that Jesus made if we’re going to be true to the Bible, but I don’t believe that adding an unspoken condition to these promises is the proper approach. Because of the strength of the wording in these statements, I think we should take them as promises from Jesus that He will not fail to carry out.
B. He is serving as a priest and an advocate for us in heaven
Have you ever wondered what Jesus is up to these days? He returned to heaven 40 days after He rose from the dead, and He left with the promise that He will return someday. But what is doing in heaven right now? Well, the Bible says that He is serving as a priest for us. A priest is simply someone who represents other people before God, and according to the book of Hebrews in particular, Jesus is representing us in the presence of God today.
There is a significant statement in Hebrews about Jesus’ priestly activity that is relevant for our discussion of eternal security. Why don’t you turn with me to Heb. 7:23-25? Here the author is contrasting Jesus with the priests of the Old Testament, and he writes [READ vv. 23-25]. There is an interesting word picture with this adjective “to the uttermost” (or your translation may say “forever” or “completely”). This same Greek word was used in Luke 13 to describe a woman who couldn’t stand up straight because she was possessed by a demon. The text says that she couldn’t stand up completely; she was always hunched over. Well, that poor lady couldn’t stand up completely, but Jesus is able to save us completely—not just part of the way or even most of the way, but completely.
The Bible also says that Jesus is in heaven acting as an advocate or a defense attorney for us. 1 John 2:1 states, “My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.” The apostle Paul pictures Jesus in the courtroom setting that we looked at last week in Romans 8. Why don’t you turn there with me? Last week we focused on v. 33, now let’s continue to v. 34 [READ Rom. 8:33-34]. Paul pictures a courtroom scene in which God is our judge and Jesus is our defense attorney. That’s even better than having Matlock on your side!
And as we noted last week, who could possibly win a case against us in that courtroom? If we could lose our salvation, that would mean that Jesus either failed in His defense of us, or He chose not to defend us. But 1 John 2:1 seems to give us the assurance that Jesus will always take up our case! And remember, its not as though God the Father could be persuaded to rule against us anyway. He has already ruled in our favor. That’s why I mentioned the idea of redundancy when we started this morning. God the Father has ruled in our favor, and God the Son is defending us.
So we are doubly safe in the courtroom of God. But we even get a third layer of protection when we consider the work of the Holy Spirit.
2. How does God the Holy Spirit secure our salvation?
A. He acts as a seal to secure our salvation
The purpose of a seal is to keep something safe and secure. The idea is to keep whatever is inside the seal from getting out and whatever is outside the seal from getting in. For example, if you seal up a letter in an envelope, your intention is to keep the letter safely inside the envelope until it arrives at its destination. You are also intending to keep other people out of the envelope to protect the privacy of the letter.
Or, if you seal your windows, the intent is to keep wind and rain from coming in and to keep the hot or cold air in your house from getting out. Or, you may encounter a safety seal on food packaging at the grocery store. The idea of the safety seal is to keep the product in the package and to keep anyone from tampering with the product from the outside.
The idea of security is the same idea behind this ministry of the Holy Spirit. Let’s look together at Ephesians 1:13-14. Notice the word picture in v. 13 [READ v. 13]. The picture is that when we believed, we were placed into Christ, and then the Holy Spirit was placed upon us to seal us in, to keep us safe and secure. And then as we learned a few weeks ago, v. 14 says that the Holy Spirit is the guarantee of our inheritance. He is like a down payment that we’ve received from God until God gives us everything that He has promised—like a heavenly body and a home with Him.
Paul writes about all of this again in 2 Corinthians 1:21-22, where he says, “It is God who establishes us with you in Christ, and has anointed us, and who has also put his seal on us and given us his Spirit in our hearts as a guarantee.”
Now as stated a moment ago, a seal is meant to keep things that are outside from getting in, and things that are inside from getting out. I believe the Holy Spirit functions the same way with respect to our salvation—He protects us to keep anyone else from tampering with our salvation, and He keeps us from ever losing it or rejecting it. Now I realize that if this conclusion is true, then, as Ricky Ricardo used to say, I’ve got some ‘splainin to do, because there are many verses in the Bible that speak of the possibility of a Christian losing something. We will start to talk next week about what to make of those verses, but please hear me out and consider with me one final work of the Holy Spirit.
B. He places believers into the body of Christ
In 1 Corinthians 12, Paul compares our connection to Jesus and to each other to the connection that exists between different parts of the human body. The parts of our body have their differences—the hand is not the same as the eye or the foot, for instance—but they are all connected to form just one body. There is a unity to them that joins them all together.
Well, the Bible says that we have a spiritual unity with Christ that is very similar. Colossians 1:18 states that Jesus is the head of this spiritual body, and all of us are like the various parts of His body. So we enjoy a unity with Christ, one that is so close that Paul can say in Galatians 2:20, “I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.”
Our lives are now wrapped up in His life, and that includes our destiny as well. Turn with me to Colossians 3:1-4. Notice how these verses describe your connection to Christ [READ Col. 3:1-4].
Pastor F. B. Meyer once wrote about two German thrill-seekers who wanted to climb the Matterhorn. They hired three guides and began their ascent at the steepest and most slippery part. The men roped themselves together with the two amateurs between the guides, so they climbed in this order: guide, traveler, guide, traveler, guide. They had gone only a little way up the side when the last man lost his footing. He was held up temporarily by the other four, because each had a toehold in the niches they had cut in the ice. But then the next man slipped, and he pulled down the two above him. The only one to stand firm was the first guide, who had driven a spike deep into the ice. Because he held his ground, all the men beneath him regained their footing. F. B. Meyer concluded his story by drawing a spiritual application. He said, “I am like one of those men who slipped, but thank God, I am bound in a living partnership to Christ. And because He stands, I will never perish.”1
As Jesus said in John 14:19, “Because I live, you also will live.” My friends, does Jesus live today? Praise God that He does! And if you are certain of that, you can be just as certain of your salvation. The Holy Spirit has united us to Christ, so that “[our lives are hidden] with Christ in God.” Your life and destiny are bound up with Jesus, so you can be certain that “you also will appear with him in glory.”
Notes:
1. From http://bible.org/illustration/because-he-stands-i-will-never-perish. Accessed 10-26-11.
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