For R.A., in the knowledge that he will one day understand, and in the hopes that it will be this side of glory.
As a preface to this doctrine, we must keep in mind an important reality. The human heart is desperately wicked (Jer 17:9), and we have trouble believing or accepting teachings that don’t put us at the centre, but rather God. As we dive into this doctrine, we will discover that it is like a beautiful tulip surrounded by a whole flowerbed of doctrines that are hard on human pride and ego. In fact, the reader may be familiar with two petals of the same flower which we considered many months ago, namely, The importance of Hesed and Complete Atonement, briefly.
The biblical truth we are defending today is the reality that once a person is saved by God, God is faithful to preserve their faith until the final day, and they can never fall away, be lost, become unsaved, go to hell, or however else you’d like to say it. This challenges our mankind-centred way of thinking, which is seen in the most common retort offered by the Remonstrant Christian, “what about people who stop believing?” Hear this, because the following is the centre and core of the matter. It’s not about you in the first place. It’s not about your perseverance in faith and holiness, it’s about God’s preservation of his people.
Before we start planning how big the garage should be and whether or not the master bedroom should be north-facing, let’s lay a foundation. Before a person is saved, that is, before a person becomes Christian, they are ‘dead in their trespasses and sins’ to use the language of Ephesians 2. You might think to yourself, “that’s odd, the cashier at Woolies today was certainly a Hindu man, but he appeared to be alive, at least to my untrained eyes.”
That’s true, and when Paul wrote those words he had in mind a spiritual deadness. He goes on to explain that because of God’s kindness and love, he acted unilaterally to move the non-Christian from a place of spiritual death to spiritual life.
“But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ”
Ephesians 2:5a, emphasis mine
This is a monergistic work, meaning that only one party was acting to bring this about, and that is God. Incidentally, that is why a Christian can say ‘Jesus saves’, and not just ‘Jesus tries to save, or at least does his part, but he needs you to say yes for it to work’. See, The importance of Hesed.
As the concrete dries, let us summarise where we are at. Making (spiritually) dead people (spiritually) alive is something God does by himself and for himself because it is his nature to be merciful. A person believes in God because they have been brought to life (Ezekiel 37) and had their eyes opened, they have been granted to believe (Phil 1:29).
As we consider the floor plan, we must consider the three tenses. God saved us, is saving us, and will save us. That is, in eternity past he specifically chose certain people to be saved and come to know him (Eph 1:4-5, Rom 8:29). In the lifetime of those elect people, there is a decisive moment when they are saved, as discussed above (Eph 2:8-9, Rom 10:9-17), and in the future until the final day, those people will be saved (Phil 1:6, Rom 8:30). We are chosen in eternity past, regenerated in time, and saved until the last day.
If you would permit the author to continue dealing fast and loose in allegories, we shall make a trip the cinemas of the near future. Bob and Jane both have tickets to see Fast and Furious 15, which they decided sounded more appealing than the 35th James Bond film. As they approach the bored-senseless 15-year old who is being paid far too little per hour, the reason he permits them entry into cinema 5 is that they both have a ticket each. If a scheming mob were to rob Bob of his ticket, or if Jane came by train and left her ticket on the seat, they would not be permitted entry. If Bob came back the next day with thirty-seven tickets, but then proceeded to sell them all to Smiling Sam, then, yeah you get the picture, no film for Bob.
Now switch it up. The film is hell (this may be true, in hindsight), the ticket-guy is God, and the tickets are your account of sins. You rightly go to hell if you have even one ticket, even one sin. However, if all of your sins were taken from you on the way in, as with Smiling Sam, then there is no way for you to enter hell.
A saved person has all of their sins for all time paid for. That means that there is nothing in the universe that they could be guilty of that would give God cause to send them to hell. The atonement for that person’s sin was definitive, perfect and complete. To say that a saved person could enter hell is to say that Jesus’ work on the cross wasn’t good enough, it is to say that he couldn’t quite pay the price. The instinctive retort here is usually, ‘but what if they turn and hate God, and sin against him, then they’re not going to hell for the things Jesus already forgave but for the sin of unbelief and rebellion!’ However, this misses the fact that a saved person has all their sins paid for, whether past, present or future. It would once again be the position that Jesus failed to pay for all their sins. Such a reply is not just nearsighted, it is even arrogant. For if by one’s rebellion and unbelief one could remove themselves from God’s salvation, what makes you think you wouldn’t fall? Do you really think you would maintain a level of faithfulness to God such that you would not fall away? If apostasy of this kind were possible, we should admit that all people would fall prey to it, including this author, and the esteemed reader, if he or she be a follower of Christ.
When we talk about Jesus ‘paying the price for our sins’, we ought to be more specific. He took the record of sin from all of the people his Father had chosen to save, and when his Father crushed him on that cross, Jesus was a sacrificial lamb, just like the lambs that God’s people had been offering for countless years. However, his work didn’t end there.
“But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God, waiting from that time until his enemies should be made a footstool for his feet. For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified.”
Hebrews 10:12-14, emphasis mine
If your eyes have started to glaze over, pay close attention here: see the effect of Jesus’ offering. Jesus’ sacrifice has perfected for all time those are being sanctified. In other words, Jesus’ sacrifice has already sealed the deal on salvation for all the people his Father gave him. There’s no question, Jesus already locked in and guaranteed the salvation to the end of all who he will draw to himself. This verse by itself is a sufficient argument against the Remonstrant, but we shall nevertheless press on.
“The former priests were many in number, because they were prevented by death from continuing in office, but he holds his priesthood permanently, because he continues forever. Consequently, he is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them.”
Hebrews 7:23-25
Look at the logic in that passage.
- Jesus is a priest who intercedes for his people.
- Jesus holds his priesthood forever since he never dies.
- Therefore, Jesus will always be interceding for his people.
The confidence that a Christian can have comes from the fact that Jesus presented his own sacrifice to his Father, and his Father was satisfied. Regardless of a person’s constant second-guessing of their salvation, regardless of the lies that the Accuser would bring before God the Judge, Jesus is always there for his people, pleading their case to his Father, and because of his perfect sacrifice, the Father will always hear his Son and grant forgiveness.
“…If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously grant us all things? Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who is interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword?”
Romans 8:31b-35
This should knock your socks off! This should blow your fuse box! This should have you going ‘say what now?’ and ‘oh no he didn’t!’ Christian, look at the confidence you can have in your saviour! There is no one who can bring an accusation against you, even though Satan tries to.
To say that a Christian could one day be condemned to hell and separated from the love of God is to say that Jesus failed to intercede on their behalf before his Father, or that the Father beheld his Son’s sacrifice and was not satisfied. It is taking Paul’s jubilant list of trials that cannot separate a Christian from God and say, ‘ah, unbelief is not on this list. You must have missed that, Paul, for unbelief can in fact separate you from the love of God’.
God’s nature prevents him from lying or from failing to do that which he has promised and decreed. It is God’s will that all those whom he gives his Son should be saved, and raised on the last day (John 6:44). To flesh that out for a second, before God made anything, and before any people could do anything right or wrong, God chose to give certain people to his Son that his Son should save them. Also those same people, every single one of them, even the ones with six toes or different coloured eyes, even the ones who can’t remember when to use ‘there’, ‘their’ or ‘they’re’, will all be raised at the last day (in victory, with Christ). The Son always does the father’s will perfectly (John 6:38-39). For a saved person to not be raised on the last day would mean a failure on Jesus’ part to complete his Father’s instructions, and a nullification of God’s promises to those people.
Jesus’ preaching has a deeply pastoral element to it. Also, it assumes a mixed group of listeners: elect and non-elect, and of the elect regenerate and unregenerate. When preaching to a mixed group, obviously Jesus isn’t going to say, ‘Ok this is to only the false believers among you. True believers, you can tune out for a second’ or ‘Ok now I’m talking to those of you who are elect but aren’t yet Christian’.
No, that’s absurd. When preaching to a mixed group, it only makes sense to warn them of the very real possibility of damnation. Some among them are elect but at that stage still dead in their sins. Those people are, at that moment, heading down the track of the damned. Some are false believers, like the second and third seeds in the parable of the sower (Mark 4:1-20). They, falsely thinking they have security in their false faith, need to hear Jesus’ words of warning, though they ultimately will not heed them.
The reprobate will not have ears to hear, and he won’t hear. The elect person will either at that time, or at a time in the future, hear the proclamation of the gospel and the reality of damnation and repent (John 6:37).
This is all to say that Jesus teaching about the reality of damnation to his followers does not mean that those truly regenerate elect followers of his could ever be damned.
The writer to the Hebrews does the same thing, exhorting those Christians to whom he was writing against returning to temple worship, for some of them may well have been false brethren, reprobate men and women who were only following Jesus a short time; while others of them are in view in the author’s heart when he says “in your case, beloved, we feel sure of better things”. Lest we too quickly skip past this beautiful truth, let us treat it like a great work of art we seek to better understand, and behold it for a moment.
The writer to the Hebrews was clearly addressing a mixed group. Through and through, Hebrews is a sermon exhorting troubled followers of Christ to stay true, run the race, and finish with flying colours. However, it is not unreasonable to suggest that a good number of those addressed would have failed to heed these words, and buckling to the cultural pressure, returned to temple worship (which, by the way, proves that this letter was written before 70 A.D.). Even the author understood that some would hear the words and fail to heed them, whilst others would hear this rebuke and stand firm in the faith. All of these people would have made a profession of faith, and called one another Christians. However, it is clear that those who returned to animal sacrifices were not truly Christian. Back to our quotation, the writer recognises that the true Christians amongst those people, the fourth type of seed to use the language from Mark 4, whom he affectionately called beloved, would hear the exhortations against falling away and heed them, run the race, and be welcomed to heaven after their last breath.
Parables serve this same purpose. Jesus teaches in parables to both his disciples and others as we see explicitly in Mark 4:1-2, though on some occasions he explains the parables solely to his disciples, because they have been taught explicitly about the Kingdom of God, “but for those outside everything has been given in parables” (Mark 4:11a). Jesus tells stories wherein the fruits of faithfulness are rewarded and the fruits of unfaithfulness (to put it broadly) result in various judgements (Matt 13, Matt 18:21-35, Matt 25:1-30). Let’s take the parable of the servants in Matthew 25:14-30. The master of the house entrusts three ‘servants’ of his house to steward his wealth while he is away. He gives each of them enormous amounts of money. One talent is, according to my rough calculations, worth the equivalent of AUD $120,000 in today’s economy. He gives one servant five talents (roughly 600k), and another servant two talents, (240k), and the last, one talent (120k).
At the end of the parable, we see that one of these servants did not honour the privilege and responsibility that his master gave him, and he is revealed to be a wicked servant. He is cast into the “outer darkness. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth”. We have heard some make a challenge along the following lines: “you see here that you had three servants who were with their master in his house. Two are faithful, one isn’t, and he’s cast out of the house into the outer darkness. What more evidence of a person losing salvation do you need?”
There are many good responses that could be made to this type of Remonstrant, but we shall consider the foremost objection that should be sustained, and that is one of author’s intention.
When reading any passage of Scripture, it is proper for the astute student to ask herself, “What is the author trying to convey here? What is his main point? Also, to whom is he speaking?” A section of Scripture that was intentionally and primarily teaching on a certain topic would be the foundational text whereby you interpret other off-hand references to the same doctrine in other places. For example, the fact that the parable of the talents happens to include references to slaves/servants is not to be read as Jesus endorsing the practise of chattel slavery and human trafficking. The point of the parable was about stewarding faithfully.
So, in the same way that one could dismiss outright the question about slavery, since Jesus is not teaching about it in that parable, we could simply dismiss this objection as being outside of the purview of this parable. However, we will do one better and return to what we were just saying.
The first response is one of foundational texts and secondary texts. The foundational texts for our doctrine of salvation and perseverance in Scripture are those that are explicitly written concerning those topics. This is a basic principle of systematic theology. We have already seen a number of texts that are directly and intentionally talking about how a person is saved, what the grounds are of their continued confidence and assurance, and based on what realities a person can expect to persevere in faith until the final day. In short, John 6, Romans 8, Hebrews 6-10 et al are the foundational texts that speak clearly on these topics, and any off-hand references to a person who appears to be a faithful servant of their master but ends up being cast into judgement must be interpreted in light of those texts.
This doctrine can only be properly understood in the context of its flowerbed. If the Remonstrant Christian pointed to the wealth of texts that echo the idea that ‘the one who is faithful will be victorious’ and then said ‘see, it offends reason to suggest that a person cannot fall away, since if they walk in lawlessness the rest of their days, they will clearly not be saved’ then they would be misunderstanding the foundations upon which this glorious doctrine of God’s faithfulness is built.
See, a person will always freely act in accordance with their nature. This means that an unregenerate person will persist in lawlessness and unbelief unless God intervenes, and it also means that a regenerate person will grow in Godliness and conformity to Christ Jesus, because the Holy Spirit of God himself is at work to make sure of it. If a person persists in unbelief and rebellion, it is not evidence that the Holy Spirit gave up or could not overcome that person’s hard-heartedness. No, it is evidence that the Holy Spirit never indwelt that person to begin with. Ok now, take a breather, don’t get mad. Before you insist that this is cruel or unloving, consider what the opposite would be. Under the New Covenant, the Holy Spirit will never fail to conform a regenerate person to the image of Christ. That is his job. To suggest that a regenerate person under the New Covenant could at some time fall away into lawlessness and be damned is to allege that the Holy Spirit, God himself, can fail to achieve his purpose, all because of some sinner.
There is one caveat that must be explained clearly. We abhor the ‘easy-believism’ that has arisen among you, and will arise. It is both false and foul to suggest that a person can ‘make a decision for Christ’ at a youth rally at the age of 13, and having subsequently signed a Bible to remind them of their conversion, could live the next 80 years in rebellion, unbelief and idolatry, and expect to be saved. No, as James rightly said, faith without works is dead. As the Lord Jesus said, you will know them by their fruits. It is not good works by which you grasp Christ, but faith. However, if your faith does not produce a life of Godliness and sanctification, then you have no faith at all, and can only expect to hear ‘I never knew you’ on that day.
Gentle and esteemed reader, we exhort you to hear the Good News that Christ has conquered death, and that through him and him only can you have life. Real life. True life. Believe on the Lord Jesus, be obedient to his commandments (Matt 28:18-20), and walk in the confidence of knowing that your God will never leave you or forsake you, and will most certainly never fail to pick you back up and dust you off when you make a mistake.
We shall throw down the gauntlet, as we are wont to do. We are persuaded that this doctrine of God’s faithfulness to preserve his elect people is more clearly revealed in Scripture than even the doctrine of the Trinity, and perhaps equally as prevalent as the doctrine of justification by faith. We maintain that rejection of this doctrine is then likely either (a) traditional or (b) due to a faulty hermeneutic, since it is no less than absurd to say that the Scriptures do not mention it.
“Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good,
for his steadfast love endures forever.”
Psalm 136:1
Distilled Orthopraxy 