There is a constant attack from the realms of darkness on the security that one has in Christ. Over and over again, I read of ministers and preachers arguing that salvation is not forever – that you can sin away your salvation; you can choose to give up salvation just like you chose to accept it; that eternal life is not really eternal life; it has conditions.

I have recently seen one man whom I follow say that he has changed his mind. He is now convinced that one can lose salvation after you have it. But here is the truth that we need to come to grips with: a person can be a failure as a Christian and still be saved. In our human world, children are born into a family; some are healthy and productive, while others are sick and need constant care. Some children will be a benefit to the family and society, and others will be a drain and a weight on the family and society, but they are our children. A simple DNA test will identify them with the parents and with the family; there is no denying it.

So let us look at salvation and the eternal nature of it, and later we will see that if one could lose it, it can never be regained, ever.

What is salvation?

Romans 4:1-4, “Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness,” that is it. Yes, we need to see that we are sinners and know that we are lost, but what is required is simple belief in what God did for us. The Thief on the cross said, “Lord, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” And with this, he is eternally saved.

In Galatians 3:6-9, faith in God, that is it. Salvation cannot be earned, and if one goes back to Genesis 15, God performs a ritual between two halves of an animal and performs the covenant and swears by Himself to keep the covenant He made with Abraham. Normally, this kind of ritual was performed between the two kings and was in place until one died. God will never die, and as such, this covenant is eternal.

Our Sin is removed! David, writing in Psalm 32, tells us “Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven,” and later, “Blessed is the man to whom the Lord does not impute sin.”

David was an adulterer, he was a murderer, and at times, did a lot of evil and caused a lot of pain in Israel, yet he rejoiced that God forgave his sin and removed his sin. In Psalm 103:12, we are told our sins are removed as far as the “east is from the west.” In Micah 7:19, we are told our sins are “cast into the depths of the sea.” In Isaiah 43:25, God tells us that He “blots out our transgression and will not remember our sins.”

For one to become lost after one is saved, then God would have to recall our sins and uncover them from being covered. In 1 Kings 11:4, we are told that Solomon’s wives turned his heart to follow other gods. Yet still he was saved, and we will see him in Heaven when we get there. In Psalm 51, David asks God to restore the “joy of your salvation,” but God is not asked to restore salvation because David never lost it.

If Salvation were to be lost, it cannot be had again. Hebrews 6:4-6 says it is IMPOSSIBLE for those that once had the gift, if they should lose it, to get it again. Why? Paul (the writer of Hebrews, in my understanding) says that for one to regain a salvation that was lost, Jesus would have to come and be put to open shame once again. If the sins that you have committed since you were saved could ‘unsave’ you, then they would need to be covered in a fresh batch of Jesus’ blood; if not, there is no salvation to be had. Thus, once lost, always lost. We know that is not true, not possible. We are told over and over again that Jesus died once for all (Romans 6:10, Hebrews 10: 10-14, 1 John 2:2, 1 Peter 3:18, Hebrews 9:28, 1 Corinthians 15:3), and on we can go. The point is Jesus died ONCE for sins, and that is it.

If there are sins that are not covered by His blood, then we cannot be redeemed, and we cannot enter Heaven. If salvation is not eternal once it has been given by Christ, then the only people in Heaven are the Thief on the Cross, babies, those that are mentally retarded, and those that died immediately after being saved. All others committed sins once they were saved.

My goodness, the apostles, while they walked with Jesus, sinned. Peter denied Jesus; nine of the others abandoned Him. Peter took the large group, including John, away from fishing for men, to fish for fish once again in John 21, and yet they are all in Heaven. Their sins did not disqualify them from Heaven.

In Hebrews 11, the famed Hall of Faith, we see Abraham and adulterer, Samson, who chased many women. Noah became drunk after the flood and ended up involved in some kind of sexual misconduct; we are not told the extent of it. We often get on Abraham, but Sara was complicit in his sin; she encouraged him, and yet here she is. Jacob is mentioned in Hebrews 11:21-22, yet he is a trickster and a cheat. Moses hit the rock twice and could not enter the physical Promised Land, but he is there on the Mount of Transfiguration. Gideon, that great warrior, ended up building an idol after God’s great victory that was a stumbling block to Israel.

We can go on. I hope you get the point. Saved people are sinners. Peter and Paul fought over Peter’s hypocrisy (Galatians 2:11-13). There was a man in Corinth having sexual relations with his father’s wife (not his mother); he did not lose salvation, and once he repented, he was restored.

If you are truly saved, you have eternal life. That is a fact! You cannot opt out of it, you have been redeemed, and in fact, we are told that at the Judgment Seat, if one loses rewards because our life after salvation did not produce lasting fruit, yet still we are saved (1 Corinthians 3:9-15).

Insecurity about being saved is one of the ways that Satan keeps us as children in Christ. We are never sure that we are saved, and thus we stumble and are stunted. Look, we all have doubts, Thomas did, Peter did, Gideon did, the believers doubted the women that the tomb was empty, and on and on we can go. But God shows Himself to His people, and He shows up in ways that we know it could only be Him.

If you have been saved, if you have trusted in, put your faith in, and called on Jesus to save you, He did, and it is an eternal gift. You did not work to earn it, and you cannot work to lose it. You are a child of God; Jesus’ righteousness has been given to you (2 Corinthians 5:21), and God has chosen to eternally forget your sins; they are at the bottom of the sea, and they are totally covered, never to be brought up again. You are saved eternally. Now, go and live for Him with the same energy with which He died for you.

seangooding@yahoo.ca

Dr. Sean Gooding
Pastor of Bethany Baptist Church
70 Victoria Street, Elora, Ontario

Last week, we explored God’s patience with us as sinners. We can think, ‘hey, we are not as bad as that guy or those people,’ but the truth is ALL sin ends in death. One of the hardest things for people to come to grips with in our world today is who they are. Men want to be women, women want to be men, the older people wish they had their youth, the youth wish they were older, and on and on we go. In this passage in Romans 3, Paul clearly states what and who we all are. We are sinners, every single one of us is a sinner.

Beginning in verse 10, Paul lays out the depth of the sinner that we all are. IN verse 11, no one seeks God. In fact, it is God who comes seeking us.

In verse 12, we are all ‘unprofitable’; we have no value. It may surprise you to know that God does not need us. We do not add value to God when we are saved, and we do not remove value from God if we reject His grace. God is sufficient without us. Our very mouths are evil; our mouths are full of evil and filled with threats.

In verses 16-17, our feet are swift to do evil. In verse 16, we destroy all that we come into contact with.

In verse 18, there is no fear, no ‘respect’ for God in our eyes. Paul concludes that ALL are sinners and fall short of God’s glory.

We live in a world, even in the ‘church’ world that no longer calls out sin, no longer acknowledges that we are all sinners, evil to the core, and have no value at all. We have broken all of God’s laws, and we have done so without remorse and without even the slightest hint of hesitation. Yet, in churches all around us, sin is no longer called out; rather, it is affirmed. Sexual perversion is called ‘love,’ laziness is called all manner of disorders, and we make excuses for people to steal from others and from stores. We reclassify what God calls sin and rebrand it to appease people. But we are sinners, and without Jesus, we are all going to Hell.

Jesus will not judge from an updated, progressive writing of the Books when we stand at the judgment. Oh yeah, I forgot; people don’t fear judgment anymore because we have told them that God is okay with their sin now; He has learned a few things over the millennia. If that is the case, then Jesus was a fool, and His death was for nothing. God negated His sacrifice by reclassifying sin. Sorry, Son, times change.

BUT we know the truth; sin is sin. It was sin 4,000 years ago in the Old Testament, and it is still sin now. Stealing is sin, lying is sin, murder is sin, rebellion towards parents is sin, adultery, making false accusations against your neighbor, and on and on. Yes, you got it; all of it is sin. To sin is to fall short of God’s perfection. That is us; you and I.

Even as saved people, we are sinners. However, in Jesus, we have hope. In Jesus, we can be saved from the penalty of sin, saved from God’s judgment, and restored to right relation with God. Jesus’ perfection makes us perfect, and He welcomes us as His family. This was then and still is the only solution for sin and the sin nature that plagues us.

Take an honest look at yourself and see the sinfulness in your own life, even as a child of God. Let us never grow weary of thanking God for redeeming us, for saving us, and for sending His beloved Son to pay for our sin.

For a brief moment in history, Jesus looked like us, sinful, unable to meet the perfection of God, and then it was completed. But because of that brief moment in history, you and I can look like Jesus for eternity and be perfect and have loving, joyful, friendship-based relationships with God. Sin is our problem, and Jesus is still the only solution.

seangooding@yahoo.ca

Dr. Sean Gooding
Pastor of Bethany Baptist Church
70 Victoria Street, Elora, Ontario