When once saved always saved.
Let me illustrate two points:
1. As far as works for Salvation is concerned:
Lets say Jesus sat us all down at a fancy restaurant for dinner. And afterwards Jesus tells us to leave and that he'll pick up the bill. Now do you believe that he actually paid and go about your business, or do you sneak in after he leaves the restaurant and pay your part of the bill because Jesus didn't pay enough or start washing dishes in the back because you think Jesus stiffed the waiter.
2. All are saved but their will be unequality in heaven, the bible makes note of the awarding of Crowns and cities to believers in Heaven. The following illustration is how unequality in heaven comes about:
Lets say I gave 10 people in a room 1 million dollars (salvation) to do with whatever they like and deem them winners. Then a year later I follow up on them, and find that 4 of the winners have spent every last cent of their money, 3 of the winners have invested their money and are now billionaires, and the remaining 3 saved the million and did nothing with it. They are all unequal but they are all still winners.
Conclusion: When God says he will provide you salvation and eternal life forever if you believe upon his son, why would he be an "indian giver" and take it back when you do something bad? God wants you to be free to grow spiritually and no longer make sin the issue in your life. You will continue to sin because we are all sinners genetically, because God made us that way, just as God has provided the salvation with no works tied to it. This is the genius of God to prove to Satan once and for all, that He (God) is a just and loving creator.
John 11:25 Jesus said to her, "I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in Me will live even if he dies,
As Christians, our greatest hope and confidence lies in the fact that at the moment of salvation we have eternal life. The indwelling of all three members of the Trinity, received at the moment of salvation, guarantees us eternal security. God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit indwell the believer's body to guarantee that he cannot lose his salvation. As the Lord said in the Gospel of John, we receive salvation by our decision to believe in the saving work of the Lord Jesus Christ on the cross as the Son of God.
John 6:28 29 Therefore they said to Him, "What shall we do, so that we may work the works of God?" Jesus answered and said to them, "This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He has sent."
Salvation is the result of a single non-meritorious act of faith on our part and relies totally upon the grace of God. We cannot do anything to earn or deserve it, nor can we do anything to lose it. Salvation is a grace gift from God through faith, Ephesians 2:8-9, For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, [it is] the gift of God; not as a result of works [any human effort to attain salvation, ref: Isaiah 64:6], so that no one may boast.
As believers, we fail miserably over and over again, often living worse than an unbeliever. But there is no sin we will ever commit that can undo the perfect salvation work of the Lord Jesus Christ on the cross, which means that we cannot lose our salvation, and once we are saved, we are always saved. Salvation is contingent only upon one's belief in the work of Jesus Christ on the cross. Jesus Christ indwells the believer's body for security, protection and a guarantee that the believer has eternal life. In fact, the moment that the believer dies, he is, absent from the body and at home with the Lord, 2 Corinthians 5:8. The first person the believer will see in Heaven when he leaves his earthly body through physical death is the Lord Jesus Christ.
The Word of God is very clear on the subject of eternal security; unfortunately, many believers are ignorant of this very important doctrine and waste much of their time and energy performing a variety of works in an attempt to earn and keep their salvation. God desires that we know and understand the truth of eternal security, which will provide us with the foundation to live the spiritual life and become a winner in the predesigned plan of God. There is only one way to receive salvation and nothing we can do to lose it once we receive it.
Ephesians 4:30 Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by Whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.
The Greek word in this verse for sealed is sphragizo and it means to stamp with a signet or private mark for security or preservation. Once a believer is sealed by God the Holy Spirit, it can never be reversed or undone. Throughout the Bible this point is made crystal clear.
John 5:24 "Truly, truly, I say to you, he who hears My Word, and believes Him Who sent Me, has eternal life, and does not come into judgment, but has passed out of death into life."
The first two words in this sentence are very important to understand. When the Lord says, "Truly, truly" in the Greek, this is known as a sentential participle, which emphasizes an important point of doctrine. These two words actually mean, for certain, without a doubt, or indeed. Whenever the Lord Jesus Christ says, "Amen, amen" or "Truly, truly", it introduces a point of doctrine, a very vital truth of tremendous importance. The Lord Jesus Christ knew exactly what doctrinal principles Satan would attack, and "Truly, truly" is a warning that what was about to be said would inevitably be under attack by the kingdom of darkness. The phrase, "Truly, truly" or "Amen, amen" is used 25 times in the Bible, all found in the Gospel of John. Each time the phrase is used, it introduces a truth that is of the greatest importance, i.e., something we need to pay particular attention to.
For example, it is used in John 3:3 to introduce the importance of being born again: Jesus answered and said to him, "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God."
In John 5:19 it is used to introduce Our Lord's equality with God the Father: Therefore Jesus answered and was saying to them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of Himself, unless [it is] something He sees the Father doing; for whatever the Father does, these things the Son also does in like manner."
In John 6:26 it is used to warn us against false motivation: Jesus answered them and said, "Truly, truly, I say to you, you seek Me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate of the loaves and were filled."
In John 8:34 it is used to warn us about the bondage of sin: Jesus answered them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is the slave of sin."
In John 8:58 it is used to indicate the deity of the Lord Jesus Christ: Jesus said to them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was born, I am."
In John 10:7 it is used to describe the only way of salvation through the Lord Jesus Christ: So Jesus said to them again, "Truly, truly, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep."
In John 12:24 it is used to bring out the importance of losing your self-life: "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit."
In John 16:23 it is used to describe the importance of prayer: "Truly, truly, I say to you, if you ask the Father for anything in My name, He will give it to you."
In John 5:24 it is used to describe eternal security: "Truly, truly, I say to you, he who hears My Word, and believes Him Who sent Me, has eternal life, and does not come into judgment, but has passed out of death into life."
The phrase, "Truly, truly", is emphasized because the kingdom of darkness attacks doctrine through distortion, with the intent of distracting the believer from advancing in the plan of God. Satan often does this by creating a counterfeit or false doctrine.
Notice in John 5:24 that it says, does not come into judgment, it does not say might not, should not or may not, but emphatically, does not. In the original Greek, the verse is much clearer; it says, kai eis krisin ouk erchetai [and into judgment not comes]. The verb erchetai means to come or to arrive, and therefore, it is correctly translated in the New American Standard Bible as, does not come into judgment.
The word ouk is an interesting word. Joseph Thayer writes that when you join ouk with any verb, it is used to strongly deny that what is being declared in the verb will ever happen to the subject of the sentence. The verb here is krisis, which indicates judgment. The subject is anyone who believes. Therefore, anyone who believes will never come into judgment! The judgment here is an eternal one, so we must conclude that once a person believes in the Lord Jesus Christ, he will never lose his salvation.
As Romans 8:1 states, Therefore there is now no condemnation [katakrima, or judgment, punishment, doom] for those who are in Christ Jesus. Those in Jesus Christ will never be judged or come into judgment - not 'might not', but 'will not'.
John 5:24 "Truly, truly, I say to you, he who hears My Word, and believes Him who sent Me, has eternal life, and does not come into judgment, but has passed out of death into life."
In the original Greek, the word erchomai, translated come in the present tense, means that the scenario is habitually true or keeps on being true. The middle voice indicates that someone else has done the work, and the one who believes benefits from it. The indicative mood indicates that the statement is dogmatic and absolutely true! In fact, with "Truly, truly" or "Amen, amen" at the beginning of this statement, it becomes blasphemous for any believer to even think that someone can lose their salvation! What it does not say is that you may hope to have eternal life, providing that you continue to be faithful, or if you perform some series of works, as some believe. Notice the last phrase, "but has passed out of death into life." The word, but, is the subordinating conjunction alla, which can be translated because or on the other hand. What is meant by a subordinating conjunction? A subordinating conjunction determines the reason why the action of the main verb is true and it does so by setting up a contrast. The main verb here is, does not come into judgment, followed by the conjunction alla, but has passed out of death into life."
The reason that a believer can never be judged or lose his salvation is given with the word metabebeken, meaning to pass over from one place to another, to be totally removed, to totally depart. The perfect tense with an indicative mood is a dogmatic way of referring to eternal security. The moment one believes, he has already passed from death to life, and is not able to pass from life back to death, thereby losing his salvation. The Word of God is crystal clear on this; in John 5:24 the Lord Jesus Christ Himself declares that the moment an individual believes, he "has passed out of death into life."
Ephesians 2:4-5 But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly [places] in Christ Jesus,
If even one believer lost his salvation, the Lord Jesus Christ would be a liar, and He will not have fulfilled His Father's plan.
John 18:9 to fulfill the Word which He spoke, "Of those whom You have given Me I lost not one."
John 17:11-12 "I am no longer in the world; and they themselves are in the world, and I come to You. Holy Father, keep them in Your name, which You have given Me, that they may be one even as We. While I was with them, I was keeping them in Your name which You have given Me; and I guarded them and not one of them perished but the son of perdition, so that the Scripture would be fulfilled."
When the Lord Jesus Christ says, "not one of them perished but the son of perdition," He is referring to Judas Iscariot, and not talking about his physical death, which hasn't yet occurred, but, rather, his being doomed for eternity.
John 6:37 "All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will certainly not cast out."
John 5:24 "Truly, truly, I say to you, he who hears My Word, and believes Him who sent Me [in other words, believes the Father's testimony concerning the Son], has eternal life, and does not come into judgment, but has passed out of death into life."
The grace gift of salvation is irreversible.
Now is the moment to be prepared for eternity by personal faith in Jesus Christ. Believers should live their life in the light of eternity, John 3:16, "that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life." Eternal life belongs to believers only, and is defined as the unbreakable relationship of the believer with the integrity of God - not the love of God - but the integrity of God. It is an unbreakable relationship because of who and what God is, in spite of Who and What we are.
Romans 11:29 for the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable, brings the concept of eternal security into focus. The moment we believed in the saving work of Jesus Christ on the cross, God, in His grace, gave us at least forty things that cannot be cancelled or taken away by anything or anyone not even God Himself.
Romans 8:38-39 For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus Our Lord.
Believers are said to be kept and guarded by the power of God, 1 Peter 1:5, [For you] who are protected by the power of God through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.
The reason why so many believers do not understand that they are kept by the power of God and saved by the grace of God is that they do not know the thinking of God. God cannot and will not cancel or take back eternal life. This fact does not imply, however, that we personally will succeed as believers. Whether we fail in executing the predesigned plan of God for the Church-age and end up a spiritual loser or succeed in executing God's plan and become an invisible hero depends entirely on our attitude toward Bible doctrine.
Eternal security and rebound are not a license to sin.
Galatians 6:7 Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, this he will also reap.
Eternal security ensures us that we cannot lose our salvation; however, we can lose rewards and blessings! Additionally, rebound ensures us that we are forgiven of our sins at the moment we confess them, but it does not magically remove the consequences of our actions. For example, if we break the law and are caught, we are still saved, and if we name and cite the sin, we are forgiven, but we will still suffer the consequences of the established laws. Make no mistake, no one gets away with anything in the Supreme Court of Heaven.
Eternal security is taught in original Greek and Hebrew.
To fully comprehend eternal security, we must understand the indwelling of Christ, which is the actual guarantee of eternal security. We will note a few verses that dogmatically teach this from the inspired original languages of Scripture.
Ephesians 2:8 For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, the gift of God;
This verse starts out with two very important words concerning our subject of eternal security. The first one is the dative singular noun, chariti, which is the word for grace. This is where we get our English equivalent, charity. The second word is the genitive singular feminine noun, pisteous, which is translated, faith. The verse starts out, For by grace you have been saved through faith; this is written to the believer and looks back at the moment he believed in Christ. The subject is the believer, saved through non-meritorious faith in that which God's grace provided. Grace is what God does for us, and not what we do for God; and what God does for us is permanent.
Next is what we call a periphrastic perfect tense, which is composed of two verbs: the perfect passive participle of sozo [saved] and the present active indicative of eimi [has been]. The periphrasis is carried over from the Attic Greek and indicates that the writer cannot get all the details into one verbal form. Therefore, he uses two verbal forms to provide a more forceful expression. Nothing is more forceful than the expression of eternal security for the believer as stated in this periphrastic perfect. The periphrasis is one of the most powerful and most forceful of all expressions in any language! In the Greek it is so strong and powerful that it has no loopholes or leaks of any kind. It indicates that we are tied into eternal life forever, simply by the few seconds it takes to believe in the salvation work of Christ on the cross.
The first verb is a perfect passive participle, sesomenoi, meaning salvation. The intensive perfect of sesomenoi emphasizes the present state from a past action. The present tense refers to the fact that the person is saved, while the past action refers to faith in Christ. This indicates the completion of an action at the moment of faith in Jesus Christ with an emphasis on the existing results; in other words, once saved, always saved. Verbs in the passive voice are generally intransitive. In comparison, a transitive verb makes an incomplete affirmation and requires a direct object to complete its meaning. For example, in Acts 16:31, the word believe is a transitive verb: They said, "Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved." The direct object of believe is the Lord Jesus Christ. However, in our passage, Ephesians 2:8, there is no object. Therefore, the intransitive verb used here makes a complete affirmation of eternal security and does not require an object of the verb to complete its meaning.
For by grace you have been saved, the second finite verb, have been, is added for duration. It is the Greek word este, the present active indicative of eimi, which translates, have been. The gnomic present of eimi expresses a universal doctrine, i.e., eternal security. It expresses a doctrine or fact, an absolute truth, a state of condition that perpetually exists and will never be changed. The time element is remote, because the doctrine of eternal security is true at all times. A believer never loses his salvation, even for a second. This could also be called a static present because eternal security is a condition that perpetually exists.
For by grace you have been saved through faith; Both charis [grace] and pistis [faith] are in the feminine gender. In addition, the demonstrative pronoun houtos, translated that, is in the neuter gender; therefore, houtos, the near demonstrative pronoun, refers to neither grace nor faith. The use of the neuter gender, which is the Greek way of saying, "and this", refers to the entire idea of salvation. In other words, and that [salvation is] not of [from] yourselves; mankind cannot do anything to achieve his own salvation.
On the other side of the words grace and faith, we do not have the feminine gender; instead, we have a break in the original Greek, the neuter gender of the immediate demonstrative pronoun houtos. We would have had a feminine gender if the words grace and faith were being referred to next specifically, which they are not. The word houtos is in the neuter gender because, although it does refer to grace and faith, it refers to them as part of salvation in general. What this all means is that the grace, faith, and salvation collectively are not of ourselves, but are, as Ephesians 2:8 teaches, the gift of God.
The word gift is the singular neuter noun, doron, which refers to something voluntarily transferred by one person to another without any compensation or obligation. This is the original Greek way of saying that by grace we have been saved through faith, and that the grace, the faith, and the salvation are all the gift of God. Ephesians 2:9 goes on to say, Not as a result of works, so that no one may boast. The word, not, is the participle ouk that we noted earlier.
Remember what Joseph Thayer said about this word; when you join ouk with a verb, it is used to emphatically deny that what is being declared in the verb will ever happen to the subject of the sentence! In other words, there was never a time when anyone was saved by, or even pleased God with, any form of human works!
In the book of Acts, Chapter 16, the original language of the Koine Greek is also very clear concerning the work of salvation and eternal security. Acts 16:25-31 But about midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns of praise to God, and the prisoners were listening to them; and suddenly there came a great earthquake, so that the foundations of the prison house were shaken; and immediately all the doors were opened and everyone's chains were unfastened. When the jailer awoke and saw the prison doors opened, he drew his sword and was about to kill himself, supposing that the prisoners had escaped. But Paul cried out with a loud voice, saying, "Do not harm yourself, for we are all here!" And he called for lights and rushed in, and trembling with fear he fell down before Paul and Silas, and after he brought them out, he said, "Sirs, what must I do to be saved?" They said, "Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, [this applies to] you and your household."
In this passage, the jailer was not thinking of spiritual deliverance, but of physical deliverance. He is saying, in reality, how can I get out of this jam? However, although this man was preoccupied with physical deliverance, he had already been prepared by God the Holy Spirit for spiritual deliverance. The jailer, like many individuals, needed a tragedy to awaken his God-consciousness. This is what we call crisis evangelism, which is often misunderstood and used to attack the character of God. But, for some people, disaster is the only way to wake them up. National and local disasters have always been effective soul-winning devices. And God may use any one of us as He used Paul, to be a light in the midst of a disaster. Many people will not give even one thought to God or to salvation until they are placed in the middle of a disaster; thus the principle of crisis evangelism.
The word, believe, in this passage, is the Greek verb pisteuo, which is from pisteuson, the Greek word meaning, system of perception. Perception is something that goes on constantly in the minds of normal, average people. The Bible teaches that all men have faith perception, or God-consciousness, to which the invitation to believe is given. There are three systems of perception: (1) rationalism, which is relying on reason or knowledge, (2) empiricism, relying on observation and experience, and (3) faith, the only non-meritorious system of perception, which is believing in something. It is the object of faith that has all merit, and the object of faith in Acts 16:31 is the Lord Jesus Christ. The emphasis in faith is always on the object. The object does the work and the object gets the credit, and this is totally compatible with the principle of grace. In grace, God does all the work and God gets all the credit, and man simply receives what God has provided. This is why mankind's greatest enemy is religion and legalism. Within religion and legalism lie total opposition to grace, and the promoting of man doing the work so that man gets the credit. Legalistic thinking may be as subtle as baptism, giving money in expectation of blessing, tithing, joining the church, repenting from or feeling sorry for sins, or even living morally, all of which entail some form of works.
In Acts 16:31, the word believe, or pisteuo, is an aorist tense. With an aorist tense being used, it means that at the exact point of time that you believe, God saves you. It is not a present tense, which would indicate that you have to keep on believing, or else you could lose your salvation. It is not only academic dishonesty, it is also blasphemous to tell people that they can lose their salvation, and then back it up by misquoting the original languages. In addition to the aorist tense, the word believe, or pisteuo, is an active voice, which disproves hyper-Calvinism and those who deny the existence of a free will. The active voice indicates that the subject produces the action of the verb, and that there is no violation of human volition. In addition, the imperative mood tells us that this is a command. In fact, it is the only way of salvation. They said, "Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved," The phrase, will be saved, is the future passive indicative of the word sozo, referring to eternal salvation. The future tense is what is known as a logical future, which reveals the fact that once you believe you shall be saved. The passive voice receives the action of the verb, and the indicative mood indicates that this is a dogmatic statement that cannot be changed!
Following are additional passages indicating salvation in the passive voice and revealing the fact that mankind can do nothing for salvation, nor can he do anything from his own nature to please God after he has been saved:
Colossians 2:6 Therefore as you have received Christ Jesus the Lord, walk in Him.
John 3:17 "For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved [aorist passive subjective] through Him."
John 5:34 "But the testimony which I receive is not from man, but I say these things so that you may be saved [aorist passive imperative]."
John 10:9 "I am the door; if anyone enters through Me, he will be saved [future passive indicative], and will go in and out and find pasture."
John 12:47 "If anyone hears My sayings and does not keep them, I do not judge him; for I did not come to judge the world, but to save [aorist active subjective] the world."
The following passages have the verb sozo [saved] in the passive voice, and reveal eternal security:
Acts 2:21 "And it shall be that everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved."
Acts 15:11 "But we believe that we are saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus, in the same way as they also are."
Romans 5:9 Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from the wrath [of God] through Him.
Romans 10:9 [the word of faith which we are preaching,] that if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved;
Romans 10:13 "whoever will call on the name of the Lord will be saved,"
Because we are in union with Christ, nothing can separate us from our eternal salvation. This can also be referred to as the baptism of the Spirit rationale. Upon receiving the baptism of the Spirit at the point of faith in Christ, every believer in the Church-age is entered into union with Christ. This is called positional sanctification, meaning that every Church-age believer shares who and what Christ is. Jesus Christ is eternal life; therefore, being in union with him means we share his eternal life.
1 John 5:11-12 And the testimony is this, that God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. He who has the Son has the [eternal] life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have the [eternal] life.
We also share Jesus Christ's divine righteousness, 1 Corinthians 5:21, we are accepted in Christ forever, Ephesians 1:6, we share the destiny of Christ, Ephesians 1:5, we share the heirship of Christ, Ephesians 1:4, and we are sanctified in Christ, 1 Corinthians 1:2,30. He is the Son of God, and we share in His sonship, Galatians 3:26; He is a king, and we share in His kingship, 1 Peter 1:11.
2006-06-30 16:26:26
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answer #1
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answered by Marky-Mark! 5
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