Hebrews Lesson 107 November 8, 2008
NKJ Acts 4:12 "Nor is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved."
Open your Bibles to John 5:42. Since we are talking about eternal security and the whole issue of the gospel…last time I mentioned this and I didn't get my focus on the right verse. In John 5:42 we have a passage that is at the center of this whole controversy that has developed in the Free Grace Movement. The contention is best stated in an article Zane Hodges wrote and he has used this in numerous speaking opportunities where he has talked about this. He sets up the scenario.
A man is on a desert island. He doesn't know anything about Christianity at all. He doesn't know anything about the Bible. A bottle floats up and it has a piece of paper in it. Most of the text is washed out, but a little bit is left.
In John 5, did I get the verse wrong again? No, I didn't. I thought I copied it in my notes. I got it wrong again. I can't believe I did this.
Jesus says, "If you believe, I will give you eternal life."
That's all it says. It's a short verse. It's not 5:24 in my Bible. My Bible says:
NKJ John 5:24 " Most assuredly, I say to you, he who hears My word and believes in Him who sent Me has everlasting life, and shall not come into judgment, but has passed from death into life.
Maybe it's 6:24. I have to have the verse to make the point; otherwise it's going to fall flat. Okay, John 6:47.
NKJ John 6:47 "Most assuredly, I say to you, he who believes in Me has everlasting life.
Apparently what Zane sets up is that he has this passage from John 6:43-47. But the only thing that is visible…everything else is wiped out or washed out except for the phrase "Jesus therefore answered and said to them"... then verse 47…
Now how many of you all (now here is an interesting little side note) have a New American Standard or an NIV? This is confession time. See you don't have "in Me" in your text…so not only does the illustration kind of fall apart in terms of its theology, but Zane's a Majority Text guy. It's got to be the Majority Text that washes up on the island. If he gets the NIV or NASB, the guy can't get saved at all. But his point is that Jesus offers eternal life and that this is all you need to get saved. There is no mention of the cross. There is no mention that Christ died for your sins. There is no mention of anything. All you need to know and the way he sets it up and describes it in print is that he reads this and then he makes the statement and somehow the man is convinced that this Jesus can actually give him and can guarantee him that he has eternal life.
Now my question is how can this guy on the island distinguish between Jesus of Nazareth and Jesus the gardener and Esa the Moslem. He can't because there is no content there. The hole in the logic is that somehow he is convinced (as Hodges states it somehow he becomes convinced) that this Jesus can guarantee the promise. The "somehow" is your logical hole because the somehow means that in some way he is told something about who this Jesus is. That would include His deity and that He could do that. That's what is implied there. He is not just leaving out the Holy Spirit; He is leaving out the cross completely. That's the issue.
That's why this guy Tom Siegel up in Duluth Bible Church (You can go to their website and read some of his articles) is saying they have a cross-less gospel. It is not that they don't believe in the cross. I want to make that clear. But, they believe that a person can get enough information to be saved without knowing that Christ died on the cross for their sins. This is where we have a problem and why we're having these theological arguments and problems at Chafer Seminary and other things that have gone on the last few years. Part of this is the idea that what Jesus is offering is eternal life.
The other nuance that is developing in this debate and this discussion is that eternal life (the eternal part of the phrase eternal life) means that when you understand that Jesus is giving you eternal life what that means is if you don't understand that it's eternal in the sense that it can't be taken from you or can't be lost then if you aren't believing that it's eternal life that you are getting then you aren't saved. In other words (in the most extreme form of that) position was stated in a paper at the Grace Evangelical Society last year, though the author later backed off of it.
See one of the reasons these kinds of conferences is for guys…it's like a professional society. You present your paper for peer review. Sometimes your theological ideas are wacky.
Your peers come along and knock you down and say, "Well, you're missing this and you're missing that. This is wrong."
So he did back off of this. But some of these guys are clearly saying that if you don't have a sense…the phrase they'll use is that assurance is of the essence of saving faith and that if you're not assured of your salvation which we have studied subjective realization that you can't lose your salvation. If you don't have an assurance of salvation, then you were never ever saved. That causes all kinds of problems; theologically I think…many, many problems.
That is why we are studying this whole issue of eternal security because this is at the heart of this issue. Now our starting point was in our passage in Hebrews 7:25.
NKJ Hebrews 7:25 Therefore He
He being Jesus.
is also able to save to the uttermost those who come to God through Him, since He always lives to make intercession for them.
The word "uttermost" has the idea to save completely, totally. Jesus is able to do this interestingly enough in Hebrews 7 because He's eternal. That's been the whole argument here, that He is eternal and has an eternal priesthood. Therefore because He has an eternal priesthood He can save eternally. That is a basis for understanding eternal security, but it is not a basis for becoming saved. The object of faith at salvation isn't eternal life. The object of faith is Christ who died on the cross for your sins.
That is what we find in passages such as I Corinthians 15. Turn with me there. You ought to have these verses underlined. Paul is talking to the Corinthians. He says:
NKJ 1 Corinthians 15:1 Moreover, brethren, I declare to you the gospel which I preached to you, which also you received and in which you stand,
So he is getting ready (or as we say in Texas, "He is fixin'.") to define the gospel.
NKJ 1 Corinthians 15:2 by which also you are saved, if you hold fast that word which I preached to you
Word being synonymous to gospel, the message.
-- unless you believed in vain.
This is a second class condition indicating it's not – unless you believed in vain, but you didn't believe in vain that is.
NKJ 1 Corinthians 15:3 For I delivered to you
See delivering to you…how did he deliver to you? He proclaimed it. He spoke the message, the Word. Here he is giving the content of his gospel message
first of all that which I also received: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures,
NKJ 1 Corinthians 15:4 and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures,
So he goes on. Everything he says here is not central to the gospel because the construction continues.
NKJ 1 Corinthians 15:5 and that He was seen by Cephas, then by the twelve.
So you see "that he was seen by Peter" is still part of the sentence and the object of what he explained to them. So in one sense what he is explaining here is the mechanics of how salvation was accomplished.
But what is it that you believe? Well, let's turn to another passage. Turn to 1 Thessalonians 4. Move on passed Ephesians, Colossians, to 1 Thessalonians 4 – a passage that is cited at almost every funeral. Verse 14 is the key passage.
NKJ 1 Thessalonians 4:13 But I do not want you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning those who have fallen asleep,
That is the believers who have died physically.
lest you sorrow as others who have no hope.
NKJ 1 Thessalonians 4:14 For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who sleep in Jesus.
A first class condition – here it is assuming it's true.
What is it that you believe? It's what's on the other side of the "that". That's what you believe – that Jesus died and rose again. You can't divorce the message of Jesus' death on the cross from what a person believes when they are saved, for that is the issue.
One more passage that I want to go to is in I Corinthians 1. Once again it's a context here of division and Paul says:
NKJ 1 Corinthians 1:17 For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel, not with wisdom of words,
Now that doesn't mean that Paul wasn't supposed to baptize. It's that it wasn't his primary mission. His primary mission was to proclaim the gospel. His primary mission...God didn't send him to take up a collection either. But I Corinthians he takes up a collection for the poor in Jerusalem. See God didn't send him…he's really making a point that...
He's not saying "God didn't send me to baptize and therefore baptism isn't for today."
He is saying, "That wasn't my primary objective."
The primary objective was to proclaim the gospel, not with wisdom of words. In other words it's not based on the rhetorical standards of Greek, speaking and using the right words and the right style and all these things.
lest the cross of Christ should be made of no effect.
That indicates there that the cross of Christ is a key element in the gospel. Then in verse 18 he says:
NKJ 1 Corinthians 1:18 For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.
If there is no message of the cross, then he is not proclaiming the gospel. The preaching of the gospel is the message of the cross.
Then skip down to verse 23. He says:
NKJ 1 Corinthians 1:23 but we preach Christ crucified, to the Jews a stumbling block and to the Greeks foolishness,
In verse 17 he is to preach the gospel. That is further defined in verse 23 as preaching Christ crucified.
NKJ 1 Corinthians 1:24 but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.
NKJ 1 Corinthians 1:25 Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.
The point that he is making is that he is there to preach the cross. The cross is at the core of the gospel message because that is what secures our salvation.
So I find this to be the oddest piece of logic that some of these people are getting into. You wonder how they...I don't know, people get sometimes all messed up and then they come up with some little doctrine that they think is such a brilliant breakthrough. And then anyone who doesn't agree with them gets excluded from fellowship because you don't agree with my-little-pinhead-doctrine. Every one of us can come up with some little nuance or shade on some aspect. But, especially when you come up with something that no one else in church history has ever come up with ...and that doesn't mean it's not right. The Lord knows the more we probe the depths of Scriptures, pastors and theologians can always put together and they do put together and come to understand the Scriptures in a better fashion than maybe it has been understood before. But when no one else has ever emphasized something that you're emphasizing, don't make it the watershed for fellowship. Don't make that the benchmark of orthodoxy. In church history there has always been a process where the leaders in the church will debate these issues and work out the kinks among those who are trained and equipped in the Scriptures. So that is what's going on.
One reason eternal security is such an important issue within the Free Grace Camp and it's also important because in the broader scenario of evangelicalism, you have Arminians on the one hand who don't believe in eternal security and you have Calvinists (High Calvinists) on the other hand who don't believe that you can have an assurance of your salvation. Yet, the Bible teaches both.
I pointed out last time that the difference is this - eternal security is the objective side of the coin. You know that God promises that if you're saved you can never lose that salvation. Assurance of salvation is the personal subjective side of the coin that I understand that I am certain of my salvation. Those are the two sides of the coin. So even though you have eternal security until you come to understand it, you may not feel assured of your salvation. Others may be sure of their salvation now, but they don't understand eternal security so they are afraid that if they do something, they can lose that salvation. That's true about Arminians.
So we defined eternal security as the work of God toward the believer at the instant of faith alone in Christ alone. It is God's work, not our work. We don't keep ourselves; God keeps us. In fact as we're studying all three members of the trinity keep us. They're all involved in keeping us. It's the work of God which guarantees that God's free gift of salvation is eternal and cannot be lost, terminated, abrogated, nullified, or reversed by any thought, act or change of belief in the person saved.
Now last time I went through some introductory concepts talking about the definition, key terms like "once saved, always saved". I explained the difference between assurance and eternal security, the historical development between High Calvinism and Arminianism and then the problem as it's developed within High Calvinism and Lordship salvation.
Now tonight I am looking – last time we also started looking at how God the Father secures our salvation.
I'm going to break it down this way. We are going to look at how God the Father secures our salvation, how the Son secures our salvation and how God the Holy Spirit secures our salvation. In that we'll look at some basic things that come from the character of God Himself - that's true of all three members. That's where we're starting – from the character of God in terms of who God is before we get into the three Persons.
So the first argument really comes from the character of God. We have our essence of God. He's sovereign; He's righteous; He's just; He's love; He's eternal; He's omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent, veracity, and immutability. He can't ever change.
Now I went over this last time before we finished. In His omniscience God knows all the knowable. If He knows everything, then He knows every sin that's going to be committed in history. So He can design a solution that takes care of every sin in history.
Now one of the things you may run into…somebody may say, "Hmm, well, He takes care or murder in principle, but not the individual murders."
He's not paying for sins if He does that. But I have had people try to argue that. He is omniscient so He knows everything.
He is omnipotent which means that God is able to do what He intends to do. Omnipotence doesn't mean that God can do anything at all because God can't make a circle square or silly little things like that. Omnipotence means that God is able to do everything He intends to accomplish. He is all powerful. So if He plans to solve the sin problem, He is able to solve the sin problem.
In His omniscience He knows every sin so it's paid for and it's paid for immutably. It never changes. So, all of His aspects of His character are involved in solving the sin problem from the aspect of His character. Furthermore, it also means that God is able to keep His promises. Under immutability, we know that God is faithful and that He never changes.
Then another aspect has to do with His integrity. Integrity focuses on four aspects of God's character. It deals with righteousness which is the standard of His character, His justice which is the application of that standard to every area of life, love which is an integral part of His makeup which is always consistent with righteousness and justice because love has to do with personal relationship.
And He is truth. Of course love is related to faithfulness. The Old Testament you have the Hebrew word chesedh which means loyal or faithful love. So these things are all pulled together. The psalmist talks about the fact that righteousness and justice are the foundation of His throne and love and truth go out from it.
So this is the foundation. In His omniscience and omnipotence He is able to do all which He has planned. In His immutability, He is faithful to His word. He has promised He will secure our salvation. In His integrity He is consistent with His promise and He is going to bring it about. So this is all from the character of God.
Now let's look at the argument from the character of God the Father. The believer is secured by the purpose, the power, the provision and love of God the Father - all of those. Last time we looked at the purpose in terms of Romans 8:29-30.
NKJ Romans 8:29 For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren.
NKJ Romans 8:30 Moreover whom He predestined, these He also called; whom He called, these He also justified; and whom He justified, these He also glorified.
He doesn't lose anybody. Whoever gets justified gets glorified. When you put your faith alone in Christ at that instant God imputes to you the perfect righteousness of Christ. At that instant God declare you just. Nobody gets lost. Of those He justifies all are glorified, no more and no less.
Now when we get into looking at this whole aspect of God's power and God's ability to save us from sin, one of the problems that we run into is that too many people have a distorted view of what sin is. This is why sometimes it's necessary when you're witnessing to somebody to help them understand that they're sinners. There are a lot of people who don't think they are sinners. Some people are pretty clear that they are sinners.
But there are other people who think, "Well, sin is racism. Sin is something defined in terms of intolerance today."
Or, they are defining sin in terms of some cultural problem. They don't understand that sin is a violation of the character of God. Therefore they don't really understand what salvation is all about. You're saved from something and you're saved from the eternal consequences of sin. So people have a small view of sin. If you have a small view of sin, you're going to have a small view of salvation. Often you see this especially with those who are more inclined to Arminianism and the fact that if you commit certain sins you lose your salvation. If you talk to some Arminians, they haven't sinned in a long time because Wesleyan Arminians can become perfect. They can become sinless. See, they have a narrow view of what sin is. Sin is doing one or two or three things and as long as they don't do those 3 or 4 things, they're sinless. So they have a small view of sin and consequently a small view of salvation.
A good passage to go to when you are talking to someone like this is James 2:10.
NKJ James 2:10 For whoever shall keep the whole law, and yet stumble in one point, he is guilty of all.
See it doesn't matter that you didn't commit murder or that you didn't commit adultery or that you weren't a false witness. You might have kept every point of the law, but you are a little greedy. You covet. As Paul states in Colossians, greed is a form of idolatry. So what you have done is set up an idol in terms of money. So you are greedy and you covet. That's what made Paul realize he was guilty of the whole law. Even if you are guilty of a small thing that you think of as not that great a sin, it means you are guilty of everything else. You violated the whole law. You might as well have gone out and committed adultery and committed murder and dishonored your parents and all the other things broken all the other laws because you are guilty of everything. It only takes a little bit to violate the character of God. All Adam had to do was eat a piece of fruit. It's not on anybody's big list of sins.
So you have to help people understand a little bit about the fact that sin is a violation of God's standard and that there is a consequence for it. That is separation from God. But, Jesus paid the price for all those sins.
The next thing we have to help them understand is that God is more powerful than our sin. There is no sin that we can commit that is too powerful for God.
Jude 1:24 says:
NKJ Jude 1:24 Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling, And to present you faultless Before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy,
God is the one who is able. God is the one who has the power. It's not dependent upon us. That's such a freeing relaxing thing – to realize that I am going to sin. That doesn't mean that I am rationalizing it or justifying it. It's reality that the sin nature never disappears this side of physical death. Therefore I am going to sin, but every sin was paid for on the cross. There are so many Christians that run around that don't understand that either their sin was paid for on the cross or they don't understand I John1:9 that all you need to do is admit the sin to God and He will forgive you. They don't understand anything about divine forgiveness and they focus all their attention on sin. They are all concerned about it.
Now here is another thing. Every now and then I hear this. I used to hear it a lot more, but I guess I don't run around with the wrong kind of people anymore.
I used to hear people say, "I used to think that about I John 1:9, but I was obsessing on all my sins. I was so concerned about being in fellowship that I went around all the time thinking about – am I in fellowship? I was just consumed with whether or not I was in fellowship."
Well, see I think they have a little bit of a problem. There are some people who are that way. I John 1:9 isn't this thing that causes you to walk around all the time trying to figure out if you've committed some sin. You'll know it when you commit a sin. Most of us are arrogant most of the time. So that's a real easy one I think to confess. I don't know about you, but it is real easy for most people to get self-absorbed. Just get out on the freeway and you will figure out if you are out of fellowship or not. But, don't obsess on it. There are some people who take it that way. That's not what we mean when we teach that you need to be in fellowship and to keep short accounts. You're aware when you sin. Just confess it. So people get so consumed about this.
Jude 1:24 and other promises tell us that He's the one who keeps us. We don't have to worry about it and be consumed with it ourselves. So Jude 1:24:
NKJ Jude 1:24 Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling, And to present you faultless Before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy,
God is the one who holds the believer and keeps him from falling away. We can't do anything to permanently fall away in our relationship with God.
Another passage that focuses on what God the Father does is in Romans 8:33.
NKJ Romans 8:33 Who shall bring a charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies.
Paul asks a rhetorical question. What's the answer? Well, first of all it is God who justifies. God didn't provisionally, conditionally or partially justify you. When He imputed to you the perfect righteousness of Christ, what is in your account is Christ's perfect righteousness. It's not something that's partial or something that you can affect because it's Christ's righteousness not your righteousness. It's never based on who and what we are or what we have ever done. That's so great because that gives us the ability to relax and live our Christian lives without always being consumed about sin.
Another passage that reinforces this is in Ephesians 2 - Ephesians 2. Now I want you to turn there in your Bibles. We ought to be pretty familiar with Ephesians 2. I have alluded to this section several times in the last month - Ephesians 2.
Now as I stated before, the first 7 verses are one sentence. The sentence is talking about what God does for us. So you are not introduced to the subject of the sentence, the grammatical subject of the sentence until verse 4.
NKJ Ephesians 2:4 But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us,
Then you have a relative clause and a couple of digressions in verse 4 and 5. You don't main verb until verses 5 and 6.
NKJ Ephesians 2:5 even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved),
NKJ Ephesians 2:6 and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus,
So God did these three things for us at the instant that we were saved. He made you alive together with Christ. That's regeneration.
So if you lose your salvation that means you get kicked out of your position in Christ. You're no longer seated in heaven which is kind of a bizarre concept to think that God would do this. God does the work of raising you and seating you. You don't do that work so how can you do anything to reverse it? It's not logical; it's not consistent with the text.
Another verse that we have in our study is Hebrews 7:25.
NKJ Hebrews 7:25 Therefore He is also able to save to the uttermost those who come to God through Him, since He always lives to make intercession for them.
It's His power. He is the one who is able to save us.
Paul says:
NKJ 2 Timothy 1:12 For this reason I also suffer these things; nevertheless I am not ashamed, for I know whom I have believed and am persuaded that He is able to keep what I have committed to Him until that Day.
See the one thing that runs all the way through this is He is able to keep us. He is the one who regenerated us, raised us and seated us. He's the one who is able to guard what I have entrusted to Him until that day. It is God that does the work. It is God's power that does the work.
In I Peter 1:4-5:
NKJ 1 Peter 1:4 to an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled and that does not fade away, reserved in heaven for you,
NKJ 1 Peter 1:5 who are kept by the power of God through faith for salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.
See, we are protected by the power of God. We're not protected by our ability to not sin, our ability to obey, our ability to always be in Bible class, or our ability to do anything. It is the power of God who protects us. So the first aspect of looking at God the Father is that it's His power that keeps us. It is His power that made us alive, raised us, and seated us together with Christ. It is His power that guards what has been entrusted to Him and His power that keeps us and protects us through faith.
The next thing that we have…we looked at the power of God, now we look at the provision of God. When we understand the dynamics and the complexities of what God must do to save even one person, then we understand that this isn't reversible.
I have always thought that this was so absurd to think that the salvation process was reversible. And part of this is because people aren't taught very much about what happens at salvation, what God has to do to save us. It's a phenomenal process. God does so much for us and He transforms us into a completely new creature with all these new assets that are given to us. To think that we can lose it is like saying...it boggles the mind that all of that is reversible. What happens to us when we gain eternal life and gain salvation, we have so much more than Adam ever had before he fell. We have all the things that Christ does for us. We have all the things the Holy Spirit does for us. We're adopted into the family of God. We have the imputation of righteousness which…Adam did not have anything like that. All of this is ours forever. So we have a simple part of it is our imputation of Christ's righteousness. It's credited to our account. To lose that God would be one who went back on His word. He is going to give it and then take it away.
When I was a kid we used to call that being an Indian giver. Now are we Native American givers? I don't know. It's not politically correct, but you know by now that you don't have a politically correct pastor. I guess I am always carnal!
Justification – we are justified because we possess that perfect righteousness. Its justification is a declaration from the Supreme Court of Heaven. You stand before the bar of God's justice. He looks at the fact that you have perfect righteousness at the instant of your salvation and He declares you just. It's a judicial decision.
You go down to court. You get a ticket. You go down to court.
The judge says, "Not guilty."
You go home. Can you get arrested the next day? No, that's silly. God doesn't go back on His Word. Once He declares you justified He can't reverse it.
Romans 5:1-3 says:
NKJ Romans 5:1 Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,
NKJ Romans 5:2 through whom also we have access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God.
We can't come out of that. We can't be removed from that position of having peace with God. So no matter what we do we still have peace with God because the morals, the standard, the sin of ours is there. Our personal sin, our personal unrighteousness, our personal failures are still there. But, we have the righteousness of Christ and it's that righteousness that is the basis for our salvation, not what we do. When people come along and think that they can do something to lose their salvation, what they're not understanding is it's not their righteousness ever that is the basis for salvation. It is Christ's righteousness.
That's why I say whenever you think you can lose your salvation somewhere in your thinking you have a problem because you think there is something you're doing, something of yours that has been the basis for your salvation.
Now we talked about the power of God, we talked about the provision of God. Now let's look at the love of God.
Romans 5:8 says:
NKJ Romans 5:8 But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
Now the point of this is to show that God's love is given to us, is demonstrated to us when we're enemies, when we're hostile to Him, when we're in the most negative, obnoxious position we could possibly be in. While we were yet sinners we were at enmity with God. We're in the position of being enemies of God. But He demonstrated His love toward so that if He died for us while we were in the worst state we could possibly be in, what more would He do for us when we are peacefully oriented to Him which is the context of Romans 5 (being justified we have peace with God).
So this whole line of thinking culminates in what Paul says in the end of Romans 8.
NKJ Romans 8:38 For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come,
NKJ Romans 8:39 nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
What we see here is for the most part pairings although you have angels and principalities nor powers. (You have three things there.) I think the angels are the elect angels and principalities and powers relate to demonic organization here, but I can't prove it definitively. What he does is he takes...this is a figure of speech called a merism. A merism is when you take two opposites (like black or white, night or day, heaven and earth) and you express them and that includes everything that is conceivable within those two opposites.
So when he says, "I am persuaded that neither life nor death" – nothing dead, nothing alive - can you think of anything that does not fit in those two categories? I mean everything is either dead or it's alive. So that means that there is nothing – okay. By using the two extremes he's including everything that there is. So that would relate to that which could die or that which could live, that which has life.
The second category talks about the immaterial realm that God created – neither angels, nor principalities nor powers. In other words nothing in the angelic hierarchy - fallen angels, demons, elect angels - nothing in the unseen realm can do anything to affect our salvation.
Nothing present nor things to come…it excludes the past because that's what is taken care of at the cross – for sure. So there is nothing present, nothing to come. There is nothing potential. That includes everything - nothing that you can think of.
Neither height nor depth covers everything.
Nor any other created thing...in case I left something out, there is nothing in God's creation that can separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Now that phrase "in Christ Jesus" is specifically related to baptism of the Holy Spirit for the Church Age believer. That when we are placed in Christ at the instant of our salvation, that action is done through the Holy Spirit by means of the Holy Spirit. Once we are in Christ, that love that the Father has for us is a special kind of love. It is a familial love. It is an intimate love. That's why the Greek word for an intimate love (phileo or the noun philos)… the verb is only used with believers as the object. God loves the whole world, agapao. But He only has phileo love for believers. Once you are in the love of Christ (this is agape here) our Lord that can never be lost - even the broader love which would include as a subcategory the family love.
Jesus says in John 5:24:
NKJ John 5:24 " Most assuredly, I say to you, he who hears My word and believes in Him who sent Me has everlasting life, and shall not come into judgment, but has passed from death into life.
Now we are going to move from talking about what the Father does to what the Son does. John 5:24 includes both the Father and the Son.
See this is a pre-cross description of the gospel. We started talking about the problem that we have today with the way some people are trying to express the gospel. They're go into passages like John 5 and John 6 when Jesus is talking to Jews - not only is it a pre-cross environment; but it's probably in that period before the official rejection by the Pharisees that's pictured in Matthew 12 which comes during the last year of His public ministry. So Jesus is still offering Himself as the King.
So even an Old Testament believer which is what these would be prior to the cross has a certainty of salvation. If you believe in Me, you have eternal life. It can't be taken from you.
So we are secured by the promise of the Son.
Another passage is in John 6:37.
NKJ John 6:37 "All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will by no means cast out.
If you come to the Father. Jesus said:
Matthew 11:28 "Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest.
Coming to Jesus is comparable to believing in Him, accepting Him as your Savior.
John 6:39-40 says:
NKJ John 6:39 "This is the will of the Father who sent Me, that of all He has given Me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up at the last day.
God is omnipotent therefore He is able to keep Jesus from losing anything. Jesus is omnipotent so He can't lose anything.
NKJ John 6:40 "And this is the will of Him who sent Me, that everyone who sees the Son and believes in Him may have everlasting life; and I will raise him up at the last day."
He doesn't say, "I might raise him up on the last day. If he is good, I'll raise him up on the last day. If he shows himself worthy of the gift, I'll raise him up on the last day."
No, He says, "I will raise Him up on the last day."
So Jesus makes numerous promises that are not conditional (That are not based on our obedience, our behavior); but are based simply on believing in Jesus (coming to Him). This is the promise from the one who holds the universe together. As He is able to hold the universe together, then He is certainly able to keep us from falling and to keep us from losing salvation.
Now the next section that we re going to get into has to do with the prayer of the Son. We have looked at the promises that the Son makes. Now we are going to look at the prayer of the Son. Now this is important because if we go back to our passage in Hebrews 7:25…
NKJ Hebrews 7:25 Therefore.
The context of Hebrews 7 is His priesthood. The last clause of Hebrews 7:25 is that:
He is also able to save to the uttermost those who come to God through Him, since He always lives to make intercession for them
That is Jesus. We are secure in our salvation because Jesus is always praying for us as part of His high priestly ministry.
Now let's look at John 17:11. John 17 is the true Lord's Prayer, not the passage over in Matthew that is typically referred to as the Lord's Prayer. That was the disciple's prayer.
John 17 is the prayer that the Lord Jesus Christ utters just before He goes to the cross. He is praying for the disciples and praying for those who come to know the truth through the disciples. As He is praying to the Father, He says:
NKJ John 17:11 "Now I am no longer in the world, but these are in the world, and I come to You. Holy Father, keep through Your name those whom You have given Me, that they may be one as We are.
So His first aspect of His prayer in verse 11 is to the Father to keep us in His name. Now if Jesus prays for something, it is within the will of the Father so the Father is going to answer Him according to John 5.
NKJ John 17:12 "While I was with them in the world, I kept them in Your name. Those whom You gave Me I have kept; and none of them is lost except the son of perdition, that the Scripture might be fulfilled.
This is another one of those passages that makes it real clear that Judas was not a believer. He is called the son of perdition. The same Greek word that is used for perdition here is the word that's translated "perish" in John 3:16. Someone who is the son of perdition is one who is perishing. It is literally "the son of perishing". So that means in Hebrew idiom if you are the son of something, then that is what characterizes you. If you were a fool, you would be called the son of a fool. If you are a murderer, you would be called a son of a murderer. It doesn't have anything to do with what your daddy did. It has to do with…that you are demonstrating the characteristics of this quality. So if you are wise you would be called the son of wisdom. If you are the son of perdition, that means you are lost. You are not saved.
Jesus says the only one that "I did not keep and guard (because he wasn't saved) was Judas."
NKJ John 17:13 "But now I come to You, and these things I speak in the world, that they may have My joy fulfilled in themselves.
NKJ John 17:14 "I have given them Your word; and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world.
NKJ John 17:15 "I do not pray that You should take them out of the world, but that You should keep them from the evil one.
This is again a strong passage against demon possession. But it is that we can't go back under the authority of Satan. We are transferred from the domain of Satan to the kingdom of God at the instant of salvation. To lose salvation would mean going back under the authority of Satan.
So Jesus' prayer constantly uses these words of keeping, guarding, protecting, and keeping them from the evil one. This is His ongoing prayer.
This is stated again in terms of His present intercessory ministry which is what understanding of the background of Romans 5:10. Paul says:
NKJ Romans 5:10 For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son,
See it's the death of His Son that's the basis of reconciliation.
much more, having been reconciled,.
That means you are justified; you're going to go to heaven. You have eternal life.
we shall be saved by His life
See His ongoing post resurrection life is at the right hand of the Father as our High Priest, as our intercessor. This is part of what secures our salvation.
Paul says:
NKJ Romans 8:34 Who is he who condemns? It is Christ who died, and furthermore is also risen,
This is what He is doing with His living – His post resurrection, post ascension living.
who is even at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us.
NKJ John 14:19 " A little while longer and the world will see Me no more, but you will see Me. Because I live,
Which is talking about His resurrection life, post resurrection life.
you will live also.
Not that He might live, but that He would live.
NKJ John 6:37 "All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will by no means cast out.
Then finally in terms of His high priestly ministry:
NKJ Hebrews 10:14 For by one offering He has perfected forever those who are being sanctified.
Here we have that word from the telos group meaning He has completed that salvation. This is talking positional sanctification.
That is those who are in the process of growing spiritually – post salvation. You are already perfected positionally, brought to completion. But in time you are maturing, being brought to completion in your spiritual life. So the first part of that verse indicates that as part of His high priestly ministry He has perfected us forever, not just for a short time, not just temporally or not just conditionally or provisionally. But He has perfected forever.
Now that takes us through the promise of the Son. It takes us through the promise and the prayer of the Son; then the last thing we will cover next time is related to the work of the Son and then we'll talk about God the Holy Spirit.
Let's bow our heads in closing prayer.
Illustrations