Eternal security is the inability for a Christian to lose their salvation either by conscious or unconscious decisions or actions. When some people hear the phrase of eternal security, they get furious and see heresy in this doctrine. That dangerous phrase gives Christians an excuse to purposely sin.
Others see the phrase, “eternal security,” like a soothing blanket and a hot cup of tea. For them, the words convey love and acceptance. They may think of loved ones or family members who became Christians, but are now living in sin. They rest in the confidence that these loved ones will go to Heaven when they die. It has been argued that the issue of eternal security may well be the most hotly debated and theologically divisive issue in the church today. Eternal security is a big issue and a huge question in the minds of most Christians.
Why write about eternal security if it is such a troublesome issue? God wants Christians to be unified not divided. You can only come to unity as you talk about this issue with one another in love. Below are reasons why eternal security (in your salvation) exists:
1.
Eternal security
has only one condition for receiving it, and that is believing in Jesus Christ: 99
times in the book of John the single and only condition for receiving eternal
life is believing in Jesus Christ for it. The truth is that it is impossible to
reconcile “faith alone in Christ” with the necessity of works. If eternal life
is not forever, it cannot be through faith alone. If eternal life can be lost,
or if simple faith in Christ is not enough works have been added somewhere into
the equation.
2.
Eternal security
means conversion is Irreversible: When you
become Christians, you are born into the family of God. It is impossible
spiritually just as it is impossible physically to reverse someone’s birth.
When you came into this earth, you automatically had a father and a mother.
Even if they gave you up for adoption and you never knew who they were, they
were biologically your father and mother. If you grew up with them, but then in
your teenage years rebelled against your parents, told them that you hate them,
tell them that you wish they weren’t your parents and that you wish you had
different parents, and then you run away from home and never see them again for
your entire life, they are still your parents.
Even if you take another name, and they write you out of
their will, and refuse to ever see you again, they are still your parents. It
is exactly the same when you become part of the family of God. It cannot be
reversed. God loves all of his children, and even if you stop loving Him, even
if you begin to hate Him, even if you rebel and run away and refuse to
associate yourself with Him, the fact that you are born of God cannot be
reversed.
3.
Eternal security
means God’s grace removes all of our sin: A person’s
position on eternal security is ultimately determined by their view of God’s
grace. If we don’t deserve God’s grace, then we can’t do anything to earn it.
And if we don’t do anything to earn it, we can do anything to keep it. We must
trust and rely on God to keep us in His family. And that is exactly what God’s
grace does. Once we have received the
grace of God freely, He is not going to take it away from us because of
something we do or fail to do.
4.
Eternal security
means Jesus died for all your sins in our past, present and future: The
Bible tells us that Jesus is
constantly interceding for us before God. Among other things, this means that
when we sin, he tells God, “I died for that one too.” Some people who reject
eternal security teach that Jesus only died for the sins that were prior to us
believing in Him. When Christ died for our sins, he died for all of our sins.
The timing of our sin is irrelevant from Christ’s perspective. God declared you
“not guilty” the first time based on Christ’s death for your sin, but if all of
a sudden you become guilty again, then that means that Christ did not cover
that sin. And if Christ didn’t cover it, nothing will.
5.
Eternal
security does not require works to get to Heaven: The
eternal life equation is this: God’s Grace + Our Faith = Eternal life. Another
way to put it is, “Justification is by grace alone through faith alone in
Christ alone.” This is what Jesus teaches, what Peter teaches, and what Paul
teaches. Nowhere do you read that you must have good works in order to get into
Heaven. Anytime you hear somebody say that in order to get to Heaven you must
believe in Jesus and _________ (fill in the blank), believe in Jesus and get
baptized, believe in Jesus and repent of your sins, believe in Jesus and have
good works, believe in Jesus and submit your life to Christ.
They have added an extra requirement which is not found in
the Bible. Now, this does not mean
that works are unimportant, or not vital. The Bible talks a lot about the place of works in the life of the
Christian, but you must keep them in their proper place. You must understand
that works do a lot for the Christian, both now and for eternity, but one thing
works do not do is help us get into Heaven. Entrance into Haven is based on one
condition alone – and that is faith alone in Christ alone. The reason for this
is because Jesus Christ died for all of our sins: the ones in our past, the
ones in our present, and even the ones that are yet future.
6.
Eternal
security is essential to discipleship and freedom living: A
belief that you can lose eternal life causes you to be motivated by fear. But
you are not to be motivated by fear, but by love. When you know God loves us
unconditionally, you do not fear messing up. You do not fear making a mistake.
Perfect love drives out fear and God loves us perfectly. When you do not
believe in eternal security, you can never be certain that at that moment, God
loves you.
You can never be sure that at that moment, you truly have
everlasting life. Maybe you sinned without knowing it. Maybe you didn’t commit
a sin, but you didn’t do something that you should have done (James 4:17).
That’s a sin of omission. What a horrible way to live. Eternal security tells
me that God loves me unconditionally, and therefore, I can move forward in my
Christian life. If I make a mistake, will God still love me and accept me?
That’s a horrible way to live.
7.
Eternal
security is everlasting life: I do not see
how people who believe that you can lose eternal life can speak of it as
everlasting. If everlasting life can be lost that it has the wrong name. It
should be called temporary life or life until you sin. God calls it eternal
life and everlasting life. And everlasting life is just that – it is
everlasting. Those who reject eternal security say that it is everlasting as
long as you obey. You have eternal life if you continue to believe. That is not
everlasting life.
8.
Eternal
security is God’s promises to us: Much of the
confusion about the security of eternal life comes from this simple
misunderstanding. God knows that you are weak, that you are sinners, that you
break our promises. How thankful you can be that He never tells us that in
order to receive eternal life, you have to promise Him certain things or a
certain level of obedience. No matter how small the promise you could never
keep it. Eternal life is centered not on our promises, but on God’s promises.
When you know that
you have believed in Jesus for eternal life, you doubt whether or not you have
it. You are doubting God and the promises He has made (2 Timothy 1:1; Hebrews
10:23; 1 John 2:25). The promise of God (who never lies, and who never breaks a
promises) is based not on our faithfulness, but on the faithfulness of Christ,
who is always faithful. He promises everlasting life to those who will believe
in Him for it.
9.
Eternal
security is not based on your emotions: Here is the
warning. You must not base our decision about eternal security on our own
experiences, or people you know who have claimed to be Christians but have not
lived like Christ. You must not make a decision based on a worry that people
will live in sin if eternal security is true.
You must not make a
decision based on our hope that you can still go to Heaven even when you
blatantly rebel against God. If you are going to make a decision about eternal
security, you must base that decision on what the Bible says and nothing else.
Both sides have lots of verses which seem to defend their position, but only
one side can be Biblically correct. Eternal security does not depend on us, but
on God. It is He who makes promises to us. Not you who makes promises to Him.
10.
Eternal
security taken away leads to legalism: Legalism is the
conviction that you must do something to earn your eternal life, keep your
eternal life, or prove you have eternal life. Legalism is revealed whenever
there are a set of rules that a person must maintain in order to get eternal
life, keep eternal life, or prove that they have eternal life.
Legalism is a cancer in churches across America. Eternal
life is freely given to all who simply and only believe in Jesus Christ for it.
A weak grasp of grace leads to a lack of security. A strong, biblical
understanding of God’s grace that gives us everything for free, is not earned,
not worked for, and cannot be lost or destroyed, and covers over all our sins.
This kind of grace leads to one thing, eternal security.
“If anybody said he had
eternal life and lost it. He would be flatly contradicting himself. It could
not be eternal, or else he must still have it.” (C.H.
Spurgeon) [i]
[i] Sources used:
·
“11 Reasons I Hold to Eternal Security” by Jeremy Myers
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