Another Reason I Am Confident Salvation Is Secure

by Phil Johnson



"I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ" (Philippians 1:6).

his is one of the most basic truths of Christianity: Salvation is not a work the sinner does for God; it is a work God does for the sinner. Ephesians 2:10: "We are his workmanship."

Even the good works we do as Christians are the result of God's work in us. Those good works are not accomplished by our own willpower or initiative. Ephesians 2:10 continues thussly: "For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them."

If God foreordained even the good works we do, and since He is the one who empowers us both to will and to do them (Philippians 2:13), then salvation is truly all God's work.

And He always finishes what He starts. That's the point of the verse at the top of this post.

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The Perseverance of the Saints

by Phil Johnson

I am absolutely confident no true believer in Jesus Christ will ever lose his or her salvation. Authentic believers can never do anything to forfeit the eternal life that is ours in Christ. Otherwise, by definition, it could not be said that we have everlasting life and will not come into judgment, but have passed from death to life (John 5:24).

"Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God's power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time" (1 Peter 1:3-5).

'm not fond of the expression "eternal security" because of the way the doctrine is abused by antinomians and people who think it's possible to own Jesus as Savior without bowing to Him as Lord. I prefer to speak of the perseverance of the saints, because that expression better captures the gist of what the doctrine entails.

The idea is not that if we once "accept Christ" we are guaranteed heaven regardless of whether we continue in the faith or not, but that those who are truly regenerate will not depart from Christ. The supposed Christian who does depart demonstrates that he was never a true Christian in the first place: "They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us. But they went out, that it might become plain that they all are not of us" (1 John 2:19).

On the other hand, I'm convinced that the saints will persevere not because I have any confidence in the saints' own strength or their own faithfulness. My own security not does not rest in my devotion to Christ, but in His devotion to me. I am "kept by the power of God." His power is what energizes my faith and keeps me in the process of salvation, ready to be revealed at the last time.

That's an echo of the truth of 2 Thessalonians 3:3: "The Lord is faithful. He will establish you and guard you against the evil one." And 2 Timothy 2:13: "If we are faithless, he remains faithful—for he cannot deny himself." Also, Jude 24: God "is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy."

So on the authority of Scripture I believe absolutely in the doctrine of the perseverance of the saints. But it's not because I have any confidence in the saints themselves. It is God who secures their perseverance.

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A Hard Act to Follow

by Frank Turk

Well, you've had the main course of Dan Phillips covered in Reformation, the dose of Spurgeon, the sweet confection of Phil Johnson naming names of our critics, and now you'll have to settle for the small fizzy Alka-Seltzer of, um, me.

urp.

And you're all still angry at me for not really finishing my series on daGifts, so it's not even really a satisfying fizzy drink -- I'm a bitter little bromo, and you have to need me to even like me. Dan and Phil (and of course, the great Spurgy) are a hard act to follow, but I have no shame.

So what can I say that you will even bother to read now? How about this:

"I have loved you," says YHVH.

But you say, "How have you loved us?"

If you read Malachi somewhat superficially, you might think it's a book in which Israel complains to God -- and in some respect, that's true. "How have you loved us?" they ask. "What weariness [the temple worship] is," they groan. "How have we despised your name, Lord," they wonder.

But in fact, this book is God's complaint against Israel. See: in this point in Israel's history, the nation of Israel has had a covenant with God that should have set them apart -- it should have made them a nation at which the other nations marvelled. But instead, starting with the generation after Joshua, and going on through Saul and almost all the kings in the line of David (yes, there were exceptions), they were a nation who wanted to be like all the other nations. They wanted a king who was the tallest one even though he was the kind of man to hide among the baggage. They wanted to serve gods like the other nations had, where they could have a religion and then do as they pleased rather than have a God who lives among them and makes them a blessing in all things -- from business to justice to family. They wanted justice against their enemies, but they didn't want to be a just people who treated those with nothing as brothers in the image of God.

So God starts His second-to-last message to them (John the Baptist is still to come) by saying to them, "I love you." Think about that: this disobedient people, this nation who has broken the covenant from Horeb, God starts a letter of condemnation by saying, "I love you."

Well, why?

I think the answer lies in Israel's response to God's "I love you." They say, "How have you loved us?"

The sense here is that they cannot remember God ever loving them. So God says to them, "listen: from the time of your father Jacob, I loved you instead of his brother Esau -- and to this day, the children of Esau are my enemies. You got Jerusalem back -- but Edom gets nothing back. My power is greater than just the boundaries of Israel."

That is: when the rest of the world has nothing to hope for, Israel still should have had something to hope for.

Well, so what? "Yes -- we get it," says the proper reader of this blog with his Hebrew Tanach open to this passage. "Israel has forgotten the covenant. They are an ungrateful people. They are about to be the people who reject the Messiah when they see Him, and He is going to clean house. How does this help me today, when I wonder what is going to happen to our nation?"

I think you better ask yourself, my dear Hebrew buff, what it meant to the Jews who were wondering exactly that about their nation. God says that the problem with their nation is that they need a dose of the refiner's fire, and a round with the fuller's soap -- starting with you who do not know what it means for God to love you

Now, before you don't get what I'm driving at, let me sum it up. The comparison here is not between America and Israel. America is not a chosen nation in spite of its blessing any more than Rome was a chosen nation for all its ancient blessings. Sorry 700 club -- sorry Jack Van Impe. The comparison ought to be between the church and Israel. In the latter case -- in Israel's case -- Israel was chosen by God to be a blessing to all nations, and they forgot everything that God did for them and wondered if God ever loved them.

Today, the church must say, "God loves us! He has loved us!" We must not be ungrateful for what He has done. We must rejoice for what He has done because today is when that matters. Today is when we live like God is keeping His promises. If we are worried about our nation, we should then live as if God loves us and not as if we can only think, "well, when has God loved us?"

I mean: how can we call the Gospel "good news" if we think that somehow the outcome of a human vote can leave us without hope? How good could it be if a mere ideology or ballot process renders it somehow weakened or can overcome it?

Today, God says to His church, "I love you." And now it is our place to be beloved and act like a beloved people. We should remember that God's love is a hard act to follow, and that it is where our hope actually lies.

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The Security of God's Will

by Phil Johnson

n Monday we looked in on Elijah beside Cherith as the brook slowly went dry. It is a tribute to Elijah's faith that he stayed and waited for the Lord's instructions until that stream was completely dried up. The stream turned to a trickle, and the trickle turned to little puddles, and the puddles turned to mud. Finally, "the brook dried up" (1 Kings 17:7). Verse 8 says, "then the word of the LORD came unto him."

Most of us would have begun to make alternative plans of our own about the time the stream showed signs of drying up. Obedience to the Lord might be our "Plan A," but the minute "Plan A" starts to get difficult, we start thinking about "Plan B." Not Elijah. I mentioned on Monday that Elijah obeyed the Lord one step at a time, even when all he could see was danger ahead, and he did not know what God would call him to do next. He was walking completely by faith, and he did not take one presumptuous step on his own.

When the Word of the Lord did finally come to him (v. 8), these were the instructions: "Arise, get thee to Zarephath, which belongeth to Zidon, and dwell there." Zarephath was a town on the coast near Sidon, which was the home town of Jezebel herself. And in order to get there, Elijah's route would take him directly through the valley of Jezreel—where Jezebel and Ahab's palace was. He was walking right into the lion's den.

The carnal mind might observe Elijah's circumstances and conclude that the will of God is not a very secure place to be. What Elijah knew is that the will of God is the only secure place. He saw that by faith.

God had appointed a widow to care for Elijah in Zarephath, and therefore He would see him safely through the valley of Jezreel on his way there. Although that journey would take Elijah through the valley of death, he would fear no evil, because God was with him. In fact what looked like the valley of death was actually a corridor of safety for Elijah, because God was the one directing his steps.

That lesson is incredibly hard for most of us to learn. Second Corinthians 5:7: "we walk by faith, not by sight." Our natural tendency is to seek our security in things we can see. So walking by faith never feels very secure. We're tempted to abandon the walk of faith and seek our security in tangible things. But the truth is that real security is found only in the grace of God. And those who walk by faith are the only ones who have any kind of true security.

Contrast Ahab with Elijah in these circumstances. Ahab felt secure in his palace. He had servants to bring him food and water, even in the worst of the drought. He had bounty-hunters scouring the land for Elijah, whom he was determined to destroy. In earthly terms, it looked like Ahab was the secure one and Elijah was the one in serious jeopardy.



But the truth is that God's grace and favor rested on Elijah, and therefore there was nothing Ahab could ultimately do against him. In the words of Isaiah 54:17, "No weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper; and every tongue that shall rise against thee in judgment thou shalt condemn. This is the heritage of the servants of the LORD, and their righteousness is of me, saith the LORD."

Meanwhile, God was determined to destroy Ahab, and therefore nothing could ultimately save him. God's patience is measureless, but His justice is ultimately sure, and Ahab, who loved wickedness and set himself against the Lord, would finally reap what he sowed.

Nothing in the world could shield him against that inevitability. Whatever security he enjoyed because of his wealth and political power was only a false security, because "Except the LORD build the house, they labour in vain that build it: except the LORD keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain" (Psalm 127:1).

No earthly fortress can ever provide a security equal to the security of divine grace.

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The Drying Brook

"And it came to pass after a while, that the brook dried up, because there had been no rain in the land" (1 Kings 17:7)

ou might think if the Lord wanted to protect and care for His most important prophet during a drought, he would situate him beside a large river rather than a drying brook. The drought was severe, because it was a divine judgment. God surely knew the brook would evaporate. Why didn't he put Elijah somewhere where he wasn't affected by the consequences of Israel's judgment? Why did He place Elijah at Cherith, a small, unreliable tributary of the Jordan? Why not hide Elijah by the Jordan River itself?

God's ways are not our ways (Isaiah 55:8).

This was a great test of Elijah's faith. God deliberately placed him beside a drying brook, a diminishing provision, to show Elijah in a graphic way how trustworthy Jehovah really is. Each day Elijah could see the stream growing smaller. With neither dew nor rain to replenish the resource, he watched as the trickle of water grew more shallow and more rocks than water lined the stream-bed. He did not have a clue what God would do when the stream dried up, and God gave him no instructions for the next step until the stream was fully dry (1 Kings 17:7-8).

God often uses similar means to teach us the same lesson. Life itself is a drying stream. I celebrated my 54th birthday last month, and I'm faced with daily reminders that my life is almost certainly more than half over. These come in the form of aches and pains, a failing short-term memory, and all the other typical indignities of being fifty-something. The stream of my earthly life is gradually evaporating; there's no question about it. It's a temptation for all of us to worry about whether the Lord's provision will run out before our needs are fully met.

Scripture stresses God's faithfulness in that regard. David wrote: "I have been young, and now am old; Yet I have not seen the righteous forsaken, Nor his descendants begging bread" (Psalm 37:25). The Lord's promise to Israel in Isaiah 46:4 is a principle that applies to us all: "Even to your old age, I am He, And even to gray hairs I will carry you! I have made, and I will bear; Even I will carry, and will deliver you."

Nevertheless, we all experience times when we feel as if we have been utterly abandoned, and we wonder if the Lord has somehow forgotten about us. It takes great faith to trust Him for the future—and even greater faith to trust when we can see the brook dying up.

Why does God use drying brooks to provide his people's needs? Why does He send manna enough for only one day at a time? Why does the cruse of oil and the barrel of meal always seem to have enough for just one more breakfast?

That's because God wants us to keep trusting Him, and not shift our trust to earthly provisions or massive storehouses of our own making. He wants us perpetually to rely on and look to the Giver, not to hoard or become obsessed with the gifts He gives.

It's the same lesson Jesus taught when He instructed us to pray "this day" for daily bread, rather than seeking a week's supply at a time. God's grace is sufficient for the evils of today. And tomorrow, He will give us grace to meet the evils of that day. He always giveth more grace.

And as we discover in Elijah's case, when the brook dries up, He is still able to meet our needs through other means. Even though we often don't know His plan further in advance than one step at a time, He already has the future worked out, and He promises it will be for our good.

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Something to remember when you are swallowed by a big fish

by Phil Johnson

"My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of him: For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth" (Hebrews 12:5).

ometimes—all the time, if you are a Christian—the worst things that happen turn out to be great blessings in disguise. Whatever disaster befalls you, if you are a believer, you can be certain God will use it for good.

Consider Jonah's experience inside the fish. To the human eye, that whole episode might look like an expression of divine wrath against Jonah: The Lord hurled a great wind at the ship Jonah was using (sinfully) to try to flee the will of God. The whole ship was about to sink, the entire crew's lives were in danger, and finally in desperation (and at Jonah's own behest), they threw him overboard. Every aspect of it might look (to the human eye) like an utter and unmitigated disaster.

But it was not a disaster. There was far more divine love and mercy (rather than divine wrath) evidenced in that storm and the subsequent events. In fact, the goodness of God is a thousand times more profound and lasting than His displeasure—if you see this whole event from His perspective. A tremendous amount of immediate benefits came from the discipline God lovingly meted out to Jonah.

Take, for example, the ship's crew. Not only were their lives spared, but their souls were also saved. They turned to Jehovah in faith (Jonah 1:16).

And Jonah—he was thrown overboard at the very peak of the storm. From the perspective of the sailors, Jonah was a dead man. There's no way a man can survive a raging sea like that. But as soon as Jonah was thrown overboard, the sea was calmed (Jonah 1:15). The sailors sacrificed to God and worshiped. Nothing suggests they saw the fish swallow Jonah. I suppose it's possible that they saw the fish swallow him. But more likely, from their perspective, he just disappeared into the deep. Either way, from where the sailors stood, Jonah was a dead man, a victim of divine wrath.

From Jonah's perspective things looked pretty bleak, too. He knew he had displeased God, and that he fully deserved what was happening to him. If he had been digested by the fish and that had been the end of him, it would have been just.

But the fish turned out to be a vehicle for Jonah's salvation, not his destruction. The fish also returned Jonah to where he should have been, and multitudes in Nineveh were saved because of Jonah's preaching.

Remember those things the next time you feel as if you have been thrown into the sea in the midst of a raging storm—then swallowed by a giant fish and taken even further ionto the depths. Even if your circumstances are the consequences of your own sin; and especially if you are a believer whom God is chastening for your own disobedience: This is all for your good, and that means it is already more of a blessing than a curse. Look beyond the earthly circumstances of the calamity, and you'll probably see it.

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Relishing believers' security in Christ

posted by Dan Phillips

The PyroManiacs normally devote space at the beginning of each week to highlights from The Spurgeon Archive. This selection, however, is not yet in the Archive.

The following excerpt is taken from a sermon titled "The Security of Believers; or, Sheep Who Shall Never Perish," originally delivered on Thursday evening, September 5th, 1889, at the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington. Spurgeon's text was John 10:27-30 — "My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me: and I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. My Father, which gave them me is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father’s hand. I and my Father are one."

The sermon is especially dear to me. Particularly in my early Christian life, I had great and bitter struggles over assurance, and doubts as to my own salvation. In retrospect it is easier to see how Christ had laid His hand on me, turned my life around, changed my heart, headed me in a totally different direction. At the time, however, looking within, all I saw was corruption.

This sermon helped me see that I was looking in the wrong direction for assurance.

hey are safe ...by outer injuries being prevented. “Neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand.” Many will pluck at them, but none shall pluck them away. The devil will give many a horrible pluck and pull, to get them away; but out of the great Shepherd’s hand he shall never take them. Their old companions, and the memory of their old sins will come, and pluck at them very hard, and very cunningly; but the Savior says, “None shall pluck them out of my hand.” So, first, here is their security: they are in his hand; that is, in his possession, and he grasps them, as a man holds a thing in his hand, and says, “It is mine.” Neither shall any take them away from being under his protection. Never shall they be plucked away from Christ. When he says this, he pledges his honor to preserve them, for if it could be that one were plucked out of his hand, then would the devils in hell rejoice, and say, “He could not keep them. He said that he would, but he could not. We have managed to pluck this one, or that one, out of the pierced hand of their Redeemer.” But such a horrible exultation shall never be heard throughout the ages of eternity. “They shall never perish; neither shall any pluck them out of my hand.”

Some one wickedly said, “They may get out of his hand themselves.” But how can this be true, when the first sentence is, “They shall never perish”? Treat Scripture honestly and candidly, and you will admit that the promise “they shall never perish” shuts out the idea of perishing by going out of the Lord’s hand by their own act and deed. “They shall never perish; neither shall any pluck them out of my hand.” Who is to loosen the clasp of that hand which was pierced with the nail for me? My Lord Jesus bought me too dearly ever to let me go. He loves me so well that his whole omnipotence will work with that hand, and unless there is something greater than Godhead, I cannot be plucked away from that dear, fastholding grip.

Amen!

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