“I can see a light that is coming for the heart that holds on…”
Matt Redman

“If there’s anything I know better than anyone, it’s my own work.”
William Stryker, X-Men 2

Luke 21:19

This is my pretty lengthy treatment of the question of eternal security, or “Can I lose my salvation?” Basically my premise is this: there are verses that say we’ll never be lost, and there are verses that say we must persevere to be saved. The point of this entry is to show that these two positions are not in contrast, and that the verses in favor of both are not at odds. The struggle is to reconcile security and perseverence. When encountered with paradox, many Christians cop out by dividing the two elements into two belief systems and fortify their arguments with Scripture that supports them while undermining the significance of the verses that don’t. Reconciling security and perseverence is a mental and spiritual exercise in the likes of reconciling free-will and providence.

Intro

A little over a year ago my friend Amber asked to come over and talk about some doctrinal stuff. She was wrestling with whether or not a person could in fact lose their salvation and wanted my take on it. What ensued was, in retrospect, a disaster. I call it that is because of my entire approach to her questions. My solution was to gather together as many verses as I could that supported the position that you can’t lose your salvation. So I did that and we went through them together. While that’s not a wrong way to approach anyone with questions on the subject, it’s far from being the best way. Verses like John 10:29 where Jesus says that no one can snatch God’s sheep from his hand and Philippians 1:6 where it says that God will finish the work he started in believers are enough to convince me that true believers won’t lose their salvation. However there are verses like Colossians 1:22-23 that say that we will be blameless before God IF we continue in our faith. The book of Hebrews also has two very explicit passages that describe those who fall away from the faith in chapters 6 and 10.

The way I approached Amber is the same way so many Christians approach the subject, and it’s stupid. We collect all the verses that support OUR view and ignore the ones that seem to go against it. We forget that the Bible is God’s Word and that it is wholly consistent. The answer must be found in reconciling these passages. In this debate we have two categories, both of which are scripturally TRUE:

1) You Muse Persevere to the End to be Saved (Colossians 1:21-23, 1 John 1:5-10, 3:3-6, Hebrews 6:4-6, Hebrews 10:26-31).

2) Eternal Security (John 6:38-40, John 10:28-29, Romans 8:28-39, Philippians 1:4-6, 2:12-13, 1 John 2:19).

With regard to this doctrine, Scripture is resolute in two things: 1) that those whom God brings to repentance will never be lost, and 2) that believers must persevere to be saved. The question is this: how do we reconcile these? This debate lies within the greater debate between Calvinism and Arminianism. The belief that believer’s won’t lose their salvation is the P in TULIP which stands for the Perseverence of the Saints. I need to clarify something real quick: many Arminians do believe that you can’t lose your salvation. Historically though, the thought that you can lose your salvation has come from the Arminians, so for the flow of argument, when I refer to Arminians I’m referring to those who don’t agree with eternal security. That being said, let’s continue.

Getting Our Questions Right

I’ve come to dislike the question “Can you lose your salvation?” To me it feels like the youth group kid who wants to know how far he can go with his girlfriend before it becomes sin. His aim isn’t to to whatever he can to please God; it’s to do all he can without pissing him off. That’s what this question feels like. It’s like a way of inquiring about how much we can sin and still be saved. To be fair, I’m not saying that if you word the question this way then your motives are impure. Shoot, I’d argue that even that youth group kid doesn’t always ask his question out of impure motives but rather a misguided focus. Many people will answer the question of how far can you go with the opposite sex by saying “You’ve already gone too far.” That’s a crap answer for the same reason it’d be crap to answer “Can I lose my salvation?” by saying “You already have.” Even still, a misguided focus is a big deal because even the smallest error in our perspective on God could potentially snowball into ungodly ways of living. Instead of asking myself “Can I lose my salvation” I’d prefer to ask myself “Will I make it?” or “Am I saved?” Will I make it to the end? I ask it this way because in so doing, the life of the Christian becomes more about something I’m pursuing rather than something I’m guarding myself against. Don’t mistake me here, we do need to guard ourselves from sin, but we don’t gain Christ by guarding ourselves. We guard ourselves by gaining Christ.

When the Verses Collide

As I’ve already attempted to hammer into your skull, understanding the issue of eternal security is a matter of reconciling truths, not using the same standard of truth against itself. I can’t stress that enough. A Christian is required to preach and teach what the Bible says is true, not what he or she wants it to say is true. The God of the Bible is a God of mystery and paradox. Many things he’s revealed to us. Many things he keeps in secret (Deuteronomy 29:29). Being the control freaks we are, it is in our nature to be driven crazy that we can’t know all there is to know about God. Yet if the God of the universe isn’t beyond human reasoning and comprehension, he really wouldn’t be a God worth serving. But in truth, he holds great mysteries and deep paradoxes. A paradox is a proposition that appears to be self-contradictory but is really not. I think it’s funny how some philosophers belittle Christianity when in reality it is an EXTREMELY philosophical stimulus. I think the problem some philosophers face (along with many Christians) is that paradoxes are unacceptable. But we can’t toss aspects of Christianity we find difficult to understand. Heresies are created this way.

I’ve noticed a VERY common trend in Christianity, and that is the impulse to polarize our interpretations of theology into two distinct and exclusive categories. For instance, with alcohol some people feel drinking is a sin and should be completely abstained from. On the other end, you’ll have some people who will get drunk and claim “freedom in Christ” or those who feel they don’t need to exercise caution when hanging around recovering alcoholics. When it comes to evangelism, I’m amazed at the polar opposites we’ve created. You have confrontational evangelists who will go talk to people in bars or preach on a street corner and relational evangelists who would rather get to know somebody and build a relationship with them and use that to share Christ. And both kinds of evangelists love to bitch about eachother and treat the issue as an either/or issue when in reality maybe there’s room for both. And of course, my favorite polarity is the sovereignty of God and man’s free will. How can man make choices if God is sovereign? Aren’t they exclusive? Many believe they are and build their theology around that. Things can be very difficult to understand and a nightmare to reconcile but that doesn’t mean that they’re illogical. These are paradoxes, or seemingly-contradictory statements.

Matt Chandler from The Village Church warns Christians not to create doctrines to make yourself feel better about God. We love to do that because we’re not always comfortable with an incomprehensible God who has a thing for paradoxes. And what we’ve done when it comes to the issue of eternal security is to decide that it’s too hard to understand that God would say that once you’re saved, you’re saved and then go back and say that you have to persevere of else you’re not saved. So we divide the verses up and create two different doctrines when in reality these two categories of verses are ENTIRELY compatible and not at all contradictory.

The House of Cards

Alright, I think I’ve done enough groundwork and now the question is being asked “Ok, so how does it freakin’ work? How can you possibly reconcile these?” God secures us by causing us to persevere. That’s it. That’s the most simple way I can state it. Alright, let me unpack that.

Some people sometimes call this doctrine the “Preservation of the Saints” instead of “Perseverence of the Saints.” The interesting thing about these two wordings is that they’re two completely different perspectives on the same exact truth. Preservation of the Saints implies that God will preserve his elect while the other says that the elect will persevere to the end. One shows God’s work. The other shows our work. This whole issue is a two-sided coin. One side is divine truth while the other is the human perspective of that divine truth.

What I’m about to say might be offensive, but those who claim they are 1-point, 2-point, 3-point, or 4-point Calvinists are theologically inconsistent. You can logically be only a 5-point Calvinist or a 5-point Arminian. Jacob Arminius didn’t just pick out five random objections against the Reformed churches of Europe. They’re a house of cards. Take one out, and the system collapses. I bring this up because I can’t defend perseverence as a biblical doctrine unless I bring in two other points of Calvinism: unconditional election and irresistible grace. In other words, if you want to believe in “once saved, always saved,” you’ve got to believe in these other two points.

Back to the statement “God secures us by causing us to persevere.” For the sake of my argument, I’m going to reword it this way: “God preserves us by causing us to persevere.” How does he “cause” us to persevere? Philippians 2:13 gives us the answer when it says that it is God who is at work in us giving us the desire to obey him and the power to do what pleases him. Unless God intervenes and does this, we can’t obey him, and we are unable to please him. Only by the power of God can we obey God. And this implies unconditional election, that God sovereignly chose out of the human race who he would save, because if we are unable to even desire him without his intervention and changing of our hearts, then nobody gets saved unless he does just that. The Arminian counterpart, conditional election states that God elects us based on the fact that he forsees that we will turn to him to be saved. Our election is thus conditioned upon what he forsees in us. The problem with this (among many) is that in this interpretation, good works are both the grounds AND the fruit of election. By good works we come to him and are saved, thus enabling us to do good works. But as John Owen says, something cannot be both the cause and effect of the same thing. That’s like saying the universe created itself.

The immediate Arminian objection here is that I’m classifying asking God for salvation as a “good work.” Not quite what I’m saying. 1 Corinthians 2 states that our human nature does not, will not, and cannot desire or discern spiritual things. Ephesians 2:10 is also important here: “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.” Good works are the product of the Christian being saved. He saves us SO THAT we may do good works, and unless he saves us, we can’t do that. But wait a minute, am I saying that anyone who has not been saved by Jesus Christ is incapable of good works? That would be a pretty bold statement considering that charity organizations exist that are not worked by Christians. I’d have to be pretty stupid to be so bold to say that a non-Christian has never stopped on the side of the road to help someone with a flat tire or paid for someone’s meal who couldn’t afford it. Yet that’s exactly where I’m going. Many non-Christians have done very nice things, but they are incapable of good works.

How do I get off saying that? How can I possibly believe that? Because I’m challenging mankind’s definition of “good.” God’s definition of good is doing all things to the glory of God (1 Corinthians 10:31). Works are worthy of God only when they are the natural expression of Godly desires. Any work not done specifically to glorify God is not a good work in God’s eyes. Ephesians 2:10 says that we are created IN Christ Jesus for good works as if to say that only by Jesus can we do works that God defines as “good.” So in light of that I ask: if we are able to do good works without Christ, then why is Christ necessary? He wouldn’t be. Isaiah 43:7 says that we are created for God’s glory. He created us to glorify himself. So if you observe that in light of Ephesians 2:10, then we must conclude that we were created to glorify God by doing good works.

Jesus Christ said that the greatest commandment was to love God with all our heart, mind, and soul. He also said that a tree is known by its fruit and that the fruit is determined by the root. If mankind is incapable of producing fruit (works), it is because mankind doesn’t possess the root (faith) which grows those fruits.

Finding God’s Elect- The Faith that Works

That God elects and will definitely save some for salvation is not a call to revoke evangelism. This has historically been called “Hyper-Calvinism,” which says that you might as well sit on your couch all day watching football because God’s just gonna save them anyway. Rather, God’s election is the grounds of our evangelism. God does not establish ends without establishing their means. With regards to the elect of God, we have no way of knowing who they are from a distance. We can’t look out into a crowd of people and decide who is elect or not. We don’t know nor are we meant to. The only evidence we have that a person is elected by God for salvation is their response to the Gospel, and their perseverence in their faith. Evangelism is not about making sheep. It’s about finding them. Jesus himself rebuked the Pharisees and told them that the reason they didn’t believe was because they weren’t his sheep (John 10:26) [as opposed to saying "You are not my sheep because you do not believe"].

There’s an almost cliche explanation of perseverence of the saints that goes like this: if you’re saved, you’ll keep fighting. If you give up, you were never saved. That’s exactly right. The proof that we have been saved and have eternal life is our perseverence, or the fruit we show. Salvation consists of two aspects: justification (where we are declared guiltless before God and saved) and sanctification (the process whereby God begins to change us to become more conformed to his image). While these are two distinct parts of salvation, they are inseparable in order to be saved. You can’t go to heaven without being justified, and you can’t go to heaven without being sanctified. If you’re paying attention to what I just said, you should notice a paradox. If justification is when we are saved, then how can I say that you have to have sanctification in order to be saved? In other words, how can something else have to happen in order for us to be saved when we’re promised salvation from the start?

There is only way that this could work, and that’s if justification inherently carried with it the promise or guarantee of sanctification, as if to be sanctified is part of the package God gives us when he justifies us. If we have to be sanctified to be saved, and God saves us when he justifies us, then logically when God saves us he promises to sanctify us. Let me rephrase all that, substituting the word “Faith” in place of justification and “Works” in place of sanctification. Faith carries with it the promise of works. When God gives us faith, he promises that works will follow. Want to know the reason that Christians get so hung up over the Faith/Works debate, why we debate faith vs. works salvation? It’s because we call it faith vs. works. It’s because we treat them as two separate entities and they’re not. They are distinct yes, but not separate, just as the Heads side of a coin is distinct from the Tails side, but is not a different coin altogether. They’re inseparable parts of the salvation promise.

In the New Testament, James will challenge those who seek to separate the two. “Show me your faith apart from your works,” he says, “and I will show you my faith BY my works.” Talking about Abraham, he writes that “[his] faith was completed BY his works.” Paul writes “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). God promises the works that will complete our salvation. He saves us to work, and the work is evidence we are saved. Works are thus essential to salvation, not because they save us, nor because they keep us saved, but because they prove that we’re saved. Keep in mind that when I’m referring to works I’m not merely talking about getting cats out of trees for hot girls or getting cats out of trees for old ladies while hot girls are across the street watching. I’m talking about works that are done for the glory of God.

Many will depart from the faith. From a human point of view, people can abandon their faith. But if the faith that saves us is a faith that works, then to cease working means that they never had the faith, and thus were never saved in the first place. In referring to “antichrists,” John writes “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).” Paul writes “Now I would remind you, brothers of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preacehd to you- unless you believed in vain” (1 Corinthians 15:1-2).

Our salvation is something we prove. It’s not something we earn or something we keep from losing. We prove that we are one of God’s elect, and that proof comes by our perseverence. This is why Peter will tell the Christians to add to their faith the qualities of virtue, knowledge, self-control, steadfastness, godliness, brotherly affection, and love. For by so doing you will “make your calling and election sure, for if you practice these qualities you will never fall” (2 Peter 1:10).

“Ok, but…”

How is “proving” that we’re saved any different practically speaking than saying that you have to work to GET saved? That’s a great question, one that I had to wrestle with. The difference between the two lies with WHO your salvation is being proven to. If salvation is something we must prove to God, then we reduce the Christian life to performance-based salvation. Salvation is something that must be proven to ourselves first, and secondly to others. There’s a reason for both.

We must have it proven to ourselves because grace is incomprehensible. I cannot fathom that God loves me and forgave all my sins. As Christians we are still going to sin. The difference between sinning as a Christian and sinning as a lost person is that the Christian doesn’t make a continual practice out of it. To forget God’s radical love for us is to become extremely vulnerable to sin. But this doctrine is the net that catches us as we fall towards the river of doubt. That God still loves us when we sin is what will keep us going. “For the righteous falls seven times and rises again, but the wicked stumble in times of calamity” (Proverbs 24:16). By grace we have been saved through faith. It is grace that God gave us salvation when we didn’t deserve it. I question the definition of “grace” for those who believe it is something we can fall from. To “fall from grace” is an oxymoron. It is a contradiction of terms. How do we, by unworth, lose what we were never worthy of to begin with? Now, if you’ve browsed through Galatians 5 lately, you’re likely to put me in check by pointing out that in verse 4 Paul does mention falling from grace. But in context he’s not talking about being in a state of grace and then falling out of it. The whole point of Galatians is to combat the idea that many Galatians were accepting that they are saved by works along with faith. Paul says that if they are to commit themselves to the Mosaic Law, then they are bound to keep it. And should they bind themselves to it, they are abandoning salvation by faith for a salvation by works. God gives us the proof in his Word that we are saved.

The reason we must prove our salvation to others is found in Matthew 5:16- “let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.” As I said earlier, we are created by God to glorify him by doing good works. Glorifying God is contagious, both to the lost and the saved. I am far more excited about going to God in prayer when others tell me about how God has answered their prayers than when someone tries to guilt trip me into thinking I haven’t been praying enough. The Christians who most impact my life are the ones who show the most joy in God. Glorifying God is contagious because joy is contagious. For the lost, we work to prove to them that Jesus is better than life. We work to prove to them that he IS the way, the truth, and the life. Thus by proving our salvation to others, many will come to know him as savior, and those who already believe will be strengthened.

An artist knows beyond any shadow of doubt that his hand painted the paintings in his studio. He is the one person in the world that authorship of those paintings does not need to be proven to. If there’s anyone we don’t need to prove our salvation to, it’s God. The artist knows his work. Jesus is called the “author” of our salvation and like a good author, he knows his own work. The fact that the Bible gives God all credit for our salvation is more than sufficent to show us that our election is far from being something we prove to God but rather something God proves to us. “The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs– heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him” (Romans 8:16-17).

Commands of Promise

Saint Augustine once prayed “God, command what thou wouldst, and grant thou dost command.” In other words: command of us whatever you would, and give us the ability to obey that command. This drove a monk by the name of Pelagius up the wall. He reasoned that a good, holy, and just God would not make commands of his creatures if they were unable to obey them. Moral obligation implies moral capacity he said. Yet Augustine made the point that when humanity fell by sin, God did not lower his own standard of holiness in order to accomodate our weaknesses. If God is holy, why would he? Holiness allows no compromises. So while humanity fell and became corrupted by sin, God’s standards and commands for holiness remained the same, leaving us completely unable to obey the very things God commanded of us. Feeling helpless yet?

So why does God still make commands of us? Andrew Murray was a big help to me here. He wrote, “He knows so well that we are unable to do what is really holy and heavenly, except as He works it in us, that He means His very demands to become promises of what He will do, in watching over and leading us all the day.” Did you catch that? Not one command of God is meant to be obeyed apart from his power. His Spirit assures us that we are children of God (Romans 8:16) and he commands us to work out that salvation and make it sure (Philippians 2:12, 2 Peter 1:10). He proves it to us, we prove it to others.

We must persevere to the end in order to be saved. Make no mistake about that. If Murray is correct, this command to persevere carries with it the promise that God will see to it that we do. Make no mistake about that either. One is a command, the other is merely the promise of fulfilling that command. Oh God, command what you will, and grant whatever you command. Command me to persevere, and preserve me until the end.

Matt Chandler of the Village Church in Dallas, regarding this very issue once said that those who are afraid of “losing their salvation” NEED to be afraid. Much as I love the Chan-Man, I think he’s wrong. To work out our salvation with fear and trembling, and to make our calling and election sure is a lifelong fight. Fear is one of your greatest allies for it is one of the greatest evidences that you are God’s. It’s the proof that you are in fact fighting, and if fighting, alive. Those who are not truly elect will eventually, through interest in the things of the world, forfeit their interests in spiritual things and there will be no room in their hearts for a fear of losing their salvation. This isn’t to say that fear gives you warrant to become spiritually lazy. No, rather, fear is to propel us into greater degrees of devotion. Fear awakens us to the deficiencies in our spiritual lives, that we may turn to God and correct them.

If you’re afraid, take comfort. The dead don’t fear for their health.

Conclusion

There’s a final word I must say and it regards justification. Earlier I mentioned how justification is the utter removal of all your sins, being spotless before God. There’s something else to it though. Justification is not only the removal of sin, its the imputation of the righteousness of Jesus to you. To those who are saved, God looks at you and sees the perfect life lived by his Son Jesus Christ. He never sees us apart from his Son. Christianity is the constant and continual reaping of another person’s reward. Not only are our sins forgiven, but his righteousness is credited towards us. Those who maintain that salvation can be lost do not understand the nature of justification, nor do they know the Word of God. To them I say: follow your beliefs to their conclusion. To say that even ONE PERSON who has EVER been justified has become unjustified is tantamount to saying that Jesus did not live a totally sinless life. For how can God look upon a person who is credited with the life of his Son and reject him unless the life of his Son was not worthy of God’s acceptance? If the Christian is unworthy, then Christ was unworthy. This is damnable. But what of all the people who depart from the faith? There are two explanations. Either you must concede that Christ was not sinless or that his righteousness was never credited to them in the first place. Those whom God saves will persevere.

“Justification,” writes C.J. Mahaney, “is being DECLARED righteous. Sanctification is being MADE righteous- being conformed to the image of Christ.” That we are declared righteous when we’re not righteous is the full essence of grace. Can you lose your salvation? You might as well ask if its possible to exist and not exist at the same time, for that question is really asking if something can and can not exist at the same time (the non-assurance of assurance). While the question has a legitimate answer (no), the very absurdity of it renders it ineffective for attaining anything beyond mere knowledge. In other words, to merely say that you can’t lose your salvation cheapens the very nature of what salvation is and is therefore a stunt to our growth in the Christian life. Many fools sin and sin because they’re under the illusion that salvation is nothing more than a reservation they made in heaven when they were 7 by praying a prayer. The reservation they say will always be there, I can live however I want. But give me a God who loved me when I hated him, a Savior who lived perfectly because of my imperfections so that I be declared righteous when I was anything but, and the question whether or not salvation can be lost will become self-evident, and I will ask myself instead “Am I saved?”

“For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified.”
-Hebrews 10:14