Pastor's Blog

The whole issue of eternal security is one that constantly plagues evangelical Christians.  Children who make decisions to receive Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior often later come to their parents or Sunday School teachers with disturbing doubts about whether or not they’re really saved.  Christian young people, facing the onslaught of the world’s alluring temptations—and often finding themselves falling into sin—are often tormented by the fears that they are still lost in their sins.  Even adults may find themselves discouraged that after years of walking with the Lord they cannot seem to have victory over sin.  It is an article faith with some denominations and churches that assurance of salvation is impossible, and that the Christian is always in danger of losing that salvation.

What’s the problem here?  Recently I read this penetrating statement:  “Though my sins are crucified, they are never wholly mortified.”  The writer who penned these words was expressing a common frustration among believers.  We accept the truth of Scripture that we “are crucified with Christ” as Galatians 2:20 tells us.  Our sins have been put to death as we died with the Lord Jesus.  “Knowing this,” says the Apostle Paul, “that our old self was crucified with Him in order that our body of sin might be done away with” (Rom 6:6).  Except that our body of sin isn’t done away with, and it seems sometimes that the longer we live the Christian life the harder it gets to be holy!  We are declared to have been united with Christ in the likeness of His death so that we would be raised to walk in the newness of life.  Except that in too many ways we continue walking according to the old life.

Where is the power over sin that God has promised?  The answer is . . . faith. The problem is that we have only a partial understanding of what the Bible teaches about faith and salvation.  As evangelical, Bible-believing Christians, we correctly believe without reservation that we are saved by grace through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.  The Bible says so.  Where we have failed to take Scripture at face value is that it also teaches us that our salvation is not just from the penalty of sin, but from its power.  This means that salvation is not just deliverance from hell, but from the bondage of sin itself.  We are justified (declared righteous) by grace through faith.  However, the good news is that we are also sanctified (set apart from sin) by grace through faith.  Our position is one of righteousness through faith; but so is our condition. “You are in Christ Jesus,” writes Paul, “who became to us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification, and redemption” (1 Cor 1:30).  To the Thessalonians, Paul says that “God has chosen you from the beginning for salvation through sanctification by the Spirit and faith in the truth” (2 Thess 2:13).

Thus, the Holy Spirit has sanctified us by releasing from bondage to sin (that’s our position), but that release is realized by faith in the truth (that’s our condition).  To put it another way, as a believer who by faith is positionally in Christ, you must claim by faith the sanctification that has already been accomplished at the cross.  Justified by faith?  Absolutely.  But sanctified by faith too!  And thus, we must not fall into the trap of believing that we are saved through faith, but that we are sanctified by our own efforts to be good or by striving to keep God’s Law.  Such thinking ends in frustration every time!

This, then, is the secret of eternal security.  We can no more keep ourselves saved than we could get ourselves saved in the first place!  Holiness comes as we appropriate by faith the work that the Lord Jesus Christ finished on the cross of Calvary.  There is nothing we can add; we can only believe it and receive it.  Now that’s the secret of victory over sin; and that’s real assurance.  I trust that if you have never done so, you will embrace it today.