Time to Grow Up

A post on a Christian forum was titled, "Can you lose your salvation and eternal life?" Here we are again. How many times have we all heard this question, been asked it or asked it ourselves? This is like Christianity's version of the chicken and the egg dilemma that has baffled people for ages without an apparent resolution. According to the Australian Academy of Science, the chicken and the egg is an "old riddle that’s sparked many arguments through the ages: was it the chicken or the egg that came first? It’s such a tricky question because you need a chicken to lay an egg, but chickens come from eggs, leaving us with an intractable circle of clucky, feathery life that apparently has no clear starting point." But, this question is simply answered when you use God's Word as a resource. How do I know this? The first chapter of the Bible gives us the answer. "And God said, “Let the earth bring forth living creatures according to their kinds: livestock, land crawlers, and beasts of the earth according to their kinds.” And it was so. God made the beasts of the earth according to their kinds, the livestock according to their kinds, and everything that crawls upon the earth according to its kind. And God saw that it was good (Genesis 1:24-25)." We clearly see it says that on the sixth day of creation God created "livestock, land crawlers, and beasts of the earth according to their kind." No doubt that the chicken was included in this group of animals. Therefore, the chicken came first. Now, I admit, I am being a bit silly, but you get my point; not everything is as complicated as we make it. So it is with the question of eternal security. There is no reason at all that a Christian should believe that they can lose their salvation much less be debating it with each other for ages like is the case with the chicken and the egg. From my experience, the problem begins with a misunderstanding of the Gospel. The Gospel being sin, death, forgiveness, and the restoration of life. Adam sinned by eating the forbidden fruit (Genesis 3:6). This violated God's command to Adam that he "must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil; for in the day that you eat of it, you will surely die (Genesis 2:17)."  The life of God breathed into Adam when he was created (Genesis 2:7) was removed and Adam died spiritually. God, in His love, desired to restore His life back to mankind, but He first had to deal with the problem of sin that caused Him to remove His life in the first place. Therefore, God became a man, in Christ Jesus, to live the life we could not and died in our place to take the penalty for our sin (Philippians 2:5-8). Having accomplished the forgiveness of sins, God could now offer His life to all who accept Jesus Christ by faith through the Resurrection (John 11;25; Romans 5:10). Therefore, because sin is no longer an issue between man and God, there is no sin that can cause His life to leave a person when they are spiritually raised from the dead through faith in Jesus Christ. It is an eternal life that will carry a person the rest of their physical life, through death, and into eternity. That is what I call eternal security. As for what I said in answer to the question about losing salvation, I invite you to read on. I pray what I said helps to begin to settle this issue.

"I wonder how many people who believe they can lose their salvation have lost it in their estimation? And what did they do to get it back? It seems that only they are the ones that believe they are doing what is required by God in order to obtain or maintain this elusive salvation. Jesus said to be as perfect as your Heavenly Father (Matthew 5:48). How are they doing with this? If one can lose salvation, it means that Jesus' finished work on the cross was not enough and that our sins are still being counted against us despite scripture saying God is not counting our sins against us (2 Corinthians 5:19; Romans 4:8), that there is no longer any sacrifice for sin (Hebrews 10:17-18), and when Jesus returns it is to bring salvation to those waiting for Him not to deal with sin (Hebrews 9:28). Scripture also says that without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness (Hebrews 9:22). Therefore, your confession booths, 1 John 1:9ing (taken out of context), short accounts, altar calls, etc., are all bloodless sacrifices God does not require or accept. If you can lose eternal life, it is not eternal. By continuing to make sin an issue we are trampling the Son of God underfoot (Hebrews 10:29) by effectively putting Him back on the cross. If our works of obedience play a role in our salvation then we must still be under the law and Paul was mistaken when He said we are not (Galatians 3:24-25). Furthermore, if there is no law then sin is not taken into account (Romans 5:13). And if sin is not taken into account because we are not under the law, what is it that causes us to lose salvation? And John must have been lying when he said: "I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life (1 John 5:13)." You can never know you have eternal if you can lose it! But, hey, we can't have another endless thread on eternal security if our salvation is secure. We are still immature Christians drinking milk if we are continuing to debate eternal security. God can't grow us and mature us in the grace and knowledge of Himself if we are still uncertain about whether or not we are His children. No wonder the author of Hebrews said, "We have much to say about this, but it is hard to explain because you are dull of hearing. Although by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to reteach you the basic principles of God’s word. You need milk, not solid food! For everyone who lives on milk is still an infant, inexperienced in the message of righteousness (Hebrews 5:11-13)." Grace and Peace"