Can you lose your salvation?

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March 27, 2021

Rapp Report episode 165 Have you ever wrestled with the question, “Can I lose my salvation?” If so, this is one episode that’s worth another listen as Andrew and Bud discuss it. The question of whether or not you are “saved” is one that has been debated for centuries. Some believe it is possible to...

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00:55: ChumbaCasino .com. No purchase necessary. Void where prohibited by law. 18 -plus terms and conditions apply. See website for details. Can you lose your salvation?
01:03: Is it something that you can gain and then have it taken away? That's what we'll talk about today on The Rap Report.
01:10: Welcome to The Rap Report with your host, Andrew Rappaport, where we provide biblical interpretation and application.
01:19: This is a ministry of striving for eternity in the Christian podcast community. For more content or to request a speaker for your church, go to strivingforeternity .org.
01:29: Well, welcome to another edition of The Rap Report. Glad to have you with us. I am your host,
01:34: Andrew Rappaport, and I am adjoined by my friend in sunny Florida.
01:41: Adjoined. Not conjoined. Just adjoined. Yeah, I'm joined. I'm just joined. Joined. Joined.
01:47: Don't add anything else to it. Greetings, Andrew. How you doing, brother? Good. I see the sun in the window there.
01:54: We're in sunny Florida. Well, it's light, but it's foggy out this morning, so...
02:01: I just wanted to know one thing. Are you going to keep the sun when I come back down there in May? Or are you going to make it like last time where there was no sun and it was cold?
02:10: The track record so far is you come to Florida and things just fall apart. It's just like a
02:16: Nor 'easter blows in or something. Oh, well, I will be your way in May.
02:24: I'll be at Beulah Baptist Church, and that's going to be
02:30: May 7th, 8th, 9th, and 10th. That's a Friday through Monday. We're doing a Snatch Them From the
02:35: Flames. That's in Winter Garden. I think it's just north of Orlando, and that is going to be with Justin Peters, Dr.
02:44: Anthony Silvestro, myself. It's a discernment conference. We cover topics like, you know, the sufficiency of Scripture, how to interpret the
02:53: Scriptures. We're going to have a session on social justice, discerning that. We're going to have a session on how to discern false teachers, how to identify false teachers.
03:04: Both Justin Peters and I are going to be teaching on Sunday, and then on Monday night Justin Peters will do a special session, something he's never done before, but one on pragmatism in the church.
03:15: So, that's something to look forward to. You can get in touch with Beulah Baptist Church there in Winter Garden, Florida, if you're interested in joining us.
03:26: Since we're giving some events, I'm also going to be at, in June, the first week of June, June 3rd to the 6th, we will be at the
03:35: Cruciform Conference. Dr. Silvestro will be there, Justin Peters and myself will be there speaking at Cruciform.
03:42: The topic this year is Standing Firm. The pre -conference will be on,
03:50: I know Dr. Silvestro is doing, I think, two sessions on presuppositional apologetics at the pre -conference.
03:56: So, you want to look, go search for Cruciform Conference and get that detail.
04:03: So, with that out of the way, bud, didn't plan on giving that announcement, but it's good for folks to know where we're speaking.
04:10: We did get a review. Really? Yeah, and you were mentioned on it. Uh -oh. Oh, yeah, I know.
04:16: It's bad because it mentions your name. So, here's what it says. The review is a five -star review, which is surprising.
04:22: I like that. It says stellar, detailed, and refreshing. So, I don't know, are you,
04:28: I don't know which one of us is the stellar, which one's the detailed, neither one of us are refreshing, I don't know. But here's the review.
04:36: It says, I've listened to a lot of various podcasts and sermons from Andrew, but the rap report is my favorite.
04:42: Andrew often speaks with Bud on major issues of today, facing the
04:48: Christian. It is refreshing to hear deep, solid truth that greatly assist
04:55: Christians in their walk with their Lord. There are too few strong Christian leaders like Andrew and Bud willing to go into such great length to share the truth.
05:09: I've had the pleasure, I'm going to question this, I've had the pleasure to meet Andrew multiple times.
05:16: I try to share his podcast with as many receptive
05:22: Christians as I can, because I know they will be greatly blessed by his teaching.
05:29: Keep up the godly, or keep up the great godly work. Your brother in Christ, Kevin. So, we thank
05:37: Kevin for the review, and he even speaks highly of you, Bud. What impressed me the most, honestly, he noted that you were speaking with me and not at me, which would not be uncalled for, certainly, but I was appreciative of that.
05:56: Thank you, Kevin. So, we appreciate the fact that we do like to get into detail, we do like to, and we're going to do that in this episode.
06:05: We want to jump in because there is a thing that, for many people, struggle with this issue,
06:11: Bud, about can I lose my salvation. There's a lot of Christians that are dealing with this.
06:20: There is a belief that some say you can lose your salvation, some say you cannot, and one of the things that I find often is the fact that for many
06:30: Christians, there's a lack of an understanding of what the nature of salvation is.
06:38: And so, what we want to do today is go over the nature of salvation. Let's look at what salvation actually is before we answer the question, can we lose our salvation?
06:48: And then we're going to get into why people struggle with this question experientially.
06:54: Theologically, it's a different issue. There are some things we will deal with that as well from a theological perspective.
07:01: So, let's start with this. We talk about salvation, and we have to first understand what is salvation.
07:08: I think that one of the clearest texts, at least the most detailed texts with this, and you can look at the entire book of Romans, Galatians, but let me start with one verse.
07:22: I think this is the clearest verse when we talk about salvation, and it is when we look at 2
07:31: Corinthians 5 .21. I use this as, this is salvation in one verse.
07:37: In fact, this describes what I would call salvation in one word, and the one word is the theological term where we basically have the, its imputation is the theological term.
07:53: It is the idea that we see here in 2 Corinthians 5 .21 where it says,
07:59: He made him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God.
08:09: So, the imputation here that's being discussed is our sin is being imputed, put upon Christ, and His righteousness is put upon us.
08:19: I think that's salvation in a nutshell. It's the clearest, simplest way of explaining what salvation is.
08:27: Our sin - Don't miss the last two words. In Him. That verse, in Him.
08:33: Yeah, because the thing that we see in this is, this really encapsulates the core of what is salvation.
08:41: We no longer have sin. It was our sin, and I'll note this, the sin is singular, not plural.
08:48: Why is that a big deal? When people make a mistake or they say, well, you have to repent of your sins, they don't think through that.
08:55: That's actually a heresy. It's actually works righteousness. We don't repent of the works that we do, like stop doing those and turn to Christ.
09:04: It's sin singular. It means our pride, our sin nature, that thing that we're doing everything for self.
09:11: That's what we turn from. We turn from self, that selfishness, that pride, and turn to Christ.
09:17: But that pride is what brings about all the actual acts of sin that we do. So, it's really encompassing in that sense of all of our sin, because it's all rooted in the pride.
09:28: So, all of our sin was laid upon Christ, and then we in return get
09:33: His righteousness, but we have to be in Him, and that means through Christ. So, what you see in this is, you see that Christ cannot just be a human being.
09:42: He has to be something beyond that, because He has the righteousness of God that a human being doesn't have.
09:48: He cannot give us that righteousness if He doesn't possess that righteousness, which is saying here that He is
09:56: God. Why? Because He has the righteousness of God. So, one of the things you see in this is that Jesus is
10:01: God. That's who the in Him is, is Christ, when you look at the context. So, we have to recognize
10:07: Christ as God, that He died for our sins. He took our sins upon Himself, and He gives to us in exchange
10:12: His righteousness. This is what Martin Luther referred to as the great transaction, and the idea of imputation is probably the simplest.
10:23: I remember when I was in seminary, this is the thing that seminarians do, think of really stupid questions to ask each other to figure out how mundane we could be.
10:35: One of the discussions was, when you think about the gospel, what is the absolute basic, what is it that you, how articulate can you be using as few words to define the gospel?
10:50: And I came up, well, I had Romans 8 and 9. When you look at, sorry,
10:56: Romans 10, 8, and 9. When you look at Romans 10, 8, and 9, it says, but what do you, what does it say?
11:02: The word, oh sorry, reading verse 8 just for context. The word is near you, in your mouth, in your heart, that is the word of faith which we are preaching, that if you confess with your mouth,
11:15: Jesus is Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart, a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth, confession, resulting in salvation.
11:27: So I thought, okay, we got two things, right, that you see here, confession and belief.
11:33: So I thought, okay, that would, I thought I had it down to two words, and then one of the other guys said imputation, and I realized he then only answered it better.
11:43: And so I had two verses, and he had one verse, so he got me both ways. But I think that that really does encapsulate it very well, is we first have to understand what salvation is.
11:55: That this is Christ taking our sin upon Himself, and in exchange giving us
12:00: His righteousness. I think this will be helpful when we get into the question of whether you can lose your salvation. When we think about what salvation is.
12:08: However, there's another passage, Bud, that we should look at. It's a little bit of a longer passage, and this is one of these ones.
12:15: This is Ephesians chapter one, and the thing I like about Ephesians chapter one is because of the fact that it helps me to feel better about the fact that I was always in trouble in school, in English class, for these run -on sentences, and I'm glad that when
12:30: I read the scriptures, I realize that Paul has a run -on sentence. It goes from Ephesians chapter...
12:38: I think this is where John Owen, if you've ever read the Puritan John Owen, this is where he learned it. You can start on page one, and five pages later you finally find the period.
12:48: This is Ephesians chapter 1 -3 down to 14 is one sentence.
12:55: One very long sentence. But how about you read those 11 verses for us?
13:05: Okay, Ephesians 1 -3 through 14, and this will be from the LSB, by the way.
13:11: Oh, someone's got the new translation. So everyone knows.
13:17: Yeah, I'm still waiting for Shepherd's Conference to get mine, but I want to get it when we have the full Bible right now.
13:24: They just have New Testament and Proverbs and Psalms, so I'm waiting for the whole thing.
13:29: No, I've been reading the New Testament. I've incorporated it into my day. Oh, I love it. You get to Psalms and Yahweh, you see that everywhere, and then it's just really refreshing.
13:43: Anyway, back to Ephesians and to Paul's long sentence. Ephesians 1 -3.
13:50: Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, just as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before him in love by predestining us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to himself according to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of the glory of his grace, which he graciously bestowed on us in the blood of it.
14:21: In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our transgressions according to the riches of his grace, which he caused to abound to us in all wisdom and insight, making known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in him for an administration of the fullness of times, that is, the summing up of all things in Christ, things in the heavens and things on the earth, in him.
14:50: In him we have also been made an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will, to the end that we who have first hoped in Christ would be to the praise of his glory.
15:07: In him you also, after listening to the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, having also believed, you were sealed in him with the
15:16: Holy Spirit of promise, who is given as a pledge of our inheritance unto the redemption of God's own possession, to the praise of his glory.
15:26: Now that's a very long sentence, but it's packed. One of the things I love about this passage is it shows all three members of the
15:34: Triunity involved in our salvation. You see God the Father, you see Jesus Christ the
15:39: Son, and you see his Spirit all together working in salvation. And so I want to break this down,
15:45: Bud, as we look at the idea of the nature of salvation. Right off the bat in verse 3 we're seeing, blessed be the
15:55: God, the Father, or Lord Jesus Christ, who blessed us with what? With every spiritual blessing.
16:01: So we don't lack anything. We have every spiritual blessing that we need.
16:07: So this has, I mean, this actually has, if you think about maybe the charismatic movement these days where they're always looking for more spiritual blessings, they're looking for more gifts.
16:19: Yeah, or more revelation. Yeah. There's nothing more than we have every spiritual blessing. He blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ.
16:29: It's funny because, you know, as you read through this, in Christ and in him is throughout. All over it.
16:35: All over it. No wonder we have Solus Christus, Christ alone, as one of the five solos.
16:41: Because how do we get salvation other than through Christ? And that's what this text is going to help us to see.
16:48: But notice, not only does he give us every spiritual blessing, but verse 4, this becomes an important thing, just as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, okay, that we would be holy and blameless before him.
17:04: This is a key passage to look at. So let's break this down. So God chose us.
17:09: Now I know there's some who go, no, no, no, wait, I believed. I believed. The idea that God chose us before the foundation of the world, some people go, well, okay, before there was time,
17:19: God picked people. You're going to be saved, you're not. You're going to be saved, you're not.
17:24: And they believe that is what we would hold to. However, let's think about something.
17:30: God being a being who created the time, matter, space continuum,
17:36: I believe that he is outside of time. He's not bound by time. He can work within time, but he's not a being that is bound by time.
17:46: In other words, it's hard for us to comprehend this, but I believe that for God, there was a time before there was time.
17:55: I don't know how else to say that. So what does it mean before the foundation of time?
18:01: What I think he's getting at is before there was a creation, God in his omniscience, he's all -knowing, he didn't learn anything.
18:12: This is something that we don't often think about. God never learned anything. He never had a bright idea.
18:17: He just knows everything. There's nothing that is happened, is happening, will happen that he did not know about.
18:27: He knows everything, even though he knows it outside of time. So everything to him is the same eternal now.
18:33: I mean, we're sitting here doing this recording right now. Our listeners are listening to it later, and yet Christ is on the cross.
18:41: Abraham's sacrificing Isaac. You know, everything is the same point in time.
18:46: I mean, it's a hard concept for us to understand. So I think when he says before the foundation of time, what our
18:53: Lord is trying to tell us is basically baby talk. This is the simplest way
18:58: I can explain it. When we talk to dumb things down for children, we make it simple.
19:04: Well, we cannot comprehend what it means time before time, right? We can't understand what it means before the foundation of the world.
19:12: But the idea of it is that we had nothing to do with it. God chose us before the world existed.
19:20: In other words, he's trying to say that this is not based on merit or anything. It's based on his choice.
19:27: He chose. Why? I can't answer that. But he chose without us having any involvement in it.
19:33: That's what it means before the foundation of the world. It's to say that before there was a world, he had already made his decision.
19:40: But what did he choose us for? Because look in this verse that we would be holy and blameless before him.
19:48: So as we stand before him, he sees us as holy and blameless. But when you and I look at each other, we don't quite look at each other as holy and blameless on this side of heaven, right?
19:59: Oh, no. I look at you with complete piety. I think that you are really up there. Lying is a sin, my friend.
20:07: That is the ninth commandment violation there. But it's jesting and sin. That's what
20:12: I need to know. It's jesting and sin. Yeah, there's a point to his election, and that's what we're talking about here in this particularly is his election.
20:23: There's a point to it, and the point is that we would be holy and blameless before him.
20:29: How are we going to do that, Andrew? Well, we can't do that, ultimately. God does it through us, and we're going to get there.
20:37: But there's something more that if we keep looking at this, not only are we chosen to be holy and blameless, but look what he says in the very next verse in verse 5.
20:46: He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to himself.
20:54: So the idea of predestined or a foreknowledge that he knows ahead of time.
21:01: Now, again, this is a strange term to use for a being that knows everything, for a being that is outside of time.
21:10: But how else could he communicate the concept that he has here that this is all based on what
21:15: God has in his mind and how he's going to work everything in creation.
21:22: So he predestined us, in other words, he not only chose us to be holy and blameless, but he predestined us to be adopted into his family in Christ.
21:31: So it's because of Christ, through Christ and Christ alone, that we can be adopted into his family.
21:37: And this is according to the kind intention of his will. So, again, who do we put all this on?
21:44: This is God. Notice the emphasis here. It's all God's planning, God the
21:50: Father's planning of our salvation, okay? And it's to the praise and glory of his grace.
21:55: So he gets all the glory, which he freely bestows on us. So notice he's the one bestowing this.
22:01: We're not having say in this, in a sense. We're going to get to whether we do have a say in it, but what we see here is that God is laying out that this was something he decided long ago before the world existed.
22:14: Now, as we think about the nature of salvation, we end up seeing that you see in verse 7, how do we have redemption?
22:21: We have redemption through Christ, the forgiveness of our trespasses. So it's in Christ. So now you're seeing that this is, again, not only is
22:29: God doing all this, laying out this plan, Christ is providing that solution to our salvation.
22:36: He's providing the salvation. So you have God the Father as the planner, God the Son as the provider.
22:42: We see it's through him and him alone that the riches of his grace, which he lavished on us.
22:49: So I'm pressing this to show us what scripture says is the force behind our salvation.
22:58: It is all God, God the Father. You're seeing the emphasis on Christ, the provider, that he made known the mystery according to his kind intentions, which he purposed on him.
23:12: Notice again, it's his intention, it's his planning, it's his provision, and it doesn't stop with the
23:17: Son because we drop down to verse 13 and we see that not only is God the
23:22: Father, the planner, God the Son is the provider, but God the
23:28: Spirit is the protector. We see here it says, in him you also, after listening to the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation, having believed, so this is now dealing with people who have believed, having believed you were sealed in him with the
23:47: Holy Spirit of promise, who gave a pledge of our inheritance with a view to redemption on God's own possession to the praise of his glory.
23:59: So what you see here is the Holy Spirit himself is the seal of our salvation.
24:05: So when we say that someone is saved, what we see is God the Father planned it before there was a creation.
24:11: God the Son provided it at the cross. We're going to get there in a moment. And then the
24:16: Holy Spirit protects us, protects it by being the seal.
24:23: The person of the Holy Spirit is the seal of our salvation, and it says the
24:28: Holy Spirit of promise who has given us a pledge of his inheritance. This is something that many
24:36: Jewish people would understand. This goes back to Ezekiel, Jeremiah 29, 29 and following and Ezekiel 36, where what you end up seeing is this is the idea of the new covenant that the
24:51: Jewish people would look forward to. And in Ezekiel 36, 25 and following, we have the same reference that Paul, I think, is referring to in this passage in Ephesians 1.
25:03: It says there in Ezekiel, starting at verse 25, then I will sprinkle clean water on you and make you clean.
25:10: I will cleanse you from all your filthiness, from all your filthiness. This is the promise.
25:16: He's going to cleanse us of all our filthiness and all your idols. Moreover, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.
25:33: And then here's where it's different. Verse 27. I will put my spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes and you will be careful to observe my ordinances.
25:45: You will live in the land that I give you to your forefathers so that you will be my people and I will be your
25:52: God. Moreover, I will save you from all uncleanness and I will call the grain and multiply it and I will not bring a famine to you.
26:04: You know, he goes on there and so what you end up having here is a promise that God would do something that in the
26:11: Old Testament we only saw at certain times. We'd see men like Saul or David, we would see the spirit come upon men for leadership, but we don't see in the
26:22: Old Testament the spirit coming upon every believer. So I think what's being referenced here in Ephesians is the fact of the new covenant that the
26:29: Jewish people would look forward to and that is that there would be a time, as it says in Jeremiah, I got the passage wrong earlier in Jeremiah, it's
26:37: Jeremiah 31, 31 and following. But what you see in there is a reference to the fact that we no longer will need priests.
26:45: Between these two passages, what do we look forward to in the new covenant? That God himself and the personal
26:52: Holy Spirit will indwell us and in that indwelling we would have the
26:57: Holy Spirit who would illuminate our minds to an understanding of God's Word and the application of it.
27:03: God himself in the personal Holy Spirit is the seal, he's the down payment.
27:08: So we have the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. When we get saved we are baptized with the
27:14: Holy Spirit. Now for people that are in the charismatic circles this is different than filling of the Holy Spirit and it's different than the way charismatics refer to this.
27:23: So let me define this a little bit bud for folks because sometimes there's confusion in this. When people talk in the charismatic circles they will talk about the fact that someone gets saved and then they start speaking in tongues and they refer to that speaking in tongues as baptized in the
27:40: Spirit. In other words now they have the gifts of the Spirit. What we end up seeing, I don't have time in this episode to do this, maybe we'll do it in another, we look at what happens at salvation.
27:52: We get at the moment of salvation we are baptized in the Spirit, that means we're immersed.
27:58: For our Presbyterian friends that's what baptismo means, to be plunged, immerse, dip.
28:05: So we are plunged with the Holy Spirit, he doesn't just sprinkle himself on us, he indwells us.
28:12: So we're baptized with the Spirit, that's the idea of the indwelling of the Spirit. That is a one -time event that we are filled with the
28:20: Spirit, he comes in and indwells us. This is different than the filling of the Spirit. The filling of the
28:25: Spirit is what we think of in the Old Testament and that's when the Spirit would come upon someone and for leadership or for service and that can come and go.
28:35: So that's where there's some confusion with this. So when the charismatics say that you get gifts after you're saved, if you look at 1
28:45: Corinthians 12, 13, and 14 you end up seeing that we're all baptized into one Spirit into one church when we are saved. So we get those gifts at salvation.
28:53: So the emphasis that we see here is that through the Holy Spirit when we believe, as it says here in Ephesians, verse 13, having also believed you were sealed in him with the
29:07: Holy Spirit of promise, who's given the pledge of our inheritance, our inheritance, that's future to us, that's the moment we die.
29:14: He is going to protect our salvation until we die. He is that pledge. To break that seal you would have to be greater than God to break the seal.
29:23: That's the idea here. The idea of a seal is that only someone who has the authority to open it can open it and the
29:31: Holy Spirit is the one that is the seal. Only God himself has the authority to break the seal.
29:38: So with that so far, Bud, anything you want to add to that? No, I don't think so.
29:44: I think that you're going to lead into the question that we're going to also talk about is, can you lose your salvation?
29:53: And I think part of that is because people don't know truly these days what the effects of salvation should look like.
30:02: These things have happened. These are forensic truths that Paul is giving to us here, and they have implications.
30:10: It's not merely head knowledge of doctrine. They actually have implications. So I know that's what you're going to go into.
30:17: Yeah, because I think a lot of people, Bud, because they don't have a good foundation of what salvation is, that's where the struggle is.
30:26: I mean, we're seeing in Ephesians 1, God is the one that's laying out the plan, providing the plan, and protecting the plan.
30:34: I mean, this is all the Trinity. But then we get into this fact that in Ephesians 1 we're seeing that this was done before the foundation of the world.
30:42: This was laid out all before there was time, before any of us were even a conception. So not, of course, to God he had the conception, but not to people.
30:52: Like, we didn't exist. But here's the other thing a lot of people don't understand, and a struggle for many, is they see that they made a profession of faith, but then they are living in some sin, and they start to question their salvation.
31:07: Now, there are passages, and I'm going to include in the show notes here an article that I wrote on Hebrews 6, because many people will argue that Hebrews 6 teaches that you can lose your salvation.
31:20: And there are different passages in the Bible where people use to theologically make an argument you can lose your salvation.
31:27: The issue is that what I end up seeing in those passages is they are typically talking about false converts, someone who is a hypocrite.
31:35: They make profession of faith, but they don't actually believe. And so I'll give you that article to read in more detail.
31:40: Darrell Bock And that's worth a study, because you need to really understand, who is the author of Hebrews talking about?
31:47: And until you clarify that, sure, you could come away thinking, oh my goodness, I can lose my salvation, it's written right here.
31:54: No, no, you need to understand the text there, and who the target audience is that he's talking to, and who he is also talking about.
32:03: John Ligato And this is the thing that we have to do with all these texts, is to dig in and interpret them. And when we do, we work through these texts as we've just done in Ephesians.
32:12: Briefly, you end up realizing that God is making it really clear that we had nothing to do with the salvation. He had everything to do with it.
32:19: And so you come to Colossians. Turn to Colossians 2. If you're not driving, if you're driving, just listen.
32:26: Don't take your hands off the wheels, just listen. But for the rest of us, open your Bibles to Colossians 2, verses 13 and 14.
32:34: Because verse 14 is going to be very important in this area, because part of this question is, when was
32:41: I forgiven and what was I forgiven of? Was I forgiven? I ask this question often to people. Recently on my
32:47: Apologetics Live podcast, I did a debate with someone on Calvinism, and the issue
32:53: I asked him is, when were your sins forgiven, at the cross or when you believed? And he said, when
32:58: I believed. And many people believe that. But let's see what Scripture says. 2
33:04: Corinthians 2 .13. Darrell Bock No. John Ligato Colossians. Sorry. Thank you. Darrell Bock Colossians.
33:09: John Ligato Colossians 2 .13. See, I got you to keep me honest with this. When you were dead in your transgressions and uncircumcised in your flesh,
33:19: He made you alive together with Him, having forgiven us of all our transgressions.
33:26: So, let's stop there and just look at what verse 13 is saying. First off, we were dead in our transgressions. We needed
33:32: Him to make us alive. Notice what's happening there. We can't do this. We're dead in our transgressions.
33:38: He makes us alive with Him. How does He do that? He says, having forgiven us of all our transgressions.
33:46: So, when someone is made alive, they are forgiven, not of some of their transgressions, but all of our transgressions.
33:54: Now, notice what it says. Not only are all our transgressions forgiven, but verse 14, having canceled out the certificate of debt consisting of decrees against us.
34:09: So, He cancels this, right? All these transgressions that we have, that we're forgiven of,
34:15: He canceled them out. He gave a certificate of them being canceled. This is like when you pay off your mortgage, it gets stamped paid in full.
34:23: Everything, all of the debt, all your transgressions have been canceled out, paid in full, everything against us.
34:31: And then it says, which was hostile to us, and He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross.
34:41: What happens at the cross? When someone would be crucified, what they would do is they'd crucify the person and above him, they would put the offense of what he's being crucified for, stealing, murder, whatever it is.
34:54: In this case, what we have Paul saying in Colossians is that all of our sin was canceled out completely, paid in full when?
35:04: When it was nailed to the cross. Our sins were forgiven at the cross.
35:10: So, when we think about this, it's saying all of it. So, what sin is left out?
35:15: None, nothing. Everything was paid at the cross and it said it was nailed to the cross. In other words, for those of us that profess the name of Christ, every sin we have ever done, every sin we are doing, every sin that we have yet to do was all nailed to the cross.
35:35: It was all future to the cross. The idea that somehow we could be sinning in such a way that we were saved, but then we got really into sin.
35:46: Oh, it's so bad. We kept sinning. And the idea that we would be in some sin that would cause us to walk away from Christ.
35:56: Guess what? That sin that you are doing is future to the cross. It was already paid at the cross if you're believing in Christ.
36:03: So, there is no sin in the future that could cause you to lose your salvation in that sense because it's all future to the cross.
36:10: Now, I'm kind of giving away my answer, but, to the question. But what we're seeing is that the sins we do have all been paid at the cross and that cross was 2 ,000 years removed from you and I.
36:26: So, I'm helping us to hopefully get this groundwork. I mean, we're 40 minutes in, bud, to the episode and we haven't even gotten to the question yet.
36:36: But I think that this groundwork will lay the foundation to where the answer is clear and we won't have to spend much time on it.
36:44: The idea here being is that when we are believing in Christ, we're sealed and protected with the
36:50: Holy Spirit. He indwells us until our inheritance, which is at our death, and that every sin we've ever committed, all of our transgressions was canceled, paid in full, and nailed to the cross.
37:03: In other words, when Christ died, He died for those sins. Now, remember earlier
37:08: I mentioned it was sin. In this case, it's sins. It's transgressions. This is the payment for the individual things we've done and it says all of them and they've been paid in full and they were laid, as it were, those were the labels that were above Christ's head on the cross.
37:26: So, again, what we're seeing is Christ made the provision of our salvation. So, some people think what the theory is with those that believe you can lose your salvation is the fact that they believe that people can,
37:42: God saves us through faith, but essentially we maintain it through works. In other words,
37:48: God saves us through faith alone, in Christ alone, and then what ends up happening is we end up losing our own salvation on our own.
37:58: The idea being that we somehow commit some sin that causes us to leave
38:05: Christ's hands. He holds us, but we walk away. In other words, it's not that, they'll say that it's not that Christ is an
38:11: Indian giver. It says in Romans that God, it speaks about the gifts of salvation and He ends up saying that God does not take it back and that becomes in, this is
38:31: Romans 11, 29. I'll start in verse 28 just to give a little context.
38:38: From the standpoint of the gospel, they are enemies for your sake, but from the standpoint of God's choice, they are beloved for the sake of the fathers.
38:51: For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable.
38:57: That's the idea there. God's not going to take it back. This is the question, is
39:02: God's gift of salvation revocable or irrevocable? Well, this says irrevocable.
39:09: This is something God chooses to do, He provides it, He plans for it, He protects it, and He's not going to take it back.
39:17: The idea that some people have is, well, God's not going to take it back, but we can walk away. We become the ones that lose our salvation because the reason they do that, they have to say that, is because they know
39:29: Romans 8. And this is a key passage to turn to, because here it says,
39:36: Romans 8, starting in verse 1, therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
39:44: But how much condemnation is there for the believer? Pete It says no condemnation.
39:49: Jared No condemnation. So, like, none? Pete None. So, I'm thinking that's like a void. There's none.
39:55: Jared And He says, you know, He gives this whole long thing, for the law of spirit is life in Christ, and sets you free from the law of sin and death for what the law could not do.
40:07: Weak as it is though in the flesh, God did, sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh as an offering for sin.
40:16: He condemned sin in the flesh. So, He's giving the argumentation of why we have no condemnation.
40:21: It's all because of what Christ did, okay? And we go through this, and you read through this whole thing to see that Christ provided this.
40:31: There's nothing in here that we can separate ourselves from. Christ is the one that's doing this.
40:38: The law couldn't do this. And if we think that we're saved by faith, but then we keep our salvation through law keeping, through obedience, it really puts our final kind of,
40:50: I guess, sanctification upon us. Whether we're truly saved in the end becomes law keeping.
40:57: And here, He's saying it has nothing to do with the law, okay? We can't keep ourselves. The idea is
41:03: God did the work for us. He's going to be the one to hold us. So, it's not about us trying to work ourselves in maintaining our salvation, because He's going to say for, in this verse 6, for the mind is set on the flesh is death, and the mind set on the spirit is life and peace, because the mind is set on the flesh is hostile toward God.
41:27: The idea of the flesh being the law. It says here, for it does not subject itself to the law of God, but even able to do so to those who are able according to flesh cannot please
41:38: God. So, the idea that we end up seeing is that for those who believe in Christ, we do so all because of what
41:47: God has done, and we cannot walk away from this. In fact, what He's going to do is, if we continue in Romans chapter 8,
41:55: He's going to further say that it's, in verse 27, it's God. It's He who searches the hearts and knows the mind of the spirit, because He intercedes for the saints according to what?
42:06: The will of God. And verse 28, and we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love
42:13: Him and are called according to His purpose. And then He's going to explain that calling.
42:19: He's going to explain that in verse 29, for those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to His image so that He would be the firstborn of the brethren.
42:34: And these whom He predestined, He also called. And these whom He called, He also justified. And these whom
42:39: He justified, He also glorified. What then shall we say to those things?
42:46: If God is for us, who can be against us? We are included in that who, by the way. Who could be against us?
42:52: If God is for us, who can be against us? Can we be against us? That becomes the question in this.
42:58: Well, let's read on in verse 32. He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him over for us, how will
43:05: He not also freely give us all things? Who will bring a charge against God's elect?
43:14: God is the one who justifies. God's the justifier, and He's the one who saved us. Who's going to bring a charge against us when
43:21: God's the one that justified us? That's the argument that we have here. So He says in verse 34, who is the one who condemns?
43:28: Christ Jesus is He who died, yes, rather who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who also intercedes for us.
43:41: Who can separate us from the love of God? And this is really the question. What can separate us from the love of God here?
43:48: Because the thing that we would say is nothing. What is it those others would say is they'll say, well, we can separate ourselves because we're not mentioned here.
43:56: Well, I think we are mentioned when he says who can be against God. But look at what he says here in verse 35.
44:02: Who can separate us from the love of God? Will tribulation or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or peril or sword?
44:12: For just as it is written, for your sake we are being put to death all day long. We are considered as sheep to slaughter, but in all things we overwhelmingly conquer through him who loved us.
44:26: For I am convinced that neither death nor life nor angels nor principalities nor things present nor things to come nor powers nor height nor depth nor any other created thing will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our
44:44: Lord. That's the clearest argument we have. I haven't even gotten to our question yet, but I think as you're seeing, when we get to the question, we're going to be able to answer it very easily.
44:57: So, what is he saying? Who can give a charge against God when he is the one who justifies?
45:04: The answer is no one, but he's going to define that very clearly. So, can tribulations, when we have tribulation in our life, can that separate us?
45:12: Because this is one of the things people say is that when things go really bad, they start to question whether they really are saved. Persecution, distress, famine, nakedness, peril, all these things that we have, everything that happens to us in life, the question, can any of that separate us from the love of God?
45:27: And the answer there is no. But then he goes on to say that he's convinced that death can't separate us, angels can't separate us.
45:36: Principalities would be, the thought is governments or rulers. Some will, you know, we'll end up adding more, you have the angels, some will say demons here, and some will put the demons when it says, nor powers.
45:50: So, but the idea is that one is governing, one is demonic.
45:56: Things present or things to come. In other words, the things you're dealing with now are stuff that's still future to us. Height or depth.
46:03: But here's the thing, nor any created thing. Now, here's the thing, if no created thing can separate us from the love of God, are we, but I know this is going to be a tough question, are we a created thing?
46:13: Pete Let me think, Andrew. I'm going with yes. Andrew Well, I guess then we fit in this definition, don't we?
46:21: Pete Absolutely. Andrew So when people say, well, you know, I can lose my own salvation, the thing
46:27: I look at here is go, well, not according to this text. You cannot separate yourself from the love of God. And that's what all of Romans chapter 8 is dealing with.
46:36: We're not under condemnation because God provided this salvation and he will not let us go and we cannot be separated.
46:43: So that's the thing that we end up seeing. Now, all this is, I wanted to build all this up for us to have an understanding of the nature of salvation.
46:51: Now, at this point, bud, you know, there's some things we have to deal with. And there's a lot of different views that people have when it comes to, you know, when we talk about that inheritance, when we talk about being glorified, and the idea of what happens, like, when we die.
47:08: And some have the idea of soul sleep. It's this idea that we kind of just go into a non -existent state until judgment.
47:15: I think the reason that they struggle with this, bud, is because I really think, and you can correct me if you think
47:21: I'm wrong, I think you'll probably correct me, but I think what it is is because they're lacking a good pillow.
47:28: See, they're lacking, they believe, they're not understanding a good sleep. And if they would have had a
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49:25: and use promo code SFE. So just understand, folks, just understand that my
49:32: MyPillow or your MyPillow has absolutely nothing to do with validating the error of soul sleep.
49:42: I told you you were going to correct me. I just wanted to put that in. I want to be contrary for a moment.
49:48: For folks that aren't Patreon patrons and that support us through Patreon and get to watch the video of this, but it is always fun to when you're trying, you never know when it's coming, when
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50:08: It's a good transition. That one was a bad transition because it was theologically. So let's now get to, we have, you know, like 55 minutes in, we now have a good foundation of our, of the nature of salvation.
50:26: I think the answer to the question becomes quite clear now. Can we lose our salvation? I think the answer is no.
50:34: You know, the first time, Bud, that I came across this was I was in college, and for folks who don't know my background,
50:40: I grew up Jewish, not knowing anything of Christianity. I got saved at 16, didn't know any other
50:45: Christians, didn't, just read a Bible. That's all I had for two years. Got to college and started to meet with other
50:51: Christians. And in college, you know, I ended up getting into Word of Faith, unfortunately.
50:57: Got, you know, that was bad. I got out of that. But what ended up happening was there was a couple by my college, and they had, they would take students in.
51:07: They had some, they would have students come in on every other Friday. They'd provide a home -cooked meal, which for college students is great, and a
51:15: Bible study. And so they were more mature believers, and they would just sit and study the
51:21: Bible and go through verse by verse. And I remember the issue came up where we came to the passage
51:30: I read in Romans 8, and the person who was leading it said that he doesn't want to get into, because someone asked a question about whether you can lose your salvation.
51:39: He really didn't want to get into, he knew there were differing views there, and he just didn't, he didn't want to get into it.
51:46: I was just being ignorant. I'll be honest with you. I was ignorant. I didn't understand the doctrine. I never heard the idea that you could lose your salvation before, and it was brand new to me.
51:56: But the way I approached it was I asked this question. I said, I'm confused by this, because one person's saying you can lose your salvation.
52:04: The person, the gentleman whose house we're in is saying you can't lose your salvation. And the person who's saying you could lose your salvation is saying, but what if someone sins really bad, and what if they persist in sin, and asking all these type of things.
52:18: And I brought it back to this. I asked this question. I don't understand something. I said, if God is the one who regenerated me, and God is the one who holds me, and God is the one who says
52:29: He's never going to let me go, how can I undo what God did? In other words,
52:35: I'm going back to the nature of salvation and saying, if God's the one who saved me, how can I be the one to undo that?
52:42: And that's really the thing of why we want to spend the time understanding this whole foundation for the nature of salvation.
52:49: If you understand the nature of salvation, this question becomes very easy to answer. But if you don't understand salvation, if you think that salvation was based upon something you did, that you made a choice, then you can make a choice and you can choose otherwise, and therefore you can lose it.
53:04: And so, this is why it's important for us to have an understanding of that. Now, really, bud, what most people deal with when they deal with the question, there's the theological issue that people would have, and that's why we not only went through the time to go through the scriptures, explain the nature of salvation,
53:20: I give the article about Hebrews 6 to show one example of how to deal with the text where people say you can lose your salvation.
53:29: But most people that are experiencing this, bud, it's not an issue of am I saved, but do
53:36: I feel like I'm saved? Well, you've got an evangelical church climate for decades now that has emphasized the emotive rather than the doctrinal, so it's natural, not only because of the lack of doctrinal teaching in the church, but it's natural to our flesh that we're going to be driven by emotions.
53:55: That's not what scripture does. So, yeah, that's absolutely true. And our culture is that way.
54:02: They don't think anymore, they feel. I feel that's true. I don't care how you feel, is it true? You know, the thing that we end up seeing, though, with this is that there is an importance of recognizing the fact that there is a difference between what we call the assurance of our salvation, which is that feeling.
54:21: When we're in sin, we do not feel like we're saved. We feel like there's distance between us and God.
54:27: If you ever read the footprints poem that, you know, is so well known, you know, where there's two steps walking in the sand, but when the guy has trials, there's only one pair of footprints, and God says that's when
54:41: I picked you up and carried you. The idea being is, you know, it's the idea that we don't always feel that closeness.
54:47: The idea is that sometimes, you know, we feel like there's a distance. We don't recognize that God's still there, and we feel in times of when we're close to him in trials, that we feel we might feel that.
55:01: But when we are in sin, it often is a thing that we don't feel the salvation. Well, the feeling, the assurance of salvation has nothing to do with the security of our salvation.
55:11: What we've gone through, you know, for this past hour is that our salvation is secured.
55:16: How secure? It's secured by God, planned, provided, and protected by God, and therefore it is secure.
55:24: But one of the things, Bud, is we don't always feel that way because we still sin. You had some notes, and let me give encouragement before you read your notes on this.
55:35: There's two books I encourage you to read if you're struggling with this. First John. First John is the book of James, and the book of James will give you the tests of what genuine faith looks like so you can test yourself and see, do
56:01: I actually have a genuine faith? And if you do, then go to First John and go, okay, this is what
56:06: I recognize, and I should correct my feelings. But you had some notes of 12 tests of assurance that you had gotten,
56:13: Bud, from MacArthur. Maybe you could just go through those 12 before we close out. Yeah, absolutely.
56:18: I just want to exclamation point with a quote from Calvin about what you were just talking about regarding knowledge and feeling.
56:27: Very pithy, so I don't want to prolong this, but Calvin said, we shall now have a full definition of faith if we say that it is a firm and sure knowledge, which is to say understanding of doctrine, a firm and sure knowledge of the divine favor toward us founded on the truth of a free promise in Christ and revealed to our minds and sealed on our hearts by the
56:55: Holy Spirit. That's a summary of what Paul is doing in Ephesians that we opened up reading. But yeah, the notes that I took, and I don't know if you notes or not, but I culled these from a sermon by MacArthur, and I don't remember which sermon it was because I didn't have that in my notes, but I did have the 12 tests of assurance that he goes through primarily from the book of First John.
57:20: And these are kind of questions. They're somewhat subjective. In some cases, they may be objective. Others could look at you and recognize this about you.
57:28: But these are essentially effects of salvation. Question number one, do you enjoy fellowship with Christ and his people?
57:37: And that would be cited to First John 1 -3. Number two, are you sensitive to sin?
57:44: And you look at First John 1 -9. Number three, do you hate the world and its evil?
57:51: First John 2 -15. Number four, are you obedient to God's word?
57:56: First John 2 -3. Question number five would be do you love Jesus Christ with an unusual love?
58:04: First John 3 -2. Number six, do you see a decreasing pattern of sin in your life?
58:12: First John 3 -5. Number seven, do you sacrificially love other Christians?
58:18: First John 3 -14. Eight, do you experience answered prayer?
58:24: First John 3 -22. Number nine, do you experience the inner working of the
58:29: Holy Spirit? First John 3 -24 and 4 -13. Number ten, do you discern between spiritual truth and error?
58:39: First John 4. Number eleven, do you believe scripture? First John 5 -1.
58:45: And then number twelve, have you been attacked or persecuted for the truth? And it goes to Philippians 1 -28 for that.
58:53: And I'm going to challenge Bud to write an article on this so that we can have all of that up and just have that article.
58:59: That's my challenge to Bud. But I'll include that in the show notes.
59:05: So here's the thing that we want to show is to wrap up with if you are a professing believer, you name the name of Christ, but you do not feel like you're saved, you have been struggling with a sin, you've been struggling with something, go through understanding the nature of salvation.
59:22: My challenge to you is to go through the scriptures we've lots of scriptures here today in this episode.
59:29: Go through those scriptures and look at the things like Bud just ended with and what we want to do is look at this and say, am
59:36: I a believer? A person who's struggling with this question, it's one of two things.
59:42: I'm a sinning believer, in which case, recognize Christ died for those sins, repent, and draw close to Christ.
59:49: Or you're a false convert. You're one who thought you were a believer. You name the name of Christ in voice, in confession, but not in belief.
59:58: And so, if that's the case, then you need to repent of your sin and believe on Christ.
01:00:05: And then you will draw close to Christ. So, in closing with this,
01:00:10: I have one last verse for us. And, you know, we are going to suffer. We are going to struggle.
01:00:16: And you mentioned Philippians 1 .28. Well, I want to read Philippians 1 .29,
01:00:22: because I want to end with this. There's many who are maybe still saying,
01:00:28: Bud, those that believe you can lose your salvation, they're arguing, yes, but, you know, I did believe.
01:00:33: I'm the one who believed. And when I got saved, I believed in Christ. And I can walk away from that.
01:00:40: They're still maybe thinking that. And again, part of the nature, I said that I would address the issue of belief.
01:00:46: When we get saved, does God do everything and force us to believe against our will, as some argue?
01:00:53: The answer is no. God works through us in such a way that even our choices are exactly as God intended them to be.
01:01:04: It is a doctrine known as superintending. You see this in the doctrine of inspiration. Paul wrote
01:01:10: Colossians. He had his own style. He had his own way of doing it. He wrote
01:01:15: Colossians, and yet God worked through him so that every letter he wrote was exactly as God intended it, so that it is
01:01:23: God's word. God gets 100 % of the credit, even though Paul wrote it. Paul experientially, he wrote it.
01:01:28: Theologically, God wrote it. So we end up seeing that God worked through Paul. It's the same thing in sanctification. We don't do good works.
01:01:34: God does them through us. We can't take credit for doing good work. God gets that credit, even though we do it.
01:01:40: But that choice of doing good works is something God works through us to do. The same thing when it comes to salvation.
01:01:47: God works through us so that even though we think we believe, and we do believe, we're believing, but God is working through us in that belief so that he gets 100 % of the credit.
01:01:58: Is there a verse for that? Well, yes, Philippians 1 .29. For it has been granted for Christ's sake, not only to believe in him, but also to suffer for his sake.
01:02:11: So for you, you and I, that name the name of Christ, it has been granted for us not only to believe, but also to suffer.
01:02:19: God has granted us that belief. Now, in the debate that I did on Apologetics Live, and I brought this verse up, the gentleman tried to argue, well, that just means,
01:02:27: Grant, I still have a choice. I could choose to accept that grant or not. That's an argument some might make.
01:02:33: There's just one problem with that, bud. And the problem with that is, well, English isn't the language that the
01:02:40: Bible was written in. This was written in Greek. And therefore, when we look at the Greek word for this, it does mean to give, it can mean to give, but it means to pardon, to cancel, to forgive.
01:02:53: In other words, it has been pardoned for to you, it has been pardoned or canceled or forgiven for Christ's sake, not only to believe.
01:03:03: You've been pardoned to believe. This isn't the same word as just to give, the way some would think of it.
01:03:11: This is the idea of a pardon. And so where you're giving favor that is undeserved, and you're giving it as a forgiveness, not as a gift.
01:03:22: So this is something where we're stated that, so that belief that we have, the belief that we have has been given to us, granted to us, pardoned to us by Christ.
01:03:33: And so for those that even would say, well, I believe, therefore, if I sin,
01:03:39: God will remove that salvation because of my choices, I would say here, but you didn't believe.
01:03:45: You did, but you didn't. I mean, you did, but God gets the credit for that belief. And so again, it goes back to Romans 8.
01:03:50: We are part of the all creation. So we can't lose it.
01:03:56: And just, you know, MacArthur had the pithy little quote about this very issue.
01:04:03: If you could lose your salvation, you would. And that's absolutely true.
01:04:10: If you're genuinely believed, you cannot lose it. A false salvation, certainly you can.
01:04:15: So you need to be cautious about that. And then the other thing, my pastor, Andrew Smith, from a sermon this past week regarding the works or the sin even, but in particular the works, he said, there is no such thing as spiritual extra credit.
01:04:30: If you have Christ, you have everything you need. That's assurance.
01:04:36: That's an understanding of what it is written in the word says. So you've got to have that.
01:04:43: You can't lose your salvation, but you should examine yourself. Paul challenges, you know, the
01:04:49: Thessalonians to that. Examine yourself to see that you're in the faith. But what's that examination look like? Well, it looks like some of these tests of assurance that MacArthur preached on.
01:04:58: We need to constantly be thinking about these things. And we're pursuing Christlikeness because that's the point that you read from Romans.
01:05:05: What's the goal of your salvation? The goal of your salvation is to be conformed to the image of the that's what we're after.
01:05:11: And that cannot fail because we're sealed with the Holy Spirit. So the simple answer to the question, but can we lose our salvation?
01:05:19: No, that's right. You know what else, bud? What's that? That's a wrap. This podcast is part of the
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