Eternal Security, What We Believe, Part 33

What is their desire? Is their desire now to study the word more, to read the word more, to magnify Christ more, to actually say I'm gonna die to myself and I'm going to live for Christ every chance that I get in every way that I can, right?

Discernment Between a Genuine Believer and a Stranger

So there's the behavior we're looking for. There's the desire that we're looking for in what they value. But in the stranger, it's a little bit tougher because we don't know them. And so that's where kind of conversation comes in and the ability to ask the right questions.

Introduction to Eternal Security and the Doctrinal Statement

Welcome to The Wrap Report with your host, Andrew Rapoport, where we provide biblical interpretation and application. This is a ministry of Striving for Eternity and the Christian Podcast Community. For more content or to request a speaker for your church, go to strivingforeternity .org.

Welcome to another edition of The Wrap Report. I'm your host, Andrew Rapoport, the President and Executive Director of Striving for Eternity Ministries and the Christian Podcast Community, of which this podcast is a proud member.

I'm joined once again by half of the Matter of Theology podcast, one of our other podcasters, Drew Von Nida.

Drew, how are you? I'm good, man. It's great to be back here with you. It's always a fun time. And we have to be careful, though, because when you and I get talking, we can be here forever.

Yeah, I mean, first off, you triggered me just before we record with Andy Stanley, and then we go for almost two hours, but it was good and needful because people need to be warned. A lot of people, I think what we did different from a lot of people is a lot of people are talking about Andy Stanley, talking about what he said, which we did, but we also talked about the tactics people like that play so that people can spot this and use critical thinking with others.

So if you haven't listened to the previous episode that we recorded, you could just check out the previous episode in The Wrap Report, and the question there was, does Andy Stanley allow homosexuals to serve in church?

And that's what we are looking to answer, and I think we did effectively. But what we're going to talk about today is a very important question, and one there's a lot of debate over. And as we go through this podcast episode, I'm going to say that I've always struggled with why there's debate when it comes to our salvation, whether it's secure.

In other words, can we lose our salvation? Or is it something we have? Is it something we could lose? Do we always feel like we're saved? These are things we're going to talk about in this episode. And so I hope you stay tuned for that.

Right now, as you're listening to this, if you're listening when it drops, I should be enjoying Israel with Matt Slick and Bill McKeever and Eric Johnson. Those last two are from Mormon Research Ministry.

Most people here know Matt Slick from CARM .org. We're all going to be in Israel together with about 50 other people and enjoying the sights there. So we've obviously prerecorded this. Just saying. So I'm going to say I'm enjoying Israel right now.

I'm just taking a shot in the dark. So what we're going to do is continue in our series as we've been doing. We've been in a series that we're calling What We Believe. Now, this series is based off of a document you can get at strivingforeternity .org.

It is our doctrinal statement. We're going through this for a couple reasons. One, help you understand theology. But really the purpose of it is so you can understand when you see a doctrinal statement, all that's in a doctrinal statement, what's behind it.

And you also get to see there's a whole lot more that often people don't think is in there. They don't know about. And so this is 33 part 3. So this will be the 33rd episode we've done in this series.

And so I encourage you to go back and listen to each of them. You could just go to rapreport .org. And when you get there, just search for What We Believe. Start at part 1 and go through them all. But it will help you to get a good handle on it.

But we're in a section. So if you want to follow along, just go to strivingforeternity .org. On the About section, click What We Believe. Scroll down to where it says Soteriology or the Doctrine of Salvation.

Open that. Expand that up. And we're going to cover the subtopic today of security. Drew, I'm going to ask if you wouldn't mind reading that paragraph.

I would love to. And for your listeners, if you hear me clear my throat once or twice maybe during the show, it's because I'm getting over this little tickle in my throat. So I want to apologize to you for that.

I try to mute my mic as often as I can when it comes up. But just know that I'm just getting over a little bit of sickness. But with that, let's get into this doctrinal statement here. On security, all the redeemed, once saved, are kept by God's power and are thus secure in Christ forever.

It is the privilege of believers to rejoice in the assurance of their salvation through the testimony of God's Word, which, however, clearly forbids the use of Christian liberty as an occasion for sinful living and carnality.

False Converts, Hypocrites, and the Difference Between Possessing and Professing Salvation

All right. So even though this is a very short—this is probably one of the shortest two sentences that we've dealt with, there's actually a lot here. And there's been lots of debate on this. There's debate over whether you can lose your salvation or not.

There's debate on whether or not you can be saved and live any way you want. There's debate over if you are saved and you can never lose it. Does that mean that you have to be perfect? There's lots of different ways that this issue comes up.

What I want to first do before we get into the issue of whether you can lose your salvation, I think there's a couple things we first have to start with. And I'm going to first start with a little bit of a story.

The first time that I came in contact with this idea that you could lose your salvation, it was something that I was—some of you know, those who are regular listeners, you know I grew up Jewish, so I didn't understand anything of Christian teaching.

And in that process, when I was in college and I started hanging out with other Christians, we used to have the family that would invite all the college students over that were Christians and even those that weren't, every other Friday night for a home-cooked meal, which was really a treat.

But it also had a Bible study. And so what we did is we'd have dinner followed by a Bible study that Mr. McGlynn would do. And I remember as we were going through, there was once where he stated that he didn't want to get into a debate.

He didn't want to have arguments and disagreements. He's going to explain what he believes. And he didn't want to get into a debate about whether you could lose your salvation or not. And he explained that he felt that you couldn't lose your salvation.

One of the students started to make a case or argue that you could lose your salvation. And I have to admit, I was in pure ignorance, okay? I didn't know any better. I didn't really understand the doctrines.

But I asked the question, and I didn't realize how profound the question was until I started studying the issue. I just asked the question of him, and I said, Mr. McGlynn, help me understand. If it is God who saves me, how can I do anything to lose that?

I mean, salvation is not of me. How could I do something then to lose that? And then if I could lose that, as this one student was saying, that you could lose it and regain salvation, I said, if salvation is of God, then how is it up to me to lose it and regain it?

In other words, I was questioning it by asking, what is the nature of salvation? And that's why we've gone through these several episodes in understanding what regeneration is and justification and these things, so that when we get to the issue of security, we have a handle on what it is where we talk about when we say salvation.

But there's a caveat. And Drew, I know you have seen this countless times. You've seen us deal with this on our Apologetics Live when you come in. But there are many people who think they're saved and are not.

There's a word for that. Hold on.

It's right on the tip of my tongue. It starts with an H. I believe it's a word you've used a lot of lately in talking about Christ's teachings, what he taught most of.

Yeah. I think it's hypocrite. That's it. There it is. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, this is the thing that a lot of people don't understand, that there are many who profess to be Christian, but they're not Christian.

And they think that just because they made a profession of faith, that that is enough to say that they— even if you have someone saying, well, I was a Christian. Well, you know, we have a passage of Scripture that helps us to understand this.

And all this is before we get into the doctrinal statement, because there is some things we have to first lay out so we understand the differences. We speak about those that are hypocrites. We're talking about 1 John 2 .19, which says they went out from us, but they were not of us.

Or if they had been of us, they would have remained with us. But they went out so that it would be shown that they all are not of us. So what he's saying is that when somebody says they were a Christian and walks away from the faith, that is vindication that they were never of us.

They were someone who walked away. They were a hypocrite that stopped pretending. They were pretending to be a Christian, and now they stopped. And this is really important. And, Drew, like you said, I speak about this often because so much of what Christ speaks about is on this subject.

He's constantly talking to the Pharisees who claim to be, in our terminology, saved. They claim to be righteous, to be God's children, and in a right state with God. And yet they're not. They're pretending.

And he's constantly talking about hypocrisy. And we still have that today. Now, I would argue one reason why we have that today, Drew, I'll see if you agree with me or not, but I think the reason is because our enemy, he doesn't have to work in the false religions and cults and the world because they're already following their hatred for God.

He only needs to work within the Church. So if you've ever read C .S. Lewis's book Screwtape Letters, it's this story of a demon who is being trained by his mentor demon, and he's got this human he's got to deal with.

And how does he get this human who's just become a Christian to walk away? And some of the things that the mentor says, well, expose to him that there's hypocrites in the Church. Well, yeah, because if they can convince people there's hypocrites, they'll go, oh, well, that's not really what the Church is about.

Well, the Church doesn't say we're going to be perfect. It says that we're going to be those who claim to be sinners and forgiven. So if we act like sinners sometimes, that's not unusual. But what do we do with people that walk away from the faith?

I had a guy, Drew, that was in my church, my first church. It was a church plant. This is a guy who he was an elder in the Church, and you would never, ever have questioned his salvation. I mean, this is a guy that wore his emotions on his sleeve.

He really was a guy you were totally convinced was sold out for Christ, was willing to sacrifice everything for Christ. And then we went through a rough season. Both his parents died in a short order.

Some issues happened in church where he was abused. And now his cousin tells me he can't even pass drug tests. He denies Christ. He goes and has liquid lunches. He goes out to lunch and drinks. And I'm like, what is up with that?

Well, he pretended for a period of time. And that's the thing MacArthur always says, truth and time go hand in hand. Give enough time and the truth will come out. This is a guy we wouldn't have questioned, but gave enough time, and guess what?

We realized he wasn't a believer. Now, I would never have questioned that, but, Drew, some people might be going, well, how could we then know? Now, truthfully, you and I can't know. You can't tell that I'm a Christian.

You're assuming it, and I can't tell if you're a Christian. I'm assuming it. What is it we look to to examine someone's profession of faith? They're making a claim they're a Christian. Is there any way we could evaluate to say, you know what, I think they are, or I'm going to give second thoughts.

Fruit, Desires, and Questions That Reveal a Profession of Faith

Yeah, so first, because in that, you have to deal with two different types of people, those whom you know who are close to you, and then those whom you don't know, right, the stranger that kind of comes along.

So in the person that I know, I look for behavior, right? Do they act the same way they used to? Do they speak in the same way they used to? Is there a tangible change that has taken place to where I go, wow, this is not the same person that I used to know or that used to do these things?

So looking at behavior, then looking at desires, what is their desire? Is their desire now to study the word more, to read the word more, to magnify Christ more, to actually say, I'm going to die to myself and I'm going to live for Christ every chance that I get in every way that I can, right?

So there's the behavior we're looking for, there's the desire that we're looking for and what they value. But in the stranger, it's a little bit tougher because we don't know them. And so that's where kind of conversation comes in and the ability to ask the right questions.

So it works almost the same as if you were to evangelize someone. What are your thoughts about Christ? Oh, you're a believer. Tell me about Christ. Who is Christ to you? Let's talk about the word. What is the word?

How do you view the scriptures? And then depending on the answers that they give, just in those two questions, it's going to give me a good range as to whether they're a true believer or not. Or even if they are a true believer, if they're a new convert or if they're a seasoned Christian.

That's a really important point because I think that for seasoned Christians, a lot of times they expect the new convert to be seasoned. And that's a mistake. We shouldn't expect that someone's just instantly saved.

I remember going to church. When I first started going to church and there was a guy who we had a new believer come in and this guy was frustrated because this guy was flipping pages trying to find where he should be in the Bible.

And the older guy was just grabbing his Bible, flipping it, handing it back to this guy. And you could see he was impatient. And I remember pulling that guy aside and I said, Danny, I got a question for you.

You seem frustrated with him. He's like, well, I just keep hearing the pages turn. I want to pay attention. I said, Danny, when you first got saved, did you know your way around a Bible? He's like, oh no, that took me a long time.

I said, would you have appreciated if someone was frustrated with you? And all of a sudden he's like, you know, you're right. And now the next week I saw him, instead of grabbing the guy's Bible, he opened his own Bible to the table of contents to show him where he was.

And the guy, this is a funny thing, is people don't often think to look at the table of contents. But I mean, that's what I did. The only way I could find anything was this table of contents and a Bible at first.

But that's, we don't know if someone else is saved, but we are fruit inspectors, right? We're looking at the fruit. Now I would say 1 Corinthians 13 says, love believes all things. So if someone tells me they're a believer, like you're saying with a stranger, I want to believe that at face value, but then I'm going to inspect the fruit, right?

And so one thing we have to realize is when we talk about whether you can lose your salvation, there is a difference between those who possess salvation and those who profess salvation. So possessing salvation is someone who is in Christ.

They are a believer. And we're going to say, as we have in this doctrine, I mean, they cannot lose that. But there's those who profess to have a faith and they don't have one. And this is what the entire book of James is about.

James is all about people that claim to be saved, but they don't have the works that go along with salvation and that should make you wonder.

Faith in Action, Trials, and the Parable of the Four Soils

Yeah, so it's funny that you mentioned the book of James because James, you can really retitle it as Faith in Action because I believe it was MacArthur that I learned this from, that the book of James is probably the first letter that was written to the church, and it was written around the time of the dispersion of the Christians who were in Jerusalem after the stoning of Stephen.

And so the church is being dispersed and James is writing this to all these Christians, to those who are the members of the church, who are going through persecution. And so it's an encouraging letter, but it's also one to say, hey, this is now when you put your faith in action, in trial.

And so with what you were saying about MacArthur, about truth and time, that's going to reveal the character. I would also add another T, trial. Truth, time, and trials are going to reveal the character of the person.

Well, and so you look at the parable of the four seeds, and what do you have? One is exposed to be a false convert by time, and another is exposed to be a false convert by trials or thorns. And so, and then the other two, well, it was clear one not saved, one is.

And so we have to, and why am I spending the time to explain that? Because anytime you get into these discussions, it's going to fall into an area where people are arguing about the issue of what we would call a false convert, but they say are someone who's saved.

What 1 John 2 .19 says is they were never of us. That when they walk out from among us, that exposes they were never of us. And that's what John is saying. And that's what we have to recognize when we look at these passages where people say, oh, this is teaching that you can lose your salvation.

What they often will say is that we keep our salvation by obedience. So many of the people that would say you can lose your salvation will agree that we are saved by faith alone in Christ alone. They don't dispute that, but they say we could lose our salvation if we're not obedient.

So really, it would be sort of this way. You're saved by faith, but you keep it by works. And that generates a works-based sanctification. Notice I didn't say works-based salvation. There's a difference.

These folks would not say you're earning your salvation, your regeneration by works. They would be against that. But what is being taught, either directly or indirectly, is that you keep your salvation by your good works.

And if you stop, then that exposes that you're not a believer. Now, there are the extreme, the sinless perfectionists, who will say you must be sinlessly perfect. And if you're not, if you sin willfully, then you're not saved.

And many of them will turn to Hebrews 6 and Hebrews 10. I'm not going to take the time to read those because we got a lot of other passages I want to cover. But I just want to say that if you read those passages, or many of the other ones, they seem to be saying that someone can lose their salvation because it speaks to someone who's tasted of the light.

But that's someone that's been in church and has heard the truth. They're a hypocrite, a false convert, someone who heard the truth, attended the church, pretended, but walked away. That's what it's referring to.

And by the way, in Hebrews 6 and Hebrews 10, if those are, let's put it this way, whatever that's speaking of, whether it's hypocrites or someone that loses their salvation, it says you can never get it back again.

It's impossible. So the most common argument, and you'll see this in a lot of the charismatic and assembly of God churches, will say that you can lose your salvation, gain it, lose it, gain it, lose it, gain it.

And they'll use these passages that say it is impossible to get back. Well, if it's impossible, then you can't lose it and gain it.

You lose it and that's it. That's right. And especially touching on the topic of works, because there are people that would try to say, well, like you were saying, works equal regeneration or works equal justification.

So I have to continually be re-justifying myself by my works. Well, you're confusing the whole point. It's an act of sanctification. Now, our works, we should desire good works by having our nature transformed.

So because God has changed our nature, the works that we do are now desired within us. They're works that we didn't actually desire beforehand. And we don't do them for our own benefit. We do them because they bring glory to God.

So when James talks about works, it's the fruit that comes from the root of salvation. So it's that proof of sanctification, as you were talking about, being the fruit inspector. And I've had people say to me, Drew, I just don't see in Scripture where it gives me the sheriff's badge to judge other people's fruit.

And I go, then clearly you haven't been reading Scripture because I can just take you to one. Titus 1 .9. And the person saying this to me is a minister. And I go, Titus 1 .9. The elder, the overseer, is to be someone who knows sound doctrine and then is able to refute those who contradict it.

The only way you know how to refute it is if you can spot it by inspecting the false fruit. Now, I like to turn to a different one because, you know, all these people,.

If it's not in the red letters, it just doesn't count. Did Jesus actually say that? Well, I like to point out that in John 7 .24, Jesus said this, do not judge according to appearance, but judge with righteous judgment.

Now, here's what I find interesting about that. The word judge there is an imperative in the Greek. What does that mean? That means it's a command. Jesus is commanding us to judge, but he's commanding us not to judge by appearance, but to judge by a righteous judgment.

And that judgment there in that is a definite article, which means it's the judgment. What is it? It's the word of God. It's the standard. And every time you see Matthew 7, do not judge. Everyone knows that one.

Do not judge. Shall not judge. They don't keep reading. It's never against judging. It's against— it's always the standard of judgment. And so as we get into discussing can you lose your salvation, it's important for us first to lay the groundwork, as we've done, to say there is a difference between people that profess to be Christians and those that possess Christ.

And that is the difference. And if you don't understand that distinction, we'll probably have a very difficult time with this doctrine because it can get confusing to those that are trying to make it so.

Because people will see, well, to those who endure, well, the whole point is, though, those who are Christians will endure, and we're going to get to that. Yeah.

Now, I do want to make a statement about the passages you made in Hebrews because—or reference, because there are several of what we would call warning passages in Hebrews. And what people who use those to try to say that you can lose your salvation, what they're failing to connect is the context behind Hebrews, the historical context, because Hebrews was written to a group of Hebrews that were being pressured and persecuted to turn away from Christ and to go back to Judaism, to go back to the old system.

And so the author of Hebrews is writing these warning passages to say, no, don't do that. So you've seen it, I've seen it, people completely rip the passages out of context, misapply them.

And if people want, they could go to strivingforturning .org and just read my article that I wrote on Hebrews 6, and I try to go through and lay out the case of what it speaks about. But let's, real quick, take a word from our sponsor before we get to our doctrinal statement, and that would be MyPillow.

They are a sponsor here. U .S.-made products that you can get yourself a great pillow, robe, towels, sheets. They even had coffee. I didn't see it there lately, but they seem to have everything. But I encourage you to go check out everything they have.

Go to mypillow .com. Use the promo code SFE. It stands for Striving For Eternity to get yourself not only great discounts, but it also lets them know you heard about them here so that they will continue sponsoring this show and our ministry.

We appreciate that. So what we want to do is look at this. We're saying in this doctrinal statement, and as you're seeing already, when we have a doctrinal statement, what it says is also contradicting or countering things it doesn't say.

So what is this saying? This is saying, all the redeemed. Now, let me just stop there. Why are we saying all the redeemed? Because that phrase is to be very specific about what we've just spent the last 10 or 20 minutes explaining, that not everyone who claims to be redeemed are the redeemed.

So what we're trying to say is this is specific to those who are in Christ, not because they make a proclamation of that, but because God regenerated them. Redeemed.

Because you're absolutely right. This is a specific term. And to redeem, it means to buy back. And so it's a purchase. So the redeemed are those who have been bought with Christ's blood. And so anyone who would say that you can be a redeemed and then walk away from it, all they do is cheapen the sacrifice of Christ.

The Cross, Colossians 2, and Why God Keeps the Redeemed

Yeah, because the reason I think that there's a struggle for so many is when were our sins paid? Now, I'm not going to ask you, Drew. You already know this. You've watched me do this on Apologetics Live time and time again.

I'll get someone that comes in, and we get this discussion, and I'll ask them, when were your sins forgiven? And if they look at me kind of funny, then I say, okay, were your sins forgiven when you believed?

Like when you put your faith in Christ and made a choice to believe in Jesus? Or was it like at a different time before the foundation of the world or at the cross or some other time? And almost always, someone that is holding to this view will say, when I believed.

And I say, can you do me a favor? Can you just turn to Colossians chapter 2 and read for me verse 13? So they turn there, and it says, when you were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, he made you alive together with him, having forgiven us all our transgressions.

So at that point, I stopped, and I said, okay, how many of your sins have you been forgiven? Well, all. Okay, so first off, whenever you believed, whenever you went from being dead to alive, all your transgressions would have been paid.

So if you're going to say it's when you believed, then all of your transgressions have been paid for. So therefore, if they're paid for, they can't be charged against you. That'd be double jeopardy. So we can't have where you're going to sit here and say that, oh, well, when I believed, all my sins are forgiven, but now God's going to hold it against me.

But it's even worse. Read verse 14, and they go, okay, having canceled out the certificate of debt consisting of decrees against us, which was hostile to us, and he has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross.

So then I explain, okay, verse 14 talks about this, canceling the certificate of debt. In other words, he has totally removed the debt for all of our sin. The question is, when in that passage did he do it?

At the cross. So if all of our sin, if for all the redeemed, if our sin was paid at the cross, all of it, such that the debt was canceled, then there is nothing else to pay because all of our sin is already future to the cross.

You see, Christ is saying he paid that at the cross, all of it. So how could it be that he paid for only some of it then? Was there some he didn't see? And I have had people argue that. Maybe Jesus didn't know you were gonna do that sin.

Well then, what you have is a God who's not omniscient, and that's not the God of the Bible. Notice what I just did there, folks. What I've been telling you throughout this series, I went right back to the attributes of God.

Yes. Right back to who God is, and said, ah, I see a problem with that theology. What is it? God's not omniscient in that theology because he didn't know I would do something. Now, the reason that Jesus could say that we're secure is because he's saying that he paid it at the cross.

In other words, it is so finalized for him because he's an eternal being and there is no past, present, future to God, it's a done deal. So he's saying it was paid at the cross even though you are post-cross and all your sin is post-cross.

So when he says all the redeemed, he's speaking of all those whose sins were paid at the cross. And so he says once they're saved. Okay? So we say all the redeemed once saved are kept by God's power. That's important.

In other words, it's not us who keeps us, it's God who keeps us. That's why we endure to the end, not because we're so strong and we're so good and we're so obedient. We endure to the end because God is so good and God is so strong and God is so obedient.

You see the shift there. This is the difference between a God-centered theology and a man-centered theology. When you have a God-centered theology, it focuses on how great God is and how pathetic we are.

But in man-centered theologies, we're the obedient ones, we're the good ones, we're the strong ones. We steal that from God. And so what we're saying here is that all the redeemed once saved are kept by God's power and thus secure forever.

Why? Because God is the one that holds us. The classic passage on this to look at is going to be Romans chapter 8 because he's going to say, what is it that could separate us from the love of God? And he goes through a whole litany of things.

What's going to be stronger than God? The answer is nothing. And it's interesting because what people will do is they'll sit here and say that somehow God's saying that he won't let us go but we can kind of wiggle ourselves out of his hand.

Well, Romans 8 starts by saying there is now no condemnation to those who are in Christ. So if there's no condemnation, then how did there suddenly become condemnation? How could it be that we're not under any condemnation and then all of a sudden we are?

And so he ends up saying what's going to separate you from the love of God? It's going to be things in the world, things invisible, things on the earth, things above and below. The answer is nothing. He goes through all these extremes to say nothing can separate you from the love of God.

Why? Because God is strong enough, omnipotence, faithful enough. He's all-knowing. There's no sin that you will ever commit that God didn't know you'd commit and he still paid it at the cross. Before you knew you would do it, he knew you would do it because he's omniscient.

When you look at those attributes and you realize there's no way that we could ever lose that if God's the one holding us because there's no sin we could do that he didn't know about. He says there's no condemnation.

How could he say that? Because he already knows the end from the beginning. So what I find is what helps me in these struggles that people have with this security is to focus on who God is and it helps in our understanding, in our theology because we start to realize, oh, we're secure because of what God has done.

We're secure because we can't lose that salvation because of who God is, right? He was willing to, as it says in Romans 8, he who did not spare his own son but delivered him over for us all, how will he not also with him freely give us all?

What do we see? This is where he gets into the question. Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will tribulation? Drew, you mentioned trials. Will tribulation? No. Tribulations won't. That's the answer he's giving here.

No, tribulations won't. Distress? No. Persecution? No. Famine? No. Nakedness? No. Herald? No. Sword? No. And then what does he say? Paul says, just as it is written, for your sake we are being put to death all day long.

We were considered as sheep being led to slaughter, but in all things we overwhelmingly conquer through him who loved us. It's because of what? Him, not us. The reason we are able to have security in our salvation is because of what God does, not what we do.