43 - Calvinism vs. Arminianism, Part 5 - Perseverance of the Saints (Can you lose your Salvation)

Well welcome to the Striving for Eternity Academy's School of Systematic Theology. We are glad to have you with us. You ever have that feeling like you know you forgot something, but you don't know what it is?

Yeah, got that right now. I actually think like I'm supposed to have something here for class and I don't know what I forgot. If I could forget my brain, I would. That's the reason God put the brain solidly within this structure called a skull.

So we don't forget it because, well, some of us probably would. Anyway, well let us begin with class tonight. Actually I do got to start with a couple things. One, oh we have, okay, I was going to hold this up, but I was told that we have an actual copy.

Let's see, wait, which copy looks better? Hold it. Wait, I got to get this right. There we go. Yeah, okay, that one's not as glossy. That looks better. Fine. What the book you have seeing up there right now is the Growing in Grace book that is available at the store right now if you wanted to purchase it.

But if you're a student, we're going to be going through that one in just a few weeks as we finish up this book, the book that we're currently on, which is really our School of Systematic Theology. So as we finish this book up, we're going to take some time to look into the Growing in Grace book, which is going to be basically a study that we're going to do with you guys to teach you how to use it so that you can use it with others.

It's basically a discipleship guide, and it's going to be us trying to help you to be a disciplist. What's a disciplist, you say? Well, considering it's a word I just coined yesterday, I'm sure you've never heard of it, but you've heard of an evangelist, someone that goes out and evangelizes.

While striving for eternity, we are trying to create disciplists, people who disciple. And this academy is just one of the ways that we seek to do that. One of the other ways is going to be using this book that we have available.

It's actually available right now. You just don't have the blanks really filled in, but we're going to give you those blanks, and we're going to show you how to use it with other people. And basically, we're going to teach you how to go through that so you could disciple people in your church on the principles, the basics of the Christian faith.

We'll deal with issues like salvation and baptism. That'll be a hot one. We'll teach the right way, of course. But Lord's Supper, what is the meaning behind that? Church membership, studying the Bible, prayer, family, giving, evangelism, all kinds of things like that.

Another thing that we have, this one's not on the store yet, but is our t-shirt. You can just email mitch at mitch at strivingforeternity .org, or just email at shop, yeah, shop at strivingforeternity .org, and we'll get that to you.

Let me put that there. And so, you could order those. Those are, I think, $15, is it? $15, I was just told. Okay. Pretty cool t-shirt. I got mine. Shh, don't tell anyone. I stole it. They don't notice.

No, that's not true. Actually, I gave mine away already, so I have to get myself a new one. Oh, well. So, we're in our book, number two of our Systematic Theology. And I should say, okay, thank you. I should say, just real quick, I'll say that if you are a enrolled student, you'll be getting the Grown in Grace book free, or, well, you've actually paid for it, so it's not that it's free.

You'll get that. That should be coming out. They may already have been sent out. If you have not paid for 2014, you're not going to get one in the mail. So, that means that don't email us going, where is ours?

Because if you didn't pay for 2014, we didn't send it to you. Kind of one of the things. You got to be enrolled and a paid student for it. So, that being said, we are in book number two, and we are going through this book, which is specifically, we're calling this the God's Gift to Man.

Now, we're dealing with the man's sin, and now we're dealing with section three. We dealt with man and sin and salvation as the third session. Now, we've been spending quite a bit of time here in lesson number eight.

Why is that? Because there's much confusion on this issue called God's sovereignty and human responsibility. Now, you say, well, there's no issues there. What do you mean? But what we see here is that this is better known under the ideas of Calvinism and Arminianism that people seem to argue over.

And so, we're looking at the Calvinist, well, and I've said this a couple times, it's really a misnomer, but this is the side people think is the Calvinist side is total, is the God's sovereignty side.

As if like those that don't believe in Calvinism, and that's a falsehood, is to say that those that don't believe in Calvinism somehow don't believe in God's sovereignty, but that's not actually true.

And so, we've been kind of going through some of that. But let's look at the way of review, and I'm going to try not to do too much review in this class because, well, yeah, we're just going to have so much to do.

This one actually should be the lesson that should be easiest. Most people actually agree with this last point of the five points of Calvinism, and yet there's still some out there that really have a hard time with this.

So, we're going to have to spend a little bit of time, but it is really the easiest when you build up to these others. So, let's look at the first, this is Calvinism, excuse me. So, Calvinism is the most known by its the acronym TULIP.

So, let's look at what those stand for. First is total depravity, and if you remember we said that doesn't mean being as bad as you possibly could be, and I know that some think that I can't be as any worse than I am, but I actually could be.

So, praise God that I'm not, but it means that God, that when we fell, when Adam and Eve fell, we became, our whole being was influenced and fell by sin. Therefore, even our will is influenced by sin.

So, oh really, okay, so I'm being told that people are enjoying my choking to death instead of being concerned they're saying I'm choking on my heresies. Is that really? Okay, let me guess. Is that Ryan Muniak?

Hey, we have a winner. Yes, Mr. Muniak who asks wonderful questions at Ohio Fire. Anyway, and if you don't know what question he asked, then I would say that you need to order this year's Ohio and Fire, and you can order it at the shop at strivingforeternity .org.

We'll get that out to you when they become available, but you can find out what question he asked. Speaking of total depravity, that was Ryan. Next was unconditional election. That's the U in tulip, and this was the idea that our election is by God, and that election coming from God is unconditional.

It is not based on anything that we have done. So, that is that our election is not conditional on our behavior in any way. The L, which is the one that many people seem to have a difficulty with, and that is this one called limited atonement.

We spent some time on this because we said that there's many people that seem to misunderstand this one, and they are in this is that there's really one of two ways you can view this, and it is the idea that, you know, either the which really I think a historical view that the atonement was limited on the cross.

In other words, when Jesus died, he only died for those he knew he would save, which keeping in mind the mind of God, he knows all things, so we can't think like that. Just keeping that in mind, and then the other view of that that we can hold to that some view it as is that it was limited in its application, but not in the offer.

In other words, we can offer the gospel to all, but it is limited in its application. That would be my view. The one I'd hold to if I say I believe in limited atonement. Irresistible grace is the idea that grace is that the grace of that God gives to us is from God.

It's the idea really is this notion that it is God who does the, and it's really what all this is built on, right? So, God, so the understanding of this is we are bad. We can't save ourself. Our works can't save us.

Our will can't save us. You know, our desire, our genealogy, and those things can save us. God had to, apart, completely apart from us, elect us, choose us, and then he paid the punishment for us, but that payment isn't made for all.

It's made for some, and so therefore you get to the irresistible grace. God gives us even the grace to believe in him, and then we get this last one, the P, which is the preservation of the saints, the preservation of the saints.

Now, with this one, I said this one really should be the easiest for people to understand, and it seems that this is one where most people who will hold to any of them, they hold to this one, the preservation of the saints, more than any other.

It is the idea that comes under many different ways. Eternal security, or what's also referred to as once saved, always saved, but there is a difference in that. The idea of once saved, always saved, sometimes has this notion, unfortunately, that as if once I am saved, I can do anything I want, and I can't lose that salvation.

Now, some people balk at that and say, well, wait a minute. If you're going to believe once saved, always saved, then anyone could live licentiously, and there's no responsibility. This is actually the argument that was made against Augustine by Pelagian, by Pelagius.

The idea that if you're saved by grace, he looked at the people in church and he said they weren't living this legalistic lifestyle, and what they ended up doing was trying to force legalism, force a living.

We are saved by grace, but the reality is we should also live like it. Now, not everyone who's actually claims to be saved by grace is actually saved by grace. In other words, there's many people that profess Christianity.

They just don't possess Christ, and so that's a difference, all right? Now, this really what this doctrine comes down to is, can I lose my salvation? I posted on Facebook as a little teaser that if you tune in tonight, we will teach you how you can lose your salvation.

In other words, the real thing is you got to ask the question, can you? No, you can't. Now, if that shocks some people, I know there are some, and we're going to deal with some of this, because this is a real issue for some people, and they get hung up on this.

The thing I often find is the very people that talk about the fact that you can lose your salvation also focus an awful lot on their works. Why? If you can lose your salvation based on your works, really what it means is you keep yourself saved by your works.

In other words, they would, many would say, I'm not going to say all, but many would say that you are saved by grace. They wouldn't disagree with that. They'd say you're saved by grace, but you keep yourself saved through works.

That's an important distinction. Do we keep ourselves saved, or does Christ keep us saved? I don't know if I'm going to have time to get into all this, but boy, there's a lot here. Let me give you a story of how simple this could be for us, because we're now in several lessons into the doctrine of salvation, and even in several lessons looking at the doctrines known as Calvinism, but God's sovereignty, the side of God's sovereignty, and I hope that at this point it's really, really, really, really clear who saves who.

But the issue is that. The reason many people have an issue is they look at someone's lifestyle, and they have an expectation of how a Christian should live, and say, if you're not living this way, and usually this way is my standard, living like me, so if I don't have TVs in my house, then you shouldn't have TVs in your house, or you're not saved.

And if I don't curse, then you shouldn't curse. Now, I'm not saying we should curse, but the issue, the reality is, is we have to remember that when people first get saved, and dealt with this this past week, that someone was very upset with another believer, because the person was using foul language.

Well, the person just got saved three weeks ago. Give them a break. I mean, we don't get saved and instantly sanctified and matured. It takes time. So, let's have a little bit of grace with one another.

Sound good? All right. So, I remember in college, I was, I know, there was actually college back when I was that age. I know I'm as old as dirt. I understand. But back in college, every other Friday night, there was a local family that used to invite the college students and the college, the Christians, to their house for dinner.

And I'm telling you, Mrs. McGlynn could cook. It was great, especially when you were used to getting campus food. I mean, I think that was the real draw there, more than the Bible study. But Mr. McGlynn would always give a Bible study after dinner, and we'd sit around and talk about it.

And he knew that he had people from differing backgrounds. And so, because of that, there were sometimes issues he didn't want to get into a debate on. And I remember I never heard the idea that you could lose your salvation.

I was just ignorant of it. I was a relatively immature believer. I had been saved for about two years, three years at that point, but really never taught. It was just me and the Bible. That's all I had when I first got saved.

And I remember in this Bible study he's going through, and he said that he didn't want to get into a debate on this one text that he was going through on whether you can lose your salvation or not. And me being, well, the ignorant kid, I raised my hand because, you know, I'm kind of dumb.

And I was like, I just, I said, I don't understand. What do you mean you can lose your salvation? And he didn't want to get into it. And I said, but I'm confused. I mean, if I didn't save myself, how can I lose myself?

And afterwards, a couple of students were like, you know, you just nailed it right on the head with that question. I'm like sitting there like dumb, like on what? I don't get it. Like I really didn't get it.

But in my stupidity, which I'm good at, really that was the issue, isn't it? If I can't save myself, I can't keep myself saved either. God is the one who saves us. And so what we see there is that we have to have a proper understanding of who does what.

God does the saving. So if it's God who saves us, it's God who's going to keep us. That's why it says that Jesus, He's the author and the finisher. Jesus said that all that the Father draws to Him, none will He let go.

Well, who's the one that's got to let go of us? We're going to get to that. Let's get into the, I'll never get to all the verses. Yeah. Okay. So let us look in your syllabus. If you are enrolled student, you have your syllabus there.

So let us take a look. We've been going through this and we are looking at preservation of the saints. That is your P there. It's your blank. Preservation of the saints. And that is a letter P. The Bible clearly teaches that one who truly receives Christ as Lord and Savior and demonstrate genuine repentance through spiritual fruit will be saved forever.

That's your blank there. Forever. Now what do I mean by that? Now I'm not saying here that we have a case that it has to be demonstrated to be saved. I want to be clear about that. But none of you can really, you know, see if I'm saved, can you?

That's right. Oh, I said perseverance. Okay. Did I say preservation? I'm being told I said preservation. It should be perseverance. Okay. Perseverance of the saints. Okay. And that is a distinction maybe.

So none of you can see if I'm saved. You can only see the fruit. How do we know if someone is saved? Well, we look over time at the fruit. But what we have here is a case where the thing that we have to look at is when a person is saved, they're saved forever.

They can't lose it. That's the issue. But I do want to point out that we can't know if somebody's saved and that is where an issue comes in. Because a lot of people do is they go, okay, they're looking at the behavior of someone and they're going, well, they lost their salvation.

No, they never had it. All right. Let's see what it says in our syllabus continuing. If someone is saved, he already, that's your blank, already has eternal life. Right? That's what John says. He writes these things to you who already possess eternal life.

1 John 5, I think it's 12 or is it 20? I forget now. So the reality is you already possess eternal life if you're a believer. It's not something you get when you die. You have it now at a believer. It is not a future event.

That's your third blank there. Not a future event. Someone's salvation will be determined in his life unto the end and he will be eternally saved. This is sometimes known as the doctrine of eternal security, which is actually the very next lesson that we're going to look at after this one.

So we're going to spend a lot of time on that but because it is something that a lot of people have issues with. They get confused over. And we're going to look at that doctrine in the next lesson. Well, next lesson but not next class if that makes sense because we have one more class in this lesson on human responsibility.

But the idea behind this is that if someone becomes a believer in Christ, meaning that God has saved them, God did a work in their life and saved them, that then it is, they are saved. They cannot lose it.

Now the idea of the perseverance of the saints is the idea that God will do the work to hold us. In other words, if I could lose my salvation, I would and so would everyone else. Now we won't have time to look at it in this lesson.

We will probably look at it when we go through eternal security. But I will say this that if you want, I know a lot of people use Hebrews 6 and Hebrews 10 to argue that that is proof that you can lose your salvation.

We do have an article on our website that you can read on Hebrews chapter 6 and why that does not teach that you can lose your salvation. And those that believe that it is teaching that you can lose your salvation, please read the context because you'll see that it is saying that whoever these people are that it talks about, they cannot get that back again.

So if you are saying that it's talking about them losing their salvation, then they can't be saved again. It is impossible is the word in Hebrews 6. In Hebrews 10 it says, therefore there is now no more sacrifice for them.

So if you believe you can lose your salvation according to those texts, you can only lose it once. Okay? What's the real issue people are focused on? It's really a behavior issue. People are focusing on the way someone is behaving.

Okay? They don't look like a believer. And when we say that they don't look like a believer, please take into account how old they may be spiritually. Don't expect them to be as mature as someone who's been saved for 20 years because they haven't been saved that long.

And so we want to keep that in mind as well. All right? So let's look at the first verse that we have and that is Romans chapter 5 and verses 8 to 10. I know some of you thought I was going to go to Romans 8.

We'll get there. Don't worry. We're going to start with Romans 5. And it says here, but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners. Now keep in mind what state were we in? We were still sinners.

Christ died for us. Well, when did Christ die? Well, it wasn't yesterday. It was 2000 years ago. So we were still sinners. Christ died for us. Right? So this is, again, this is pointing out that this is a sign that God knows absolutely that this would be a case.

And so, since therefore we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him. So who does the saving? God does the saving. We're saved from who? From what I mean? From the wrath of God.

That's what we're saved from. We're not saved from Satan. We're saved not from ourselves. We're saved from the wrath of God by God. For that while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his son.

So we were his enemy. We were sinners. And while in that state, God saved us and reconciled us to himself. Much more now we are reconciled, shall we be saved in this, in his life. And so what you have there is this case where you see God who does the saving, not only is God saving us in this, but he's the one that's the full actor in this.

Okay? Now, one of the things I guess that I mentioned the Hebrew passage, I kind of glossed over it. And so I guess there's some question about it with this sin of ignorance that's mentioned in Hebrews.

So let me just say with that is that there's, Hebrews 10 seems to talk about this willful and unwillful sin. Okay? And some people argue that that unwillful sin is if I sin without my will involved, every sin includes your will.

Okay? You don't sin without your will involved. All right? You choose to sin, every sin. You may be so numb to it because you do it so often that you don't recognize it, but that's a totally different issue.

Okay? So I should clarify that. Thank you. So, but what we have there is we do have a case here where we see that the issue is that Jesus is the one who reconciles us. And I want you to think about something.

If our sin is so bad and has such a heavy price that it requires the God of the universe to come to earth as a man and die on a cross to make a payment, and we think we can lose it, then the question is, what can we do to get it back again?

You see, we've already accepted the gospel, so you can't accept that anymore. So what is it? Oh, it's works. You see, ultimately, if you believe you can lose your salvation, you end up directly or indirectly with a works-based salvation.

You believe that you are saved by grace, but you can keep it by your works. So how do you remain saved? By your works. So although salvation is important, the work of Christ is important, what's more important?

Keeping yourself saved once Christ did His work. So the focus becomes on the work that you do. And in that case, it's your works that you boast in. And that's ultimately often what ends up happening. And that's why we need to be careful with this.

Because we want to make sure that we're not teaching a works-based message. I don't know that it's up on the website, but at both Jersey Fire last year and the NorCal Fire, both of which you can get at our store.

You can feel free to go to the store at store .strivingforeternity .org and you can order the messages from Ohio Fire of 2013 or the NorCal Fire of 2013, both of which I dealt with. Actually, no, sorry, 2012.

The Jersey Fire of 2012 and NorCal Fire of 2012, where I dealt with this topic of what is the gospel? And what we had there was we talked about the doctrine of imputation. And we also gave a warning to some in that I also had taught at Jersey Fire and on Sinless Perfection, actually both on Sinless Perfection, which is where some people get to some of this.

And what you end up with is you end up with this thing of people, because they don't have a right view of imputation, end up living as if they're saved by works, not by grace. And then what ends up happening is they end up living in a way where it is unfortunately far more focused on the works.

Now, I say that if we could lose our salvation, we would, but can we? Romans chapter 8 I think is the clearest. And we're going to take a look at a lot of this, but let's first look here. Romans chapter 7 gives this explanation of how Paul gets saved.

And he recognizes the law in his life. He comes to repentance and faith and recognizes his need for Christ. And here then in chapter 8 verse 1 he says this,. There is therefore now, current tense, no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

So, we no longer have condemnation. Now, if we could lose our salvation based on our works, then there could be condemnation. But Romans says that there is now, present tense, no more condemnation. Now, some will argue that Paul is saying, oh, for himself he's in a state of grace so he's not, so he doesn't lose it because he's in that state.

I don't believe that to be the case. All right, let's continue to see how clear this is. Romans 8, 20, 29 to 30. For whom he foreknew, he also predestined. That means to decide beforehand. So, God knew us beforehand and because he knew us beforehand, he chose us beforehand to be confirmed to the image of his Son.

That he might be the firstborn among the brethren. Moreover, whom he predestined, those he also called, whom he called, those he also justified, and whom he justified, those he also glorified. Do you notice the points here?

So, what you have here is when did this occur? Paul is saying that this occurred before you and I were around. In other words, in the mind of God, he foreknew us, he predestined us, he justified us, he glorified us.

It's a done deal because it is in the mind of God. That's the point. This is a done deal and God's thinking this is past tense. It already happened. He glorified us already in his mind. It would be incredible for God, incredibly unfaithful of God to say he confirmed us and glorified us but then we can lose it somehow.

Okay? So, what we have here then in Romans 8, 35 to 39, one of the clearest ones, it says here, who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Now, let's stop there. This is, he's going to go his whole list.

And actually, give you a little story. This is actually the passage that probably is the reason that I'm married to my wife. And you go, wait a minute. What does that have to do with anything? Actually, my wife, before we were married, I was discipling her.

And as I was discipling her, she was from a church that was kind of liberal and believes a lot of bad things. And so, she was asking me, can you lose your salvation? I really didn't know if you could.

Like, where her, sorry, didn't know. I didn't know if she believed that you could. That was a bad slip of the tongue. But I didn't know if she believed it or not, if that's what she was taught. So, I'm going through the scriptures.

I'm explaining what the scriptures say. And when I get done, I give this verse that we just looked at and I exegeted that passage and she said, good, you answered correctly. I was like, you were testing me?

And she said, yes. And I was like, this is the kind of woman I need to marry. I mean, a woman who's going to, you know, if I'm going to be a pastor, I need a woman whose spiritual walk isn't based on mind and is going to correct me when I need correction and is willing to test me and make sure I'm accurate and study the scriptures on her own.

So, that was kind of one of the things I first fell in love with her about. But if some people will say that, okay, God in this passage says that there's nothing that He's going to do to let go of you, but it doesn't mean that you can't break out of His hands.

Really? You think you're stronger than God? No. So, let's look at these things that He says. He says, who can separate us from the love of Christ? And then look at this list of things. He tries to capture everything, right?

Shall tribulation or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword and others. These are the things that what they would see is as people came under persecution, there would be these things in the person's life and many people would give up their professed faith, but not their possessed faith.

In other words, there would be those who would claim to be Christians until the hard times come, and then they give that up to save their own life. And so, this would be a thing of, well, can I lose my salvation?

Look at these other people. They give up their profession of faith. Did they lose their salvation? Could I lose mine? But He's saying, could these things? Verse 36, as it is written, for your sake, we are being killed all the day long.

We are regarded as sheep to the slaughter. No, in all these things, we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. See, we're going to, those of us who know Christ, we're more than conquerors. We're going to persevere to the end.

We're going to be, at the end, we're going to remain in that state. We're going to be conquerors. Verse 38, for I am sure that neither death nor life, okay, that's kind of the opposites, nor angels nor rulers, and the rulers are the um, the idea of demons, rulers of this world is the idea, so it's holy angels or unholy angels, nor things present, nor things to come, whether it's now or later, okay, so it's not something in the future that I could lose my salvation, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else, in case he missed anything, anything else in all creation will separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

He's saying there, it's like, there's nothing, there's nothing that can separate you from the love of God. He's trying to make it really clear by going through all these, there's nothing that can separate you from the love of God, nothing, because it's God who does the work.

You did not get yourself into the state of grace, okay. I, you know, I like what, when we talk about this salvation, I like what Baudrimaisai says, you know, people always use this illustration, oh, you know, there's two people in the water, and someone throws a life preserver to the person, and he reaches out to it, you know, it's the person who threw the life preserver that's saving him, that's doing the work, all they're doing is reaching for it, well, reaching for it's still a work, but it's not really a good illustration.

Why? Because the scriptures say that before we are Christians, we're dead. Dead people don't reach for a life preserver, but my buddy Sai explains it differently, he says we weren't just dead, we were at the bottom of the ocean, drowned and dead.

Throwing a life preserver isn't going to do anything for you. God had to actually go down to the bottom of the water, pull us up, throw us onto the boat, and resuscitate us, because we were dead. Well, if we were at the bottom of the ocean, dead, and it took God coming in and getting us out, well, we're not now once being alive going to return to that state and be able to, because God is the one that says he's going to keep us.

Let's look. Let's take a look at some others. John 3 .16, we're going to see a couple of verses in John 3. For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life.

Now, it doesn't mean whoever believes in them when they die. It's whoever believes in them should not perish. John 3 .36 says this, for whoever believes in the son has eternal life. Whoever does not believe in the son does not have, sorry, whoever does not obey the son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him.

So, if you have the son, you have life. Let's look at another. John 5. Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes in me, believes him who sent me has eternal life. Now, that has is present tense.

And what we see there is the case, it's a case where we, I don't know how else to explain this, but in the Greek, it's not like our English. Our English, we have a real issue where we don't look at the cases so much.

And what we have is a situation where we need to realize that the Greek has a past present tense. This is a present tense. So, he's making an emphasis here. Has eternal life. We have it now. Okay? So, truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes in him who sent me has eternal life.

He does not come into judgment, but is passed from death to life. He doesn't say you pass back into death. Another one here. Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes has eternal life. You've seen this, every one of these that talks about eternal life is past tense or present tense.

We have it already. It's something we possess. Let's look at 1 Corinthians 10 verse 13. No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation will always provide a way of escape that you may be able to endure it.