The Doctrine Of Eternal Security

What is eternal security? How does one define it, and where in the Bible can it be clearly and plainly explained? First, eternal security is the Christian belief that could be summarized as “once saved, always saved.” Detractors would also attribute the doctrine to a facet of “easy believism.” To be even more specific, eternal security is a doctrine that teaches that when we have believed the gospel of Jesus Christ we are saved. Now when I employ the word saved, I use it in its Biblical and fullest sense. The Biblical teaching of salvation is that Christ saves the sinner from sin’s penalty (justification), power (sanctification), and ultimately its presence (glorification). In short, when someone is saved through the gospel of Jesus Christ, they are saved eternally. That is why the Bible claims that when someone believes, they have eternal life, a phrase that is used in excess of 40 times in Scripture.

How is eternal security defined, then? The believer, having placed their trust in the finished work of Jesus Christ, receives from the Lord imputed righteousness in exchange for their sin. Christ took mankind’s sin on Himself when He died on the cross. That means my sin died with Him. Your sin, too. Every person who ever lived, and every person who ever will, had their sin paid for on the cross. So then, why is everyone not saved, if Jesus died on the cross for everyone? The simple answer to that is, “[the gospel] is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes,” Romans 1:16. “He who believes in the Son has everlasting life; and he who does not believe the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him,” John 3:36. The defining question that separates the lost from the saved is who do we think Jesus is? He posed this question to His own disciples, Matthew 16:15. First, He asked them who the masses thought He was, and then His own people. Peter, of course, answered correctly, Matthew 16:16.

So it is what we think of Jesus that prevents the efficacious payment for mankind’s sin from being credited to our account, whether we accept or reject His offer of salvation. Paul wrote to Timothy, reminding him, “[God] is the Savior of all men, especially of those who believe,” 1 Timothy 4:10. In short, God has provided in Jesus Christ the one avenue of salvation available, and if we reject Him, we reject eternal life, Acts 4:12. Yes, Jesus was given as, “a ransom for all,” 1 Timothy 2:5. But the condition for receiving the free gift of Christ’s life was to believe the message of the gospel, Acts 16:30, 31, John 6:47. Why? One reason was to demonstrate that it is God, not man, who is the Savior. What the Son did in our stead on the cross was entirely God’s doing; man played no part in expediting our salvation, Hebrews 1:3, 7:25, 9:26, see also Titus 3:14.

Eternal life may only be received through faith in the gospel of Jesus Christ, Ephesians 2:8. That gospel message is that Christ died for our sins, was buried three days, and rose from the dead, explained simply to the Corinthian church, 1 Corinthians 15:3, 4. This is the gospel that must be believed for someone to be saved. If we believe it, eternal life, which is defined as a free gift of God’s grace, given to mankind when the individual believes in the giver’s power to perform what He promised, is our present and eternal possession, see Romans 5:15, 16, 6:23, John 5:24, Hebrews 10:23. Eternal security then, is the doctrine that a Christian may have peace, knowing that their sins are forgiven them for Jesus’ sake, and that while we may still sin as believers, this sin does not and cannot separate us from God, who purchased us with His own Son’s blood. Believers can and do still sin, and we should pray forgiveness when we trespass, 1 John 1:8, 10, 5:16, 17. But a believer’s sin will not lead us to God’s wrath, because we are no longer children of wrath when we have been born again. “We all once…were by nature children of wrath, just as the others. But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved),” Ephesians 2:3-5.

Notice how Paul wrote in the past tense? By grace we have been saved. Been saved. Formerly we were not saved. Then some singular moment occurred, and we were saved. What was that defining moment? When we believed the gospel of our salvation, Ephesians 1:13. Having believed, we were (again past tense) sealed by the Holy Spirit of promise. God the Holy Spirit, who seals and indwells a believer, is our guarantee of eternal life. The NIV refers to this passage as a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance. He becomes this for us…until the redemption of the purchased possession, which is us. This is why Paul could tell Timothy, “for I know whom I have believed and am persuaded that He is able to keep what I have committed to Him until that day,” 2 Timothy 1:12. He prefaces this bold claim by stating, “I am not ashamed.” This same exclamation is made in Romans 1:16, when he writes, “For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it (the gospel) is the power of God unto salvation.” Paul was not ashamed of the gospel’s saving power, for only through it could men be saved. He is likewise not ashamed of his confidence in God, whom he has believed and trusted in the word of regarding the nature of his eternal estate.

Imagine one night you wake from sleep and hear the sound of someone downstairs in your house. It’s a home invasion. Someone broke in with the intent to steal from you, or commit bodily harm to you. What do you do? The wise man picks up his phone and dials 911, because that is precisely why the police force exists. The police are there to contend with matters of law breaking with the authority to apprehend and incarcerate criminals. By picking up that phone and dialing 911, you have committed an act of trust that the 911 operator will relay your information correctly and a proper response will be immediately given. We could liken this, then, to one’s belief in the gospel. We understand our fallen estate and hopelessness. We are doomed to eternity apart from God without Christ interceding on our behalf, His death taking away our sin, in faith receiving from Him the righteousness God finds suitable for Heaven and His presence. Now, continuing our analogy, let us further imagine that the police arrive, but instead of finding and arresting the criminal, they instead hand you a firearm, explain the basics of police procedure, and then bid you good luck. This is tantamount to what denying the doctrine of eternal security amounts to. Did you call the police, only for a self-help guru to come to your house and coach you in the vain hopes that your own efforts will be sufficient in dealing with the break in? Did you trust them to come, and then trust yourself to follow through? What was the point of calling to begin with, if you don’t trust the police, whose very job is to apprehend and arrest criminals? It’s their promise, so to speak, when they are called to respond, but until that call is made, the promise is only theoretically applied to all, but efficacious to those who dial that number.

Now this analogy, like any analogy, can only be strained so far. But I hope that it makes a certain point. Jesus Christ is our Savior, Philippians 3:20. God has emphatically stated, “I am the Lord, that is My name; and My glory I will not give to another,” Isaiah 42:8, see also 48:11. Furthermore, God declares, “I, even I, am the Lord, and besides Me there is no savior,” Isaiah 43:11. To call upon God, but then leave it to the uncertain, finite and impotent strength of human will and effort to maintain the free gift of God’s grace known as eternal life is to woefully misunderstand the enormity of what we have been endowed with. Eternal security is the natural consequence of trusting in God’s gospel. “And being fully convinced that what He had promised He was also able to perform,” Romans 4:21. As it was with Abraham, so it is with us. If I call 911, I expect the police to come and save me, not coach me through a harrowing ordeal I may not survive. Likewise, when I believe the gospel, understanding its implications, I expect God to save me, not just for the moment, but forever from the instant I place my trust in Him. Otherwise calling it eternal life is deceitful, and referring to Christ as Savior equally so. What the believer receives is not a life that endures forever; we receive more. We receive the life of Christ, who lives in us by faith, and whose life is lived by the power of God, see Ephesians 3:17, 20, 1 Peter 1:3-5. The reason why the life God gives is described as eternal is because He gives His Son to live in us, sealing us with the Holy Spirit. Since Christ our Lord lives, never to die again (see Romans 6:9, also Hebrews 7:27) His life by the very virtue of His existence is eternal. If He imparts this life to those who believe then what we receive must likewise be defined as eternal. Finally, as if to quell any and all lingering doubts our hearts may have, we read, “All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will by no means cast out,” John 6:37. Couple this with the amazing passage in Romans, “For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord,” Romans 8:38, 39.

My express hope is that the believer may find comfort in the doctrine of eternal security, which is not a license to sin, but an expression of the majesty of God’s power and grace. Our Lord did not want us to be afraid, or to wonder how much of this covenant was our responsibility to uphold. None of it is. The Trinity was involved in this covenant, Hebrews 9:14. Mankind was its recipient, but in no way a participant. Take our rest, and know that God has provided abundantly more than anything we could ever hope to accomplish for Him; rather, let us allow the Father to work through us, not fearing for our salvation’s retention, but for its reception in the hearts of others, which was always our Lord’s interest, and His initial apostles. We, their successors, should be no less concerned.