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Blessed Assurance, pt. 1

Blessed Assurance, pt. 1

 Are you going to heaven?  Are you sure?  How do you know?The question is one of assurance, am I certain of my home?  The subject is muddied with false teaching, with the error of the impossibility of apostasy, and wrong notions about the possession of hope.

The Bible answers the question “what must I do to be saved?” (Acts 16:25-34; and confer also Acts 2:37, 38) by demanding belief, repentance and immersion in water for the remission of sins.  Jesus said in Mark 16:16, that “Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned.”

“Well”, I think, “I’ve believed and been baptized for the remission of my sins, so I’m alright, hmm?”

Well, that is the start; by your obedience of faith you have “put on Christ” (Galatians 3:27) and are partakers of “every spiritual blessing,” Ephesians 1:3 (and read verses 4 – 14 for an itemization of those blessings).

That is just the start.We are at war.  Paul told Timothy to “Fight the good fight of the faith” (I Timothy 6:12).  Our warfare is against the “schemes of the devil” and the armor for this conflict is described in Ephesians 6:11-17.  Christians must use this armor, they cannot win the battle with any other.  “That” here has the sense of, “so” or “in order that”. This is why in Ephesians 6 Paul uses the word twice, to indicate the essentialness of the armor: “Put on the whole armor of God that you may be able to stand … that you may be able to withstand” (verses 11, 13). The point of emphasis is, the Christian will not, can not, win the war without the “whole armor of God”; to stand one must use this armor.

We have a tireless enemy.  Peter warned Christians that “Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour” (I Peter 5:8).  Paul sounded a similar note in I Corinthians 10:12,  ”Therefore let anyone who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall.”  There are those who think a saved person, a Christian, cannot fall – contradicting the Holy Spirit.

God told Eve, do not eat of, nor touch, the forbidden fruit, “lest you die.”  The devil, identified by Jesus as “a liar, and the father of lies” (John 8:44) told the first lie; that lie was, ”the serpent said to the woman, you will not surely die.” Genesis 3:4.    The doctrine of the impossibility of apostasy is thus the doctrine of the devil, calculated to deceive people – like Eve – into believing that it’s OK if you disobey God, “you will not surely die.”

The point is, “once in grace always in grace” is not the truth.  Neither is the assertion that one cannot “fall from grace.”  Paul warned the Galatians (5:4) that “You are severed from Christ, you who would be justified by the law; you have fallen away from grace.”

There are so many warnings in the Bible against what we used to call “backsliding” that one can only wonder that anyone clings to the notion that apostasy is impossible.  Falling from grace, into eternal torment, is terrible to consider.  Jesus said, “I go to prepare a place for you,” John 14:1-3; but warns of some being cast into “the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels,” Matthew 25:41.    Consider the irony of this: eternal anguish in the place not prepared for man, but for the devil and his angels!

This is not the desire of God for man; He is “not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance” (II Peter 3:9).  Another expression of the will of God on this subject, is in I Timothy 2:3, 4:  God our Savior “desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.” 

The saved can be lost.  Such a fate is not necessary, because man as a free moral agent can take advantage of the provisions God has made, for his salvation.  Peter writes of them in his first epistle, chapter one verse 5, that God’s power guards the saved.  It is not unconditional; Peter wrote that it is “through faith”.  Those who think faith is unconditional, bestowed as a gift so that man has no responsibility, are troubled, and should be, by statements indicating that he is responsible, as were Hymenaeus and Alexander, who had made “shipwreck of their faith,” I Timothy 1:19, 20.  So one who wishes to be secure in his salvation will be guarded by God, through faith; but he must continue to walk by faith.

- Pat