Hebrews Lesson 107 November 8,
2008
NKJ Acts 4:12 "Nor is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name
under heaven given among men by which we must be saved."
Open your Bibles to John 5:42. Since we are talking
about eternal security and the whole issue of the gospel…last time I mentioned
this and I didn’t get my focus on the right verse. In John 5:42 we have a
passage that is at the center of this whole controversy that has developed in
the Free Grace Movement. The contention is best stated in an article Zane Hodges
wrote and he has used this in numerous speaking opportunities where he has
talked about this. He sets up the scenario.
A man is on a desert island. He doesn’t know anything
about Christianity at all. He doesn’t know anything about the Bible. A bottle
floats up and it has a piece of paper in it. Most of the text is washed out,
but a little bit is left.
In John 5, did I get the verse wrong again? No, I
didn’t. I thought I copied it in my notes. I got it wrong again. I can’t
believe I did this.
Jesus says, “If you believe, I will give you eternal
life.”
That’s all it says. It’s a short verse. It’s not 5:24
in my Bible. My Bible says:
NKJ John 5:24 " Most assuredly, I say to you, he who hears My word and believes
in Him who sent Me has everlasting life, and shall not come into judgment, but
has passed from death into life.
Maybe it’s 6:24. I have to have the verse to make the
point; otherwise it’s going to fall flat. Okay, John 6:47.
NKJ John 6:47 "Most assuredly, I say to you, he who believes in Me has everlasting life.
Apparently what Zane sets up is that
he has this passage from John 6:43-47. But the only thing that is
visible…everything else is wiped out or washed out except for the phrase “Jesus
therefore answered and said to them”... then verse 47…
Now how many of you all (now here is
an interesting little side note) have a New American Standard or an NIV? This
is confession time. See you don’t have “in Me” in your text…so not only does
the illustration kind of fall apart in terms of its theology, but Zane’s a
Majority Text guy. It’s got to be the Majority Text that washes up on the
island. If he gets the NIV or NASB, the guy can’t get saved at all. But his point is
that Jesus offers eternal life and that this is all you need to get saved.
There is no mention of the cross. There is no mention that Christ died for your
sins. There is no mention of anything. All you need to know and the way he sets
it up and describes it in print is that he reads this and then he makes the
statement and somehow the man is convinced that this Jesus can actually give
him and can guarantee him that he has eternal life.
Now my question is how can this guy
on the island distinguish between Jesus of Nazareth and Jesus the gardener and Esa the Moslem. He can’t because there is no content there.
The hole in the logic is that somehow he is convinced (as Hodges states it
somehow he becomes convinced) that this Jesus can guarantee the promise. The
“somehow” is your logical hole because the somehow means that in some way he is
told something about who this Jesus is. That would include His deity and that
He could do that. That’s what is implied there. He is not just leaving out the
Holy Spirit; He is leaving out the cross completely. That’s the issue.
That’s why this guy Tom Siegel up in
Duluth Bible Church (You can go to their website and read some of his articles)
is saying they have a cross-less gospel. It is not that they don’t believe in
the cross. I want to make that clear. But, they believe that a person can get
enough information to be saved without knowing that Christ died on the cross
for their sins. This is where we have a problem and why we’re having these
theological arguments and problems at Chafer Seminary and other things that
have gone on the last few years. Part of this is the idea that what Jesus is
offering is eternal life.
The other nuance that is developing
in this debate and this discussion is that eternal life (the eternal part of
the phrase eternal life) means that when you understand that Jesus is giving
you eternal life what that means is if you don’t understand that it’s eternal
in the sense that it can’t be taken from you or can’t be lost then if you
aren’t believing that it’s eternal life that you are getting then you aren’t
saved. In other words (in the most extreme form of that) position was stated in
a paper at the Grace Evangelical Society last year, though the author later
backed off of it.
See one of the reasons these kinds
of conferences is for guys…it’s like a professional society. You present your
paper for peer review. Sometimes your theological ideas are wacky.
Your peers come along and knock you
down and say, “Well, you’re missing this and you’re missing that. This is
wrong.”
So he did back off of this. But some
of these guys are clearly saying that if you don’t have a sense…the phrase
they’ll use is that assurance is of the essence of saving faith and that if
you’re not assured of your salvation which we have studied subjective
realization that you can’t lose your salvation. If you don’t have an assurance of salvation, then you were
never ever saved. That causes all kinds of problems; theologically I
think…many, many problems.
That is why we are studying this
whole issue of eternal security because this is at the heart of this issue. Now
our starting point was in our passage in Hebrews 7:25.
NKJ Hebrews 7:25 Therefore He
He being Jesus.
is also able to save to the uttermost those who come to
God through Him, since He always lives to make intercession for them.
The word “uttermost” has the idea to
save completely, totally. Jesus is able to do this interestingly enough in Hebrews
7 because He’s eternal. That’s been the whole argument here, that He is eternal
and has an eternal priesthood. Therefore because He has an eternal priesthood
He can save eternally. That is a basis for understanding eternal security, but
it is not a basis for becoming saved. The object of faith at salvation isn’t eternal
life. The object of faith is Christ who died on the cross for your sins.
That is what we find in passages
such as I Corinthians 15. Turn with me there. You ought to have these verses
underlined. Paul is talking to the Corinthians. He says:
NKJ 1 Corinthians 15:1 Moreover, brethren, I declare to you the gospel which
I preached to you, which also you received and in which you stand,
So he is getting ready (or as we say
in Texas, “He is fixin’.”) to define the gospel.
NKJ 1 Corinthians 15:2 by which also you are saved, if you hold fast that
word which I preached to you
Word being
synonymous to gospel, the message.
-- unless you believed in vain.
This is a second
class condition indicating it’s not – unless you believed in vain,
but you didn’t believe in vain that is.
NKJ 1 Corinthians 15:3 For I delivered to you
See delivering to you…how did he deliver to you? He
proclaimed it. He spoke the message, the Word. Here he is giving the
content of his gospel message
first of all that which I also received: that Christ died
for our sins according to the Scriptures,
NKJ 1 Corinthians 15:4 and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according
to the Scriptures,
So he goes on. Everything he says
here is not central to the gospel because the construction continues.
NKJ 1 Corinthians 15:5 and that He was seen by Cephas,
then by the twelve.
So you see “that he was seen by
Peter” is still part of the sentence and the object of
what he explained to them. So in one sense what he is explaining here is the
mechanics of how salvation was accomplished.
But what is it that you believe?
Well, let’s turn to another passage. Turn to 1 Thessalonians 4. Move on passed
Ephesians, Colossians, to 1 Thessalonians 4 – a passage that is cited at
almost every funeral. Verse 14 is the key passage.
NKJ 1 Thessalonians 4:13 But I do not want you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning those who
have fallen asleep,
That is the believers who have died physically.
lest you sorrow as others who have no hope.
NKJ 1 Thessalonians 4:14 For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will
bring with Him those who sleep in Jesus.
A first class condition – here
it is assuming it’s true.
What is it that you believe? It’s
what’s on the other side of the “that”. That’s what you believe – that
Jesus died and rose again. You can’t divorce the
message of Jesus’ death on the cross from what a person believes when they are
saved, for that is the issue.
One more passage that I want to go
to is in I Corinthians 1. Once again it’s a context here of division and Paul
says:
NKJ 1 Corinthians 1:17 For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach
the gospel, not with wisdom of words,
Now that doesn’t mean that Paul wasn’t
supposed to baptize. It’s that it wasn’t his primary mission. His primary
mission was to proclaim the gospel. His primary mission...God didn’t send him
to take up a collection either. But I Corinthians he takes up a collection for
the poor in Jerusalem. See God didn’t send him…he’s really making a point
that...
He’s not saying
“God didn’t send me to baptize and therefore baptism isn’t for today.”
He is saying, “That wasn’t my
primary objective.”
The primary objective was to proclaim
the gospel, not with wisdom of words. In other words it’s not based on the
rhetorical standards of Greek, speaking and using the right words and the right
style and all these things.
lest the
cross of Christ should be made of no effect.
That indicates there that the cross
of Christ is a key element in the gospel. Then in verse 18 he says:
NKJ 1 Corinthians 1:18 For the message of the cross is foolishness to
those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.
If there is no message of the cross,
then he is not proclaiming the gospel. The preaching of the gospel is the
message of the cross.
Then skip down to verse 23. He says:
NKJ 1 Corinthians 1:23 but we preach Christ crucified, to the Jews a
stumbling block and to the Greeks foolishness,
In verse 17 he is to preach the
gospel. That is further defined in verse 23 as preaching Christ crucified.
NKJ 1 Corinthians 1:24 but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks,
Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.
NKJ 1 Corinthians 1:25 Because the foolishness of
God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.
The point that he is making is that
he is there to preach the cross. The cross is at the core of the gospel message
because that is what secures our salvation.
So I find this to be the oddest
piece of logic that some of these people are getting into. You wonder how
they...I don’t know, people get sometimes all messed up and then they come up
with some little doctrine that they think is such a brilliant breakthrough. And
then anyone who doesn’t agree with them gets excluded from fellowship because
you don’t agree with my-little-pinhead-doctrine. Every one of us can come up
with some little nuance or shade on some aspect. But, especially when you come
up with something that no one else in church history has ever come up with
...and that doesn’t mean it’s not right. The Lord knows the more we probe the
depths of Scriptures, pastors and theologians can always put together and they
do put together and come to understand the Scriptures in a better fashion than
maybe it has been understood before. But when no one else has ever emphasized
something that you’re emphasizing, don’t make it the watershed for fellowship.
Don’t make that the benchmark of orthodoxy. In church history there has always
been a process where the leaders in the church will debate these issues and
work out the kinks among those who are trained and equipped in the Scriptures.
So that is what’s going on.
One reason eternal security is such
an important issue within the Free Grace Camp and it’s also important because
in the broader scenario of evangelicalism, you have Arminians
on the one hand who don’t believe in eternal security and you have Calvinists
(High Calvinists) on the other hand who don’t believe
that you can have an assurance of your salvation. Yet, the Bible teaches
both.
I pointed out last time that the
difference is this - eternal security is the objective side of the coin. You
know that God promises that if you’re saved you can never lose that salvation.
Assurance of salvation is the personal subjective side of the coin that I
understand that I am certain of my salvation. Those are the two sides of the
coin. So even though you have eternal security until you come to understand it,
you may not feel assured of your salvation. Others may be sure of their
salvation now, but they don’t understand eternal security so they are afraid
that if they do something, they can lose that salvation. That’s true about Arminians.
So we defined eternal security as
the work of God toward the believer at the instant of faith alone in Christ
alone. It is God’s work, not our work. We don’t keep ourselves; God keeps us.
In fact as we’re studying all three members of the trinity keep us. They’re all
involved in keeping us. It’s the work of God which guarantees that God’s free
gift of salvation is eternal and cannot be lost, terminated, abrogated,
nullified, or reversed by any thought, act or change of belief in the person
saved.
Now last time I went through some
introductory concepts talking about the definition, key terms like “once saved,
always saved”. I explained the difference between assurance and eternal
security, the historical development between High Calvinism and Arminianism and then the problem as it’s developed within
High Calvinism and Lordship salvation.
Now tonight I am looking –
last time we also started looking at how God the Father secures our salvation.
I’m going to break it down this way.
We are going to look at how God the Father secures our salvation, how the Son
secures our salvation and how God the Holy Spirit secures our salvation. In
that we’ll look at some basic things that come from the character of God
Himself - that’s true of all three members. That’s where we’re starting –
from the character of God in terms of who God is before we get into the three
Persons.
So the first argument really comes
from the character of God. We have our essence of God. He’s sovereign; He’s righteous; He’s
just; He’s love; He’s eternal; He’s omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent,
veracity, and immutability. He can’t ever change.
Now I went over this last time
before we finished. In His omniscience God knows all the knowable. If He knows
everything, then He knows every sin that’s going to be committed in history. So
He can design a solution that takes care of every sin in history.
Now one of the things you may run
into…somebody may say, “Hmm, well, He takes care or murder in principle, but
not the individual murders.”
He’s not paying for sins if He does
that. But I have had people try to argue that. He is omniscient so He knows
everything.
He is omnipotent which means that
God is able to do what He intends to do. Omnipotence doesn’t mean that God can
do anything at all because God can’t make a circle square or silly little
things like that. Omnipotence means that God is able to do everything He
intends to accomplish. He is all powerful. So if He
plans to solve the sin problem, He is able to solve the sin problem.
In His omniscience He knows every
sin so it’s paid for and it’s paid for immutably. It never changes. So, all of
His aspects of His character are involved in solving the sin problem from the
aspect of His character. Furthermore, it also means that God is able to keep
His promises. Under immutability, we know that God is faithful and that He
never changes.
Then another aspect has to do with
His integrity. Integrity focuses on four aspects of God’s character. It deals
with righteousness which is the standard of His
character, His justice which is the application of that standard to every area
of life, love which is an integral part of His makeup which is always
consistent with righteousness and justice because love has to do with personal
relationship.
And He is truth. Of course love is
related to faithfulness. The Old Testament you have the Hebrew word chesedh which means loyal or
faithful love. So these things are all pulled together. The psalmist talks
about the fact that righteousness and justice are the foundation of His throne
and love and truth go out from it.
So this is the foundation. In His
omniscience and omnipotence He is able to do all which
He has planned. In His immutability, He is faithful to His word. He has
promised He will secure our salvation. In His integrity He is consistent with
His promise and He is going to bring it about. So this is all from the
character of God.
Now let’s look at the argument from
the character of God the Father. The believer is secured by the purpose, the
power, the provision and love of God the Father - all of those. Last time we looked at the purpose in terms of Romans 8:29-30.
NKJ Romans 8:29 For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son,
that He might be the firstborn among many brethren.
NKJ Romans 8:30 Moreover whom He predestined, these He also called; whom He called,
these He also justified; and whom He justified, these He also glorified.
He doesn’t lose anybody. Whoever
gets justified gets glorified. When you put your faith alone in Christ at that
instant God imputes to you the perfect righteousness of Christ. At that instant
God declare you just. Nobody gets lost. Of those He justifies all are glorified,
no more and no less.
Now when we get into looking at this
whole aspect of God’s power and God’s ability to save us from sin, one of the
problems that we run into is that too many people have a distorted view of what
sin is. This is why sometimes it’s necessary when you’re witnessing to somebody
to help them understand that they’re sinners. There
are a lot of people who don’t think they are sinners. Some people are pretty
clear that they are sinners.
But there are other people who
think, “Well, sin is racism. Sin is something defined in terms of intolerance
today.”
Or, they are defining sin in terms
of some cultural problem. They don’t understand that sin is a violation of the
character of God. Therefore they don’t really understand what salvation is all
about. You’re saved from something and you’re saved from the eternal
consequences of sin. So people have a small view of sin. If you have a small
view of sin, you’re going to have a small view of salvation. Often you see this
especially with those who are more inclined to Arminianism
and the fact that if you commit certain sins you lose your salvation. If you
talk to some Arminians, they haven’t sinned in a long
time because Wesleyan Arminians can become perfect.
They can become sinless. See, they have a narrow view of what sin is. Sin is
doing one or two or three things and as long as they don’t do those 3 or 4
things, they’re sinless. So they have a small view of sin and consequently a
small view of salvation.
A good passage to go to when you are
talking to someone like this is James 2:10.
NKJ James 2:10 For whoever shall keep the whole law, and yet stumble in one point, he is
guilty of all.
See it doesn’t matter that you
didn’t commit murder or that you didn’t commit adultery or that you weren’t a
false witness. You might have kept every point of the law, but you are a little
greedy. You covet. As Paul states in Colossians, greed is a form of idolatry.
So what you have done is set up an idol in terms of money. So you are greedy
and you covet. That’s what made Paul realize he was guilty of the whole law.
Even if you are guilty of a small thing that you think of as not that great a
sin, it means you are guilty of everything else. You violated the whole law.
You might as well have gone out and committed adultery and committed murder and
dishonored your parents and all the other things broken all the other laws
because you are guilty of everything. It only takes a little bit to violate the
character of God. All Adam had to do was eat a piece of fruit. It’s not on
anybody’s big list of sins.
So you have to help people
understand a little bit about the fact that sin is a violation of God’s
standard and that there is a consequence for it. That is separation from God.
But, Jesus paid the price for all those sins.
The next thing we have to help them
understand is that God is more powerful than our sin. There is no sin that we
can commit that is too powerful for God.
Jude 1:24 says:
NKJ Jude 1:24 Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling, And to present you faultless
Before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy,
God is the one who is able. God is
the one who has the power. It’s not dependent upon us. That’s such a freeing
relaxing thing – to realize that I am going to sin. That doesn’t mean
that I am rationalizing it or justifying it. It’s reality that the sin nature
never disappears this side of physical death. Therefore I am going to sin, but
every sin was paid for on the cross. There are so many Christians that run
around that don’t understand that either their sin was paid for on the cross or
they don’t understand I John1:9 that all you need to
do is admit the sin to God and He will forgive you. They don’t understand
anything about divine forgiveness and they focus all their attention on sin.
They are all concerned about it.
Now here is another thing. Every now
and then I hear this. I used to hear it a lot more, but I guess I don’t run around
with the wrong kind of people anymore.
I used to hear people say, “I used
to think that about I John 1:9, but I was obsessing on all my sins. I was so
concerned about being in fellowship that I went around all the time thinking
about – am I in fellowship? I was just consumed with whether or not I was
in fellowship.”
Well, see I think they have a little
bit of a problem. There are some people who are that way. I John 1:9 isn’t this
thing that causes you to walk around all the time trying to figure out if
you’ve committed some sin. You’ll know it when you commit a sin. Most of us are
arrogant most of the time. So that’s a real easy one I think to confess. I
don’t know about you, but it is real easy for most people to get self-absorbed.
Just get out on the freeway and you will figure out if you are out of
fellowship or not. But, don’t obsess on it. There are some people who take it
that way. That’s not what we mean when we teach that you need to be in
fellowship and to keep short accounts. You’re aware when you sin. Just confess
it. So people get so consumed about this.
Jude 1:24 and other promises tell us
that He’s the one who keeps us. We don’t have to worry about it and be consumed
with it ourselves. So Jude 1:24:
NKJ Jude 1:24 Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling, And to present you faultless
Before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy,
God is the one who holds the
believer and keeps him from falling away. We can’t do anything to permanently
fall away in our relationship with God.
Another passage that focuses on what
God the Father does is in Romans 8:33.
NKJ Romans 8:33 Who shall bring a charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies.
Paul asks a rhetorical question.
What’s the answer? Well, first of all it is God who justifies. God didn’t
provisionally, conditionally or partially justify you. When He imputed to you the perfect
righteousness of Christ, what is in your account is Christ’s perfect
righteousness. It’s not something that’s partial or something that you can
affect because it’s Christ’s righteousness not your righteousness. It’s never
based on who and what we are or what we have ever done. That’s so great because
that gives us the ability to relax and live our Christian lives without always
being consumed about sin.
Another passage that reinforces this
is in Ephesians 2 - Ephesians 2. Now I want you to turn there in your Bibles.
We ought to be pretty familiar with Ephesians 2. I have alluded to this section
several times in the last month - Ephesians 2.
Now as I stated before, the first 7
verses are one sentence. The sentence is talking about what God does for us. So
you are not introduced to the subject of the sentence, the grammatical subject
of the sentence until verse 4.
NKJ Ephesians 2:4 But God,
who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us,
Then you have a relative clause and
a couple of digressions in verse 4 and 5. You don’t main verb until verses 5
and 6.
NKJ Ephesians 2:5 even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ
(by grace you have been saved),
NKJ Ephesians 2:6 and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in
Christ Jesus,
So God did these three things for us
at the instant that we were saved. He made you alive together with Christ.
That’s regeneration.
So if you lose your salvation that
means you get kicked out of your position in Christ.
You’re no longer seated in heaven which is kind of a
bizarre concept to think that God would do this. God does the work of raising
you and seating you. You don’t do that work so how can you do anything to
reverse it? It’s not logical; it’s not consistent with the text.
Another verse that we have in our
study is Hebrews 7:25.
NKJ Hebrews 7:25 Therefore He is also able to save to the uttermost those who come to God
through Him, since He always lives to make intercession for them.
It’s His power. He is the one who is
able to save us.
Paul says:
NKJ 2 Timothy 1:12 For this reason I also suffer these things; nevertheless I am not
ashamed, 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.
See the one thing that runs all the
way through this is He is able to keep us. He is the one who regenerated us,
raised us and seated us. He’s the one who is able to guard what I have
entrusted to Him until that day. It is God that does the work. It is God’s
power that does the work.
In I Peter 1:4-5:
NKJ 1 Peter 1:4 to an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled and that
does not fade away, reserved in heaven for you,
NKJ 1 Peter 1:5 who are kept by the power of God through faith for salvation ready to be
revealed in the last time.
See, we are protected by the power
of God. We’re not protected by our ability to not sin, our ability to obey, our
ability to always be in Bible class, or our ability to do anything. It is the
power of God who protects us. So the first aspect of looking at God the Father
is that it’s His power that keeps us. It is His power that made us alive,
raised us, and seated us together with Christ. It is His power that guards what
has been entrusted to Him and His power that keeps us and protects us through
faith.
The next thing that we have…we looked
at the power of God, now we look at the provision of God. When we understand
the dynamics and the complexities of what God must do to save even one person,
then we understand that this isn’t reversible.
I have always thought that this was so
absurd to think that the salvation process was reversible. And part of this is
because people aren’t taught very much about what happens at salvation, what
God has to do to save us. It’s a phenomenal process. God does so much for us
and He transforms us into a completely new creature with all these new assets
that are given to us. To think that we can lose it is like saying...it boggles
the mind that all of that is reversible. What happens to us when we gain
eternal life and gain salvation, we have so much more than Adam ever had before
he fell. We have all the things that Christ does for us. We have all the things
the Holy Spirit does for us. We’re adopted into the family of God. We have the
imputation of righteousness which…Adam did not have anything like that. All of
this is ours forever. So we have a simple part of it is our imputation of
Christ’s righteousness. It’s credited to our account. To lose that God would be
one who went back on His word. He is going to give it and then take it away.
When I was a kid we used to call
that being an Indian giver. Now are we Native American givers? I don’t know.
It’s not politically correct, but you know by now that you don’t have a
politically correct pastor. I guess I am always carnal!
Justification – we are
justified because we possess that perfect righteousness. Its justification is a
declaration from the Supreme Court of Heaven. You stand before the bar of God’s
justice. He looks at the fact that you have perfect righteousness at the
instant of your salvation and He declares you just. It’s a judicial
decision.
You go down to court. You get a
ticket. You go down to court.
The judge says, “Not guilty.”
You go home. Can you get arrested
the next day? No, that’s silly. God doesn’t go back on His Word. Once He
declares you justified He can’t reverse it.
Romans 5:1-3 says:
NKJ Romans 5:1 Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have
peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,
NKJ Romans 5:2 through whom also we have access by faith into this
grace in which we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God.
We can’t come out of that. We can’t
be removed from that position of having peace with God. So no matter what we do
we still have peace with God because the morals, the standard, the sin of ours
is there. Our personal sin, our personal unrighteousness, our personal failures
are still there. But, we have the righteousness of Christ and it’s that
righteousness that is the basis for our salvation, not what we do. When people
come along and think that they can do something to lose their salvation, what they’re not understanding is it’s not their righteousness
ever that is the basis for salvation. It is Christ’s righteousness.
That’s why I say whenever you think
you can lose your salvation somewhere in your thinking you have a problem
because you think there is something you’re doing, something of yours that has
been the basis for your salvation.
Now we talked about the power of
God, we talked about the provision of God. Now let’s look at the love of God.
Romans 5:8 says:
NKJ Romans 5:8 But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still
sinners, Christ died for us.
Now the point of this is to show that
God’s love is given to us, is demonstrated to us when we’re enemies, when we’re
hostile to Him, when we’re in the most negative, obnoxious position we could
possibly be in. While we were yet sinners we were at enmity with God. We’re in
the position of being enemies of God. But He demonstrated His love toward so
that if He died for us while we were in the worst state we could possibly be
in, what more would He do for us when we are peacefully oriented to Him which
is the context of Romans 5 (being justified we have peace with God).
So this whole line of thinking
culminates in what Paul says in the end of Romans 8.
NKJ Romans 8:38 For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor
principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come,
NKJ Romans 8:39 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.
What we see here is for the most
part pairings although you have angels and principalities nor powers. (You have
three things there.) I think the angels are the elect angels and principalities
and powers relate to demonic organization here, but I can’t prove it
definitively. What he does is he takes...this is a figure of speech called a merism. A merism
is when you take two opposites (like black or white, night or day, heaven and
earth) and you express them and that includes everything that is conceivable
within those two opposites.
So when he says, “I am persuaded
that neither life nor death” – nothing dead, nothing alive - can you
think of anything that does not fit in those two categories? I mean everything
is either dead or it’s alive. So that means that there is nothing – okay.
By using the two extremes he’s including everything that there is. So that
would relate to that which could die or that which could live, that which has
life.
The second category talks about the
immaterial realm that God created – neither angels, nor principalities
nor powers. In other words nothing in the angelic hierarchy - fallen angels,
demons, elect angels - nothing in the unseen realm can
do anything to affect our salvation.
Nothing present
nor things to come…it excludes the past because that’s what is taken
care of at the cross – for sure. So there is nothing present, nothing to
come. There is nothing potential. That includes everything - nothing that you
can think of.
Neither height nor depth covers
everything.
Nor any other created thing...in
case I left something out, there is nothing in God’s creation that can separate
us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our
Lord.
Now that phrase “in Christ Jesus” is
specifically related to baptism of the Holy Spirit for the Church Age believer.
That when we are placed in Christ at the instant of our salvation, that action
is done through the Holy Spirit by means of the Holy Spirit. Once we are in
Christ, that love that the Father has for us is a special kind of love. It is a
familial love. It is an intimate love. That’s why the Greek word for an intimate
love (phileo or the noun philos)… the verb is
only used with believers as the object. God loves the whole world, agapao.
But He only has phileo love for believers. Once you are
in the love of Christ (this is agape here) our Lord that can never be lost - even the broader love
which would include as a subcategory the family love.
Jesus says in John 5:24:
NKJ John 5:24 " Most assuredly, I say to you, he who hears My word and believes
in Him who sent Me has everlasting life, and shall not come into judgment, but
has passed from death into life.
Now we are going to move from
talking about what the Father does to what the Son does. John 5:24 includes both the Father and the Son.
See this is a pre-cross description of
the gospel. We started talking about the problem that we have today with the
way some people are trying to express the gospel. They’re go into passages like
John 5 and John 6 when Jesus is talking to Jews - not only is it a pre-cross
environment; but it’s probably in that period before the official rejection by
the Pharisees that’s pictured in Matthew 12 which comes during the last year of
His public ministry. So Jesus is still offering Himself as the King.
So even an Old Testament believer which is what these would be prior to the cross has
a certainty of salvation. If you believe in Me, you
have eternal life. It can’t be taken from you.
So we are secured by the promise of
the Son.
Another passage is in John 6:37.
NKJ John 6:37 "All that the Father gives Me will come to
Me, and the one who comes to Me I will by no means cast out.
If you come to
the Father. Jesus said:
Matthew 11:28 "Come to Me, all who
are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest.
Coming to Jesus is comparable to believing
in Him, accepting Him as your Savior.
John 6:39-40 says:
NKJ John 6:39
"This is the will of the Father who sent Me, that of all He has given Me I
should lose nothing, but should raise it up at the last day.
God is omnipotent therefore He is able
to keep Jesus from losing anything. Jesus is omnipotent so He can’t lose
anything.
NKJ John 6:40 "And this is the will of Him who sent Me, that everyone who sees
the Son and believes in Him may have everlasting life; and I will raise him up
at the last day."
He doesn’t say, “I might raise him
up on the last day. If he is good, I’ll raise him up on the last day. If he
shows himself worthy of the gift, I’ll raise him up on the last day.”
No, He says, “I will raise Him up on
the last day.”
So Jesus makes numerous promises
that are not conditional (That are not based on our obedience, our behavior);
but are based simply on believing in Jesus (coming to Him). This is the promise
from the one who holds the universe together. As He is able to hold the
universe together, then He is certainly able to keep us from falling and to
keep us from losing salvation.
Now the next section that we re
going to get into has to do with the prayer of the Son. We have looked at the
promises that the Son makes. Now we are going to look at the prayer of the Son.
Now this is important because if we go back to our passage in Hebrews 7:25…
NKJ Hebrews 7:25 Therefore.
The context of Hebrews 7 is His
priesthood. The last clause of Hebrews 7:25 is that:
He is also able
to save to the uttermost those who come to God through Him, since He always
lives to make intercession for them
That is Jesus. We are secure in our
salvation because Jesus is always praying for us as part of His high priestly
ministry.
Now let’s look at John 17:11. John
17 is the true Lord’s Prayer, not the passage over in Matthew that is typically
referred to as the Lord’s Prayer. That was the disciple’s prayer.
John 17 is the prayer that the Lord
Jesus Christ utters just before He goes to the cross. He is praying for the
disciples and praying for those who come to know the truth through the
disciples. As He is praying to the Father, He says:
NKJ John 17:11 "Now I am no longer in the world, but these are in the world, and I
come to You. Holy Father, keep through Your name those whom You have given Me, that they may be one
as We are.
So His first aspect of His prayer in
verse 11 is to the Father to keep us in His name. Now if Jesus prays for
something, it is within the will of the Father so the Father is going to answer
Him according to John 5.
NKJ John 17:12 "While I was with them in the world, I kept them in Your name. Those whom You gave Me I
have kept; and none of them is lost except the son of perdition, that the
Scripture might be fulfilled.
This is another one of those
passages that makes it real clear that Judas was not a believer. He is called
the son of perdition. The same Greek word that is used for perdition here is
the word that’s translated “perish” in John 3:16. Someone who is the son of
perdition is one who is perishing. It is literally “the son of perishing”. So
that means in Hebrew idiom if you are the son of something, then that is what
characterizes you. If you were a fool, you would be called the son of a fool. If you are a
murderer, you would be called a son of a murderer. It doesn’t have anything to
do with what your daddy did. It has to do with…that you are demonstrating the
characteristics of this quality. So if you are wise
you would be called the son of wisdom. If you are the son of perdition, that
means you are lost. You are not saved.
Jesus says the only one that “I did
not keep and guard (because he wasn’t saved) was Judas.”
NKJ John 17:13 "But now I come to You, and these things I
speak in the world, that they may have My joy fulfilled in themselves.
NKJ John 17:14 "I have given them Your word; and the world has hated them because
they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world.
NKJ John 17:15 "I do not pray that You should take them out of the world, but that
You should keep them from the evil one.
This is again a strong passage
against demon possession. But it is that we can’t go back under the authority
of Satan. We are transferred from the domain of Satan to the kingdom of God at
the instant of salvation. To lose salvation would mean going back under the
authority of Satan.
So Jesus’ prayer constantly uses
these words of keeping, guarding, protecting, and keeping them from the evil
one. This is His ongoing prayer.
This is stated again in terms of His
present intercessory ministry which is what understanding of the background of
Romans 5:10. Paul says:
NKJ Romans 5:10 For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of
His Son,
See it’s the death of His Son that’s
the basis of reconciliation.
much more,
having been reconciled,.
That means you are justified; you’re
going to go to heaven. You have eternal life.
we shall be
saved by His life
See His ongoing post resurrection
life is at the right hand of the Father as our High Priest, as our intercessor.
This is part of what secures our salvation.
Paul says:
NKJ Romans 8:34 Who is he
who condemns? It
is Christ who died, and furthermore is also risen,
This is what He is doing with His
living – His post resurrection, post ascension living.
who is even
at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us.
NKJ John 14:19 " A little while longer and the world will see Me
no more, but you will see Me. Because I live,
Which is talking about His
resurrection life, post resurrection life.
you will
live also.
Not that He might live, but that He
would live.
NKJ John 6:37 "All that the Father gives Me will come to
Me, and the one who comes to Me I will by no means cast out.
Then finally in terms of His high priestly ministry:
NKJ Hebrews 10:14 For by one offering He has perfected forever those who are being
sanctified.
Here we have that word from the telos
group meaning He has completed that salvation. This is talking positional
sanctification.
That is those who are in the process
of growing spiritually – post salvation. You are already perfected positionally, brought to completion. But in time you are
maturing, being brought to completion in your spiritual life. So the first part
of that verse indicates that as part of His high priestly ministry He has
perfected us forever, not just for a short time, not just temporally or not
just conditionally or provisionally. But He has perfected forever.
Now that takes us through the
promise of the Son. It takes us through the promise and the prayer of the Son;
then the last thing we will cover next time is related to the work of the Son
and then we’ll talk about God the Holy Spirit.
Let’s bow our heads in closing
prayer.