Our Eternal Salvation

     Is our salvation eternal? Have you ever considered it, or heard someone preach about it? Well, I believe we should always search the scripture. “It is the glory of God to conceal a thing, but the honor of kings is to search out a matter.”    – Proverbs 25:2 .Amen. We are kings and priests unto God, and we should be always searching out a matter in the word of God, to see whether or not it is so. (Acts 17:11)  In Hebrews 5:9 it says “And being made perfect, he became the author of eternal salvation unto all them that obey him;”  Well, it says “eternal” right there in the scripture. The greek word there meaning “perpetual, forever, eternal.” P.S. the word obey here in the greek means to hear under, to heed or conform coming from a root to be under. It doesn’t mean that if you don’t obey you lose your salvation. It simply means that salvation is eternal to those that are in the kingdom of God, those that are saved. If you are saved, don’t you love Jesus, don’t you want to obey him and do His will for your life, Ok then. you are someone who obeys Him. Just because you messed up, He isn’t going to throw you out.

     Lets look in John 10:28 – “And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand.”  Our eternal life is a gift from God (Romans 6:23) The verse even says that they shall NEVER perish. It doesn’t say, you shall never perish if you are real good and don’t make God mad. It goes on to say here and then again in verse 29 that “no man is able to pluck them out of my Father’s hand.”  Nothing is able to pluck us from His hand. Not your enemies, not your own sin, nothing, because He “is greater than all” the beginning of verse 29 says.

     Lets look at some more scriptures concerning this topic. I want to give each of you an absolute knowing that your salvation is assured and can never be taken from you. Not because I said it, but because God did! Because the scriptures declare it! 1 John 5:11 – “And this is the record (meaning EVIDENCE, report, testimony, witness) that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in His son!” God has given!, He did it, so nothing can be taken from it or put to it (Ecclesiastes 3:14). He has given it to us, and what He has given is eternal life in His son. It is so clear in the scripture. Now people, who frankly don’t know the true heart of God, are going to say, well what about this scripture? I am going to try to shed some light on those that they would use to say you can lose your salvation. But listen. Forget about what every one has told you, leave behind all your preconceived ideas. Search the scriptures for yourself.  Sometimes you will find that you have a lot of scriptures that say one way and others that seem to contradict. All you do in that case is go with the weight of evidence. Because the case is usually that we may just not have revelation about those few passages as to what they really mean. You can not ignore a hundred passages saying your salvation is eternal for 3 or 4 that seem to say it isn’t.

     We can’t lose our salvation because we have an everlasting covenant with God through Jesus. David says in 2 Samuel 23:5 that His house is not so with the Lord, BUT he says “yet He hath made with me an everlasting covenant, ordered in all things, and SURE: for this is all my salvation…” See David was a true worshipper. God called Him a man after His own heart. (Acts 13:22) And David knew that his covenant with God was sure (sure In hebrew, hedged about, protected, preserved). Well,you say but im not David, I have sinned horribly, im so far from God. Look at David’s life. He committed adultery with Bathsheba, had a man killed to cover it up and the resulting baby from that union died. Yet his covenant with God, his salvation, was still sure, and he knew it! Why are you any different? Your not. Your covenant with God is still intact, and you can be SURE just like David if you let the scripture declare it too you.  Because listen, my covenant and your covenant, is with Jesus. Jesus became man and sinned not SO THAT, we could have eternal life that wasn’t dependant on us. We are IN HIM. When God the Father looks at us, He looks at us through glasses that are covered in the blood of Jesus. 1 John 2:1 “…And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous…”  Our covenant being sure is dependant only on Jesus. We can see God’s covenant with Jesus in Psalms 89:27-37. God the Father is speaking here of God the Son. Look in verses 30-34! He says in 30-32 if we sin, He will correct us, chasten and teach us, but NEVERTHELESS! He will not take His lovingkindness or suffer His faithfulness to fail! MY COVENANT WILL I NOT BREAK! Our covenant is with Jesus! And Jesus’ covenant is with the Father, and He will not break it! Hallelujah!  Jesus has sat down at the right hand of the father! It is finished! It is already settled, so therefore it is impossible for the covenant to be broken! Argue you with that, all you fowl devils, up there, preaching a lie to the people of God! Yes, I said it. The preacher’s telling God’s people that they can lose their salvation are perpetrating one of the most horrible lies the body of Christ has ever seen. It grieves the heart of God so terribly and I am setting the record straight. How dare you lie so about our precious God! When God passed before Moses and declared Himself, the first word He used to describe Himself after God, was MERCIFUL. (Exodus 34:6) Because everything God does He does in MERCY. It’s ok, we need not worry about false prophets, why? Because for the true disciple, (disciple in greek means learner, pupil, a student of the word) you and I have the word of God. When your life, is founded on the bedrock of God, when you have a foundation in His word, you will have an answer for those lying voices trying to deceive God’s people.

•      What God does is forever. He never changes His mind.  Ecclesiastes 3:14 – “I know that, whatsoever God doeth, it shall be forever: nothing can be put to it, nor anything taken from it: and God doeth it, that men should fear before him.”  Numbers 23:19 – “God is not a man that he should lie; neither the son of man, that he should repent: hath He said, and shall He not do it? Or hath He spoken and shall He not make it good?”  Romans 11:29 - “For the gifts and calling of God are without (outside of, irrevocable) repentance.” Well, what does that mean? That means that gifts, (salvation, deliverance, healing,prophecy, faith, and tounges for example) will never be taken from you once you have received them.
•      His mercy endures forever. 1 Chronicles 16:34 – “O give thanks unto the Lord; for He is good; for His mercy endureth forever.”  If His mercy endures forever, how can we lose our salvation?    If He was to take our salvation, that would be unmerciful. 41 times in the bible, the scriptures declare “His mercy endureth forever.”  Here are a few of those scriptures. Ezra 3:11/2 Chronicles 7:3,6,20:21/ Ps 118: 1-4/ It is also the refrain throughout the entire chapter of Psalms 136. Three hundred plus times, the bible speaks of God’s great, enduring, lasting mercy.
•      He will never forsake us. Hebrews 13:5 – “…for He hath said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee.”  Psalms 94:14 – “For the Lord will hear them, I the God of Israel will not forsake them…”  Yes, Israel is an actual nation in the natural, but spiritually speaking they represent or are a type of the people of God, the body of Christ as a whole. Joshua 1:5 – “as I was with Moses, so will I be with thee: I will not fail thee, nor forsake thee.”  Again, in the natural, God was speaking to a man, but the principle is still the same to all of God’s people. God doesn’t change His mind. He was the same God then as He is now. “Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and today, and forever!” That passage doesn’t end in an exclamation point but it should! How awesome it is in a world where nothing is sure, where nothing is constant to have a God that NEVER CHANGES! Say amen somebody. Rejoice and give thanks unto God for His greatness!

   Finally, I want to look at some scriptures. Now some groups and denominations use these scriptures to try to prove that you can lose your salvation. But I want to use those same scriptures to show that our salvation is absolutely sure in Jesus. The lie that some have spread out to the body of Christ is an anathema to God. He despises it, plain and simple. You see, because what you’re doing when you tell people they have lost their salvation and that they are going to hell is putting in their hearts an image of  God that doesn’t love them anymore. A false image, of a God that is no longer merciful. How it grieves the heart of God to see this happen to his sons and daughters! Don’t heed those lying voices. Paul said in Romans 8:38-39 “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 creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord!” Again, another scripture that should have ended in an exclamation point. God loves you, all this world, all that has ever been has all been working for your good. His heart is to help you and put you over bless God, He isn’t up there waiting for you to mess up. Proverbs 24:16 – “For a just man falleth seven times, and riseth up again: but the wicked shall fall into mischief.” What just happened inside of you? Did you automatically think of yourself as the wicked man or the just one. Well, guess what? For the saved today, you are a just man or woman despite yourself. Because to be saved is to be justified unto God by Jesus! We may fall ans sin, but rise up again, repent before the Lord in sincerity and keep on walking with Jesus. That is our daily life as Christians, a simple everyday walk with the Lord.  

•      Hebrew 10:26-31. If you don’t have a bible with you I will put links to the scriptures at the beginning of each of these since they are long. I am using the King james but I encourage you to use as many different translations as you like in order to gain insight to these passages.  http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Hebrews%2010:26-31&version=KJV

1. Verse 26 – We have all sinned willfully after salvation. But we can still be forgiven, His word declares that we can. (1 John 1:8-10, 2:1-2) What this verse means is that we can’t be born again. Jesus died once as a sacrifice for us and the price was paid. It is finished!
2. Verses 27-29 – God judges His people, but it isn’t to hurt us. His judgement is meant to teach us. When we sin, there is a “fearful looking for”, that phrase “looking for” means expectation. We sometimes fear the fire and judgement of God, but look at the end of the verse. The judgement and fiery indignation devours who? THE ADVERSARY. (1 Peter 5:8) Our adversary the devil. An adversary is an enemy, or things in our life that cause us to stumble and fall. Hatred, racism, addictions, lust, and perversion for example. God’s indignation is against the sin in our life, not the sinner. He is trying to rid us of our sin, because it separates us from Him.
3. Verse 30 – Look at the end of this verse. Who is Lord judging? He is judging HIS PEOPLE. Even though they are being judged for their sin, they are still His people.
4. Verse 31 – It can be fearful to be judged by God, but at the same time the bible says in Genesis 18:25 – “…Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?”

• Hebrews 6:1-9 Link – http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Hebrews%206:1-9&version=KJV

1. Verses 1-3 – These principles spoken of here, I believe are a beginning to a foundation in the word of God. Basically speaking of growing up in God, once you have laid the foundations going on to perfection in Him. We should all have a foundation in His word.
2. Verses 4-6 – This part is talking about being saved again. Once you have been saved, you can’t be saved again. Because you never lost it in the first place. Your can’t be given again something you already have. If God heals you of cancer, and you are in good health, do you have need to be healed again? Of course not.
3. Verse 7 -  This speaks of believers who go on with God.
4. Verse 8 – This speaks of those who do not go on unto perfection. “Rejected” here means disqualified. It is speaking of those who don’t finish the race (1 Corinthians 9:24) Who are disqualified from obtaining the prize of the High calling in Jesus: perfection, the Bride. (Philippians 3:13-14) He says they are nigh unto cursing, whose end is to be burned. This isn’t referring to Hell but what happens to those who don’t build upon their foundation of their salvation. (1 Corinthians 3:12-16)
5. Verse 9 - The writer of Hebrews here is saying, “yet in your case, beloved, (that means you and me) we are firmly convinced of better things” – Amplified. The end of the verse is what I want to get to. Because the writer here clearly states, “things that accompany salvation” Meaning that He has been speaking of in the previous verse about things that accompany or go hand in hand with salvation. Because, to the writer of Hebrews, and to the recipients of the letter, salvation was already established and sure. They were moving on to other things.

A few more…

• Galatians 5:4 – “Fallen from grace” simply speaks of someone who is back in bondage of the law, and refuses to allow the grace of God to help them. As it says in the beginning of that verse they are “justified by the law.” We are justified by Jesus. He replaced the law of Moses when He came. (John 1:17/Galatians 3:23-29)
• 1 Timothy 1:18-20  – In verse 20 “delivered unto satan” means being judged and tested. Consider the story of Job. God mentioned him to satan (Job 1:8/2:3) or allowed satan to test Job, and Job ended up with twice what He had.
• Ezekiel 18:24-30 – “The wages of sin is death”  makes no mention of a loss of salvation. It speaks of bringing death to your soul. Your spirit is still saved. We are 3-fold as God is 3-fold. He is Father, Son, Holy Ghost; We are Body, Soul and Spirit. When we are saved our Spirit is made perfect in Jesus. He comes and dwells there. This is our Justification. Our sanctification is the (lifelong) process in our soul in which God deals with us and tests us and we go on unto perfection by allowing our souls to be perfected by God. Finally our glorification is when we receive a perfect, glorified body from God, as Jesus did on the mount of transfiguration. A 3-fold salvation for a 3-fold man from a 3-fold God. This is being made into His image, this our High calling. Because when we are perfected we will be without spot, blemish or any such thing. A spotless bride. The death spoken of here is death that enters into your soul from sin, frustrating the sanctification process of God. It has nothing to do with loosing your salvation.

    I pray that your eternal salvation is now settled in your soul. Our covenant with Him is everlasting because it is not dependent on us. Man has never been able to keep a covenant, so God the Father made the covenant with the Son of man (because it had to be with a man) who is Jesus. That is why Jesus became man, so that the covenant from God could still be with a man, but with one who could keep it. Our salvation is sure because He can’t break the covenant with the Father. Jesus has already prevailed, the work is finished, the sacrifice complete. We have eternal salvation.

(To give credit where credit it is due, the last paragraph and the exegetical studies of the scriptures are from a manual on the doctrine of baptisms written by my father in the Lord, Sam Greene. You can find that manual and many others on our website www.narrowwayministries.org