Soteriology 020

Andy Woods

Soteriology 20, John 10:27-29

June 12, 2016

Let’s open with a word of prayer.  Father, we’re grateful for this time of study to look into Your Word and help us this morning as we try to contemplate the great doctrine of salvation and help us to understand that we’re secure in Christ.  In Jesus’ name, Amen.

Good morning everybody.   You can open your Bibles to John 3:16 which you probably know by heart.  Those of you that joined us last week we have been teaching Soteriology Wednesday nights, taking a break over the summer so we just moved the Wednesday night study that we’re doing into Sunday mornings.  So we’re taping these, as we’ve said, for the benefit of our missionaries.  So if you could kindly hold your questions till 9:35 and then we’ll  open the floor for questions at that point.

We are in a part of the soteriology outline dealing with the doctrine of eternal security.  Here’s sort of the material that we went through last week.  By the way, you should have a  handout, I’m not sure if you have it; it you don’t have it maybe you could put your hand up.  Just keep those hands up so he can see.  Last time I tried to explain a little bit of background on how we’re going to deal with the subject of eternal security, which we’ll probably be in all summer during the summer months.

Eternal security means that those who have been saved by God’s grace through faith alone in Christ alone shall never be in danger of God’s condemnation or loss of salvation, but God’s grace and power keep them forever secure and saved.  So that’s what we mean by eternal security.  And then the issue becomes does the Bible actually teach this?  And we’re trying to lay out the case that yes, the Bible does teach this, but it’s controversial.  So what we’re doing is we’re going through eternal security arguments, I’ve got about thirteen of them, I made it through two of them last time.  We might make it through a few more this time.  And then later on in the summer I’ll be showing you the passages that people use, and there are many, that at first glance seem to deny eternal security.  Sort of what I’m trying to do in this series is I’m not really in favor of telling you what to think as much as I’m in favor of teaching you how to think, because if you can kind of track with what I’m doing here you can adequately defend, I believe, a controversial doctrine, the doctrine of eternal security.

So last week we, in essence, began the arguments in favor of eternal security, there’s about thirteen of them.  We saw first of all, because self-righteousness did not save us it is not a basis upon which salvation can be lost. So that’s more of a philosophical argument.  And then  you might want to review last week’s podcast to get the nitty-gritty on that.  We also saw that salvation is not given or maintained by works.

We didn’t get into the glory of God and a relationship with Him by works so why would God say keep working to keep what you have, because people that deny eternal security are always saying if you move off into sin then you can lose your salvation.  So that means that my salvation is kept by my ability to stay away from sin.  See that?  Which is nothing more than a what?  A work.  So that would be sort of strange for God to say you’re not saved by works but keep what you have by works.

It’s like when my daughter turns 16 I go and buy her a brand new car, a Porsche or a Corvette or a BMW and then she comes out of her 16^th birthday and there it is in the driveway for her, ready to go. And I say Sarah, here’s a free gift from mom and dad.  And she says great.  And then I say well when are you going to start making payments?  That’s no longer a gift, right?  See that?  And that’s basically what people who deny eternal security are saying.  Hey, you got a free gift from God, but you’d better start making payments.  So that was last week.

The third argument favoring eternal security is this: if a believer or if a Christian can lose his or her salvation, then eternal life is no longer what?  Eternal.  The Scripture teaches, this is why I had you open to John 3:16, is that once you receive the free gift of God it is, in fact, eternal life.  John 3:16, John 5:24, 1 John 5:13, many other passages teach this.  So you know John 3:16, probably by heart; “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have” what? “eternal life.”  Now if you can have that life and then it can disappear because you lost your salvation, then it really was never what?  Eternal.

Another passage we want to look at, John 5:24, “Truly, truly, I say to you, he who hears My word, and believes Him who sent Me, has” there’s our word, “eternal life, “and does not come into condemnation” or “judgment, but has passed out of death into life.”  So what you have from God at the point of salvation is life which is eternal.  The Greek word there, as I’ll show you, is aioniōs.

Take a look at 1 John 5:13 just for a moment.  Now we’re not in the Gospel of John, we’ve moved into 1 John.  Remember John wrote five books of the New Testament, The Gospel of John and then the three epistles of John, 1 John, 2 John and 3 John, anybody know the fifth book he wrote?  The book of Revelation.  So John is a pretty key figure in filling out our New Testament Canon.

But in 1 John 5:13 he says, “These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, so that you may know that you have” what’s the next word?  “eternal life.”  So the Greek word that’s used in all of these passages translated eternal is the Greek word aioniōs.  And you say well, why is that significant?  It’s highly significant because that is the same word used to describe God.  Take a look at the book of Romans for a minute, chapter 16, and verse 26.  Romans 16:26, it says there, “but now is manifested, and by the Scriptures of the prophets, according to the commandment of the” what? “eternal God,” so what is the word that’s used translated “eternal”?  It’s aioniōs.  It’s the exact same word that we focused on in John 3:16.  It’s the exact same word that we focused on in John 5:24.  It’s the exact same word we focused on in 1 John 5:13.

[John 3:16, “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.”  John 5:24, “Truly, truly, I say to you, he who hears My word, and believes Him who sent Me, has eternal life, and does not come into judgment, but has passed out of death into life.”  1 John 5:13, “These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, so that you may know that you have eternal life.”]

So if God is forever…has God always been around?  Sure, He’s eternal.  If God is forever then the life in God that He gives you, by definition, has to last forever.  So just as God is going to last forever and ever and ever the promise of the Bible is the life that you have as a result of trusting in Christ, just like God, goes on and on and on and on and on throughout the ages.  So therefore it becomes an impossibility to lose something that’s eternal.  There cannot be a termination point if someone has really received eternal life any more than there can be a termination point in God Himself.  So if Jacob Arminius was right, that you can have salvation and then lose it, then you really never had the real package to begin with because God calls the package eternal.  See that?  It’s a pretty simple argument.

Let me take you to a fourth reason why a believer can never lose their salvation.  Number 4, if a believer can lose salvation then it makes the Bible’s promises untrue.  Now there are some things God can’t do; do you all know that?  He can’t do things that contradict His nature.  So the philosophers say well, can God make a rock so big that he can’t lift it.  And the answer is no He can’t because if He were to make a rock so big that He can’t lift He would be denying one of His attributes which is sovereignty.  Right?  He has to have sovereignty over his creation; that’s how He’s defined in the Scripture.  So He cannot do certain things; He cannot make a rock so big that He can’t lift it.

One of the things He cannot do is lie.  Can God lie?  He cannot lie and that’s why the New Testament (and the Old Testament for that matter) places such a high priority on us being people of truth, because we claim to represent God so we should aim to be people of truth as God empowers us because God Himself is 100% truth.  He cannot fib, He cannot tell a lie.  So if God says something you can absolutely “take it to the bank!”  Your pastor will let you down sometimes.  The politicians, as we all know, can let you down, they can tell you something that’s not true.  Your teachers can let you down.  Your parents can let you down.  But God can’t!

Just a few verses on this, Numbers 23:19, this is Balaam’s oracles, it says: “God is not a man, that He should lie,…]”  Romans 3:4 talks about the reliability of God.  Romans 3:4 says, “May it never be! Rather, let God be found true, though every man be found a liar….”  2 Corinthians 1:20, another good verse on the reliability of God; I’m just trying to establish the reliability of God,  2 Corinthians 1:20 says, “For as many as are the promises of God, in Him they are yes; therefore also through Him is our Amen to the glory of God through us.”  So God’s promises are 100% trustworthy.

Even His promises concerning the nation of Israel and it’s exciting to read commentators prior to 1948, as you probably know Israel became a nation again, May 14, 1948, it’s exciting to read commentators saying you know what, Israel has to become a country again because that’s what the Bible says and God can’t lie.  And of course commentators like that were dismissed as being nuts and hyper-literalists.  Well, May 14, 1948 it happened; no one’s laughing any more, right?  Because God can’t lie, if God says something is going to happen it has to happen.  If God could say something and it didn’t happen then He would be denying His very nature.

A couple of other promises on the reliability of God, Titus 1:2 basically says the same thing, “in the hope of eternal life, which God, who cannot lie, promised long ages ago,”  Hebrews 6:18, another good verse on the 100% reliability of God.  Hebrews 6:18 says, “so that by two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have taken refuge…” and so forth.   So are you getting the flavor here?  God in His Word wants us to know you can trust Me.  Hebrews 10:23 says, “Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful.”

So don’t transfer the imperfections of your earthly father onto God.  Sometimes our parents let us down and we think God is going to let us down because He’s untrustworthy.  But one of the things God cannot do is He cannot misrepresent, he cannot lie, it’s impossible for Him to do so.  God cannot lie any more than he can make a rock so big that He can’t lift.

So with that being said what we need to understand is that God, in the Scripture, has made us ironclad promises concerning the gift of life that we have and the fact that it can never be forfeited.  One of the clearest is John 4:14, take a look at that.  This is Christ’s conversation with the woman at the well, and you recall what Jesus said there as He’s speaking to the woman at the well.  “But whosoever drinks of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into” what kind of life? “eternal life.”

Now when  your English translation says once you receive this water you will never thirst again we read that and we really don’t understand the full import of those words, because if you study those words in Greek it’s what you call an ou mḗ construction.  That’s what’s translated “never.”  What

that means is it’s two negations together, back to back.  So in Greek when you have two negations it’s the strongest negation  you can possibly have linguistically.  It’s like my daughter who is 10 says can I have the keys to the car and I say absolutely not under any circumstances, that’s a very strong negation.  That’s what you have here through the construction of the double negative.

And I am so upset with these English translators because they don’t translate, at least the NASB doesn’t, it doesn’t translate the word aioniōs, which is in the text also.  What does aioniōs mean?  Remember?  Forever.  So what that is saying there when you study this in Greek is whoever drinks of this water will thirst again, but the water I give to Him he will never thirst again.  When it says “never thirst” again it’s two negations and just to really clarify that he throws in the word “forever.

Never for eternity, as God Himself is eternal, will you lose this gift of life and he clarifies it further at the end of the verse by using the word aioniōs.  I mean, if that double negation plus one aioniōs wasn’t enough he throws in the word aioniōs again at the end of the verse.

Now you have to make a decision in your mind; are you going to believe that or not?  Are you going to trust your emotions, your feelings, your own performance, what your favorite theologian says?  You can build your life on the words of men or you can build your life on God who cannot lie.  When you build your life on God’s word, who cannot lie, it’s very clear that  you cannot lose your salvation.  And this is just one of many, many verses.

Take a look at John 5:24, we saw that earlier; John 5:24, Jesus says, “Truly, truly,” and notice it’s not one “truly,” but it’s two truly’s. What is the translation of the word “truly.”  It’s “amen.”  Amen, it’s like how we pray, we say amen, when the preacher makes a good point, amen, he’s got his amen corner; amen means it is certain, that’s what the word means.  So you’ve got two amen’s there.

“Truly, truly, I say to you he who hears My word, and believes Him who sent Me, has eternal life, [and does not come into judgment, but has passed out of death into life.”] “has” is present tense; the promise of God who cannot lie is the moment you trust in His Son you have, present tense, the gift of life.  I used to think that I’m going to die and get to heaven and have eternal life, and that’s not what the Bible teaches; you have it NOW!  In eternity it’s just magnified, but you have a relationship with God now.

Then the verse goes on and it says “eternal life” which we’ve already commented on, then it says, “and does not come into judgment, but has passed out of death into life.”  “…has passed out of” is in the perfect tense in Greek, which simply means a one-time action; it’s something that happened in the past, one time, with ongoing reverberating positive consequences.

So salvation is not a process; you’re not passing out of death into life, it’s already happened according to that Greek tense there.  So you have eternal life and  you’ve already passed out of death unto life.  And if that’s not enough he says they life you have is eternal.  And if that’s not enough we know that the person who made this promise to us is a God that cannot lie.  See, if you could lose eternal life then all of these promises, what do you do with these?  They don’t mean anything.

Probably one of the stronger verses in the Bible dealing with the promise of eternal life is John 6, let’s look at that for a minute, verses 35-40, this is Jesus bread of life discourse   Verse 35, “Jesus

said to them, ‘I am the bread of life; he who comes to Me will not hunger, and he who believes in Me will never thirst.”  So you will notice there in verse 35, verse 36 continues the thought, [36, “But I said to you that you have seen Me, and yet do not believe.”]  But both of those verses lay out the single condition that must be satisfied for the lost sinner to receive this gift, which is faith, as we say over and over and over again in this church, in Christ alone.  Once your confidence for your eternity is in Christ alone the condition has been met, you HAVE the gift of eternal life.

Now verse 35 says, “he who comes to me will not hunger,” John 6:35, “I am the bread of life; he who comes to Me will not hunger, and he who believes in Me will never thirst.”  So there you have two promises in a single verse that once you’re in the hands of God you’ll never thirst again, you’ll never be hungry again spiritually.  Now when it says “will not” it’s a translation of the ou mē

construction again, the double negative.  Now you notice that this double negative, which is the strongest negative you can have in the Greek language, in verse 35 is used not just once but what? Twice!  “…he who comes to Me will not hunger,” double negative, “and he who believes in Me will never thirst,” double negative.

And then if you drop down to verse 37 he says, “All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will certainly not cast out.”  Now again when it’s translated “certainly not cast out” once you come to the Father, it’s that ou mē construction which is a double negation.  So right here in this verse, this collection of verses, you have not one, not two, but three double negative constructions.   I mean, if you knew a little bit about Greek  you would have to ask yourself how could God be clearer on this; you’ll never be cast out, He says it not once, not twice, not three times in the strongest negation that could be said.

So “Jesus said to them, ‘I am the bread of life; he who comes to Me will not hunger, and he who believes in Me will never thirst.’  [37] ‘All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will certainly not cast out.’”  And then you drop down to verse 38 and he says, “For I have come down from heaven, not to do My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me.”  So His action in not casting anyone out is a fulfillment of the Father’s will; it’s God’s will that no one be cast out.  So therefore Jesus is operating under the will of the Father.  So for Him to lose a child of God would be to violate three double negations and it would be for Jesus to disobey the Father who sent Him.

He goes in verse 39 and he says, “This is the will of Him who sent Me, that of all that He has given Me I lose nothing, but raise him up at the last day.”  Now when it says there “lose nothing” that is the Greek verb apoleuomai.  And if you go back to John 6, same chapter, and you look at verse 12, the exact same verb is used there.  And what’s that talking about back in 6:12?  This is after He performed the miracle of multiplying the fish and the loaves, it says, “When they were filled, He said to His disciples, ‘Gather up the leftover fragments so that nothing will be lost.”  That’s the same word, apoleuomai, if I’m pronouncing that right.  So just as that bread had to be gathered up according to Christ’s commands, it couldn’t be lost, the use of the same verb a little bit later on in the chapter as he gives his bread of life discourse is the child of God, once they have trusted in Christ can never be cast away, can never be lost, just like that bread was supposed to be collected and not lost either.

And if all of that weren’t strong enough, look at verse 40 of John 6, “For this is the will of My father, that everyone who beholds the Son and believes in Him” who sent me “will have eternal life, and I myself will raise him up on the last day,” speaking of the future resurrection.  So these promises are you will make it right up to the future resurrection where you’re going to be placed in  your glorified body to enjoy God for all eternity.  So I don’t know,  I mean, I don’t know how God could be clearer, do you?   I mean you’ve got three double negations there; you’ve got the use of the word apoleuomai, you’ve got the fact that when He keeps us He’s fulfilling the will of the Father, and then you have the promise in verse 40 that we’re going to be protected and kept by God all the way through the final resurrection.

And this is just one of multiple promises.  I mean, you could build your house just on this, couldn’t you.  But we’re just getting warmed up here.  I haven’t even given you the strongest eternal security passage in John, so let’s look at that.  John 10, verses 27-30, really around verse 27-29. What does Jesus say here: “My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me; [28] and I give eternal life to them, and they will never perish;” now when He says “they will never perish” notice the Greek construction again, double negation, plus the word aioniōs, and again it’s frustrating reading the English because “forever” is not translated; I don’t know why they didn’t translate that.  But what he’s saying is you will, in the strongest negation possible, not only NEVER perish but that will be your condition forever.  He goes on in the same verse and he says, “and no one will snatch them out of My hand.”  By the way, aioniōs, before I leave that, that word is also used in John 14:16 where Jesus says the Spirit is going to be in you for how long?  Forever.  [John 14:16, “I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may be with you forever;”]  The Spirit is in you forever, you will never perish forever, just as God is forever these promises apply to eternality as well because it’s the exact same Greek word.

And by the way, aioniōs, I wasn’t going to get into this so I won’t but just by way of brief mention is the same word used to describe hell.  So if God is forever so is hell.  It’s the same word used to describe heaven; God is forever, so is heaven.  It’s the same word used to describe eternal life, if God is forever so is eternal life.  And all these games people are playing today, like the Jehovah’s Witnesses, not if they come to your house but when they come to your house will basically try to sell you on this doctrine of annihilation that once your soul goes into hell it sort of explodes and you cease to exist.  The Greek language will not allow that kind of doctrine.   You have to be totally inconsistent with how  you’re interpreting Greek words to buy into such an idea.

So he says there, verse 28, “no one will snatch them out of My hand.” Now this word “snatch” is a very interesting word, it’s the Greek word, harpazo anybody know another famous passage where that word is used?  1 Thessalonians, it’s the rapture passage, 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18 where we’re going to be caught up, rapture.  That’s the Greek word harpazo.

[1  Thessalonians 4:13-18, “But we do not want you to be uninformed, brethren, about those who are asleep, so that you will not grieve as do the rest who have no hope. [14] For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who have fallen asleep in Jesus. [15] For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep. [16] For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. [17] Then we who are alive and remain will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we shall always be with the Lord. [18] Therefore comfort one another with these words.”]

That’s what Hal Lindsey in one of his books called the rapture “the great snatch.”  So in the same way, once you’re in the hand of God, because you’ve trusted in the Son, nothing can snatch you out.  Now who would try to snatch us out?  If you go back to John 10:12 it tells you who is trying to snatch us—the wolf.  John 10:12 says, “He who is a hired hand, and not a shepherd, who is not the owner of the sheep, sees the wolf coming, and leaves the sheep and flees, and the wolf” who would the wolf be? Satan.  “…and the wolf snatches them and scatters them.”  Now the word “snatch” there is also the Greek word harpazo.  So it’s speaking of the desire of the wolf to snatch away the sheep.  So Jesus, using the same word, harpazo, essentially is saying that can’t happen, towards the end of the chapter.  Once you’re in the Father’s hand Satan can do whatever he wants but NOTHING can remove you from the Father’s hand.  And again it’s a double negation plus the word aionia.

So that becomes a very strong eternal security passage.

Verse 29 continues and it says, “My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand.”   So isn’t this interesting; we’re in the hand of Jesus and we’re also in the hand of who?  God the Father.  So you’ve got two members of the Trinity… talk about a tag team, good grief, making you a promise that once you’re in the Father’s hand, double negation, nothing can snatch you out of that hand forever.

You’ll notice that when Jesus talks about Himself He’s talking about the future, verse 28, “…no one will snatch them out of the Father’s hand.”  And then when He starts talking about the Father’s action in this He’s talking about the present.  So the Father IS keeping us, the Son WILL keep us, in the form of a double negation, forever and ever.  So all the tenses here are covered whether it’s present or future.

Now you either decide to believe this or you don’t.  As for me and my house, we’re interested in what God says.  And God has made us here very clear, very specific promises.  Now my cousin, who is Arminian, we’ve been arguing about this since 1983, so I’ve heard every conceivable argument that can be raised, and what he says to me all the time I bring this up is he says well, that’s true but can’t we remove ourselves from the Father’s hand, through sin?

Well, the last time I checked “no one” will snatch him out of the Father’s hand, wouldn’t “no one” include me?  I mean “no one” certainly includes the devil, but it also includes me.  And I always like to tell my cousin, I say man, I hope you’ve been in the weight room really developing those buff biceps of yours because for you to pull yourself out of the hand of the Father means you’re stronger than God.  I mean, that’s basically what the argument is.  I mean, are we stronger than God?  Obviously not.

The whole focus of John 10 is not on what the sheep do, it’s what the shepherd does.  I mean, the focus of man and what he does isn’t even in the passage other than to respond by way of faith, because when you go back to John 10:11 it says, “I am the good shepherd; the good shepherd lays down His life for the sheep.”  The focus isn’t on what we do here, the focus totally in this chapter is on what God does.  The focus is Christ’s work for us and not the believer’s work for God.  So to incorporate into this some kind of element that I can to something to deactivate what God is doing is to just basically misrepresent what the whole focus of the chapter is.

And you hear this a lot from people: well, God holds onto us, but we hold onto Him.  So they give you this impression that it’s basically two hands grasping each other.  Can I ask you a simple question?  Do sheep have hands?   They have hooves for cryin’ out loud.  Sheep don’t have an ability to grab onto anything the way a human being would, with a hand.  So to bring into this some kind of argument that God does His part, we do our part is just to read a bunch of things into these promises that don’t belong.

Romans 8, let’s look at that real quick.  Romans 8:29-38.  “For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many brethren; [30] and these whom He predestined, He also called; and these whom He called, He also justified; and these whom He justified, He also” what? “glorified.”  See how these promises pile up here, we’ve been foreknown, predestined, called, justified.  And you notice how “glorified” is in the past tense there.  Just as all of those things had already happened to you, your future glory is so certain that God explains it as if it’s already happened as well.

Romans 8:31-32, “What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who is against us? [32] He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him over for us all, how will He not also with Him freely give us all things?  [33] Who will bring a charge against God’s elect?” Who would be trying to bring a charge against God’s elect?  Man, the accuser—Satan, but if God is a defense attorney, I mean, He’s better than Johnny Cochran, right.  I mean God is the one that will not allow a charge to be leveled against the elect of God.  Why?  Because we stand this morning in transferred righteousness, not our own righteousness.  So any charge that’s brought against us obviously legally doesn’t have any impact.  The prosecutor can try to convict us all he wants but you can’t convict someone that stands in the righteousness of God.

He goes on and he says, [34] “who is the one who condemns? Christ Jesus is He who died, yes, rather who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who also intercedes for us.”  Right now as I talk Jesus is at the right hand of the Father doing what?  Praying for you, praying for me, making petitions, and He’s not like the Levitical priests that had to take a lunch break of had to take a sleep time to get rest.  So if all of this is true no charge can be brought against us, if I’ve already been glorified, if Christ is praying for me how in the world could I ever think that I could have the gift of God but lose it.

And then he goes on there in verses 35, “Who will separate us from the love of Christ?”  And he names here seven difficult situations human beings face.  “Will tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?”  So those seven situations, which are most difficult you could ever go through in life, can’t separate you from the love of God.  Verse 36, “Just as it is written, ‘FOR YOUR SAKE WE ARE BEING PUT TO DEATH ALL DAY LONG; WE WERE CONSIDERED AS SHEEP TO BE SLAUGHTERED.’  [37] But in all these things we overwhelmingly conquer” not through our own power but it’s very clear, “through Him who loved us”

Now “conquer” here is hupernikō where we get the word nike, as in victory, conqueror, and the word huper in front of it is where we get the word hyper, or super, and what that word is saying, and it’s only used here one time in the whole Greek New Testament, it means we’re super conquerors.  We’re not even conquerors, we’re hyper-conquerors, it’s like having Air-Jordan tennis shoes but they’re like the super Air-Jordan.  So if all of this is true, if He’s interceding and we’re super conquerors how could we have…, if no charge can be brought against us, how could you have salvation and lose it?   You’d just have to ignore what he’s saying here in Romans 8.

Now he goes on in verses 38 and 39 and he says nothing can separate us from the love of God and he names five sphere.  He says, “For I am convinced that neither death, nor life,” that would be the sphere of existence, “nor angels, nor principalities,” that would be the sphere of angelic created beings, “nor things present, nor things to come,” that would be the sphere of time, “nor powers, [39] nor height, nor depth,” that would be the sphere of location, “nor any other created thing,” that would be the sphere of everything else that wouldn’t be mentioned, “will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”  So existence, angelic beings, time, location, and everybody and everything cannot separate us from the love of God, coming from the lips of a God who cannot lie.

Let me show you one more and we’ll close.  Hebrews 13:5, “Make sure that your character is free from the love of money, being content with what you have; for He Himself has said, ‘I WILL NEVER DESERT YOU, NOR WILL I EVER FORSAKE YOU.”  Now reading that in English that’s a promise that’s powerful in and of itself but you see, in Greek… what’s the strongest form of negation?  A double negative.  Do you know how many negatives are here in Hebrews 13:5?  Five negatives, and let me show you the way this reads in Greek: “I will never desert  you nor will I forsake you,” so the first part of that is the familiar, ou mē, construction, double negative, so what it’s saying there is “not-not you shall I desert.”  So that would be strong enough, right?  Because a double negation is the strongest negation you can have in the Greek language.

Well, just to get the point across he goes on and he uses another negation, ou, and then another ou mē, combination which says “not not you shall I forsake.”  So if you were reading this literally from the Greek and basically what it says is “not not” there’s two negations, “you shall I desert; not, not, not” three more negations, “you shall I forsake.”

Isn’t that exciting how clear God is being about this?  This is why the Scripture says, Romans 8:1, “Therefore there is no” what?  “condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.”  Now how could that statement be made to someone who has salvation and lose it?  That means that there could be condemnation for those that are in Christ Jesus.

Romans 5:1, taking a fast look at that.  To me these things are so clear it’s a wonder that this has even been debated.  Romans 5:1 says, “Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,” well, if I have “peace with God” how could I commit the unpardonable sin, whatever that is, and go to hell?  That means I don’t have peace with God, right?  Or there’s a potentiality that I could not have peace with God.

Romans 5:8-10 says, “But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. [9] Much more then, having now been justified” justified means a declaration of innocence; it’s like receiving a jury verdict,  you’re not going to jail and then someone says you’ve got to go to jail anyway.  Well if that’s true then what was that jury verdict about?  I have a declaration of innocence.  So if you have a declaration of innocence you don’t have to worry at all about hell or the second death or the Lake of Fire.

He goes in Romans 5:8-10 and he says, “by His blood, we shall be saved from the wrath of God” that’s future tense, that means the wrath of God is not something that I, as a child of God, need to be concerned about; I need to be concerned about it with other people but not me.  Verse 10, “For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life.” So there I’m saved, past tense, I am being saved through progressive sanctification, present tense, and I will be saved, glorification, future tense.  And those promises are totally turned on their head if you can have this standing before God and lose it.

So I hope, as you kind of review these promises this week, starting with God’s ironclad reliability and moving into John 4:14, John 5:24, John 6:37-40, John 10:27-30, Romans 8:28-38 and finally the cherry on top is the five negations in Hebrews 13:5.  As you kind of review these this week I hope you’ll see who you are in Christ.

So that would be the fourth argument, if a believer could lose their eternal life then the promises of eternal security basically mean nothing; the Bible’s promises don’t mean what they said.  And beyond that we looked at the point that eternal life can’t be eternal. All right, I’ll stop talking at this point.