Friday, July 17, 2015
What the Gospel Promises
The one thing the gospel does promise us is eternal security in the matter of our ultimate destiny. It does not say, "Believe the gospel, and then you will never have any trouble in this life and world. If you only believe it, it can banish war." Not at all! It is an utter travesty of the gospel to believe that it does. Indeed men and women who believe that will be disillusioned, if they have not been disillusioned already. That kind of thing has been preached more in the last hundred years than it has ever been preached, and during that time we have had two major world wars. So the gospel's purpose is not to tell you how war can be avoided.
What it tells you is that whether there is another war or not, you and I are passing through this world of time. We have to die in any case, and the one thing that matters is how we can arrive at God and heaven and spend our eternity in the glory. That is what I am interested in, and that is the only thing that we should be interested in, because a day is coming when we will have no other interest and we will leave the world and everything else behind. Then we shall face that unknown eternity, and our great question--how can I know God?--will have already been resolved by that time.
D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Let Not Your Heart Be Troubled, p.79-80
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5 comments:
Hi Glenn,
Here is a quotation from your resource citation above, "The one thing the gospel does promise us is ETERNAL SECURITY in the matter of our ultimate destiny..."
So I take it that you believe in once saved, always saved, right?
I believe one who is truly saved, one who really understands the gospel and put their faith in Christ and His work, will never turn their back on it - i.e., once saved, always saved. There are many people who have false conversions, emotion-driven altar calls, who often later leave the faith for many reasons; they were never saved to begin with.
Hi Glenn,
I believe that salvation is conditional (1 Corinthians 15:2). In other words, a person can choose to walk away from his or her own salvation. But I must ask how you know that other people were "never saved to begin with", especially in light of the fact that only God knows the hearts of man (i.e. 1 Kings 8:37-39)?
Well, I wrote a post on having assurance of salvation awhile back. Any thoughts?:
https://rationalchristiandiscernment.blogspot.com/2017/03/on-assurance-of-salvation.html
Thanks
Jesse,
Interesting article; I agree with it except the last paragraph.
My contention is this: You cannot have assurance of salvation if you have to worry about losing it over something you did. One who truly has the Holy Spirit (i.e. is saved) then they may get caught up in sin but the conviction of the H.S. won't let them stay there. one who lives a lifestyle of sin proves he was never saved to begin with because he is not convicted of his sin.
Once Satan (or these eternal security opponents) has a Christian worrying about his salvation, said Christian is no longer helping others or witnessing to the unsaved. The Christian then begins to depend on his or her own abilities and works rather than depending on God and the Holy Spirit for his or her spiritual needs, growth, and maturity.
We definitely need more web resources (and books) demonstrating just how unbiblical Conditional Security is. Conditional Security is nothing more than a form of works-based salvation bandied about by modern day Judaizers, and as such, should be roundly condemned as a false gospel.
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