The Hope of Salvation

Some believe in eternal security and some conditional security. "Eternal security" is the doctrine that when one is "saved" they maintain their salvation until death; that God seals them and nobody, not even the Christian, can break that seal.

On the other hand, the doctrine of "conditional security" maintains that Christians maintain their freedom, even after salvation, to continue with or reject Christ. This ability to reject is called apostasy.

Both doctrines fail the test of scripture and it depends on what the definition of "saved" is!

Let's first examine salvation. A person can only be saved one time. If it was possible to be saved again, then by definition a person wasn't saved in the first place!

The doctrine of "conditional security" is dependent on one essential truth: when Christians first believe, they are not yet saved, but have the "hope of salvation". Without that doctrine as well, "conditional security" doctrine fails!

"Salvation" points toward one event:  Jesus saves, but from what does Jesus save us? He saves us from eternal damnation and replaces it with eternal life. Most Christians aren't motivated to be "born-again" because they love Jesus or even want eternal life, but to save their own wretched skins from hell. I'm no different than anyone else. That too was my motive!

You see, "self-preservation" has to be the motive of all mankind because we all were born "in the flesh". It's the desire of all mankind to please ourselves and as such, we all worship ourselves. Even salvation in Christ is a desperate attempt to preserve the very flesh which we are called to sacrifice!

Thank God for grace! God knows our weakness. He knows that our first love is our own self. That's why Jesus ignores our own self-deification and offers salvation in spite of our narcissism. Here's how all men must be saved:

Ephesians 2:8 "For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God..."

Note that no one has to DO anything to be saved. That's grace! God doesn't tell us to first cut off our own flesh and quit the self-worship which we all do. He tells us that he can deliver us just because he loves us in spite of how we have another god besides him! If we waited to be saved until we are free from self-indulgence, we would never be saved!

What we do have to do is believe and have faith. Faith is subsequent to belief because it adds to belief our trust. After we believe in Jesus, then to be saved, we must trust him to follow through with his promise. Faith is of a lifetime in duration. We don't bounce in and out of faith. If we lose our faith because it is stolen from us by the devil, then it's all over.  No one can be saved again!

Hebrews 6:4 "For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost, 5 And have tasted the good word of God, and the powers of the world to come, 6 If they shall fall away, to renew them again unto repentance; seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put him to an open shame."

It is clear that Christians can "fall away". They can abandon Christ. If you're taught that they can't, you believe a lie. We must always be on alert because what's called "eternal security" is an attempt by Satan to deceive Christians into eating forbidden fruit. It encourages those who have faith to gradually trade that faith for pleasure. It's a gradual conversion, but Paul shows it's an actual possibility.

Once Christians get to the point where sin is perfunctory and obedience is forgotten, they become reprobate. No one knows when that happens, but it's for sure that when the worship of the self snuffs out any thoughts of Jesus Christ; then damnation is eminent. Will one sin do it or a thousand. It's not the number nor magnitude of the sin, but the condition of the heart, because even murderous sinners can feel remorse and ask for forgiveness. Damnation comes with the inability of feeling sorrow and repenting as one sins!

You see that is justice. He died for all sinners one time. Unlike the priests of old a whose sacrifice was not made once and for all, but continually, Jesus died once for all. Just as we could not burn the same ram twice, Jesus cannot be crucified twice. He is the only scapegoat and he can't be killed over and over again to propitiate for our sins!

So it's by faith that we are saved! Even our ability have have faith is a work, but it is a gift from God that we have the spiritual calling to have faith. As faith is offered to us on a platter, all that we must do is take it! What is faith?

Hebrews 11:1 "Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen."

Our faith is what we hope for! What is the "thing" for which we hope?

 Ephesians 1:12 "That we should be to the praise of his glory, who first trusted in Christ. 13 In whom ye also trusted, after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation: in whom also after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that holy Spirit of promise, 14 Which is the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, unto the praise of his glory."

That says a mouthful and must be read and reread, but when we are saved we're sealed with a Spirit of promise. That promise is that someday we will possess that for which Jesus paid the price. Therefore, with believing comes a promise. It's the "promise of salvation". It's believing that what we hope for now will someday be! What is it that those who have the promise of salvation have in their hearts?

1 Timothy 1:1-3 "1 Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the commandment of God our Saviour, and Lord Jesus Christ, which is our hope..."

Our hope is in our Savior: that the one in whom we believe will someday save us! Salvation isn't an immediate condition. It's because we are saved from an event as it happens in the future. We can have a hedge put around us to protect us as Job did, but even Job wasn't saved until the test was complete. Our Christian life is that test. It must be finished. Faith must be until the end of life!

"Hope" is a key element of the gospel. If we "get saved" when we first believe then righteousness is inconsequential! On the other hand we become Christians with a visa in the kingdom of God and God will always be there to comfort us, but our free will remains intact. Every sin is a choice we make and every bit of faith which we exhibit is faith that we work to do. Some have no faith. Others have a little faith and still others have the faith of Abraham. Our responsibility is to keep the faith! By keeping the faith we have run the good race and the promised reward of the runner is eternal life. As we run, we know that unseen prize is there, and run for it with zeal. Those without faith lay down by the path and don't get up. Their good start was hampered by temptation which led them back to a life of sin.

1 Thessalonians 5:8 "But let us, who are of the day, be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and love; and for an helmet, the hope of salvation."

Paul did, just like us, refer to Christians as "saved". However, he also referred to salvation as a "hope".  Paul did just as we do. We say that we're "saved" as a shortcut and have confidence in our spiritual status. That's the "assurance of salvation". We know that we will be saved because we enjoy working for the Lord and obeying God! However, we're not yet saved from the burning bus until we tread the stairs to our assigned seats. As the bus crashes and is ready to explode in flames, by a miracle, we're rescued. That's when we're saved! I refer to our temporary residency in the kingdom of God as "safety". We are protected from Satan resurrecting that old creation, but with neglect, we need to watch out for our own peril. Satan doesn't even begin his serious attack until we first believe!

What more evidence is there?

Romans 13:11b "...now is our salvation nearer than when we believed."

Each day we get nearer that burning bus of death. We get nearer to the time that Jesus yanks us from that seat, saves us and carries us to an eternal home. It's not something that we have when we first believed, but something which we get closer to all the time!

Admittedly, the issue of eternal security is contentious and will never be solved here. However, in light of scripture, we need to all test what our parents and churches taught. Just because a church teaches a certain doctrine doesn't make it right and our pride in what we believe biases our belief.

I want to believe in eternal security because that's the easy Christian life. However, scripture tells me that what my flesh desires is not the way it is! My flesh wants to be "saved", but yet enjoy sin, but that's not the way Jesus lived and we're to be Christlike!