Irresistible Grace & Preservation
Tom Shrader examines the fourth and fifth points of Calvinism - irresistible grace and preservation of the saints - from Romans 8:28-30. He explains that the Holy Spirit effectually calls God's elect to salvation, causing them to be born again and then believe. Using passages from John, Ephesians, and Titus, he demonstrates that regeneration precedes faith, not the other way around, and that believers can never lose their salvation because God completes what He begins.
“The Bible teaches that we're born again and as a result of being born again, we believe.”
— Tom Shrader
Series: God's Plan for Salvation (2006)
Recorded: 2006
Duration: 48 min
Themes: grace, salvation, faith, sovereignty, assurance, calling, election, security, questioning salvation, new believer, doubting faith, struggling with assurance, seminary student, pastor, bible teacher, mature believer
Scripture: Romans 8:28-30, John 3:1-8, Ephesians 1:3-5, 2 Thessalonians 2:13, Matthew 1:21, Titus 2:14, Romans 5:8, 2 Corinthians 5:18, Ephesians 2:1-10, 2 Timothy 3:1-5, 1 Corinthians 1:31, Titus 3:3-5, Acts 13, Philippians 1:6, John 3:16, John 3:36, John 5:24, John 6:47, John 10:27-29, Romans 8:31-39
Theological Themes: irresistible grace, effectual calling, preservation of saints, eternal security, regeneration, born again, calvinism, predestination
Full Transcript
I'm going to invite you to open your Bibles and mark, somehow, with a ribbon or your finger or a piece of paper or something, Romans chapter 8, because we will spend a chunk of time there, and that will be kind of home base for us this morning. We'll be looking at the Gospel of John, and we'll also be looking a little bit in the book of Ephesians and the book of Titus. As we look at those four sections of Scripture, I think it's important for us to anchor here in the book of Romans.
If you just dropped in here today, you have come in at the sixth week of a seven-week series titled God's Plan for Salvation. What we're talking about is this: it's not whether we're Christians or not. We're going to assume that many of you are, but not all of you, and we're not debating whether you believe or not. For the sake of discussion, let's say you believe. The question we're asking is, why? Why do you believe?
What we discover when we look at Scripture is that Scripture teaches something that maybe is a little bit different than what we've even been taught ourselves, or different than what many or maybe even most churches might teach today. So it's important for us to have some ground rules, which we established the first week, and that is that the Bible is our final authority.
The Bible Is Our Final Authority
Over the course of these seven weeks, we'll quote Calvin and Luther and Augustine and MacArthur and Sproul and all sorts of guys, James Boice and all sorts of people. But all of that, even as we refer to them, they are not innovators. This is really important. They're not innovators. They're not inventors. They're simply presenting to us what the Scripture teaches. The Bible's our final authority.
We proceed, and you all have been great about allowing me to do this in a logical fashion. It's not very common nowadays to do that. People start over here, and then they jump over here, and then we go down over here. I personally find it frustrating in so many conversations that I'm in. We try to be very logical in our presentation here.
Now that raises questions, and you need to be patient, and most of the times the questions will get answered. Legitimate questions deserve legitimate answers, and we're not trying to avoid those. That's why, for example, you may want to take advantage of this Doctrines of Grace class starting next week. You can jump in there next week and get some questions answered.
Understanding the Five Points of Calvinism
Here's what we set in our basis. Our basis, as we look at God's plan for salvation, is identifying what we call the five points of Calvinism, and we do this because many people would identify East Valley Bible Church as a Calvinistic church, and yet oftentimes not have any context or definition of what does that mean. It's Calvinistic. Fine. They'll say that in a disparate way. "You're going there? Yeah, well, you know they're a Calvinist," as though we can't think of anything worse to say about somebody than they're a Calvinist.
So rather than avoid that, why don't we just go ahead and talk about what that means. What does it mean to be a Calvinist? What it means, I think, and I don't mean this disrespectfully, is that we believe what the Bible teaches about salvation.
Now we can't every week go back through the history of this, so if you're jumping in here and you've missed a couple of those early sessions, you're at a bit of a disadvantage in terms of history, because we can't redo that. You can go on the website, and you can pull this up very quickly.
The Synod of Dort's Response to Arminianism
Basically what we look at in the five points of Calvinism is the teaching of the Synod of Dort in 1618, as they respond to the teaching of a guy by the name of Jacob Arminius. They respond to Arminius, and Arminius would have taught very honestly what many of the churches today would teach. The Synod of Dort said, "We have to refute this, not just verbally, but we need to respond to this, and we're not interested in what Arminius says, or what our church fathers even say, but what does the Scripture say?"
So we sit down, and we see God's plan for salvation, and we see that God sees man totally depraved and unable to save himself, so that if anyone at all is to respond to this gospel, it's because God's going to have to intervene in their life and choose them, elect them. That election is unconditional, meaning He's not choosing people based on anything in them, or anything they have done, or are doing, or will do, but He's choosing them out of His own good pleasure. When Christ comes, He dies for that group of people, and the Holy Spirit then comes along and causes those people to be born again, and secures them in their faith. That's really what the doctrines of grace are all about.
God Saves Sinners
We began the first week with a simple sentence: God saves sinners. That sentence probably means more to us now than it did five weeks ago. God, let's put some definition here. God, the triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit work collaboratively in a preordained, predetermined, orchestrated plan to save. That's to do everything, to bring us from sinner to saint, to change our destination from hell to heaven, to bring us out of darkness and into light, to bring us from death into life, to rescue us, to redeem us. God saves sinners.
When we talk about God, we talk about Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The Father is the one who chooses those that will be saved, the Son is the one who redeems or comes and dies for those people, and the Holy Spirit regenerates them.
The Divine Plan in Ephesians 1
You are anchored in Romans chapter 8, but if you'd like, you could turn to Ephesians chapter 1, and somehow we're going to have you with marks all over here. Somehow we'll be back to that Ephesians passage again. In Ephesians chapter 1, Paul writes to this church at Ephesus, verse 3: "Blessed be the God and Father of
Ephesians chapter 1 tells us that our Lord Jesus Christ has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in heavenly places in Christ. Verse 4 says that just as He chose us in Him before the foundations of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before Him, in love He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself.
Paul writes to the church at Thessalonica in 2 Thessalonians chapter 2, verse 13, and he says this: "We should always give thanks to God for you, brethren, beloved by the Lord, because God has chosen you from the beginning for salvation." God the Father before the foundations of the earth determined, chose, selected those that He would save.
When man sinned, he separated himself from God. God certainly would have been just in saving no one or everyone or some. What the Scripture teaches us is that God has chosen to save some. That's the work of the Father.
The Work of the Son
The Son, Jesus, is sent to accomplish this salvation, and He does it by dying on the cross. Matthew chapter 1, verse 21 - a passage we'll certainly be looking at in the next few weeks as it relates to Christmas - tells us the angel appears to Joseph and says, "Mary will bear a son and you shall call His name Jesus, for it is He who will save His people from their sins." And indeed, He accomplished that.
Titus chapter 2, verse 14 says He gave Himself up for us, He redeemed us from every lawless deed. Romans chapter 5, verse 8 says that God demonstrated His love toward us and that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Second Corinthians chapter 5, verse 18 tells us that now all these things are from God who reconciled us to Himself through Christ.
God saves sinners. The Father chooses those that would be saved. The Son came and died on the cross for a specific group of people. This is really important: when Jesus died, He did not make salvation theoretically possible. He actually accomplished the salvation of His people. When Jesus said "it is finished," He meant that the redemptive work was done for that designated group of people that the Father had chosen.
The Work of the Spirit
But we said it's a triune God - the Spirit. The Father's work is completed and the Son's provision is accomplished, and now the Spirit applies that to our life.
So if we were to go back to those five points of Calvinism, we look at the last two, called Irresistible Grace and the Perseverance of the Saints, saying now that we are saved by grace through faith and that faith is a result of the grace that God has implanted in the hearts of His people through the Holy Spirit. It's the result of the Holy Spirit's work in the life of an unbeliever that changes his designation from sinner to saint, and he is now preserved in that condition. The Holy Spirit completes the work initiated by the Father, continued by the Son. God's work of salvation never fails.
Jesus and Nicodemus
Well, look at John chapter 3. John chapter 3 is a classic discussion between Jesus and a guy by the name of Nicodemus. There's a man of the Pharisees, Nicodemus, he's the ruler of the Jews. John chapter 3 verse 2 tells us this man came to Jesus by night and said, "Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher, you come from God, for no one can do these signs unless God is with you."
And Jesus answers him and says, "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God." And as so often the case in Jesus' life, He's speaking of a spiritual truth, they're hearing and thinking on a physical plane. So Nicodemus says, well, wait a minute, verse 4, "How can this be? How can a man be born when he's old? He can't enter a second time into his mother's womb and be born again, can he?"
Nicodemus says, this isn't good news for me or for mom. Nobody's excited about this whole prospect. I don't get it. This isn't going to happen again.
Jesus said, well, you missed the whole point, Nicodemus. "Unless you are born of water and of the Spirit, you can't enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of flesh is flesh." That which is born of the flesh or a work of the flesh - not talking about just physical birth here, but the good works that I do, those that come from the flesh, they're simply of the flesh. And that won't cut it. I need to be born again. I need to be born again of the Spirit. "That which is born of the Spirit is Spirit. Don't marvel that I say to you, you must be born again."
The Wind and the Spirit
"The wind blows where it wishes, you hear the sound of it, you don't know where it comes from, you don't know where it's going. So is with everybody who's born of the Spirit." He says, just as the wind can't be controlled by man or moved by man or explained by man, we can only say we feel the effects of it, it's the same way with the Spirit of God. You're not going to influence that. You're not going to bring it over here. Your works are not going to say, get me more Spirit. Spirit come over here. Hey, Spirit, you're looking for somebody, here I am. That's not what He's saying.
The Spirit is going to do whatever it is it wants to do. It's going to take the redeeming work of Christ and the election or choosing of the Father and it's going to apply it to a specific group of people. Now what we're talking about today - we've looked at the condition of man, the election of God, the death of Christ - is how that finished work is taken and applied in your life and mine.
Our Anchor Passage: Romans 8:28
So to our anchor passage, if you will, Romans chapter 8 verse 28. Romans chapter 8 verse 28 says this: "And we know God causes all things to work together for good to those who love Him and are called according to His purpose."
Let's stop. It's impossible for me to read that verse and not dwell on it just a little bit. What a sweet verse that is for us. Here's what it says: "And we know" - so we write the little word "fact" in our Bible there - "and we know" - it's not speculation, it's not wishful thinking, we know this to be true - "and we know that God causes all things to work together for good."
It doesn't say that God causes all things, it says that God takes all things
Paul writes to the believers in Rome about how God causes all things to work together for good. As life begins to play itself out, as we experience those ups and downs, those challenges, those difficulties relationally, physically, economically, and in all aspects of our life, we know that God causes all of these things to work together for good. This is a verse of great joy and great comfort to us. We see the power of God, and we see that God must be all-powerful and all-knowing if indeed He's going to make this work.
If God must be able to take all things and control them, He must be all-powerful, and He must be all-knowing, or He couldn't possibly say that all things work together for good. It couldn't be true if that's not true.
This Promise Is Not Universal
Now this is important: that's not a universal promise. If you were here today and you just said no to communion, you'd say, "I'm not a Christian. At least as you guys explain it, that's not me," then I don't want you to derive one ounce of comfort from this verse because that verse isn't written to you. We know God causes all things to work together for good—to who? To those who love Him. Who are they? Those that are called according to His purpose: followers, believers.
Verse 29 says, "For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son in order that He might be the first among many brothers." Verse 30, and this is the verse today, this is where we hang today: "And whom He predestined, these He also called. And whom He called, these He also justified. And whom He justified, these He also glorified."
The Great Chain of Salvation
The great chain of salvation, all linked together. You see the key words there: predestined, called, justified, glorified. God is speaking of this group of people, and He's not saying this: He's not saying, "Well, there were some who He predestined, and some of those He called, and of that group, some of those, not all, but many, most, He justified, and of those, there was a group that He ultimately glorified." That's not what the text says.
The text is saying this: all who He predestined, that entire group, however big that is, all of those without exception, all of those that were predestined were called. All of those that were called, without exception, were justified. All of those who were justified, declared righteous before God, saved, redeemed, all of those were ultimately glorified, were brought together with the Father in heaven. All of them, without exception.
This is what we're talking about now. We're talking about grace. We're talking about the work of the Holy Spirit.
The Nature of God's Call
Now for our discussion, we've talked about predestination. We defined that and spent some time on that. All of those who He predestined, He called. If you go back to the very beginning of this letter, Romans chapter 1 verse 7, Paul's writing to this church at Rome, and he says this: "To all who are beloved of God in Rome"—here's the key word—"called as saints. Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ."
It's somewhat of a familiar, almost typical introduction for Paul, and he uses the word "called." When Paul uses this word "called" in his epistles, Paul is speaking not of the general universal call, not a general proclamation, but of a specific group of people.
Here's how John MacArthur writes about this verse: "Paul is not speaking of the general call, but of the specific way in which those who have responded to the invitation have been sovereignly and effectually called by God to Himself in salvation. Called is here synonymous with terms elect and predestined."
Saints and the Called
Here's what he's saying: those of us who are saints—and there's a tough word for us, because I come from a Catholic background. Well, to be a saint there, you've got to have all this and miracles and stacks and stacks and all this stuff, and you're a saint. Well, that's not what the Bible says. The Bible never uses that term that way. It says if you're a believer, you're a saint. Those terms are interchangeable. This room right here is filled with saints, and he says the saints are those who have been called.
When he writes to Timothy, he says it this way: He speaks of God, "who saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works." He says we were called, not in some general way.
Upcoming Messages on Evangelism
We have every right—let's stop here. We're going to finish this series up next week. Then the following week, I think it's the 26th, is kind of our goodbye celebration to Chris and Jean Mueller. Chris will take his job as the senior pastor at Faith Bible Church in Marietta, California, effective I think this week sometime, but that 26th is our day to come together, and he will preach that day, and it will just be a wonderful time.
Then we've got a couple of Sundays before Christmas, and what I want to do in there is talk about evangelism and talk about some of the questions that naturally flow out of this. Well, if you guys believe God chose and did all this stuff, then you don't even evangelize. That's not true at all. Why? And that's a great question, isn't it?
Why We Still Evangelize
If God does all this, and God's going to choose who He's going to save, some of you have already had to bear these questions, haven't you? Then why would you even evangelize? Why would you even do that? Well, I'll give you two great reasons.
First, because He told you to. Now that's a very powerful reason to evangelize: because He told you to go and to share and to proclaim.
Second, because just as God has determined who He's going to save, He's also determined the means by which He's going to save them. So in Romans chapter 9, there's this wonderful passage on the sovereignty of God. It's all of God: "Jacob I loved, Esau I hated." All about God, God, God, God, God. God did this. And then as though Paul is anticipating our questions...
In response, in Romans chapter 10 he begins to talk about evangelism. How are they ever going to believe if they don't hear? And how are they going to hear if somebody doesn't tell them? And how is somebody going to tell them if they don't go? Go! So we evangelize. There's that universal call. We can, with all honesty and integrity say, come. If you come and if you believe, you will be saved. God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten son that whoever believes in Him will not perish but have eternal life. You come and you believe. That's that universal call.
That's not the word that Paul's using here. That's not the thought here. He speaks of a specific call. He's speaking of that word, work that God does in our life where He opens our heart, where the Spirit awakens our heart, gives us ears to hear and eyes to see.
I always thought it was, I hadn't been a Christian very long and I'm reading through the Gospels and I'm thinking, this is a weird thing because Jesus would say things like this. He who has ears to hear, let him hear. And I thought, well there must be a whole bunch of guys that don't have places to put their glasses. They don't have any ears. So he who has ears, let him hear. He said, he who has ears, meaning he who has an understanding. Well who's going to have understanding? Those in whose life the Holy Spirit has begun to work.
Our Condition Before God
Here you go. You're in Romans chapter 8. Don't give up that passage because we're coming back. We're going to Ephesians chapter 2. Ephesians chapter 2. We'll look at this passage and a sister passage in Titus chapter 3.
Ephesians chapter 2. Here you go. "And you were dead in your trespasses and sins." This is your resume and mine, if you will. A great reminder for us. "In which you formerly walked according to the course of the world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now working in," and here's how he describes you. The close of verse 2. "Sons of disobedience." "Among them we too all formerly lived in the lust of the flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind and were by nature children of wrath." So that's who we were when we came into the world. Sons of disobedience, children of wrath. Separated from God by our sin.
Verse 4. "But, but God." See this is who we were. Let's get our arms around this for a second. That doesn't mean by the way that we were necessarily without religion. Paul's writing to Timothy, 2 Timothy chapter 3 verse 1. He says this. "Realize in last days difficult times will come. For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, unloving, irreconcilable, malicious, gossips, without self-control, brutal, haters of good, treacherous, reckless, conceited." And then he kind of summarizes it this way. 2 Timothy 3 verse 4. "Lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God." But verse 5 is a fascinating verse. But he says "they'll hold to a form of godliness although they deny its power."
He doesn't say that these people are not religious. He said they may be very religious people. They may hold to a form of religion. They may be even strict. They may be even conservative. They may have a long list of do's and a long list of don'ts. But they deny its power. What's the power? It's the person of Christ. It's the perfect life of Christ and the death of Christ and the resurrection of Christ.
Biblical Christianity Versus Everything Else
That's all mankind. We apparently cannot say this enough. Here's biblical Christianity and there's everything else. And everything else has as its core something that you need to do and denies or somehow changes the finished work of Christ. That's us coming into the world. Sons of disobedience, children of wrath.
"But God, being rich in His mercy because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions," here's what the Holy Spirit does. "He makes us alive together with Christ. By grace you've been saved."
Ephesians 2, verse 8 and 9. "For by grace you have been saved through faith, that not of yourself. It's a gift of God, not as a result of works that no one should boast." I don't know if we can teach that verse enough.
Grace: God's Unmerited Favor
I finished one of the PL studies this week, week before, and a lady came up to me. Again, she happened to be from a Catholic background and she said, I'm really struggling here. I went to one of my friends and I said to them, I'm really working hard. I'm doing some things. I've got some hardship. I'm enduring that hardship and I'm doing that because I want to make sure that I get to heaven. And her friend, a biblical Christian, in a way chastised her and said, that's not good, that's not right. Now, on the surface that sounds very odd, doesn't it? But what she said is, you're saved by grace.
What is grace? Unmerited favor. There's nothing you can do to earn your salvation. I'm saved by grace. I'm not doing all these things so I'll go to heaven. You can do as many things as you want. It has no bearing on whether you spend eternity in heaven or not.
I don't know how Paul could be any more clear. Let me read it to you again. "For by grace you've been saved through faith." What am I saved by? Grace. The medium of that is faith. It's not of yourself. It's a gift of God. What's a gift of God? The faith. The faith is a gift of God. God gives me this. There's nothing I do. He can't be any more. If you missed it, verse 9, "not as a result of works so that no one will boast."
All of those that He predestined, He called. He extends grace to them. Saving grace. And all of those that He called, He justified. And all that He justified, He glorified. So if we are going to boast about anything, it's not about ourselves. 1 Corinthians chapter 1, verse 31, we boast in the Lord. Isn't that a wonderful truth? That's biblical Christianity. Biblical Christianity juxtaposed against any religion in the world. You've got biblical Christianity, you've got everything else. Everything else has you doing something.
Some of them say do a lot, some of them say do a little. Some of them say Jesus did some and you do some too. But those are the differences. I'm saved by grace.
Now, I don't tend to think this way. But evidently some of you do because I get the question a lot. How do I know I'm chosen? It never occurred to me to ask myself that question. But some of you must labor in this way. So I want to be sensitive to that. How would I know if I was chosen? Well, the way I'll know if I'm chosen is if I have faith, if I believe. If you believe you're chosen. I frankly just, for me personally, I don't see why the hang up on that question. God's God and He's sovereign in anything and everything.
A Sister Passage in Titus
Look at the sister passage of this. We've got about 15 minutes or so. Look at Titus chapter 3. Titus chapter 3, verse 3. It's going to sound very similar, Paul writing again, very similar to the passage we just read. Titus chapter 3 verse 3, "For we also once were foolish ourselves, disobedient, deceived, enslaved to various lusts and pleasures, spending our life in malice and envy, hateful and hating one another."
Now, let me take just a second and kind of bring some of those words to life. Foolish means lacking understanding of spiritual truths here, spiritually ignorant. Disobedient means rebellious. Deceived means led astray. He says we were enslaved. Enslaved to what? Lust, sinful desires, appetites that were just run amuck, no self-control on them. Pleasures, sinful satisfaction. Spending our life, what a great summary here. Spending our life in malice and envy, hateful, hating one another. Now, the way Paul said that in Ephesians chapter 2 is that we're sons of disobedience, children of wrath. That's what we were.
Verse 4, "But," wonderful word there, "but," in contrast, "but when the kindness of God, our Savior, and His love for mankind appeared." Now, who's His love for mankind? That's Christ. That's His compassion. His love for mankind appears. "He saved us." He delivered us. He rescued us. From what? Well, from sin and the bondage of sin, from hell, from a meaningless life, from a life that's in the pursuit of this and this and this and this and this and thinking I'll find satisfaction or meaning or deliverance there, or from false religion where I thought if I do this or I don't do this, I'll somehow find redemption.
He saved us from, He saved us, verse 5, Titus chapter 3 verse 5, "not on the basis of deeds," there it is again, "which we've done, but according to His mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit." We are a new creature. If anyone is in Christ, he's a new creature. The old things have passed away.
A Critical Test
All right, here we go. We got almost six and a half weeks in this, so it's time for a test. One question test. I beg you, don't answer out loud. I don't want to embarrass you or in any way discourage me. But your answer to this test is really important. The answer to this test is going to determine whether you've understood what we've been talking about for six and a half weeks.
So here's the question. Let me ask it and then I'll ask it in another way to make sure you fully understand the question before in your mind silently you answer the question. Does our faith precede our regeneration or does regeneration precede our faith? Let me ask it another way. Do we believe and then we're born again or are we born again and then we believe?
Don't answer out loud. I think if we went to most people who would say they were Christians, they would say this: I believe and then I'm born again. The Bible teaches that we're born again and as a result of being born again, we believe. Huge difference. Really important issue.
The Funeral Home Illustration
Let's say we're going to do a little evangelism workshop today. So I say, get in the car. Where are we going? It doesn't matter, get in the car. So away we go and I'm driving and I head over Elliot and then I turn down Gilbert and then I make a left and I pull into Faulkner Funeral Home and I've called Tim ahead of time and I've said, get one of your clients ready. So you've lost your sense of adventure and we're not even in the building yet.
How we open the door, now we're in the building and there's one of his clients there. And I say to you, all right, I'm going to get a cup of coffee. You guys witness to him. And you share with him. And you're going to go, it feels weird. Well, that's all right, just, you know, sharing is sometimes intimidating and I understand that. So just share with him. Tom, this is stupid. Really that's a powerful word, stupid. We're not allowed to use it at our house. Why is it stupid? He's dead. I love the illustration. You get the point?
I can share and share and share and share and share. He's never going to have the faith to believe and then be born again. Something has to happen to this guy. The dead guy has to come to life.
The Work of the Holy Spirit
That's what the Holy Spirit does. The Holy Spirit invades a life of the person, people who were chosen by the Father, and the group of people for whom Christ died, the Holy Spirit at the appropriate time, the appointed time. In Acts 13, Luke writes, of the Gentiles who heard Paul's teaching, they began to rejoice and glorify the Word of the Lord and as many as were appointed to eternal life, they believed.
See the Father's done His work, the Son has died on the cross, and at the appointed time and to complete this preordained, orchestrated work of the triune God, the Spirit causes someone to be born again. The evidence that they're born again, they'll believe. How do I know I'm chosen? I believe. How do I know Christ died for me? I believe. How do I know that God has saved me? I believe.
That's the irresistible grace. That's the work of God in the life of an unbeliever, a God-hater, maybe a religious God-hater. Dead. It would be impossible for them to have faith and then be born again because they are what? Dead. They can't believe. Something has to
happen to them. What makes this so important for us is that when I get that and understand that, God gets bigger and bigger and I just get smaller and smaller. So all that He predestined, those He called. All that He called, He justified. Christ died. He is our propitiation.
Here's what that means. He satisfied God's wrath. When we talk about God being angry at sin, He is. But His people have been forgiven. He's not angry at you. He loves you. You're one of His kids. He sees you as righteous. He will not punish you. He will discipline you. That's very different.
Can I Lose My Salvation?
Now, here's a question, and believe it or not, it's probably one of the top three questions we get more often than any other question. If I'm a Christian, can I lose my salvation? Is it possible for me, if I'm a follower of Christ today, can I lose my salvation?
Well, here's what Paul writes in Philippians chapter 1 verse 6: "I am confident of this very thing, that he who began a good work in you will continue it until the day of Christ Jesus." He started it. Now, my life seems to be half-finished. My books are half-read, my projects are half-done, my sentences are incomplete, but that's not the case with God. God began the work, and He'll finish it because all that He predestined, He called, and all that He called, He justified, and all that He justified, He glorified.
The Promise of Eternal Life
Turn to John chapter 3. John chapter 3 verse 16, a question before us: can a believer lose their salvation? Can a follower of Christ, genuinely, legitimately joined with Him, can that union be broken? John chapter 3 verse 16: "For God so loved the world, He gave His only begotten Son that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life." If I believe, I have eternal life. That's what Jesus is saying there.
Look at John chapter 3 verse 36. Here's what He says: "He who believes in the Son of Man has everlasting life, eternal life." John chapter 5 verse 24: "Truly, truly, I say to you, he who hears my word and believes Him who sent me has eternal life." One more. John chapter 6 verse 47: "Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes has eternal life."
So here's what Jesus is saying. Four times we have here, we can find more. If you believe, you have eternal life, and the question before us is, can I lose my salvation? Well let me ask you, when does eternal life end? It seems to me, the answer is in the very words itself. If I believe, if I have saving belief, I truly believe Jesus who He said He was, I see myself as who I am, and who God says I am, I truly believe in Him. He says at that moment, I have eternal life. Now could I possibly lose that? No. When does eternal life end? Never.
Union Versus Communion
The vitality of that union with God may change. There may be times where I feel so close to Him. There's times when you feel as though you're just in total unison with Him. You can feel it. You can feel Him. You can sense His presence. Sometimes you say, I didn't hear an audible, but it was so clear to me that He was there and He was speaking to me. And then there's other times where you're going, He seems so far away. I seem so dry.
But that has nothing to do with the relationship. That has to do with your following Him, your obedience, your openness to Him, or your engaging or indulging in something that God would not have in that relationship or in your life. My union with Him is never broken. My communion with Him may fluctuate in terms of my response to Him.
No One Can Snatch Them
Look at John chapter 10. Two more passages for you and then we're done. John chapter 10. Again Jesus speaking, verse 27. "My sheep hear my voice." What He means here is not just audibly, He's saying they understand this. They get it. "My sheep hear my voice. I know them." We're in a relationship here. "I know them. And they follow me."
What's the evidence that they've heard my voice? They begin to follow me. "And I give them eternal life. And they shall never perish and no one will snatch them out of my hand." Can I ever lose my salvation? No. How do I know I'm His sheep? I hear His voice. I follow Him. He gives me eternal life. And no one can snatch me out of His hand.
My grandpa used to do this. He'd take like a quarter or a dime or something and he'd put it in his hand and he'd close it and he would say, "Tommy if you can get my fingers open, you can have it." And I mean that's just pure torture. I mean he was a man. So he'd let me get like one of these fingers up and then another one to where I could just kind of see the quarter and then he'd close it. I mean he's a wicked old man if you really think about this stuff. So finally I'd have to go like that on his foot, he'd open his hand and I'd get the quarter and then we'd all go home happy. Wicked but not smart.
What's going to snatch me out of my Father's grasp? And that's what He says, nothing, nothing here. And it almost seems to me that He's implying that there'll be danger, kind of like the wedding vows: better or worse, richer or poorer, sickness or health. Every time I do a wedding I try to say these vows imply difficulties, they assume, though you right now think you're the exception, you aren't, they assume hardship. It's as though there'll be these trying circumstances of life. But all that He predestined He called and all that He called He justified and all that He justified will be glorified.
The Unshakeable Foundation
Let's close with this, back to that anchor, Romans chapter 8. Romans chapter 8 verse 30: "Moreover whom He predestined, these He also called; whom He called, these He also justified; and whom He justified, these He also glorified." And as if trying to make sure you don't miss this, Paul writes this: "What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who..."
Did not spare His own Son but delivered Him up for us all, how will He not also with Him freely give us all things? Who will bring a charge against God's elect? Who's going to bring this charge against you? God is the one who justifies. Who is the one who condemns? Christ Jesus is He who died, yes, rather who was raised and who is at the right hand of God who also intercedes for us.
So here's the question: what shall separate us from the love of Christ? That is Christ's love for us. And now he just gives us a whole series of things.
Understanding the Tests We Face
Let me give you the meaning of each of these words so you can get a sense of what he's saying. Tribulation means to squeeze under intense pressure of hard times. Distress is the idea of being hemmed in on all sides. Persecution is affliction, generally speaking here for the Lord's sake. Famine is the absence of the necessities of life. Nakedness—he's not speaking here about nudity but he's talking about being so destitute that I can't even clothe myself. Peril means danger. Sword—the sword was a large dagger that was used, easily concealed, often used in assassinations.
So he said here you are in a world with tribulation, pressure, intense pressure all around you, affliction, hardships, difficulties, sometimes not having enough to even clothe yourself, danger and peril. I'll add another test by the way that he doesn't talk about but it's the test of prosperity. This is a great testing when I don't have enough, but I find when I don't have enough I kind of acknowledge that I'm in trouble and I just naturally cry out to Him. But when all of a sudden I have plenty I don't necessarily cry out to Him and thank Him.
Overwhelming Victory
Verse 37: "In all these things we overwhelmingly conquer through Him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, 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."
"My sheep hear My voice, I know them, they follow Me, I give them eternal life, they'll never perish, no one can snatch them out of My hand." Is it possible for me to lose my salvation? Absolutely not.
The Proper Response to This Truth
And again it's sad that we have to say this but we do. Again this does not become a source of pride and arrogance for you. It is a source of comfort and joy for you. And if I really understand that I am saved by God, God the triune God—the Father who elects, the Son who redeems, the Spirit who applies this in my life—I understand how, not just inadequate, how I'm totally unable to understand spiritual things. I'm not even interested in spiritual things. That I'm a sinner and I'm dead and the only remedy is the remedy that God generates, produces and offers.
It's the person of Christ and He loves us and He manifests His love toward us and that while we were yet sinners, Christ died while we were in that state. He died for us. Isn't that a wonderful truth? It's a marvelous truth.
This Truth Flows from Scripture
And again, we have to be careful. Is this what Calvin believed? Sure. Luther, Augustine, Aquinas, Sproul—you got them all. But they didn't invent these things. This doesn't flow from Calvin's mind or Luther's mind. This flows from the pages of Scripture. We have it several times in this course of this series, trying to emphasize, forget even just saying epistles—we'll just look at the words of Jesus as He teaches this.
Looking Ahead
Well I want to tie it together next week. So kind of a summary but with the idea of answering three questions that we encourage you to ask whenever anyone speaks. Number one: what did He say? Did I get it? Number two: is it true? And number three: so what? We've spent now six weeks on this, one more—seven—so what? What's the so what of this? We'll talk about that next week.