Once Saved Always Saved Part One

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The Journey from Fear to Grace

One of my favourite Bible verses is John 1:1 to 5. It introduces us to who Jesus Christ truly is and ties the Genesis story to the person of Jesus Christ in the most powerful way.

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” ESV

Those who have followed this blog know that my wife and I grew up in legalistic Church environments. In one sense I am thankful for the healthy awe of God that was instilled. In another sense it brought significant doubt about salvation. I used to pray daily for forgiveness “just in case” I missed a sin. I was born again again for most of my teen years and well into adulthood.

During the nineties the “Heavens Gates Hells Flames” play toured through many churches, and many young Christian adults rededicated their lives to Christ again out of fear more than anything. I walked forward at many altar calls through the nineties, compelled by a desire to make sure I was absolutely saved.

The Struggle to Understand Grace

Around the late nineties I started hearing about the once saved always saved debate. I will confess that I did not understand it. In my view if you had free will you could walk away from God. So it was not once saved always saved then right? People can walk away from their faith. We have all known seemingly committed Christians who left their faith and lived entirely apart from their Christian beliefs. I believed you could simply grow cold and eventually lose your salvation as if it were your phone or wallet.

I pushed back significantly against the full message of grace. Sure, I believed that I was saved by grace through faith and not of myself, as is often quoted from Ephesians 2:8 to 9. Sure, I was taught about assurance of salvation. We were indeed taught in my childhood Church that grace was ours and that we could have assurance of salvation. What was often modelled and elevated however was the idea that grace alone was insufficient to achieve salvation. My learned belief was that I did what I could as an act of worship and God did the rest as an act of grace. In my book Unshackled I talk about these belief systems we learn from displayed behaviour instead of taught theology:

“We communicate in two ways. There is the message we teach, the one we speak with intention. Then there is the message we display, the one our children quietly absorb and learn from most deeply. We thought we were modeling contentment and faith, but in practice we modeled a restless pursuit of confirmation. And once that pattern takes root, it begins to shape everything We started looking for confirmation of God’s love. We looked for confirmation of salvation. We looked for confirmation that we were valued. We looked for confirmation of our calling. We looked for confirmation that we were doing things right.”

We have this idea that somehow Jesus death and resurrection is applied to our efforts to “make up the difference” between our best attempts and the standard God requires for fellowship with Him. That somehow if we have a bad day or a time of doubt, Jesus sacrifice was not enough without another prayer or confession. This battle raged inside me. I would find myself randomly repenting of sins, apologizing constantly, and living with a level of anxiety. It does not sound much like assurance of salvation does it?

The Impossible Standard of Holiness

The fact is that if you took the least sinful person other than Christ who ever lived and placed them beside the vilest person who ever lived, and placed them on a ladder according to their level of sin, the image you would see in terms of reaching the holiness required for salvation would be two dots you could not see with the world’s largest telescope in the expanse of the entire universe. It is laughable that we would ever attain a level of holiness that would move the needle toward God’s perfection.

The Sermon on the Mount and the Purpose of the Law

Jesus made that very clear in His sermon on the mount. Have you ever really studied this passage? I thought I had until I examined what He said. Once again quoting from Unshackled:

“Unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees…”

Matthew 5:20 (ESV)

The Pharisees were the gold standard of moral performance, and Jesus said it was not enough.

Then He goes further

• hidden anger equals murder

• lustful glance equals adultery

• careless insult equals violence

• And then the final blow

“You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”

Matthew 5:48 (ESV)

Jesus raises the bar to the flawless holiness of God Himself. We cannot fathom the holiness of creator God. The standard is so far beyond us that it becomes almost laughable. The idea that we can somehow use the sacrifice of Jesus to make up the difference with our own attempts at holiness is futile beyond measure.

The Only Hope We Have

This of course was exactly what Jesus intended. He pointed out that without intervention man was doomed. We remained dead in our sins. His death and resurrection would be the only way we could find redemption and salvation.

Next week we will look at Assurance, Free Will and the “What About” Questions