5 Points of Calvinism

Perseverance of the Saints:

Can the saved Christian lose his or her salvation?  Does the phrase ‘Once saved, always saved’ have a Scriptural foundation?  Can someone who has been given a new heart have a fall out of God’s grace?  These questions are what we’re going to look at tonight.

The Arminian Position is that all who are saved can fall out of grace and effectually lose their salvation.

The Reformed Position is that all who are saved are kept in faith by God and will be preserved forever.  Those who have been given God’s saving grace cannot lose their salvation.

Let’s take a few moments to search the scriptures and see what God’s word has to show us about the preserving power of salvation through Christ.

Heb 7:25 – Consequently, he is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them.  The use of the word “uttermost” in this instance is translated to mean ‘all complete, perfectly, utterly’.  Christ reigns forever, and the atoning sacrifice available through him is forever.  It is complete and utter.

We also see the use of the word ‘sealed’ to describe the status of those who have been saved.  Ephesians 1:13 – “In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit,” – additionally Ephesians 4:30 reads “And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.” 2 Corinthians 1:21-22 promises us – “And it is God who establishes us with you in Christ, and has anointed us, and who has also put his seal on us and given us his Spirit in our hearts as a guarantee.”  We are sealed and guaranteed if we possess true saving grace by God, through Christ, in the power of the Holy Spirit.

John 6: 35-40 – “Jesus said to them, "I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst. But I said to you that you have seen me and yet do not believe. All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out. For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will but the will of him who sent me. And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day. For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day."  Christ will lose none of those whom the Father has given him, and those whom the Father has given to Christ have eternal life.  There is no wavering here.  There is no room needed here for second-guessing or misinterpretation.  Christ’s own words are exact and perfect.  

Let’s look also at Romans 8:38-39 – “For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”  This is God speaking through Paul, giving us ultimate encouragement that nothing will separate us from God.  

(Find scriptures) Job 1 shows us that Satan could not move against Job without God’s permission.  The heart of the King is like a river in the hand of the Lord.  The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof.  God is utterly sovereign over his creation, and as such, nothing can take us out of his hand.  God is above all things, and at the center of all the events of our life.  John 10:25-30 – “Jesus answered them, "I told you, and you do not believe. The works that I do in my Father’s name bear witness about me, but you do not believe because you are not part of my flock.  My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me.  I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand.  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.  I and the Father are one."

Again – God is greater than all, and if we have eternal life in Christ we are kept forever.

So – The first big question that comes to mind is - What happens to the one who is a professed believer, but is showing no signs of a life in Christ?  Has that person lost their salvation?  As we’ve seen, the answer is no.  If one is indeed in Christ, he is kept eternally by God, and cannot fall out of Grace.  So, what is it then?  There are several reasons.  They could be backslidden. Because of presumptuous sin they could have grieved the Holy Spirit to the point where their hearts are hardened to certain sins.  Through sloth and laziness they could turn from the Word and turn towards the world.  These are superficial effects of an internal cause.  While we know that God will not lose any that are his children, he does chastise and punish us according to his perfect will.  The other answer to this question is that they quite possibly weren’t saved in the first place.  There are a number of causes for this, and it will be the subject for another devotional – our need to examine ourselves to see if we truly are in the faith, or have made a profession in vain.

The second question that comes to mind is, “Does this doctrine give the Christian a license to sin?”  Can one who is in Christ sin with impunity?  After all, we can’t lose our salvation, so why not?

This is a very dangerous line of thinking, and is often referred to as Antinomianism.  This is a theological position that once one is under grace, they are under no moral obligation to keep God’s commandments.  They take “once saved, always saved” to the other end of the spectrum to mean that they can still sin with complete abandon, and no eternal harm will come to them.

The first response to this is that a true believer, saved by grace through faith in the atoning work of Christ, sealed by the Holy Spirit, would simply not think this way.  Once a soul is regenerated, and the heart of stone is replaced by the heart of flesh, the Christian views his sin with hatred and contempt.  Obviously we still sin, since we are fallen creatures in a fallen world, however our view of sin has changed.  One who claims Christ, but also is content with his sin is a double-minded man, wishing to have a claim to Christ, but also one with the world.  The Christian grieves over his sin.  In 2 Corinthians 7:9-10, Paul references an admonition that he administered to the Corinthians which produced a godly grief in them. - “As it is, I rejoice, not because you were grieved, but because you were grieved into repenting. For you felt a godly grief, so that you suffered no loss through us. For godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret, whereas worldly grief produces death.  

We must be sure that we always view our sin just as Paul did in Romans 7:24 – “For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?”

Sin makes the Christian see himself as he truly is, which leads to mourning and repentance.  Remember the passage earlier from Ephesians 4:30 – “…and do not grieve the Holy Spirit”.  If a professed believer sins and is not grieved over the sheer effrontery of it, they then have a much larger problem they need to dwell on and deal with.  

1 John 1:6 – “If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth.

1 John 3:9 – “No one born of God makes a practice of sinning, for God’s seed abides in him, and he cannot keep on sinning because he has been born of God.”

David was mourned and broken over his sin.  The Old Testament prophets admonished the Israelites to mourn over their sin.  Paul called himself a wretched man because of his sin.  Sin produces grief in the Christian.  This is an undeniable truth.  We who are kept by God and sealed for eternity cannot sin and not feel any sorrow over it.  When we consider Christ’s suffering on the cross, the pain that he bore for us, the wrath that he was subjected to – how can we sin and feel no remorse over it?

We can apply these principles to our witnessing in a number of ways.  For one, it’s an encouragement to those who through the power of the Holy Spirit see their sin and are repentant. In a true conversion, it’s encouraging for them to know that no matter the height, depth, or breadth of their sins – if they are truly saved, that condemnation is not held against them and they are eternally kept by God in their faith.

This can also be applied if we are witnessing to those who hold theological views that run contrary to what God’s word says.  Those who hold fast to those Antinomian beliefs and believe that since they were sprinkled with water as a baby, they are granted eternal life, despite the fact that they show no fruit that bears out any saving faith.  Praise God that his truth is useful as both an encouragement and a warning.

Praise God for his faithfulness to his elect.  Praise God for the truth that those of us who are in Christ are kept by God for eternity, and nothing – no power of Satan, no power of the world, can ever snatch us out of his hand.