To maintain such a thing is to affirm "works salvation" in the most obvious way.
I am saved because Jesus loved me and gave Himself for me.
His grace is the foundation of my salvation, and my response of faith is based upon that grace.
D. M. Baillie called this the "paradox of grace."
Nothing lies nearer the heart of the Christian doctrine of salvation.
From one perspective, I know that I believed on Christ, and if I had refused to believe,
I could never blame God for bypassing me.
On the other hand, I know that I cannot take credit even for my faith; because it was the power
of His Spirit working in my heart which wrought this miracle of believing response to His saving love.
I have assurance of eternal salvation because I believe in God, not in myself.
I know that God began the work in me, and God will complete it in me.
This does not mean salvation in spite of perseverance; it means perseverance because
God's power is working in me.
It means that perseverance is the grand mark of saving faith; it is a continuing personal
relationship to the living Redeemer.
We, who believe this to be the truth of God's Word do not teach, as some have accused,
that one may go down the aisle and make a profession of faith, and then, go out and live
like Satan himself with the firm assurance that everything is all right.
We do teach that when one is born again, he is a child of God.
He is a new creation; his very nature is changed.
By his fruits you will know him -- by the evident signs of God's work of grace in his life,
you will know that he is a child of the King.
When you examine the Biblical language concerning salvation, you will find that the emphasis
is placed exactly at this point; God elects, justifies, sanctifies, seals, and completes the work of salvation.
In the language of John -- we are "Born of God; His seed remains in us,
and we cannot continue in sin.
We have passed out of death into life; we shall not come into condemnation;
we shall never perish; we already have eternal life."
In the language of Hebrews, "Christ is able to save forevermore those who come
unto God by him because he ever lives to make intercession for them."
In the language of Paul, "We are sealed by the Spirit of God until the day of redemption
and His Spirit beareth witness with our spirit that we are children of God."
The New Testament sets forth the concept of salvation as the work of God from beginning to end,
from the act of regeneration, in which one is born of God, to the consummation,
when we see Christ and become like Him.
One cause of confusion in this doctrine is the fact that the New Testament also plainly
teaches the doctrine of apostasy.
This word means literally, "to stand back from"; and, in the New Testament context,
it means -- to repudiate the Christ that one has confessed.
Paul uses this term in 2 Thess. 2: 3, and the idea is also developed in Hebrews and 2 Peter.
It is important to observe that the New Testament never speaks of salvation in conditional or temporary terms.
Those who are in danger of apostasy are never spoken of as "saved",
or "being saved", or "conditionally saved".
In fact, none of the classic terms for salvation (i.e., justification, regeneration or "new birth",
reconciliation, redemption, or any other) is ever used to describe these people.
The word, salvation, is always set up against and contrasted with apostasy.
In the great proof text for apostasy, Hebrews 6, the writer affirms this very point.
After listing the many strong descriptions of spiritual experience (once enlightened,
tasting the heavenly gift, made partakers of the Holy Spirit, tasting the good word of God,
and the powers of the world to come), and after warning them that if, they then, fall away it is
impossible to renew them again unto repentance, and then he says that he is persuaded
better things of them -- things which accompany salvation.
He has plainly said that his readers could have all this and still not have the things
which accompany salvation
Some have debated whether these terms must necessarily imply genuine salvation,
and they often stress the words, "tasting," and the conditional, "if"
in order to weaken their force.
But, the very same terms can be and are used to describe an experience that is not superficial,
but genuine.
No, there is only one difference between those who fall away and those who have
"the things which accompany salvation": those who persevere have salvation.
They hold their "confidence steadfast unto the end."
Salvation means perseverance, and the refrain of Hebrews is that "we have
the full assurance of hope unto the end" because "we have an anchor
of the soul, both sure and steadfast," who is none other than Jesus,
the pioneer of our faith who entered once for all into the holy of holies and became the
author of eternal salvation, whereby He is able to save forevermore those who come unto God
by Him because He is ever living to make intercession for them.
The purpose of these great warning passages is to remind the readers of the dreadful danger
of denying with their lives what they had professed with their lips.
They might have many of the outward evidences of the Christian life, but if they did not get beyond
the elementary principles of repentance from dead works, baptisms, and laying on of hands,
they would be like the land which drank in the rain and brought forth only thorns and briers --
such unfruitful land is rejected, cursed, and burned!
As in the words of Jesus, the ultimate test of the Christian life is fruit-bearing.
This same principle is laid down by Jesus in the figure of the vine and the branches in John 15.
The only branches, which are saved are the fruit-bearing ones.
The others are cut off and destroyed.
By a strange twist of reasoning, some Arminian interpreters have read into the words
"Every branch in me that beareth not fruit" the idea that such branches
were "saved for a little while because they really were in him".
Of course, the passage is saying exactly the opposite.
There is no such thing as a saved branch, which is not fruit-bearing.
No believer is in right relation to Christ unless he bears fruit.
Jesus even goes on to emphasize the two-way abiding of the fruit-bearing branches,
which are saved -- "He that abideth in me and I in him" -- that is the saved branch.
As if to dispel all possible question, Jesus declares that the rejected branch is not really abiding in Him:
"If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered."
Continual abiding in Christ (present tense) is exactly what perseverance means.
The person, who can read into this passage the idea of "saved for a little while,"
is the same one who argues that in the parable of the dragnet -- the bad fish which were brought in the haul
with the good fish had really been saved for a while, but turned into bad fish and had to be rejected.
He is also arguing that the wheat and the tares were really all wheat at first, but some of the
wheat turned into tares, and was destroyed at the judgment.
The point of all these parables is that we have the good and the bad, side-by-side -- they are
in the field, the net, or the vineyard, together, and we do not make the final judgment between them.
God will make the final judgment, gathering the good crop and destroying the bad.
There is no such thing as a good branch which was unfruitful,
or wheat which became tares, or good fish which became worthless fish.
Although the New Testament never speaks of temporary salvation, it does speak of temporary faith.
This gives added force to the serious warnings against apostasy.
In the parable of the sower, Jesus declares that the seed, which fell on stony ground sprang up quickly,
but in the heat of the day, it withered, because it had no depth of root.
These are they, He said, who believe "for a while", but in the time of testing,
"they fall away", literally, they "fall out."
If a person believes for a little while, but does not have persevering faith, his condition is worse
than if he had never believed at all!
For when a man puts his hand to the plow and looks back, he has committed the sin
of apostasy -- it is unpardonable.
This is certainly what is meant in 2 Peter 2: 20-21, "For it had been better for them
not to have known the way of righteousness, than, after they have known it, to turn from
the holy commandment delivered unto them."
This temporary, "knowing the way of righteousness," should never be called salvation,
because the New Testament never calls it that; and it always consistently contrasts
such superficial and temporary faith with genuine perseverance unto salvation.
But knowing the way of righteousness, and then, by one's life renouncing Christ, is held up
as the most terrible danger confronting a person.
It is worse than being lost; it is being lost without hope of salvation.
We have described the two dangerous alternatives which face us when we proclaim this doctrine.
To go to either extreme is to distort the truth: we cannot describe salvation as
"holding out faithful." or: "holding on to God" without
falling into the pit of "works salvation".
The terrible thing about this is that while it might serve as a warning for Christians
not to be too self-assured, it means that one who believes this does not understand
the nature of salvation in the first place.
In the attempt to warn men against a sinful and unfruitful life which would contradict
the very meaning of Christian salvation, we may shut the door forever to that unbeliever who knows
that he cannot change his life.
We must insist upon the miracle of God's grace by which he is transformed into
a new creature in Christ Jesus.
On the other hand, we must warn Christians not to coast on the strength of a past experience.
We must urge them to press on toward the mark for the prize of the high calling -- we must lead
the way in Christian growth toward maturity.
Thank God, we still have in our Bible: "My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me:
and I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any one pluck them out of my hand."
(John 10: 27, 28)
Sing the great hymn of Fanny Crosby:
"Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine!
Oh, what a foretaste of glory divine!
Heir of salvation, purchase of God,
Born of His Spirit, washed in His blood."
Sermon by Dr. Harold L. White
