| | An In-Depth Biblical Study
Of God's Salvation Plan for Mankind
Chapter 1.
Is Man Responsible for His Sins?
God Declares Himself to Man
No Man Will Accept God's Offer of Salvation
God Will Save a People for Himself
Anyone Can Be Saved
Summary of Chapter One
God's Elective Program
Chapter 2.
T = Total Depravity
The Gospel is Preached to Dead People
The Doctrine of Free Will is Antithetical to the Bible's Teaching of Our Spiritual Deadness
The Danger of the Doctrine of Free Will
Passages that Apparently Teach Free Will
Chapter 3.
U =
Unconditional Election
When Did God Elect Those Who Are to be Saved?
The Biblical Doctrine of Predestination
The Elect Are Sinners Saved Unconditionally
Does the Idea of Election Foster Fatalism?
God's Will Concerning Salvation is Completely Sovereign
God Gives Repentance
God Gives Faith
Chapter 4.
L = Limited Atonement
Christ Prays Only for Those Who Are to Believe on Him
Only the Saved Are Justified
Mankind Whose Sins Have Not Been Paid for Must Be Judged for Their Sins
But Doesn't the Bible Teach that God would have All Men Saved?
Does the Bible Teach that Christ Paid for the
Sins of the Whole World?
Christ Is the Only Way to Salvation
Did Christ Pay for All Our Sins Except that of Rejecting Christ?
But Doesn't the Bible Speak of Those Who Are Sanctified and Yet Remain in Unbelief?
Chapter 5.
I = Irresistible Grace
Those Whom God Plans to Save Must Be
Drawn to Him
The Raising of Lazarus Shows How Our Will Is Involved in Our Salvation
Chapter 6.
P = Perseverance of the Saints
From What Has God Saved Us?
We Have Eternal Life
What about the Verses That Seem to Teach That We Can Lose Our Salvation?
The Body of Christ:
Individuals and Corporate
Israel: An Example of God's Corporate Body
The Teaching that We Can Lose Our Salvation Is a Dangerous Doctrine
Peace with God
Chapter 7.
Conclusion
| Preface "Good evening. Welcome to the Open Forum." "Brother Camping?" "Yes. Go ahead, you're on the air." "Well, I just had to call after that last caller - I mean, really, the very idea that not all can be saved - I mean, when the Bible is so
clear, 'whosever believeth in him should not perish,' and sir, I want you to know that my Lord does not send people to hell." Click - the conversation was abruptly ended. Over and over, this scenario is repeated on the nationwide evening program called the "Open Forum." People who are sincere students of the Scriptures struggle with the enigma
of divine election. The caller was satisfied with his position, which he based on the quotation from John 3:16. Other people extract a quote from II Peter 3:9 and proclaim that He is "not willing that any should perish." The simple truth is that there are other passages that seem to declare that only the elect, those who were chosen before the
foundation of the earth, will be saved. For example, Ephesians 1:4, which states: "according as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world," and Romans 11:5, where God speaks of "a remnant according to the election of grace." The caller's frustration was focused on the implication that only an elect group of people will be
saved, and conversely, that those who are not in the elect group will be sent to hell. Since the caller viewed God as a benevolent and loving creator, he thought election was not only grossly unjust but downright unworthy of decent men or God! For five centuries, the issue of divine election has been a battle cry. An intellectual dawn to quell
the Dark Ages with humanism's insistence that all life questions be seen from the human perspective began during the Renaissance. This insistence crept into the theological arena, and questions arose from that perspective, such as: "If those not elected by God are not going to be saved, how can it be true that God's offer of salvation is truly
honorable? What happened to the fairness we associate with God? How dare we tamper with the 'free will' of man?" The issue of divine election must be considered from the proper perspective, which is the divine viewpoint. Once we capture a clear insight into God's identity, as seen in His nature and work, it will not be difficult to see that His
program of salvation is entirely fair and equitable. Bible students who are willing to struggle objectively to see the whole issue from the proper perspective will make two exciting discoveries: (1) this enigma can be resolved; and (2) this resolution will foster new appreciation for the incomprehensible love of God and His magnificent
salvation plan. All humanistic viewpoints must be abandoned, regardless of whether due to the contemporary secular classroom or gleaned from a pulpit that is under a cloud of theological humanism. True enlightenment and joy are attainable through viewing this issue, and all issues, in the proper perspective - the divine perspective - i.e., from
the perspective of the Bible. God's Magnificent Salvation Plan Chapter 1 In our study of the nature of salvation, we must begin with an understanding of who man is. The Bible teaches that man was created to worship and serve God. The Bible also teaches that men of their own volition have rebelled against God and
will never wish to come to Him. Therefore, because it is God's desire to have a people for Himself, God sovereignly chose the individuals whom He planned to save. In the beginning, we see from Genesis 1:26-27 that man was created in the image of God. To be created in the image of God included the fact that man, or Adam, loved righteousness and
truth because God loves righteousness and truth. Moreover, Adam could choose whether or not he would obey God. He was free to obey God voluntarily because the desire was inherent in him as part of the image of God. Thus, he stood before God as a responsible creature who was accountable for his actions. He was warned that he would bear the
consequences of disobedience in Genesis 2:17: "But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die." The results of his disobedience are well known: Mankind was sentenced to death, physical death and spiritual death. Spiritual death is eternal separation from
God; that is, for his disobedience, man will eternally suffer God's wrath in hell. The impact of man's initial sin was so terrible that man's very nature was corrupted and disobedience to God became normative. Like an adulterer who senselessly and stupidly repeatedly returns to the harlot, so man continues to disobey God. Adam's sin was so
far-reaching that the whole human race, which issued from Adam and of whom Adam was head, remains in this awful corruption. Romans 5:12: "Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned." In I John 3:8 we read, "He that committeth sin is of the devil." In
Colossians 1:13 God declares that when He saves us, He "hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son." In the parable of the wheat and the tares, Jesus informs us in Matthew 13:38 that, "the tares are the children of the wicked one." Enslavement to sin is described by the language of
Romans 6:16, where God warns, "Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey." The nature of man is to be in constant rebellion against God, and because of man's enmity toward God, the awful curse of God's wrath continues to rest on him. Satan vanquished man in the Garden of Eden, and man
became a slave in the dominion of sin and spiritual darkness, which is ruled by Satan. Is Man Responsible for His Sins? Questions of great importance must now be faced: Did the corruption of man's nature and his enslavement to Satan, which produce an ever-mounting condemnation of mankind, minimize or reduce God's demand that man be without sin?
Had man in any sense become so helpless in his sin that God could no longer hold him accountable? The answers to these questions will resolve the accountable? The answers to these questions will resolve the apparent paradox of God's gracious offer of salvation (which we will learn is actually a command to believe) to all men and God's elective
decree whereby only God's elect will be saved. The answer to the question of man's continued accountability to God after the fall is found in the reason for his hopeless condition of slavery to sin and Satan. This frightful condition did not result from a whim or caprice of fate; it did not result from God lashing out in an irrational anger at
man for disobedience. The condition is altogether the result of man's own actions. God created man good, with every conceivable blessing; and because he was created in the image of God, he was fully responsible for the consequences of his disobedience. Thus, the fact that man's very nature became corrupt and that he became a slave of Satan did
not diminish his accountability to God for his sins. Right up to the present day, man continues to be answerable to God for his actions because man is still created in the image of God, regardless of how shattered that image may be. We are not surprised to read that at the judgment, man must render an account of all his works to God. Matthew
12:36 says, "But I say unto you, That every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment." Romans 2:5-6 declares: But after thy harness and impenitent heart treasurest up unto thyself wrath against the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God; Who will render every man according to
his deeds. God emphasizes that an answer must be tendered. Romans 14:10b-12 makes it clear that: We shall all stand before the judgment seat of Christ. For it is written, As I live, saith the Lord, every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall confess to God. So then every one of us shall give account of himself to God. II Corinthians 5:10
tells us that: We must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ; that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad. We read in Revelation 20 that at the judgment throne Christ will have on record all the deeds of those who stand there, and they must answer to God for those
deeds. Revelation 20:12 declares: And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works. God repeatedly teaches in the Bible that man must answer for his sins.
For example, consider the words of Jesus in Luke 13:34: O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, which killest the prophets, and stonest them that are sent unto thee; how often would I have gathered thy children together, as a hen doth gather her brood under her wings, and ye would not! [see also Matthew 21:34-41 and 23:29-30] In these passages, Christ speaks
to responsible people who are created in the image of God; He does not demean them by suggesting that they are no accountable. His declaration is that they are fully answerable for their rejection of God's overtures of grace. Actually, it is more than an offer; it is a command from God to the human race to repent of their sins and turn to
Christ for salvation (John 6:29, Acts 17:30, I John 3:18-24). Thus, the Bible gives ample evidence that mankind is fully answerable to God for his actions. Even though the entire human race is altogether in rebellion against God, each and every human being stands accountable to God. God Declares Himself to Man While every human being is in the
terrible predicament of being accountable for his sins, God comes with His gracious offer of salvation. First of all, He gives man plenty of evidence that God exists. By placing man in a creation that is filled with incomprehensible wonders, man cannot escape the knowledge that only an infinite being could have brought it all to pass. The
stars, the newborn baby, the fragrant rose - from the minute creature to the universe - all testify to the power of God (Psalm 19:1, Romans 1:18-23). Furthermore, God shows man that he is a merciful and loving God who provides the benevolent sunshine and fruitful seasons (Acts 14:17, Romans 2:4). Moreover, because man was created in the image
of God, there is a witness within him. Intuitively man knows that murder, adultery, and stealing are sins because to some degree God's law is written on his heart (Romans 2:14-15). Intuitively he knows that judgment is coming and he must account for his sins (Romans 1:32). Man's response to the evidences of the existence of God, his response to
the kindnesses of God (which he so often takes for granted), and his response to the knowledge that he is a sinner who will be judged for his sins, is greater rebellion against God. But man has sinned and man must bear the full consequences of his actions. Finally, God comes with His supreme offer of love. God has fully outlined this in the
marvelous written declaration of God's will, the Bible. He covenants with man that if he will throw himself on God's mercies, if he will repent of his sins and entrust his will to Christ as Lord, if he will trust in Christ as Savior for God's forgiveness for his sins, God will make him His child and give him eternal life. God will free him from
slavery to Satan and make him a citizen of God's kingdom. John 3:16, "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life." To make the offer of everlasting life possible, God had to make an enormous sacrifice. He was required to provide complete
satisfaction of the price demanded by God's decree that "the wages of sin is death" (Romans 6:23) for all people who became saved. The price was paid by God Himself when He came as the God-man, Jesus Christ, to bear the wrath of God on behalf of those who would come to trust in God's offer of salvation because God had saved them. If ten men out
of the whole human race would believe in Christ as their sin-bearer, Christ's suffering would have been equivalent to the punishment deserved by these ten men. If a million people would become saved, Christ's suffering would have been equal to an eternity in hell for a million people. Christ obediently endured God's wrath on behalf of the exact
number of people God has turned to Himself and His offer of love; it is only in this way that God's holy justice can be completely satisfied (Romans 3:24-26, Romans 5:8-9, Romans 5:21). No Man Will Accept God's Offer of Salvation Man in her perverseness - in the corruption of sin that envelopes his whole being - will not accept God's wonderful
offer. He will not be obedient to God's command to repent of his sins and believe in Christ. His natural enmity towards God, his unconscious allegiance to Satan, and his pleasure in his sins, all work together to encourage him to ignore, spurn, or ridicule the offer. God's offer has no strings attached; it is given to man, who was created in
the image of God, so that man could think God's thoughts after Him, love God, worship God, and fellowship eternally with Him. The fact that willfully disobedient man has become a totally corrupt slave of Satan does not diminish or in any sense invalidate the gracious and marvelous intention of God's salvation offer. Man is still accountable to
God. The fact that not even one man would be obedient to God's offer does not make the offer any less gracious or make it any less an offer of love. The offer of God's love, which is the Gospel, with its command to mankind to believe on Christ, is to be sent forth into all the world, but no man of his own volition will respond to it. Rather, he
lusts after sin and does all that he can to silence and reject it. The deadness of man is succinctly outlined in Romans 3:10-20 and Ephesians 2:1-3. We read in Romans 3:11, "There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God." Man is as spiritually dead as Lazarus was physically dead after his body had decayed in the tomb
for four days. No wonder the Bible declares in John 6:44, "No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him." No man is able to come because every man is spiritually dead. God Will Save a People for Himself God is not thwarted in His desire to have a redeemed people. Man of his own volition will not respond to God's gracious
offer and command of salvation, but God reaches down into the mire and misery of human sin to save a people for Himself (John 6:37). God will take for Himself as many people as He wants to take, and He will take precisely those people whom He wants to take; He is the Redeemer. He will build His church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail
against it. One example of the beautiful descriptions of God's salvation plan may be read in Ezekiel 34:11-16. Before God created the world, in sovereign righteousness and justice, He chose those whom He would save (Ephesians 1:4). The people He chose are not to be saved because they are in any way, in any degree whatsoever, more holy or more
worthy of salvation than those who remain unsaved; rather, it is totally God's sovereign will that He saves one by race and leaves another under His wrath (Romans 9:11-15). For those whom God saves, He must pay the penalty that is required by His perfect justice. And so Jesus became sin. He took upon Himself the sins of all those whom God, in
His elective decree, planned to save. Based on God's declaration in John 3:16, that "whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life," we might declare the Christ was prepared to pay for the sins of anyone in the world throughout time who would turn to God in faith and accept the offer of forgiveness. The fact is, it
means that in all the world, Christ is the only possible sin-bearer. He paid the price for all who believe. This principle is surely suggested by the promise of I John 1:9, which proclaims, "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." As a matter of fact, Christ did die
only for those who were elected of God, for only the elect will obey God's command to believe in Christ: This includes Old Testament believers and everyone who will come to believe right up to the end of time. This truth is surely evident in the declaration of the angel to Joseph in Matthew 1:21, "And she shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt
call his name JESUS: for he shall save his people from their sins." The phrase "His people" cannot refer to the whole human race. If it did, double jeopardy would occur, inasmuch as the Bible clearly teaches that the unsaved must pay for all their sins (Revelation 20:12-15). Christ died for those people who believe but not one of them believed
of his own volition. Only because God inclined their wills and opened their eyes and did save them; did they respond to the Gospel..? God's gracious intervention occurs only in the lives of His elect. God irresistibly draws them unto Himself (John 6:37, 44). They were given to Christ by the Father (John 6:37, 39, John 17:9, 20); they were born
not of the will of man, but of God (John 1:13). Therefore, while in principle the atonement is available for each and every individual in the world, in actuality the atonement covers only the sins of the elect, for only the elect will believe in Him. Lazarus was dead and responded to Jesus' command to come forth from the tomb because with the
command, Christ qualified him to come forth by giving him ears to hear, life to respond, and the will to obey (John 11:43-44). Likewise, God qualifies the spirituality dead so that they will respond to the Gospel call. Sorrowfully, the Bible declares that the rest of mankind remains under the wrath of God. When Christ went to the cross to pay
for sin, He was ready to pay for anyone who would trust Christ as his Savior. Jesus paid no penalty for those who would not respond obediently to God's salvation command. Therefore, they must stand before God's judgment throne on their own behalf at the end of time. God declares in Romans 1:18: "The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against
all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men," and in Romans 2:8-9. But unto them that are contentious, and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, indignation and wrath, Tribulation and anguish, upon every soul of man that doeth evil, of the Jew first, and also of the Gentile. God ominously decrees in Romans 2:5: But after thy harness
and impenitent heart treasurest up unto thyself wrath against the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God. In Revelation 20:12-13 we read: And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of those things
which were written in the books, according to their works. And the sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them: and they were judged every man according to their works. Had their sins been paid for, they would not have to stand for judgment and answer to God for every sin they had ever
committed. God's wrath could never come upon the, because such condemnation, after Christ had already paid for their sins, would be double jeopardy and a violation of God's perfect justice. Anyone Can Be Saved Who then can be saved? Anyone whose will has been surrendered to Christ as Savior and Lord. Not one person who ever honestly sought for
Jess will be cast out. No one at the judgment throne of God on the last day will be able to argue that he had earnestly sought for salvation. While he might have sought salvation, it could not have been the salvation of the Bible; it must have been a salvation of his own design. No one will stand before the judgment throne who had followed the
Biblical prescription of a broken and contrite heart, which is the beginning of true salvation. Wonderfully, anyone can know that he is one of God's elect by repenting of his sins and hanging his whole life on Jesus. God warns man to make his calling and election sure. If anyone in child-like trust and without reservation turns to Christ, he
can prove that he is one of God's elect. After he has turned in obedience to God and he knows that he is born from above, he will discover from God's matchless Word that his salvation was all of grace (Ephesians 2:4-10). He will know that his salvation was altogether the work of God, and if God had left him to himself, he would never have
turned to Him. The fact that the Father decided to save some people and let the rest of them go to hell for their sins is God's business (Romans 9:14-23, Ephesians 1:4-5). God is the sovereign Creator and Redeemer, who is glorified by the salvation of those who believe (Ephesians 1:6). He is also praised by the wrath of man (Psalm 76:10). The
real wonder is not that He will save everyone, the real wonder is that He saved even one out of the human race. The fact that He saved a vast company of believers from every nation and tribe and people demonstrates gracious and condescending love that no man will ever understand. We need not understand to know it is possible because God tells
us in Isaiah 55:8: "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the LORD." Summary of Chapter One God comes to mankind with a gracious offer of salvation for anyone who will come to the Lord Jesus Christ. Indeed, it is more than an offer - it is a command to believe on Jesus as Savior. Our salvation can be
accomplished only through Jesus because someone must pay for our sins and Jesus is the only one who could be our substitute and pay the price. Because of His sacrifice of Himself, God comes to the world with the gracious offer of salvation. Because man is desperately wicked (Jeremiah 17:9) and dead in his sins (Romans 3:10-20), he does not want
to accept God's offer of salvation; he does not want to obey the command to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and trust him as Savior. Man refuses to surrender his will to God; in the hardness of his heart, he goes his own way. The Bible sorrowfully declares to us in Romans 3:11, "There is none that seeketh after God." Even though man is dead in
his sins he remains accountable to God. Regardless of his spiritual blindness and the fact that he is a slave to sin and Satan, he will face God at the judgment throne and answer for all his sins. God, in His sovereign will and mercy, declares in Matthew 16:18, "I will build my church." It is God's purpose to have a people for Himself even if
no one voluntarily chooses to believe in Christ as his Savior. Before the foundation of the earth, God named those whom He would save, and He draws these people to Himself. He opens their spiritual eyes and they become saved. The answer to the question, "Can anyone be saved?" is "Yes. Anyone can be saved who will respond to the Gospel."
However, the only people who will respond in submission to God's Word, the Bible, and obediently follow God's program for salvation are those whom God draws to Himself. Not one person who is facing hell at the judgment throne of God will be able to say, "I wanted to be saved on God's terms but I am not saved because I am not one of God's
elect." Anyone who faces judgment and hell will be there because he did not want God's salvation program. He may have wanted salvation on his own terms, but he did not want God's salvation, and therefore he has to answer for all his sins. God's Elective Program We will continue our study of salvation as it relates to predestination and God's
elective program. The outline we will follow is the acronym. TULIP, which has been used by the church and look like this: T = Total depravity U =Unconditional election L =Limited atonement I =Irresistible grace P = Perseverance of the saints The acrostic principles behind the acronym TULIP sound intriguing, but they will not stand unless they
are Biblical. Let us focus on the scriptural foundations of this acronym in the following chapters. T = Total Depravity Chapter 2 Man's total depravity is an ugly concept that divides that church as no other doctrinal teaching in regards to salvation. Many people in the church agree that God draws us to Him and that
once we are saved we are always saved, but they have difficulty crossing the line to acknowledge that man is depraved, spiritually dead, and incapable of taking the first step toward God. They insist on the possibility of man's free choice or free will to choose Christ. They conclude that God has done all that He can do, and now it is up to man
to take action. We will carefully examine the Bible and let the Bible speak to us to learn God's truth in this matter. We will look at some verses that we have already covered in this study, but they bear repeating because they are important. We read in Ephesians 2:1-5: And you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins; Wherein in
time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience: Among whom also we all had our conversation [conduct or behavior] in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were by nature
the children of wrath, even as others. But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherein he loved us, Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved). In these verses God is speaking to those who have become children of God. He is not talking about those who remain in their wickedness and
end up in hell. What does God say about each person who is saved? God says he was dead; he was spiritually a corpse. He "walked according to the course of this world." In other words, he had lived exactly like the world that remains in unbelief. Then God says, "according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the
children of disobedience." With these words, God declares that this person was a slave of Satan and walked after the ways of Satan. Remember that Jesus said to the Pharisees in John 8:44, "Ye are of your father the devil." Verse 3 of Ephesians 2 declares that he and the unsaved lived, "in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the
flesh and of the mind; and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others." This is our terrible and rebellious description fits all the unsaved in the world, including the person who appears to be most wicked and the person who believes he is morally upright. How can such a person exercise free will? How can he decide to come to God? He
is spiritually dead; his will is sold out to Satan. He is a corpse. He might argue that he has the freedom to choose God, but he will never choose to come to God through Christ. In the freedom of his will he will always choose against God because in his depraved nature he is altogether in rebellion against God. The terribly rebellious state of
man's heart is further described in Jeremiah 17:9: "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?" Jesus points out the awful depravity of man's heart in Mark 7:21-22: For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, Thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit,
lasciviousness, an evil eye, blasphemy, price, foolishness. It is no wonder that Jesus said to the Pharisees in Matthew 23:27: Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For ye are like unto whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men's bones, and of all uncleanness. In these words our Savior
describes the unsaved condition of some church leaders, but the description of their hearts fits the heart of every unsaved person. In Romans 3:10-18 God emphasizes man's sorry state when measured by the standard of God's holiness. God declares in Romans 3:10, "As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one." We must realize that no one
is righteous, including those who will become believers. The Bible continues in Romans 3:11-18: There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God. They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one. Their throat is an open sepulchre; with their tongues they
have used deceit; the poison of asps is under their lips: Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness: Their feet are swift to shed blood: Destruction and misery are in their ways: And the way of peace have they not known: There is no fear of God before their eyes. This is the awful indictment of the human race. God shows us what miserable
sinners we are compared with the holiness of God. He shuts the door on any possibility that anyone of his own free will can turn to God when He says, "There is none that seeketh after God." God describes man as a desperate sinner, one who is spiritually dead. His throat is an open sepulcher, that is, all the words of his mouth proceed from a
grave of decaying flesh. It is an ugly statement and it declares our spiritual deadness. How can it be said that anyone can or will turn to God of his own free will? We must absorb this terrible truth. It is God's truth that we are spiritually dead before we are saved. We are so depraved in our nature that we would never seek Him of ourselves.
Our spiritual deadness while unsaved is further emphasized in John 5:24, where God says: Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life. We are dead in our sins. Only God can give us life. The Gospel is
Preached to Dead People In Peter 4:6 we read: For for this cause was the gospel preached also to them that are dead, that they might be judged according to men in the flesh, but live according to God in the spirit. Of course we do not preach to physical corpses; we do not go into a cemetery and preach to the bodies that are in the graves. We
preach to people who have life and breath and conscious existence, but God says that the Gospel is preached to the dead. We are spiritually dead before we are saved; therefore, of our own volition we will never come to God. Wonderfully, this verse tells us what happens to those who respond to the Gospel by experiencing God's salvation love.
Verse 6 says, "that they might be judged according to men in the flesh," that is, they will experience physical death, "but live according to God in the spirit." In their spirit or soul existence, where they experienced the resurrection when they were saved, they will live to God. Christ declares in John 6:44, "no man can come to me, except the
Father which hath sent me draw him: and I will raise him up at the last day." The word "can" in this passage is a word that signified that no one has the power to come to Christ. No one has the strength to come to Him; we are spiritually dead. Only because our Heavenly Father draws us do we come to Him. Earlier in our study we mentioned
Lazarus, who had been dead for four days that was in the tomb. He was a stinking corpse, yet Jesus spoke to that dead man, just as we speak to the spiritually dead (I Peter 4:6). Jesus said to him in John 11:43, "Lazarus, come forth." Did Lazarus have the ability to come forth? Could he come forth because he physically heard the voice of Jesus?
No, he could not hear; he was dead. He could never come forth. If you could go to a cemetery and call for a thousand years for people to come forth, not even one person would come forth because they are dead, and that is how dead we are spiritually. The corpse of Lazarus in the tomb is a picture of our spiritually dead condition before we are
saved. God uses this historical event to teach spiritual truth about the nature of salvation. The language used to describe Lazarus' death and miraculous resurrection shows that the event is a picture of salvation. While talking to Martha about the dead Lazarus, Jesus said in John 11:25, "I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth
in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live." This beautiful promise relates altogether to salvation; Jesus raised Lazarus to prove that His promise is trustworthy. Lazarus was raised physically and we who believe in Christ will be raised spiritually. Lazarus had no power in himself; he was dead. He could not of his own will rise physically,
and yet he did rise physically. Likewise, we are spiritually dead before we are saved. We have no power whatsoever; therefore, we cannot rise spiritually. As the Gospel comes to us, we will rise if it is God's will to raise us, as He raised Lazarus from the dead. This is what the Bible teaches. We are dead and our own actions cannot contribute
to our salvation. There is no such thing as free will insofar as the Bible is concerned. The Doctrine of Free Will is Antithetical to the Bible's Teaching of Our Spiritual Deadness I am afraid that some people cling tenaciously to the idea of free will because it affords them a little bit of credit for their salvation. Oh, we might know and
admit that it is by grace that we are saved. But, oh, how we want to receive at least a little credit. Can't we have a little recognition for what we have contributed toward our salvation? This is our nature. Suppose we have baked a beautiful cake or done something else that displays our handiwork. After we have slaved over it and we see that
our work is very lovely, then we are disappointed if our friends fail to commend us on the work of our hands. This is how we are designed; we want to receive a commendation for what we do, and we want some kind of commendation with regard to our salvation. If I turned to Christ of my own free will, then somehow I am a little bit better than my
unsaved neighbor. After all, I responded to the Gospel and he did not; therefore, I can receive a tiny bit of credit even though I know that basically my salvation depends upon what Christ has done. The Bible says no. We are dead in our sins, and there is no way that we can be saved unless God draws us to Him. The Bible says in Psalms 5 1:2:
"Wash me thoroughly from mine iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin," and in Psalms 51:;17: "A broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise." It is God's work altogether. The Danger of the Doctrine of Free Will There is something very ominous about the doctrine of free will. It is a very serious matter, and the Bible tells us why.
If Numbers 15:32-34 we read about a person who picked up some sticks on the Sabbath Day: And while the children of Israel were in the wilderness, they found a man that gathered sticks upon the Sabbath day. And they that found him gathering sticks brought him unto Moses and Aaron, and unto all the congregation. And they put in ward, because it
was not declared what should be done to him. As near as we can tell, this man kept the Sabbath Day as was commanded, but he committed what might appear to be a very incidental sin; he picked up a few sticks. Certainly this is not a very grievous crime, is it? But God says in versus 35-36: And the LORD said unto Moses, The man shall be surely
put to death: all the congregation shall stone him with stones without the camp. And all the congregation brought him without the camp, and stoned him with stones, and he died; as the LORD commanded Moses. What a horrible penalty for such an incidental sin! Why is this? Why did God put this in the Bible? It is a dramatic warning to us not to
mix works with God's grace. The Old Testament Sabbath Day is a picture of our salvation in the Lord Jesus Christ. When the nation of Israel rested on the seventh day from all its labors, they were to do no work of any kind. So, too, when we are saved, we are to rest altogether in the Lord Jesus Christ. He has done all the work that is required
to save us. The Old Testament Sabbath Day was a figure of the salvation that God would provide through out Savior. Until we are saved, we work so that we might in some way gain entrance into Heaven by our own actions. After we become saved, we rest from our labors and simply trust in Christ, who has done all the work. We rest in God's grace
when we are saved, just as the children of Israel rested on the Sabbath Day. Therefore, when the man picked up a few sticks, his action paralleled the action of someone who says, "Yes, I am saved by grace, but my work has contributed just a tiny bit. I can do a little bit of work towards my salvation." God said that the man who picked up sticks
was to be stoned to death. To be stoned to death in the Old Testament indicated that the person was coming under the damnation of hell. This grievous thing happened to those who were particularly sinful. Their death was a picture of God's wrath that comes upon sin, which results in damnation in hell. Thus, through the account of the man who
picked up sticks, God teaches that is we have a salvation program that is mostly grace but also requires a little bit of our won work, then we are still under damnation. What an ominous thought! What a terrible thing; but we need not worry about it if we follow the Scriptures and believe what we read in Ephesians 2, Romans 3, John 5:24, and the
other passages that tell us we are dead in our sins and we do not have free will. God Himself and God alone saves us. Only God is to receive the glory of our salvation. Passages that Apparently Teach Free Will Some passages seem to indicate that we have free will, for example, God declares in Revelation 22:17: And the Spirit and the bride say,
Come. And let him that heareth say, Come. And let him that is athirst come. And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely. This verse does not indicate that anyone of his own free will can turn to the Gospel, which is the water of life. This verse simply says that God's gracious offer of salvation is available to the entire human
race. If any person does turn to Him, on God's terms it is because God is saving him. When we read this verse in the light of the rest of the Bible, we know that no one of his own volition will turn to Christ because there is none that seeketh after God (Romans 3:11). Thus while Revelation 22:17 is a promise of God, it will never prompt a
response in anyone unless God draws him. Revelation 3:20 is frequently used by those who want to retain some aspect of free will. There God declares: Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come to him, and will sup with him, and he with me. If this verse is read quickly, it seems to indicate
that the person who responds to Christ is doing so of his own free will. IF we read this verse very carefully, we notice that it says, "If any man hear my voice." Can a dead man hear the voice of God? Could Lazarus hear the voice of Jesus? The answer is, "Of course not. He could not hear the Savior's voice; he was dead." But he did hear the
voice of Christ, and he did come forth. Likewise, the spiritually dead of themselves cannot hear with understanding the Gospel call. Those who respond do so only because God gives them spiritual ears to hear. Even as God gave the dead Lazarus physical ears to hear and the strength to respond, so God gives us spiritual ears to hear if He is
drawing us to Himself. Revelation 3:20 does not teach free will. It simply indicates that if we have ears to hear, then we will respond, but the ears to hear must come from God. It is significant that God repeatedly declares in the Book of Revelation: "He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches" (Revelation 3:6).
Only those whom God is drawing, those whom God is saving, will have that kind of ear. Therefore, this verse also gives Biblical corroboration to the historical teaching of total depravity. We must conclude that the principle of total depravity is altogether Biblical and that it will stand the closest scrutiny of the Scriptures, but it is
absolutely antithetical to the idea of free will. A Gospel program that promotes the idea that anyone has a free will to choose God is contrary to the Bible. When we are unsaved, our will is sold out to sin and Satan. We might insist that our will is free, but in our unsaved condition, our will is always contrary to the will o God. We will
never of ourselves come to God because the Bible insists, "There is none that seeketh after God" (Romans 3:11). If you want to call that free will, that we shall always of ourselves go against the will of God, so bee it, but that is not the meaning ascribed to free will when people say, "of my own free will I decided to become saved." Their
meaning is that anyone can come to Christ by an act of their will, which is under no constraints of God. Likewise, the idea that God will never impose His will upon those who reject Christ and those who thus remain lost of their own free will is a Biblical impossibility and a dangerous doctrine. When Joshua commanded ancient Israel to "choose
you to this day whom ye will serve" (Joshua 24:15), was Joshua suggesting that man has a free will? When we read Joshua 24:15 carefully we discover that Joshua's command to choose was not to make a choice between God and Baal, it was a choice between one false religion and another. In Joshua 24:15 we read: And if it seem even unto you to serve
the LORD, choose you this day whom ye will serve; whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the flood, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land ye dwell: but as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD. God does not give us choice of whether or not we will believe in Christ. God commands the human race to
believe in Christ. We read in I John 3:23: And this is his commandment, That we should believe on the name of his Son Jesus Christ, and love one another, as he gave us commandment. If any verses in the Bible imply a choice is to be made, God always commands what that choice is to be. The command is that we should turn back to God. We are to
faithfully bring the Gospel, including the command of God to believe on Christ. We must realize that only those whom God draws - those whom He has chosen for salvation - will obey the command and respond to the Gospel offer. We must also realize that we have been commissioned by God to make the Gospel offer so that God's salvation program will
come to fruition in the lives of those whose will He desires to save. We must never add statements to the Gospel presentation to the effect that the final choice is man's rather than God's. Too many preachers add such statements as, "God has done His part and now it's up to you." "God by His grace has paid for your sins but it's up to you to
accept His pardon," "God has done all that He must do; the rest is up to you;" and "God is a gentleman. He has provided for your salvation, but He will not force you to accept it." These statements say that our salvation is based on God's word plus our work; they are part and parcel with the concept that man has a free will. These statements
ignore the fact that our salvation is "not of works" (Ephesians 2:9), and that man is dead in his sins. There is no recognition of the awful import of a works/grace gospel. The common assertion of many people today that man must "accept" the Lord Jesus as his Savior is based on the premise that man has a free will. The fact is, we receive
Christ because God gives us to Him as a gift (John 6:37). God inclines our will; God draws us; God gives us salvation. We receive the gift of salvation with no effort and no work on our part. Which of these two hymns are you ready to sing? (1) 'Twas not that I did choose Thee, For Lord that could not be; This heart would still refuse Thee,
Hadst Thou not chosen me. Or: (2) "Twas not that You did choose me, For Lord that could not be; Your heart would still refuse me, Hadst I not chosen Thee The first one is the Biblical one. When "we have decided to follow Jesus," it is actually God's action moving us. We can take no credit for it whatsoever. The praise accrues to the precious
Lord Jesus Christ. God gives repentance! To God be the glory! U = Unconditional Election Chapter 3 The U in the acronym TULIP stands for unconditional election. Election is not a happy subject for many people because it brings with it the fact that God elects us; we do
not choose Him. Man by nature does not like this point of view because it underscores his spiritual deadness and robs him of his self-pride. It reminds him that he is not the master of his fate nor the captain of his soul, but this is the point of view that the Bible clearly teaches. In our study, we will learn that election is required for
anyone to be saved. It is a necessary part of God's salvation program. We have already learned that man is dead in his sins. He will not seek after God; he loves his sin. Of his own volition, he will never come to God. Therefore, if Christ had gone no further than offering salvation to the world, there would be no believers. God's gracious and
loving offer of salvation could be proclaimed to mankind for a thousand years, but no one individual in the whole human race would respond of himself. Man's nature is to be altogether in rebellion against God; no one seeks after God. If God did not act in the heart, no one would become saved. Christ determined that he would build His church and
the gates of hell would not prevail against Him. To build His church, He elected certain people to be saved. Thus, election is absolutely essential to God's salvation program. When Did God Elect Those Who Are to be Saved? When did God decide or elect whom He would save? The Bible tells us in Ephesians 1:4 that He chose us in Christ from before
the foundation of the world. In other words, God had already chosen whom He would save before man was created and therefore of course before man fell into sin. In Revelation 17:8 God speaks of those whose names were not written in the Book of Life from the foundation of the world. He speaks here of the wicked, those who are slaves of the Beast
and of the kingdom of Satan. The fact that their names were not written in the Book of Life from before the foundation of the world implies that the names of the believers of Christ, who are not slaves of Satan, were written in the Book of Life from before the foundation of the world, which accords with Ephesians 1:4, where we are told that "he
hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world." Therefore, the Bible shows us that God's election did take place before time and before God had begun His creation. Because God knows the end from the beginning (Isaiah 46:10), He knew that man, whom He would create perfect and without sin, would of his own volition rebel against God
and be plunged into sin. Therefore, our Heavenly Father made provision for this eventuality by giving those whom He planned to save to the Lord Jesus Christ. We read in John 6:37, "All that the Father giveth me shall come to me; and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out." This verse refers to the elect, who were chose by God before
the foundation of the earth and whose names He wrote in the Lamb's Book of Life. Three Greek words, ekloge, eklektos, and eklego, are translated as either election, elect, or chosen and used some fifty times in the New Testament. Some examples include: Romans 11:5, "Even so then at this present time also there is a remnant according to the
election [ekloge] of grace." II Peter 1:10, "Wherefore the rather, brethren, give diligence to make your calling and election [ekloge] sure." Also, Colossians 3:12, "Put on therefore, as the elect [eklektos] of God, holy and beloved…." Titus 1:1, "According to the faith of God's elect [eklektos]." Matthew 22:14, "For many are called, but few
are chosen [eklektos]." I Peter 2:9, "But ye are a chosen [eklektos] generation." Ephesians 1:4, "According as he hath chosen [eklego] us in him before the foundation of the world." The Biblical Doctrine of Predestination A corollary doctrine in the Bible of God's elective program is predestination. Predestination, like the word election, is an
uncomfortable word for many people, who might hope that it is just a theological word that is not in the Bible. The fact is the Greek work proorizo, from which predestination comes, is found six times in the New Testament. We find it in Romans 8:29, "For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son,"
and Romans 8:30, "Moreover whom he did predestinate, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified." We read in Ephesians 1:5, "Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will," and Ephesians 1:11, "In
whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will." The word predestinate is fond in two other places in the New Testament. In Acts 4:28 it is translated to "determined before," and speaks about the will of God that Christ would suffer for our
sins and that it was part of His divine plan that Herod and Pontius Pilate and others were against Him. In this context God says in verse 28, "For to do whatsoever thy hand and thy counsel determined before [predestinated] to be done." So we see that God's counsel had predestinated beforehand what was to be done. The word proorizo
(predestinate) is translated to "ordained" in I Corinthians 2:7, "But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, even the hidden wisdom, which God ordained [predestinated] before the world unto our glory." God speaks here of the whole Gospel plan that was predestinated by God. In these verses God teaches that He had predetermined every aspect of
the salvation program before the foundation of the world, including who would be saved. He did not predestinate those whom He saw would of themselves come to Him; that is an impossibility because every human being is dead in his sins - "There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God" (Romans 3:11). God looked down the
corridors of time and saw the miserable human race after the fall of Adam, and He chose some of these wretched and rebellious sinners and elected them to salvation; the Bible teaches that He predestinated them to be saved. If God simply looked for and saved those who came to Him of their own free will, then He could not speak of them as being
chosen. It would be incorrect because God would not have done the choosing; it would be man's choosing. Man would elect or choose to come to God, and God would simply recognize those who are saved. God could speak of them as being recipients of the grace of God only and not of electing those who are saved. We read in John 15:16, "Ye have not
chosen me, but I have chosen you." We are the elect of God if we have begun to believe in Christ as our Savior and Lord. The Elect Are Sinners Saved Unconditionally Unconditional election is a principle of the Bible. God saves His elect regardless of the terribleness of their sins. The elect are saved not because they are good, not because they
are beautiful; He saves the elect in spit of their sins. Remember, we read in Romans 3:10-18 that God describes the whole human race, without exception, as wicked; and in Jeremiah 17:9: "The heart is deceitful about all things, and desperately wicked." Out of these people, He elected some to be saved. The Bible does not teach that Christ came
to save those who were good: the Bible teaches that Christ came to save sinners. God declares in James 2:5,"Hath not God chosen the poor of this world rich in faith, and heirs of the kingdom which he hath promised to them and love him?" We are rich in faith, of course, because God gives us faith; it is a gift. We read in Ephesians 2:8-9, "For
by grace you ye saved through faith; and that not of your selves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast." In I Corinthians 1:27-28 God declares: But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty; And base
tings of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen, yeah, and things which are not, to bring to nought things that are. In these verses, God speaks of those whom He will save as despised and foolish; it is His choice to save that which is of no value in itself. That is our state when God saves us; we do not deserve in any way to
be the elect of God. Our election is absolutely and altogether unconditional. When Christ called Lazarus from the tomb (John 11:43), many people were in cemeteries, and our Lord could have gone to any tomb and told a dead person to come forth, and that person would have come forth. Christ in His sovereign will decided to raise up Lazarus.
Lazarus had not met conditions in order to respond to Christ's command; he had not met conditions to be elected to be raised from the dead. He was simply one of the dead. He had no particular qualifications that made him easier to raise from the dead than someone else. Lazarus was dead and his body was corrupting, and there was nothing that
qualified him to come forth, but he did come forth. Christ elected him and commanded him to come forth. When Christ raised Lazarus, He gave us a dramatic picture of unconditional election. We are elected of God to be saved, but there are no conditions that we have to meet to be saved by Him. We come as we are - in our rebellion, perverseness,
spiritual rottenness, and spiritual bankruptcy. God declares in Psalms 34:18, "The LORD is nigh unto them that are of a broken heart; and saveth such as be of a contrite spirit," and Psalms 51:17, "The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and a contrite heart, O God, though wilt not despise." Does the Idea of Election Foster
Fatalism? The question might be raised: "If God elected from before the foundation of the world those whom He would save, and if there is nothing that I can do about my election, then what is the use of trying to obey the command of the Bible to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ? If I am elect, I will believe. If I am not elect, I will not
believe. I can do nothing to make myself elect; it all depends on God's sovereign plan." The fact is that when God commands us to believe, we are to obey that command. Occasionally, someone does obey that command; whether that person is elect or not is none of his business at that time. When we hear the Gospel, we are to faithfully obey the
Gospel by believing on the Lord Jesus Christ. Those who do come to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ will afterwards begin to wonder, "Why did I believe? Why did I turn to the Lord Jesus Christ when many others around me did not?" Then, when they examine the Scriptures to find out why, they will discover that they became believers because God
had elected them and drawn them to Himself. God has opened the spiritual eyes and ears of every individual who becomes saved. God has qualified that individual so that he responds to the Gospel, even as He qualified Lazarus, who was dead and in the tomb, to be obedient when Jesus said, "Lazarus, come forth" (John 1`1:43). This is the doctrine
of election. We are to send forth the Gospel, but it is not our business to know who are God's elect. We know that among the unsaved are God's elect. Christ knows who they are - they are the lost sheep that He cam to seek and to save. As we witness and pray, and they heard the Gospel, God will draw them to Himself. We do not know whether or not
they are elect, but God knows. Election is a wonderful doctrine and a marvelous promise. It ensures success as we bring the Gospel. The success of the Gospel presentation does not depend upon our winning ways; it does not depend upon our splendid rhetoric nor our salesmanship. Success depends upon God's faithfulness to His own Gospel. Through
the Gospel message He will seek and save those whom He has predestinated to be saved. He will call them; He will justify them; and He will glorify them (Romans 8:30). This is the absolute promise of God. This is unconditional election. What a wonderful doctrine it is! It is a pity that there are people who are afraid of it. The doctrine of
election and predestination is beautiful, so why are many people afraid of it? They do not like the doctrine because they like to believe that God does not predestinate against the will of man. That is, they like to believe that God predestinates those persons whom He knows will turn to Him; man wants a least a little bit of credit for his
salvation. Moreover, man desperately wants to be sovereign in his own right, which was the nature of Lucifer when he fell into sin. Lucifer wanted to be a king; he wanted to be like God (Isaiah 14). Man, too, wants to be king on the throne of his life. By man's nature it is reprehensible to him to acknowledge the sovereignty of God. However,
the doctrine of unconditional election, which the Bible clearly teaches, underscores that God is sovereign. He saves those whom He will save! Under no circumstances is it man who chooses. It is God who chooses. God's Will Concerning Salvation is Completely Sovereign God insists on His sovereignty in Romans 9, for example, where He uses Esau and
Jacob as figures of His doctrine of predestination and election. Romans 9:11-13: For the children being not yet born, neither having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works, but of him that calleth;) It was said unto her, The elder shall serve the younger. As it is written, Jacob have I
loved, but Esau have I hated. There it is, you see; God indicates that He was completely sovereign in this. In Romans 9:15 He declares, "I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion." "I will" is emphasized because God makes the decision. In Romans 9:16 God says, "So then it is not of him that willeth, nor of him
that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy." This verse pointedly and plainly excludes man's will. Another verse that gives further reinforcement of this marvelous Biblical doctrine is Romans 9:18, "Therefore hath he mercy on whom he will have mercy, and whom he will he hardeneth." The doctrine of sovereign grace works out in God's elective
program. When we read the Book of Romans, we might be reminded of the lyrics to an old hymn, which say, "Thou art the potter; I am the clay; mold me and make me, after THY will." This plea is based on the teaching of Romans 9:20-23: Nay but, O man, who are thou that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why
hast though made me thus? Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honour, and another unto dishonour? What if God, willing to shew his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction. And that he might make known the riches of his glory on
the vessels of mercy, which he had afore prepared unto glory. In these verses God emphasizes that He is supreme; He has the power and the right to save those whom He wishes to save. God is under no obligation to save even one person in the whole human race . We all deserve to go to hell. We all deserve to spend eternity in damnation, under His
wrath. The fact that He saves some according to His divine choosing, His elective program, is God's business altogether. John 1:12 introduces the truth: "But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name." If we were to stop right here, it would appear as if the choice is man's -
those who receive Him are saved. But notice that qualifying statement in the next verse: "Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God" (John 1:13). God insists that He does the electing. It is His will that decides who is to be saved. Those who believe in Christ do not do so of their own will
because their will is altogether under sin. The doctrine that salvation comes only to those who are elect of God is also taught in Acts 13:48, where we read: "As many as were ordained to eternal life believed." That says it all again, does it not? Not everybody believed, but only those who were ordained by God to believe. God Gives Repentance
God commands men everywhere to repent of their sins (Acts 17:30). It is easy to assume, therefore, that even though salvation is by grace, at least the fact that I have repented and turned away from my sins is a result of my independent will. I might conclude that because I have turned away from my sins, God will save me. Somehow I want to
believe that repentance has something to do with my will and that it is apart from God's action. But even the thought of independence apart from God's action will not be tolerated by the Bible. In Acts 5:31 we read: Him hath God exalted with his right hand to be a Prince and a Saviour, for to give repentance to Israel, and forgiveness of sins.
God plainly declares that even our repentance is given to us of God. God does not require that conditions be met before we can be saved. He takes an unworthy, rebellious, and wicked sinner and gives him repentance, as a result of God's salvation program in that person's life. Small wonder then that Ephesians 2:8-10 declares: For by grace are ye
saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them. The good work of repenting of our sins is also a gift of God. God Gives Faith The Bible strengthens our
knowledge of God's total role in our salvation when it discusses our faith. We read in Romans 4:3, "For what saith the scripture? Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness." We might conclude that even though our works are not meritorious toward our salvation, our faith must be counted toward our salvation. However,
when we study the Bible more carefully, we discover that it was not Abraham's faith that was counted for righteousness, it was God Himself who was counted for righteousness. We will further develop this thought. In Galatians 2:16 we read: Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ, even we have
believed in Jesus Christ, that we might be justified by the faith of Christ, and not by the works of the law: for by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified. God declares that it is "by [Greek dia = through] the faith of Jesus Christ," and "we might be justified by [Greek ek - out of] the faith of Christ." In other words, the basis of
our salvation is not our faith - the basis of our salvation is Christ's faith. Because He was perfectly faithful in carrying out God's salvation plan, we are saved. No wonder Christ is called "Faithful and True" in Revelation 19:11. Moreover, we see that in Galatians 2:16 that God declares that we are not justified by [Greek ek - out of] the
works of the law. In John 6:28 the Jews asked Jesus, "What shall we do, that we might work the works of God?" Jesus answered in the next verse: "This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent." In this declaration, the Lord Jesus teaches that our faith whereby we believe on Christ as Savior is a work. Galatians 2:16 indicates
that we cannot be justified by works of the law; therefore, we know that we can be justified only by Christ's work and not our own. Our knowledge of the grand truth of Galatians 2:16 is further strengthened by Galatians 2:20, where we read: "the life which I now live in the flesh I live by [Greek en - in] the faith of the Son of God, who loved
me, and gave himself for me." See also Romans 3:22 and Philippians 3:9. Returning to Romans, in Chapter 4, verse 5, God declares: But him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for [Greek eis - into] righteousness. "His faith" can refer only to God's faith, that is, God's faithfulness, which
brings the believer into righteousness. This explains the meaning of the phrase in Romans 1:17, "For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from [Greek ek - out of] faith to [Greek eis - into] faith." God teaches in this and the previous verse that the salvation of both Jews and Greeks is out of faith (Christ's faith), and into faith (our
faith), which is a reflection or result of Christ's faith. Thus, we can understand Ephesians 2:8, where God declares: "For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God." The faith through which we are saved is Christ's faith. He is the very essence of faith so that we could paraphrase this verse to say
"For by grace are ye saved through Christ and not of yourselves. Christ and His salvation is a gift of God." In every aspect of our salvation, we merit nothing. To God goes all the honor and the glory. By virtue of Christ's faithfulness we are counted righteous. Christ's faith is given to us as a gift so that we can trust in Christ as Savior.
One last verse, and we will complete this study of the principle of unconditional election. In John 6:37 we read: "All that the Father giveth me shall come to me; and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out." In this verse Christ insists that those whom the Father has given Him will come to Him. There is no implication that the whole
human race has been given to Him, but if they had, then the whole human race would come to Him. God has chosen out of the human race those whom He will save. Therefore, the logical questions follow: "If God has decided by His sovereign will to save some and leave the others to face the judgment throne, and be sentenced to hell and eternal
damnation because of their sins, then did Christ go to the cross on behalf of every human being? Or, did Christ pay for the sins of only those who would believe on Him, that is, those who were chosen to be His, which is a limited number?" Historically, the church has spoken of this principle as limited atonement or particular atonement, that
is, Christ's payment at the cross was effective for only those who were elect of God. There was no provision made for those who would not believe on Him. Some people teach that Christ paid for the sins of everyone and that it is only our rejection of Christ that sends us to hell. This teaching follows along with the idea that it is by our own
free choice that we turn to Christ; it supports the erroneous idea that God has done all that He could, and now it is up to us. These are some of the ideas that will be explored in the next chapter. L = Limited Atonement Chapter 4 In this chapter we will carefully examine
the question of limited atonement or particular atonement, to see if it is a Biblical principle. In beautiful language God declares particular atonement through the angel who spoke to Joseph in Matthew 1:21, "And she shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name JESUS: for he shall save his people from their sins." Notice the phrase
"HIS people." Who are HIS people? We saw earlier in John 6:37 that His people are those people who were given to Christ by the Father. Thus, we know that Christ is the Savior only of those who were given to Him by the Father. Of course to save the, it was necessary that He pay for their sins, which He did by going to the cross. There is no
suggestion here that He laid down His life for everyone. In John 10 Christ speaks about the sheet that He came to seek and to save. In verse 15 He declares: "I lay down my life for the sheep." Who are the sheep? He says in verse 14: "I am the good shepherd, and know my sheet, and am known of mine." The sheep are the people who belong to Him;
they are His. He laid down His life for them; He did not lay down His life for all people. He laid down His life for His sheep; they will know Him, as we read in John 10:14, and they will come to Him, as we read in John 6:37. Christ Prays Only for Those Who Are to Believe on Him In John 17:9-10, Christ prays to the Father: I pray for them: I
pray not for the world, but for them which thou hast given me; for they are thine. And all mine are thine, and thine are mine; and I am glorified in them. While in verse 9 Christ is speaking particularly of the apostles whom He chose, in John 17:20-21. He has far more than His apostles in view. In these verses Christ says: Neither pray I for
these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word; That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me. That is a significant prayer, is it not? If Christ laid down His life for every individual, we would certainly
expect that He would pray for them. You would think, if their sins had been paid for, that Christ would make arrangements with the Father for them to come to Him. In this verse, however, God opens the veil concerning the relationship within the Godhead, and Christ clearly indicates that He does not pray for the whole world. He prays for those
who belong to Him and those "which shall believe on me through their word." Christ intercedes only for those who have been given to Him by the Father; He prays for His sheep. In Hebrews 7:25-26, Christ is presented as our eternal High Priest: Wherefore he is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him, seeing he ever
liveth to make intercession for them. For such a high priest became us, who is holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, and made higher than the heavens. In these verses the Bible specifically declares that Christ makes intercession for those who come to God by Christ; that is, Christ makes intercession for those whom He is saving.
This is precisely what Christ is doing in His prayer that is recorded in John 17. In John 17:2, Christ prays to the Father, As thou hast given him [Jesus refers to Himself] power over all flesh, that he should give eternal life to as many as thou hast given him. In the immediate context, Christ again was speaking of His apostles, but He
enunciates a fundamental principle of God's salvation program. In this statement, our Lord Jesus refers to those who were given to Him by the Father (John 6:37), and He emphasizes the fact that He has provided eternal life for them. Eternal life is a gift that is provided by the atonement and given to the believer. (Must we believe that some
people have experienced the atonement without receiving eternal life? We must come to this unbiblical conclusion if we believe that Christ paid for the sins of every human.) Only the Saved Are Justified When we study the nature of salvation from the perspective of the Biblical word justification, we again find that particular or limited
atonement is a Biblical principle. In Romans 5:18 we read: "By the righteousness of one the free give came upon all men unto justification of life." In Romans 4:25 we read: "Who was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our justification." Notice that in these passages, God clearly teaches that those whom He saves, He justifies.
Also, we read in Romans 5:9, "Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him." Thus, God has established the principle that those for whom He died are justified, and justified unto life; they are justified by His blood. If Christ had paid for the sins of every human being, then we would have to
conclude that all of mankind stands justified before God. We must recognize that to be justified means to be made just. If someone's sins have been paid for, there can be no condemnation. In Acts 24:15 we read, "That there shall be a resurrection of the dead, both of the just and unjust." In II Peter 2:9 we read, "The Lord knoweth how to
deliver the godly out of temptations, and to reserve the unjust unto the day of judgment to be punished." These passages clearly indicate that not only the justified will be resurrected, but also the unjust, who will remain unjust and be judged on Judgment Day. Romans 5:18 and Romans 4:25 tell us that when we are saved, we are justified by
Christ's blood; His blood was shed so that we can become righteous before God. Therefore, if Christ shed His blood (which brings justification) for every human being, how can anyone be unjust insofar as God's holiness is concerned? The problem disappears when we recognize the fact that Christ paid only for the sins of those who become saved.
Mankind Whose Sins Have Not Been Paid for Must Be Judged for Their Sins If Christ paid for the sins of everyone (or as some say, "Yes, for all their sins except the sin of not believing in the Lord Jesus Christ"), then we have to ask: "How can people whose sins have been paid for be judged?" We read in Revelation 20:13 that those who stand
before the judgment throne will be "Judged in every man according to their works." Man's works will be judged and he will discover that they were not done sinlessly, that is, in perfect obedience to God's Word. And of course, since every work of man is tainted by sin, those who stand for judgment will be found guilty of multitudes of sins. We
read in Matthew 12:36-37, "That every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment. For by thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned." Of course unsaved men have no good thing within them, there is none righteous; therefore, every account they give will bring
condemnation upon them. In Romans 2:5-6 we read: "But after thy hardness and impenitent heart treasurest up unto thyself wrath against the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God; Who will render to every man according to his deeds." In this verse, God insists that at the judgment throne mankind will have to answer for
every sin, and every sin will be dealt with by banishment into hell. There is no implication in the Bible that the only sin they will have to answer for at Judgment Day is the sin of rejecting Christ. They will have to answer for every sin. If Christ paid for those sins by going to the cross (some people hold the view that He paid for the sins
of every individual in the human race), then it would be double jeopardy for these same individuals, whose sins had been paid for, to be cast into hell to pay for the same sins. That just does not follow at all, does it? In Colossians 3:25, God lays down this principle: "But he that doeth wrong shall receive for the wrong which he hath done:
and there is no respect of persons." Only because Christ has become the substitute for those who are to be saved is this requirement of God met. The Bible says in John 5:24 that believers do not come into judgment. In Ephesians 5:25 we read, "Christ…loved the church, and gave himself for it." He gave Himself for the church, not for the whole
world, not for every last individual. Later in this study we will see that only the true believers in the church have had their sins covered by Christ's blood, even though the cross bears some relation to the church as a corporate body. We see, therefore, that the Bible does not endorse the doctrine that Christ went to the cross to pay for
every sin of the whole human race and that the only sin that sends anyone to hell is the sin of not believing in the Lord Jesus Christ. The sin of not believing in Jesus as Savior is included among all the other sins and simply adds to the punishment. Our every action is sinful, and any one of these sins is going to send us to hell; of course,
all of these sins will bring God's wrath upon us. How important it is that we trust in Christ as our sin-bearer! Only through him can we escape hell. But Doesn't the Bible Teach that God would have All Men Saved? Do some Bible versus say something different from what we have learned? We read in II Peter 3:9, "The Lord is not slack concerning
his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance." Does this verse imply that Christ paid for the sins of everyone? What about I Timothy 2:3-4, where we read that Christ would have all men to be saved? How can He desire this if He has not
already paid for their sins? In I Timothy 2:6 doesn't the Lord declare that He gave His life a ransom for all? In I Timothy 4:10 doesn't God declare that He is the Savior of all? These verses certainly seem to indicate that Christ paid for the sins of every individual, but if that is so, then we are in trouble with the verses we have already
studied, which clearly teach particular atonement. How can we reconcile these passages? As we look at these verses, we see a consistent use of the word "all." II Peter 3:9, "not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance." I Timothy 2:6, "Who gave himself a ransom for all." I Timothy 4:10, "God, who is the Saviour of
all men." We must understand the Biblical use of this word and let the Bible be its own dictionary. Normally when we use the word "all," we think of it as an all-inclusive word. If there were ten people in a room, and we said, "They all have hats on," then we immediately get the picture that these ten people, without exception, are wearing
hats. However, in the Bible, when God uses the word "all," it is conditioned by the content. For example, in Luke 2:1 God declares: "And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus, that all the world should be taxed." We could conclude that "all the world" included the North American Indians and the people
in Africa, etc., but the context shows us that the "all the world" that was to be taxed was that part of the world that was subject to taxation, namely, the Roman Empire. In other words, the word "all" was conditioned by the context in which it was found. We read in Acts 2:17, "And it shall come to pass in the last days, saith God, I will pour
out of my Spirit upon all flesh." We know from the Bible that God did not pour out the Holy Spirit on every individual in the world so that they became prophets or that they would prophesy; He poured out His Spirit on those who would believe. The "all" here is conditioned by the rest of the Bible, which declares that only those who are elect
will believe, so the word "all" is much less than all-inclusive. We read in I Corinthians 15:22, "For as in Adam all die." From the rest of the Bible we know that this "all " is an all-inclusive "all" and includes every individual in the human race. Romans 3:10, "As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one." The next phrase in I
Corinthians 15:22 tells us: "Even so in Christ shall all be made alive." If this "all" included every individual, the verse would teach universal atonement, and we know that is not possible. Hell will be heavily populated by people who have not been made alive. They are spiritually dead. Therefore, we must read the second phrase, "even so in
Christ shall all [who are to be made alive] be made alive." God is teaching that all the individuals who are saved, according to His plan, are saved by Christ's work. Other passages of the Bible show us that the people He plans to save are those whom He has predestinated. Likewise, when God uses the language, "Who gave himself a ransom for all"
(I Timothy 2:6), "God, who is the Saviour of all men" (I Timothy 4:10), or "Who will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth" (I Timothy 2:4), we know that the "all" in these verses is conditioned by God's elective program. He is the Savior of only those whom He has predestinated, elected, and ransomed; and God has
only these people in view when he uses the word "all." He gave His life a ransom for all of His elect. He wishes that all His elect will come to him. Does the Bible Teach that Christ Paid for the Sins of the Whole World? There is a second kind of passage in the Bible that is frequently offered as proof that Christ paid for the sins of every
individual in the world. We read in I John 4:14, "that the Father sent the Son to be the Saviour of the world." In John 4:42 we see the same phrase, that He is "the Saviour of the world." In I John 2:2 the statement appears even stronger: "And he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world."
Do these verses really underscore the idea that He has paid for the sins of every individual in the whole world? We see the same kind of idea in John 3:16-17. For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. For God sent not his Son into the world to
condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved. We just also consider the dramatic words of John the Baptist, when He greeted Jesus and said: "Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world" (John 1:29). By isolating these verses from the rest of the Bible, we could conclude that Christ did pay for the sins of
the whole world. These verses, as they stand, certainly give that impression. However, when we read these verses in the light of everything else in the Bible, we know that conclusion is not possible. If Christ had paid for the sins of the whole world, that is, every individual in the world, then as we have already seen, there could be no
Judgment Day and no hell. Everyone's sins would have been paid for and therefore there could be no such thing as an unjust person who must be sent to hell. Since Christ would have died for every such person, He, therefore, would have justified them by His blood. We must look at these verses more carefully. WE must remember that there is only
one sin-bearer and that is the Lord Jesus Christ. There is only one way that forgiveness of sins can be obtained, and that is through the shed blood of Christ. In I John 2:2 we read: "And he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world." If we assume that indeed He has paid for the sins of
the whole world, we run afoul of passages like Revelation 20:13, Matthew 12:36, Romans 2:5-6, and Colossians 3:25, which clearly indicate the unsaved must give an account of and pay for all their sins. None of these passages would make sense if Christ had indeed paid for every sin of everyone in the world, so we know that this cannot be the
kind of payment God has in view. Christ Is the Only Way to Salvation How are we to understand I John 2:2? We can understand if we note that in the first part of the verse God simply declares that Christ is the one who has provided for the salvation of those who believe. He is the propitiation for our sins; no one else could provide the way back
to the Father. Christ provided Himself as our substitute; Christ is the only WAY. In the second phrase, "and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world" (I John 2:2), we see that God is simply expanding the fact that in the whole world there is no method or way of salvation except through the Lord Jesus Christ. All the sins in
the whole world that are to be forgiven are forgiven by the blood of Christ. This passage is not detailing extent of God's salvation program in the world; it is simply indicating that for those who are to be saved, Christ is the only propitiation. Other passages declare who will be saved out of the world: The elect. In I John 2:2 God declares
how they will be saved: Through Christ as the propitiation for their sins. Because we know that the unsaved of the world who remain unjust must stand for judgment, and answer and pay for every one of their sins, we know that this verse cannot be teaching that Christ has paid for their sins. When John the Baptist declared: "Behold the Lamb of
God, which taketh away the sin of the world" (John 1:29), he was declaring: This is the Lamb whereby salvation is possible, John the Baptist did not give the details of that salvation; he did not indicate that God's elect are saved; he did not indicate that we are to believe on Him, and so on. He simply made the declaration that Christ is the
Savior who had come into the world, and that Christ is the only means whereby the sins of the world which are to be covered will be covered. This truth is seen in John 3:16: "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life." The word "so" must be
understood "in this manner;" "For God so (in this manner) loved the world." His love for the world is seen in that He gave the Lord Jesus to save a people for Himself. He gave His only begotten Son so that those of the world who believe in Him should not perish. The declaration, "that whosoever believeth in him should not perish," automatically
excludes the rest, does it not? God lays down the condition that unless they believe on Him, they will perish. Why do they perish? They perish because of their sins. God says in Romans 6:23, "The wages of sin is death." God speaks of Christ as the Savior of the world, but if we were to conclude that Christ paid for everyone's sins we would not
be in agreement with the Biblical doctrine that a vast company of people will eternally pay for their sins in hell. Did Christ Pay for All Our Sins Except that of Rejecting Christ? As mentioned earlier in the study, some people believe that Christ paid for all our sins except the sin of not believing in the Lord Jesus Christ. This doctrine is
suggested by John 3:18, which declares, "He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name o ft he only begotten Son of God. This verse seems to indicate that the reason people are condemned is that they do not believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. However, the next
verse declares: "And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil" (John 3:19). Their sin is the love of darkness; and the love of darkness involves them in every kind of sin and the kingdom of darkness. Verse 19 agrees altogether with the other statements
in the Bible that indicate that men will go to hell not because they did not believe in the Lord Jesus Christ but because they are sinners. They stand guilty before God, and their failure to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ simply indicates that they have no covering for their sins. The Bible declares in Psalm 85:2: "Thou has forgiven the
iniquity of thy people, thou hast covered all their sin." Christ's blood provides the covering whereby our guilt is removed. Moreover, when we conclude that Christ paid for the sins of the whole world with the exception of not believing in the Lord Jesus Christ, then we have a gospel that borders on grace plus works. We are really saying that
Christ went to the cross to pay for our sins and that He covered all sins except one: The sin of rejecting the Lord Jesus Christ. That implies, then, that if the sin of rejecting Christ has not been covered by the blood of Christ, then the fact that we believe in the Lord becomes good works of our that are meritorious in saving us. Thus, we are
declaring that God's grace covered all other sins but because we have done good works to believe on Christ, we merit salvation and the grace that God gives in our lives. This places us in the terrible condition of developing a gospel of grace plus works, and that will send us to hell for sure! We must keep in mind when we study Bible verses
that relate to salvation that salvation is all of grace! Even the faith with which we believe is a gift of God (Ephesians 2:8). Actually, it is not our faith that saves us, but the faith of the Lord Jesus Christ (Galatians 2:16, 3:22). Only because He was faithful in going to the cross for our sins can we be saved. The faith that we experience
in our lives is a reflection of the faith that Christ demonstrated by paying for our sins. Both the faith that we see in our lives when we are saved and the works that we do when we are saved are gifts of God. They are not meritorious in any way whatsoever! But Doesn't the Bible Speak of Those Who Are Sanctified and Yet Remain in Unbelief? We
will study a group of verses that appear to indicate, or at least can be misconstrued to teach, that someone who is unsaved seems to be in a condition which Christ has paid for his sins. The first of these verses is I Corinthians 7:14, where God Declares: "For the unbelieving husband is sanctified by the wife, and the unbelieving wife is
sanctified by the husband: else were your children unclean; but now they are holy." Similarly, in Hebrews 10 God discusses a man who knew the way of salvation and never became a child of God, but he deliberately turned away from the Gospel. God says of him in Hebrews 10:29: Of how much sorer punishment, suppose ye, shall he be thought worthy,
who hath trodden under foot the Son of God, and hath counted the blood of the covenant, wherewith he was sanctified, an unholy thing, and hath done despite unto the Spirit of grace? These two passages speak of unsaved people who are sanctified. The word "sanctified" suggests that somehow a work of grace has been done on behalf of the unsaved
who remain unsaved. The word "sanctification" means to be set apart for the service of God. Certainly born-again believers are set apart for the service of God, but what about those in the congregation, and thus corporately of the body of Christ, who are not true children of God? What about unsaved members of a family that has saved individuals
and through the believers of the family is identified corporately with the Kingdom of God? Did Christ pay for their sins? Another similar verse is II Peter 2:1, where God talks about false prophets among the people, that is, members of the congregation who bring in damnable heresies. II Peter 2:1: But there were false prophets also among the
people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction. The phrase "that bought them" would seem to indicate that Christ went to the cross to pay for their sins. We must look at these verses in the light of what we
learned earlier, which is that those who face Judgment Day must give an account of every sin. Because they must give an account of every sin, we know that they are not eternally Christ's people. They are not His sheep. If we isolate these verses from the rest of the Bible, we might conclude that Christ had paid for their sins, as He did for
believers, and thus they will not go to hell. However, the context of Hebrews 10:29 indicates that they must endure hell and damnation in spite of the fact that these verses speak of them as having been sanctified; II Peter 2 makes it very clear that false prophets are subject to eternal damnation. Thus, we see that while God speaks of certain
individuals as being "sanctified" or having been "bought" of the Lord, they are still subject to eternal damnation. How can this be? How does the Bible reconcile these apparent contradictions? We must remember that God is concerned with the church in the corporate sense as well as in the eternal sense. Born-again believers are eternal members
of the body of Christ; they belong to Him, and their sins are covered by Christ's blood. They are eternal members of the church that Christ came to build. Born-from-above believers are found in the congregations of one denomination or another. These congregations are the corporate expression of the Kingdom of God; they are the organized and
visible boy of those who profess Christ. Even though all those within the congregation profess Christ, they are not all necessarily believers. This is shown in the verses we are studying; the false prophets of II Peter 2 were members of a congregation of believers, but they were not saved. An example of a congregation that had many unbelievers
within it is ancient national Israel. There was a remnant chosen by grace within that congregation, but the major part remained in unbelief. They were under damnation even though as a whole body they were the corporate representation of the Kingdom of God on earth during the 2,000 years that preceded the birth of Christ. Likewise, in the New
Testament, God was represented organizationally or corporately in the world by the churches and denominations that began to spring up after Pentecost. Each of these denominations is officially identified with Christ and yet each is composed of both believers and unbelievers. We see this clearly in the first three chapters of Revelations, where
God talks about the seven churches of Asia Minor. Each church is represented in Heaven by a candlestick because each one represents Christ's church. Yet God warns that in one church there is a Jezebel, and in another church they follow the Nicolaitans, who are heretics of some kind. This mixture of believers and unbelievers can be expected in
every congregation even though corporately the congregations identify with Christ. Since each congregation was established and set apart to serve Christ, every member of the church is looked upon as sanctified; that is, he is set apart for the service of God. Even a false prophet who is a member of the church is spoken of as having been bought
by Christ. God indicates by this language that He went to the cross not only to pay for the sins of the born-again believers, those who are His elect, but also to establish His corporate body, His churches, His congregations. In that sense, those who are members of the congregations have been bought. Individually their sins have been paid for
only if they personally have become believers. This was learned when we examined the Bible's teaching concerning Judgment Day. Corporately they are part of the body that was bought as an organization by God (II Peter 2:1). Therefore, God can say that He bought these false prophets. In the same manner, the unsaved husband of a saved wife is
spoken of as being sanctified (I Corinthians 7:14). Because one parent is an eternal member of the Kingdom of God, the whole family is corporately a part of the Kingdom of God even though the other family members are unsaved. Thus, the versus that speak of unsaved persons being sanctified or having been bought are not teaching in any way that
Christ has paid for their sins by His shed blood. They have been bought or sanctified only in the sense that they are members of the corporate body, that is, the organized church; and the organized church was established and exists because Christ shed His blood for the believers within the congregations. When we examine everything that the
Bible offers, we must conclude that limited atonement or particular atonement is the only answer that corresponds with all of Scripture. God has a well-detailed and well-defined plan of salvation. Before the foundation of the earth, He named those who were to be saved and put their names in the Book of Life. He came to seek and to save those
who are His sheep. It is all one complete design. The Gospel goes out to the whole world, and as we learned earlier, if anyone responds to eh Gospel, he WILL be saved; but not one person will respond except the Father draw him (John 6:44). God will draw all of those whom He has elected, for God's salvation program will maintain total integrity.
We will now go to the fourth letter of the acronym TULIP, "I" stands for "Irresistible Grace." I = Irresistible Grace Chapter 5 What does the Bible tell us about irresistible grace? Is it a fact that man CANNOT resist the will of God? Or, on the other hand, is it a fact
that man CAN resist the will of God? If God really wants someone to be saved, is there anyone powerful enough to resist His will? Of course we know that we can never pit man against God. God is infinite, omnipotent, and all-powerful; He spoke and the universe came into existence. Man is a finite creature. No man can frustrate the will of God.
Everything we know about God tells us that He is in absolute control of every situation. Is it possible, as some people teach, that God is a "gentleman" who would not force anyone against his will to be saved? If it were true that we can resist the will of God, then not one person would be saved. Why is this so? Remember, we learned earlier in
our study that: "There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God" (Romans 3:11). We studied the principle of "Total Depravity" and discovered that man is dean in his sins and will never of his own volition come to God. Even if the Gospel were preached for a thousand years or longer, nobody would come to salvation by his
choice. So the idea that god is a "gentleman" who would not impose His will upon man's will is contrary to the Bible. It is a fact that thousands, even millions, of people throughout history have become saved. God speaks of the saved as being as numerous as the stars in heaven and as the sand on the seashore (Genesis 22:17), which indicates
that God has indeed imposed His will upon mankind in some way! Those Whom God Plans to Save Must Be Drawn to Him In John 6:37-39 we read: All that the Father giveth me shall come to me; and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out. For I came down from heaven, not to do mine own will, but the will of him that sent me. And this is the
Father's will which hath sent me, that all of which he hath given me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up again at the last day. In these verses, God teaches us that, first, the Father has given certain people to the Lord Jesus; and second, those people shall come to Him. Nothing can frustrate God's plan; His will shall be done. There
is no suggestion that those who were given to Christ can avoid being saved. In fact, John 6:39 states explicitly: "And this is the Father's will which hath sent me, that all of which he hath given me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up again at the last day." In this verse, Christ declares with absolute certainty that there will be no
defects in God's salvation program. Every individual whom God planned to save will be saved. God gives us a solemn promise and declaration that His salvation program, in which He in His sovereign will, from before the foundation of the world, decided whom He would save, will be accomplished. Nothing will or can frustrate the will of God! He
will irresistibly draw us to Himself. Philippians 1:6 states: "Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ." Again God promises and commits Himself to complete what He has begun. Can you see that the work of Christ began before the foundation of the earth? It was
implemented at the cross, where Christ became SIN for us, the believers! Our names were identified with Him at the cross. Therefore, even before we were born, He had already begun His work of grace! As we are presented with the Gospel, and as God opens our spiritual ears and hearts to respond to the Gospel, God continues His plan of salvation
for us. Philippians 1:6 declares that He will complete that which He has begun; He will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ. God's plan will no be frustrated. It is an irresistible plan under the irresistible will of God. In Matthew 16:18, Christ declares: "I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it." What
is the condition of a person before he is saved? He is a slave of Satan; he is under the dominion of darkness. He is a bond slave of his own sin, but Christ said He would build His church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it, which is to say that hell cannot hold the people whom God plans to save; no one can stop Him from what He
intends to do. The reason that men and women are being saved is that God is irresistibly drawing them. Remember that Jesus said that no man can come to Him except the Father draw him (John 6:44). It is a requirement that God draw us to Himself because spiritually we are dead. As dead people, we have nothing to offer for or against our
salvation. It is true that when many people are first bought face to face with the Gospel, they are offended. However, every once in a while, one of them will give in and admit that he is a sinner who needs salvation. What has happened to this person? God drew him. Who can resist God's will? When God wants to save a person, God begins to do his
work of salvation within that person, whose heart becomes inclined to obedience to the Gospel command to believe on Him. You see, you have as much to say about your new birth in Christ as you did about your first birth from your mother's womb. (Think about that for a moment.) Do you remember when you were born the first time? What did you have
to do with it? Could you select your parents? Could you decide when you were going to be born? Could you decide whether or not you would be born? The answers to these questions are obviously and absolutely. Of course not! You had nothing at all to do with your birth! You simply came into the world completely apart from your will. Do you recall
what Jesus said to Nicodemus in John 3:6? He said: "That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit." He is talking about the NEW BIRTH, of the Spirit, and indicates that it is just as real a birth as the first birth. God inclines our hearts; if left to ourselves, we would never seek Him. We would go our
own way until we die. We do not want to turn to God. Our lives are in complete rebellion against Him, but God decided to save some of us, in His own timetable. It may be when we are middle-aged or it may be when we are elderly and near death, but if it is God's plan to save us, you can rest assured that He will draw us at the appropriate time.
He will give us a will to believe and a desire to turn away from our sins. Nobody can frustrate the will of God. Christ said He will build His church. We have read Romans 9:16, where God says: "So then it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy." Ultimately, our wills have nothing to do with salvation.
When we respond to a Gospel, what we may think is an action of our wills, is simply the fact that God has imposed His will upon us and is irresistibly drawing us to Himself. We have read John 1:13, where God says of those who have become sons of God: "Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of
God." Could God make it any plainer? If God waited for us and our wills to respond to the Gospel, we would never be saved! We would try everything possible to frustrate the Gospel because we, of ourselves, do not want to be saved; but when God says He is going to save us, you can rest assured and He will save us! He will draw us irresistibly to
Himself. The Raising of Lazarus Shows How Our Will Is Involved in Our Salvation Let us again consider Lazarus: He was dead and in the tomb, and Christ decided to resurrect him. Christ stood outside the tomb and said, "Lazarus, come forth" (John 11:43). Let us entertain an unreasonable notion for a moment. Picture Jesus hoping that Lazarus would
will to come forth, the idea being that if Lazarus did not so will, he would not come forth. NO! This is not what happened at all! Jesus stood outside of that tomb and said, "Lazarus, come forth," and Lazarus came forth. Lazarus came forth because Christ gave him a will and inclined it with a desire to respond to that command. It was Christ's
intention to raise Lazarus, and neither Lazarus nor anyone else was able to frustrate Christ's plan to raise him. The raising of Lazarus is a dramatic picture of our salvation. When Christ comes with the Gospel, He comes to seek and to save that which was lost, and you can depend upon it that everyone whom He comes to save will be saved! There
is no way that we can frustrate the will of God! Isn't that a marvelous doctrine? Think about this: Suppose you have an unsaved loved one who is particularly rebellious against God. He is very wicked and hardened in sin, but you continue to hope for this person's salvation because you love him dearly! You try to witness to him, but he loves his
sin and does not want to hear the Gospel. And yet you know that God will not be frustrated by the wicked will of man. If God should decide to save this loved one, He would impose His will on the will of the loved one so that in due time this person would come to the Lord Jesus Christ. He would have a desire to come! Isn't that a wonderful
blessing to know? Otherwise, you would look at your friends and loved ones who are hardened in their sins and you would ay: Why pray for them? They will never respond! They're far too wicked! Their consciences have been seared! How can it be that they would ever come to the Gospel?" But praise God! God has given us this avenue of prayer! God
has promised that "The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much" (James 5:16). God expects us to pray for the unsaved, and we are to pray without ceasing. God works through our prayers. We do not know if this unsaved loved one is elect or not; that is God's business. We do not know that if he is of God's elect, God will work
through our prayers and God will impose His will upon the wicked, hardened, rebellious will of our loved one, and his spiritual eyes will be opened and he will begin to respond to the Gospel. Oh, it is so marvelous! It is so heartening to know that God is in complete charge of the salvation program, and ultimately there is nothing that man can
do to frustrate Him in any way whatsoever. The beautiful principle of the fourth part of the acronym, TULIP, irresistible grace, is comforting to us. It gives us great assurance when we know that Satan cannot hold anyone in bondage so that he is unable to come to the Lord Jesus Christ if God draws that person. Nobody can resist the will of God;
if God wants to save someone, that person will be saved. God gives us the faith and the repentance. Satan is absolutely helpless when he is against the powerful intentions of our gracious and sovereign Almighty God! Again the warning: If we believe that man can resist God's will to save those whom He plans to save, we have a gospel of grace
plus works. We are declaring that God has done what He must do and now it is up to us to take action, that is, to do a work. The work that will complete the salvation pan for us is to believe or accept what God has offered because, presumably, God will not impose His will upon us. We can receive credit for this action of ours. Thus, God has
done His part and we have done our part. Together we have accomplished our salvation . Christ has done the major work because He paid for our sins, but only because we have accepted Christ, of our own free will, does God's salvation program become effective for us. The fact that we can frustrate God's plan to save us indicates the importance of
the work we have done in accepting Christ. This line of reasoning will lead us to hell. Our work has no bearing on our salvation. We are saved by grace alone. As we have seen repeatedly in this study, any salvation plan that includes even the smallest work on our part is not the salvation plan of the Bible. The only reason we turn to Christ is
that the Father draws us. God gives us the spiritual ears to hear and the regenerated heart to believe. It is of eternal importance that we understand that God irresistibly draws us to Himself. The last letter of the acronym, TULIP, stands for Perseverance of the Saints. This concept is also referred to as Once Saved, Always Saved. Is this
doctrine Biblical? Next we will focus our attention on this matter, which is also called Eternal Security. P = Perseverance of the Saints Chapter 6 Can one lose one's salvation? This is a nagging question in the lives of many people. Let us see if we can discover the
Biblical teaching concerning the subject of eternal security, which is sometimes called the perseverance of saints. To answer the question of the security of our salvation, we should begin with tan understanding of the nature of the salvation that God has provided for us. The Biblical picture of unsaved man is that he is a sinner; his is a
slave of Satan in both body and soul. He is altogether rebellious against God. In his whole being he is perverted and spiritually destitute (Jeremiah 17:9, Romans 3:11: 11-20, Ephesians 2: 1-3). As a result of his sin, he is under sentence of death. The Bible declares in Romans 6:23, "The wages of sin is death." The nature of that death is that
he is to be eternally under God's wrath. There is no way to come into God's holy Heaven unless the penalty for sin, eternal damnation, first has been paid. From What Has God Saved Us? This brings us to the nature of the salvation that God has provided for those who are saved. Christ came as the Mediator, the Redeemer, our substitute, to pay for
our sins. In order for Him to pay for our sins, it was necessary that He be a man because it was man who sinned, and therefore man must pay the penalty for sins. It was necessary for Him to be God because had He been less than God, He would have had to remain in hell forevermore and suffer the overwhelming and terrible wrath of God as He sought
to pay for our sins. As our Mediator, He became sin for us (II Corinthians 5:21). That is, He took upon Himself all the sins, the whole sinful nature of those who have placed their trust in Him. As our substitute, burdened with our sins, He stood before the judgment throne of God and was found guilty. Because He had become guilty for our sins,
God poured out upon Him the wrath that we should suffer eternally in hell. Only because He was the God-man could He suffer so intensely that in the three days and three nights of the atonement, He was able to completely pay for all our sins. What a wonderful Savior He is! We, therefore, who have experienced this salvation, now stand before God
as if we had spent eternity in hell paying for our sins. The criminal who is released from prison after paying the full price demanded by law for his crime, stands before the law with no guilt for that crime. Likewise, after we become saved, the law of God never again can make demands upon us for our sins. Never again is there any way that we
could stand guilty before God because our Savior has atoned for every sin that we have committed and every sin that we will commit. Christ ransomed us from hell by paying the price of hell for us. Therefore, the Bible declares that "There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus" (Romans 8:1). We are in Him because He
was our substitute. When our Lord Jesus went to the cross it was as if we were hanging there experiencing the wrath of God for our sins. Since Christ paid for all our sins, there is no way that we could commit a sin that would cause us to lose our salvation. Any sin we could do was already anticipated by Christ when He paid for our sins. As
John 5:24 teaches, we do not come onto judgment. Therefore, we are eternally secure in Christ. Once we are truly saved, we can never lose that salvation because each and every sin we commit has been covered by Christ's blood. We Have Eternal Life The Bible teaches that as a result of our salvation some changes have occurred in us that have
everlasting consequences and which further emphasize that we can never lose our salvation. John 3:15 says that we have "eternal life." If Christ had gone to the cross just to give us life, conceivably we could commit a sin and lose that life; but because He has given us eternal life, by the very nature of that which is eternal, it must be
forever and ever. Thus, there is no sin that we could commit that would cause us to lose eternal life. The statement that we have eternal life implies that we can never lose our salvation. Eternal life is not merely a philosophical term that has no real substance. Rather, it refers to something that has become very substantive and real in our
lives. It relates to the fact that in a very important part of our personalities, we who are saved have become new creatures. We have been resurrected from being spiritually dead into eternal life. The Bible teaches that in our essential beings we are body and soul; we are completely integrated personalities. The Bible sometimes uses the word
"spirit" in speaking of the soul or spirit essence of man. When man has conscious existence, as we all do on this side of the grave, we cannot see the soul of man. Upon the death of an individual, however, separation of soul and body occurs. At one moment there is a whole personality, which consists of body and soul, and at the next moment,
there is only the body, which has no life in it. The soul is as real a part of that individual as his body, but the soul separated from and left the body. An example of the separation of soul and body is seen in the death of the thief on the cross. Jesus told the thief, "To day shalt thou be with me in paradise" (Luke 23:43). A bit later, Jesus
declared, "Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit" (Luke 23:46). Shortly thereafter, the body of Jesus was placed in the tomb. The body of the thief was also buried, but both Jesus and thief were present with the Father in Heaven. They went there in their soul existence. The Apostle Paul spoke of this separation when he, under the
inspiration of the Holy Spirit, emphasized that he as "willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord" (II Corinthians 5:8). Again, in Philippians 1:23-24 he confidently asserted, "having a desire to depart, and to be with Christ; which is far better: Nevertheless to abide in the flesh is more needful for you."
Furthermore, we read in Revelation 20:4, "the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the word of God,…they lived and reigned with Christ." The reason that the believer can and does go immediately into Heaven when he dies is that at the moment of salvation, he receives the resurrection of his soul. Before salvation,
both in body and soul, he is spiritually dead. We saw this clearly in Chapter 2, "Total Depravity." I Peter 4:6 declares, "For this cause was the gospel preached also to them that are dead." Obviously, the Gospel is not preached in a cemetery where bodies lie; rather, it is preached throughout the world to those who are spiritually dead. When a
person becomes saved, he experiences a resurrection; this glorious fact is taught incisively in the Bible. In Colossians 3:1 God declares, "If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God." Our Savior experienced the resurrection when He arose from the grave. Since we are risen
with Christ, we, too, have experienced the resurrection. In Ephesians 2:4-6, God says: But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love herewith he loved us, Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ (by grace ye are saved;) And hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ
Jesus. How beautifully God teaches that we have been raised with Christ. Since Christ arose, that is, He has experienced the resurrection, and since we arose with Him, we, too, have experienced the resurrection. In what part of our persons have we experienced the resurrection? It is not our bodies. Our bodies go into the tomb at death to await
the resurrection of the last day. I Corinthians 15 discusses the wonderful event of the resurrection of our bodies. It was in our souls or spirit essence that we experienced the resurrection, which is why at his physical death, the believer can go immediately into God's presence. At death, he cannot go into Heaven to be with God in his body
because his body is not yet a perfect, resurrected spiritual body (I Corinthians 15:42-44), but in his soul or spirit he can go immediately into Heaven. His soul was resurrected from the moment of salvation. This resurrection is called the first resurrection in Revelation 20:5-6, where God explains why the souls of the martyrs can live and
reign with Christ. The martyrs have already experienced the resurrection of their souls, the first resurrection, and therefore, they can go into God's presence immediately upon death. In this connection, in Revelation 20:6, God emphasizes five characteristics of those who have experienced the first resurrection: 1. They are blessed 2. They are
holy. 3. On such the second death has no power. (God teaches in Revelation 20:14 that the second death is hell.) 4. They are priests of God. 5. They reign with him. All five characteristics apply to those who have been saved. We are the blessed. For example, in what is sometimes called "The Beatitudes," in Matthew 5, our Lord speaks of various
ways in which believers are blessed. We are told in I Peter 2:9 that we are "an holy nation." We are told that we will not come into the second death, which is hell, in Romans 8:1, "There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus." We are told that we are priests of God in I Peter 2:9, where God says you are "a royal
priesthood" (see also Revelations 5:10). We reign with Him. Ephesians 1:20-22 shows us that Christ is seated at the right hand of God, reigning over everything in this age and the age to come, and Ephesians 2:6 declares that we are seated with Him. We, too, are reigning as we serve as His ambassadors on earth. Revelation 5:10, "And hast made us
unto our God kings and priests: and we shall reign on the earth." Thus, we know that the first resurrection applies to those who have experienced salvation. This explains why the believer has within himself a great love for God and an earnest desire to do God's will. We read in I John 3:9, "Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin; for his
seed remaineth in him: and he cannot sin, because he is born of God." Ion our soul we have experienced the new birth, been born from above, experienced the resurrection, become new creatures. Therefore, in our soul existence, we will never sin again. Only because our bodies have not experienced the resurrection are we still troubled by sin. In
our bodies, which are as real a part of us as our souls, we still lust after sin, and therefore we are commanded to crucify the flesh and its desires. In our souls, wherein we have already experienced the resurrection, and which is as real a part of us as our bodies, we never wish to sin again. Though the Apostle Paul, God speaks about this
struggle in the life of the child of God, in Romans 7:21-24: I find then a law, that, when I would do good, evil is present with me. For I delight in the law of God after the inward man: But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. O wretched
man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death? When we realize that the child of god has experienced the resurrection, we can understand the conflict that continues in the life of the one who has been saved. We can also understand why the Bible declares in I Peter 4:6 that believers were among those who were preached to when
they were spiritually dead and now "live according to God in the spirit." In our spirit or soul we experienced the resurrection, and therefore we can live to God. We can understand why God declares in I Thessalonians 3:13 that when Christ comes, He will come with all His saints. This truth is further underscored in Thessalonians 4:14, where God
promises that at the coming of Christ, "them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him." Those who have been saved, eventually die; that is, they fall asleep, to use the Biblical language. Their bodies are placed in graves to await the resurrection of the last day, but in their souls they continue in everlasting life. Death is simply
the time when they change residences. At death they leave their bodies and continue to live and reign with Christ in Heaven. All these marvelous truths and promises are certain and sure because at salvation we receive eternal life. How wonderful is the grace of God that He has provided such a magnificent salvation! Surely we can see that anyone
who is truly saved is eternally secure. Those people who remain unsaved and die in their sins likewise have a separation of soul and body at death. However, in their soul existence they cannot go into the presence of God because they have not experienced the resurrection of their souls. The Bible tells us that at death, the unsaved go into a
place of silence (Psalm 115:17). They will not have conscious existence again until they are raised at the end of time to stand for judgment. God speaks of this in Revelation 20:5, "But the rest of the dead [the unsaved] lived not [had to conscious existence] again until the thousand years were finished." In other words, when unsaved people
die, the next thing they will be aware of is the resurrection of the last day when they will be raised to stand for judgment. How awful that judgment will be! It is eternally important that we become saved now, while we are still living in the day of grace. Hebrews 2:3, "How shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation." Returning to the
matter of eternal security that believers enjoy, we find many passages that teach this grand truth. God declares in John 10:27-30 that we shall never perish, and no one shall snatch us out of God's hand. In Ephesians 1:12-14, we have the promise that God has given the Holy Spirit to the believer as the guarantee of his inheritance. In
Philippians 1:6 the Bible faithfully promises that God will complete His work within us. In the closing verses of Romans 8, God promises that nothing in all creation can separate us from the love of God. We read those beautiful promises in Romans 8:35 and 37-39: Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or
persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?… Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us. For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate
us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. These verses tell us that we can have confidence of our salvation. As we consider these verses, how can we think for one moment that we can lose our salvation? What about the Verses That Seem to Teach That We Can Lose Our Salvation? Do some verses indicate that we can lose our
salvation? What about such passages as Hebrews 6:4-8, Hebrews 10:26-27, II Peter 2:20, and John 15:2-6? If we read these verses superficially and isolate them from the rest of the Bible, we could come to the conclusion that a believer can lose his salvation. However, when we read them and study them as we should, that is, viewing them in the
light of everything else the Bible teaches, we know that under no circumstances could they teach that we can lose our salvation. If these verses taught that we could lose our salvation, they would present a major contradiction to the other passages of Scripture that indicate the nature of our salvation and the promises of God that concern the
eternal character of our salvation. The Body of Christ: Individuals and Corporate The passages that seem to teach that it is possible to lose our salvation must be faced. They, too, are part of the Bible. We can understand them if we keep in mind, as we learned earlier, that the Bible presents the body of Christ of the church in two ways.
Sometimes when the Bible talks about Christ's body or the church, it is speaking of individual believers who have personally become born again. These individuals are, of course, eternally secure in Christ, as we have seen from the foregoing passages. The Bible also presents the body of Christ as a corporate body, that is, an organized
membership of those who have declared their desire to serve God. The corporate body is seen in the congregations, denominations, and groups of believers that have been formed throughout the New Testament period and who declare that they will serve the Lord Jesus Christ. Within the corporate body of church members are many people who are not
born again. Corporately they have become citizens of God's Kingdom by virtue of their church membership; personally, they have not become new creatures in Christ, and Christ has not paid for their sins. They have not personally accepted the fact that they are spiritually bankrupt and the fact that only by race can they be saved. They believe
that because they have joined the church and attempt to live a holy life, they are worthy before God. They have knowledge of many things that the Bible teaches. They know that the bible declares that mankind is sinful and under the wrath of God. They know that Christ is the only way but personally and individually, Christ has not become an
intrinsic and intimate part of their lives. They are yet in their sins. Israel: An Example of God's Corporate Body Israel of old is an excellent example of the corporate body, in which there were both saved and unsaved people. Every Israelite was convinced that he was saved and acceptable to God. He believed this in view of the fact that Israel
was the chosen race, and also because he kept the ceremonial laws. However, the Bible teaches that most of the people of Israel, at any time in its history, were unsaved. This is declared most graphically in Hebrews 3:15-19, where God states that they could not enter in His rest because they believed not. This passage in Hebrews remembers
ancient Israel when they were in the wilderness on the way to Canaan. They were intimately associated with God as He guided them in a cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night. They drank the water that miraculously cam from the rock. They ate the manna that came from Heaven. They were enlightened concerning the will of God. They were under
the personal leadership of that great type of Christ, Moses. But most of them were not saved. The Bible sadly records in Hebrews 3:19: "that they could not enter in because of unbelief," and explains in Hebrews 4:2, "the word preached did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in them that heard it." Corporately they were members of
Christ's body. Corporately they were identified with the Lord Jesus Christ. Corporately they were the bride of Christ. Corporately they were acquainted with the promises of God. Corporately they experienced many blessings of God in their lives; but personally they were not saved. They individually had not trusted God with saving faith.
Therefore, they were subject to hell. The same situation prevails in the church today. There are some members of the congregation who are in good and regular standing. They might teach Sunday School. They might be pastors. They might pray fervently. They might read the Bible. They might do all the things that true believers do, but if they have
not become new creatures in Christ, they are not saved. These are the people whom God has in view in such passages as Hebrews 6:4-8, Hebrews 10:26-27, II Peter 2:20, and John 15:2, 6. Like Nicodemus, who was a faithful member of the Jewish congregation of his day, they must be born from above before they can enter Heaven. Obviously, those in
the congregation who have not experienced the new birth and yet believe that they are saved should rightly believe that they can fall from grace. The salvation they follow is one in which they expect to be declared worthy before God because of their church membership or because of their actions as seemingly committed Christians. When they stop
living this way, they are no longer identified with the body of Christ. The fact is that they were never saved. The Teaching that We Can Lose Our Salvation Is a Dangerous Doctrine The doctrine that we can fall from grace or lose our salvation is indeed very dangerous in the sense that effectively it makes our works grounds for salvation. If we
believe that by God's grace we are saved but because we are weak in ourselves and depart from the law of God, we stand guilty before God, then effectively we are declaring that a condition of our salvation is that we do good works. In other words, we think we are saved by God's grace in some sense, but in actuality, we attempt to gain our
salvation by living some kind of holy life. Therefore, we have effectively designed our own salvation plan whereby we can merit God's continued favor and salvation by our acts in doing good works. Our salvation, therefore, would no longer be a gracious bestowal of God's grace, that is, God's unmerited favor, upon hopelessly and spiritually
bankrupt sinners, but would be something we have earned because of holy lives. We have fallen into the same snare as the Jews, of whom God speaks in Galatians 5, who insisted that circumcision was a requirement for salvation. God declares that shoe who believe this are not under grace but under the curse of the law. Ephesians 2:8-10 states that
we are saved by grace and not by works. Our works can never save us because the Bible teaches that our best works are as filthy rags in God's sight (Isaiah 64:6). In James 2:10, God declares that if we have broken one of the smallest points of the law, we are guilty of the whole law of God. In other words, if we think that we can be saved by
doing good works, we have elected to follow a salvation plan whereby we have to be absolutely perfect before Him. If we deviate in the slightest way from the perfection of God's law, we immediately come into the condemnation of sin and will be cast into hell. Praise God that our salvation is of grace! The works that we do result from God's
grace in our lives. Some people are afraid that if we teach that we cannot lose our salvation, someone who is a believer will become a profane and wicked person. They think that because such a person has the security of believing that Christ has paid for all his sins, he will, therefore, enjoy the pleasure of sin. Anyone who has truly become a
child of God will realize the impossible nature of this statement. A true child of God is a new creature in Christ; he lives with an eternal resurrected soul. Sin is now abhorrent to him. He does not require the threat of God's condemnation to be motivated to live a holy life. A child of god deeply loves God and has a sincere desire to please
Him and be obedient to Him. In the eyes of an unsaved person, who lusts after sin both in body and soul, sin is very attractive. In the life of the true believer, who has received his resurrected soul, there is a severe conflict within his own personality when he sins. In the believer's new soul, he feels violated if he gives in to the lusts of
his sinful body . The believer finds that his highest pleasure in his obedience to God because this is the kind of life in which his soul has pleasure. Moreover, God indwells him. The believer is the property of God, in view of the fact that he was ransomed by Christ. God will deal with him if he continues in sin. It is thus impossible for a
born-from-above believer to backslide and live as the unsaved person he was before he became a new creature in Christ. Peace with God Therefore, we see conclusively that there is no question about the eternal security of our salvation. What a tremendous comfort to those of us who have experienced God's saving grace in our lives! We never have
to live with the feeling that we might commit a sin of which we are unaware of for which we have not specifically asked forgiveness, and thus end up in hell. We live with the peace of God in our hearts, knowing that we are eternally sons of God. We live with the tremendous joy that comes from knowing that Christ has paid for all our sins. We
will never have to answer to God for our sins. We will never stand before the judgment throne of God. The Lord Jesus Christ, our substitute, our Mediator, has already stood condemned before God on our behalf. As our sin-bearer, He has already borne the wrath of God that we so rightly deserve! What a magnificent salvation God has provided for
us! On that note we conclude our consideration of Eternal Security, which is also referred to as the doctrine once saved, always saved. We have considered it under the topic of the Perseverance of the Saints, which is the P in the acronym TULIP. This ends our study of TULIP. Conclusion Chapter 7 We have come to the end of our study of the magnificent salvation program God has provided. We have seen that God indeed has a well-meant offer of salvation that goes to the whole world, and He has promised that whosoever believes on Him should not perish but have everlasting life. We have seen, however, that
because man is dead in his sins, that is, completely rebellious against God and enslaved to Satan, he will never of his own will respond to the Gospel. But before the foundations of the earth, Christ had an intricate and detailed plan of salvation wherein He named those whom He would save. Therefore, as the Gospel goes out into all the world,
Christ is seeking out those whom He has planned to save; and indeed He will save them! God is sovereign in these things and nothing can frustrate God's eternal will. Again the question might be raised: "Where do I stand if I am unsaved and not one of God's elect? Is there any possibility that I can be saved?" The answer we must give is that
God's election program is God's business and not ours. If we are unsaved, there is only one way to become right with God and that is through the Lord Jesus Christ. If we recognize our sins, throw ourselves on the mercies of God, and trust Christ as our Savior, whether we think we are elect or not, we will find that there is hope only in the
precious blood of Christ at the cross. If a person is elect unto salvation, God will incline his will, and that person will want to be saved. He will never, in his born-again soul, want to sin again. If a person is not predestined unto salvation, he will not be the least bit interested in God's salvation program. He might try to design a
salvation plan of his own, but he will not care about God's salvation plan. I am reminded that at the reformer Martin Luther, when he was a young lad, read St. Augustine's writings concerning election and predestination, which were based upon the Biblical writings of Paul, Luther struggled in anguish with the horrible thought that, as much as
he wanted to be saved and faithful, perhaps he was not one of the elect who were predestined unto salvation. Just the thought that he was not one of God's elect caused him great distress. In anxiety and tears, he brought this concern to his beloved pastor, who told him, "Stop worrying, Martin, about these lofty theological matters! Instead,
look to the precious shed blood of Jesus at the cross, which was shed for your sins! That is where forgiveness lies! Look at the blood of Jesus shed at Calvary for the forgiveness of your sins and for your salvation!" Yes, it is true that salvation is found at the cross. Keep your eyes upon your precious Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ! Find your
salvation and forgiveness in His shed blood at the cross of Calvary! The advice given to Luther is good advice for us when we struggle with such questions. You see, at the point where we are feeling anxiety, God is in fact calling. At that point, don't worry about predestination and election! Just trust Jesus! He came to seek and to save that
which was lost. When you recognize that you ought to go to Hell for your sins, and yet you do not want to, but would rather spend eternity in joy praising our wonderful God in the fellowship of the saints, then simply throw yourself on the mercy of God and cry out to Him for His loving salvation through the blood of Jesus Christ. God clearly
teaches that if you seek Him with all your heart (Deuteronomy 4:29), you will be saved. "Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you" (Matthew 7:7). But as many as received him, to them gave he power [the right or privilege] to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name:
Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God" (John 1:12-13). After you are saved, you will want to study the Bible; and when you read it, you will realize that when you wanted to be saved, it was because God was drawing you. He elected you. He did His work of grace within your heart. You had
become born again of the will of God. The doctrine of election does not frustrate the Gospel call in any way. It is rather the insurance program that guarantees that the Gospel program of God will be successful. In a deeper sense of speaking, actually, it is the shed blood of Jesus, that is, the fact that Christ has experienced the second death
that guarantees that the Gospel program of God will be successful. When saved, you will yield to God as he turns you from your own salvation program and makes you a part of His salvation program. If your will has been broken in repentance to God through Christ, as God empowers you this will be the evidence that God has saved you. I trust that
this study helps us all to gain a greater appreciation what a great and wonderful, loving God we have! He is sovereign in every area of our lives. Praise God for His magnificent salvation program! Scripture Index Genesis Numbers Deuteronomy Joshua Psalms Isaiah Jeremiah Ezekiel Matthew Mark Luke John Acts Romans I Corinthians II Corinthians
Galatians Ephesians Philippians James I Peter II Peter I John Revelation |
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