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By Philip A. Matthews

 Eternal Security is the doctrine that simply states, “Once saved, always saved (OSAS). This doctrine teaches that once a person has been born again by trusting in Jesus as his personal Savior, i.e., “saved, he can never be eternally lost, i.e., go to hell after his life has ended, no matter how far that person may backslide or live and die in unconfessed sin after his initial belief in Christ. Eternal security claims that one act of faith in Christ at some time in a person’s life guarantees heaven for them forevermore.

So, according to this doctrine, there is no way for a saved person to backslide and be lost. There is no way for you to “lose your salvation. There is no way to “fall from grace. There is no such thing as “losing out or “going back on God, with the consequence being that a person who was once saved goes to hell. There is no such thing as “apostasy. Once you are saved, you are “preserved. This is known in Calvinism as the “preservation of the saints. Sometimes it is referred to as “assurance in Christ.

God’s Promises Are Conditional

In commenting on this doctrine, it should first be noted that the promises of God are all conditional. That is, God’s promised benefits are given to people as they meet the conditions stated or implied within that promise. In other words, God’s promises have strings attached. He does not make blanket promises that apply to everybody in every place for every time. His promises are for specific people who meet specific conditions and qualifications for the specific benefits promised.

Take John 3:16 for example. The promise is that “whosoever believes in Him (Jesus) should not perish but have everlasting life. There is a condition here that must be met before you can receive everlasting life: You must first believe in Jesus. If (which specifies a condition) you believe in Him, then you will not perish and you will have everlasting life. But if you do not believe in Him, then you will not have everlasting life and you will perish.

Let’s take another example, Galatians 6:9: “And let us not be weary in well doing; for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not. The condition that must be met, before the promise to reap can be fulfilled, is that we must not faint. So if we faint, then it follows that we shall not reap.

But it also follows that if we have reaped, then it must be true that we did not faint. Otherwise, if we reaped and yet we did faint, then it must be true that we will reap whether we faint or not. This makes the conditional statement absolutely useless and the verse nonsensical: we shall reap if do not faint and we shall reap if we do faint. No matter what we do, we shall reap. But if this be the case, then Paul’s warning against fainting is meaningless and utter nonsense. Why encourage people not to faint when in actuality it does not matter if they do or they don’t.

But what is the point here? The point is that, every conditional statement in the Bible”implied or direct”is what is called a “tautology. That is, it is true both ways”forward and backward. Thus, it is true that “if we do not faint, then we shall reap. And it is also true that if we do faint, then we will not reap. It is also true that if we have reaped, then we must not have fainted, as well as, if we did not reap, then we must have fainted. In logic, these statements condense into this: “We shall reap if and only if we do not faint.

The Bible Is Logically Valid

Thus, the conditional, “if-then -type statements of the Bible are tautological. If they are not, then many contradictions, untruths, and nonsensical statements result. This principle of logic must be used throughout the New Testament regarding all conditional statements and promises. The “If always means “If and Only If. If it does not, then the conditional statement becomes unconditional, thus stripping the statement of all sense and meaning.

Let’s take one more example, one much more directly applicable to the issue at hand, eternal security. Second Peter 1:10-11 (NIV) reads: “Therefore, my brothers, be all the more eager [“diligent KJV] to make your calling and election sure. For if you do these things, you will never fall, and you will receive a rich welcome into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.Exactly what things is Peter telling them to do? Obviously, he means the things he listed in verses 5 through 9: “Add to your faith virtue; and to virtue knowledge; and to knowledge temperance; and to temperance patience; and to patience godliness; and to godliness brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness charity [love]. These are the “things they are to add. Then in verse 8 he states that if “these things be in you and abound, you will not be unfruitful. In verse 9, he warns that if you “lack these things, you are blind, cannot see afar off, and have forgotten that you were purged from your sins. Finally in verse 10, he says that “if you do these things, you will never fall¦and receive a rich welcome¦

Now this “if is an “if and only if. The promise is that you will never fall and you will receive a rich welcome if and only if “you do these things. This rules out the possibility that you will never fall and you will receive a rich welcome without doing “these things.It must be true that if you do not do these things, then you will fall. If you do not do these things, then you will not receive a rich welcome. If it were possible for them to not do these things and still receive a rich welcome, then it makes no sense to warn them about it at all.

Applied to eternal security, this principle thus completely  rules out the possibility of somebody getting saved, then going back out into sin and failing to do “these things, but still they never “fall and still they “receive a rich welcome into heaven. Anybody who gets saved, then fails to grow in grace, instead choosing to revert back to his old sinful lifestyle, has definitely fallen and will not be welcomed into heaven. If they make it to heaven anyway, living their sinful unrepentant lifestyle, then 2 Peter 1:10-11”and most of the rest of the New Testament”is a sham and a mockery.

There are many other such scriptures to which this principle of “if and only if applies. Revelation 2:10 promises, “Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life. This must mean, “I will give you a crown of life if and only if you are faithful until death. If you are not faithful until death”if you quit believing, if you quit doing the Lord’s will, quit obeying and following His word”then it is pretty obvious that I will not give you a crown of life. If you could get this crown of life without being faithful until death, then it would not make sense for Jesus to hold this out as some kind of reward for faithfulness and good behavior.

In Revelation 3:1-5, Jesus speaks of some Christians and a church that has been spiritually alive (saved) but are “about to die (NIV). He states why: “I have not found your deeds complete in the sight of My God. However, He finds that a few Christians there have not “soiled or “defiled their garments, i.e., do not have sin in their lives. These He promises will “walk with me, dressed in white, for they are worthy. Then He promises: “He that overcomes [i.e., maintains their deeds and lives of holiness] will, like them, be dressed in white. I will never blot out his name from the book of life, but will acknowledge his name before My Father and His angels. So He promises to do three things”dress them in white, not blot out their names, and acknowledge them before God”if and only if they will overcome. What if they do not overcome? Then it logically follows that He will not dress them in white, He will blot out their names from the book of life, and He will not acknowledge knowing them before His Father. The promise is to overcomers only. What could be more plain and logical?

There is one more of these conditional statements found in Hebrews 3:14 (KJV): “For we are partakers of Christ, if we hold the beginning of our confidence steadfast unto the end. In other words, we are partakers in Christ if and only “if we hold firmly till the end the confidence we had at first (NIV). Obviously, if we do not hold that first confidence, we will not be partakers in Christ. The promise is not just to everybody, but only to those who hold to their first confidence. Paul was writing to some Christians that were being sorely tested and persecuted, and were tempted to give up. Those who let go of their faith in Christ would lose their participation and fellowship with Him. This concept Paul repeated in chapter 10:32-39. He warned those Christians not to be of “those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who believe and are saved.

The Historical and “Scriptural Basis For Eternal Security

The doctrine of eternal security is generally attributed to John Calvin, whose followers are called Calvinists or members of the Reformed tradition. But even Calvinists acknowledge that much of their doctrine originates with St. Augustine of Hippo (Algeria in Northern Africa), the Catholic (or pre-Catholic) theologian of the 4^th century (354-430). He did quite a bit of writing on “Original Sin, which the reformers, Martin Luther and John Calvin, both borrowed.

Calvin “systemized his beliefs in the Institutes of Religion, a rather large work that serves as the basis for what is now known as Calvinism. His teachings regarding salvation can be summarized with the following famous acronym representing the “Five Points of Calvinism, TULIP:

1. T = Total Depravity, also called “total inability,” asserts that as a consequence of the fall of man into sin, every person is enslaved to sin (derived from Augustine’s “original sin ). People are not by nature inclined to love God but rather to serve their own interests and to reject the rule of God. Thus, all people by their own faculties are morally unable to choose to follow God and be saved because they are unwilling to do so out of the necessity of their own natures. This eliminates “freewill (see below).
2. U = Unlimited Election asserts that God has chosen from eternity those whom he will bring to himself, not based on foreseen virtue, merit, or faith in those people. Instead, his choice is unconditionally grounded in his mercy alone. God sovereignly extends mercy to those he has chosen and to withhold mercy from those not chosen.
3. L = Limited Atonement, also called “particular redemption” or “definite atonement,” asserts that Jesus’ atonement was definite and certain in its purpose and in what it accomplished. This implies that only the sins of the elect were atoned for by Jesus’ death. Calvinists do not believe, however, that the atonement is limited in its value or power, but rather that the atonement is limited in the sense that it is intended for some and not all. 
4. I = Irresistible Grace, also called “efficacious grace,” asserts that the saving grace of God is effectually applied to those whom he has determined to save (that is, the elect) and overcomes their resistance to obeying the call of the gospel, bringing them to a saving faith. This means that when God sovereignly purposes to save someone, that individual certainly will be saved.
5. P = Perseverance of the Saints asserts that since God is sovereign and his will cannot be frustrated by humans or anything else, those whom God has called into communion with himself will continue in faith until the end. Those who apparently fall away either never had true faith to begin with or will return to the faith.[1] This is the point known today as “Once Saved, Always Saved. They can never be lost.

Comparison among Protestants

This table from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calvinism summarizes the classical views of three Protestant beliefs about salvation.

Topic

Calvinism

Lutheranism

Arminianism

Human will

Total Depravity without free will permanently due to divine sovereignty

Total Depravity without free will until spiritual regeneration

Depravity does not prevent free will

Election

Unconditional election to salvation with those outside the elect foreordained to damnation (double-predestination)^[35]

Unconditional predestination to salvation for the elect

Conditional election in view of foreseen faith or unbelief

Justification

Justification is limited to those predestined to salvation, completed at Christ’s death

Justification by faith alone, completed at Christ’s death.

Justification made possible for all through Christ’s death, but only completed upon choosing faith in Jesus

Conversion

Monergistic, through the inner calling of the Holy Spirit, irresistible

Monergistic, through the means of grace, resistible

Synergistic, resistible due to the common grace of free will

Preservation and apostasy

Perseverance of the saints: the eternally elect in Christ will necessarily persevere in faith

Falling away is possible, but God gives assurance of preservation.

Preservation is conditional upon continued faith in Christ; with the possibility of a final apostasy.

These doctrines have been argued among Protestants for several centuries. Presently there are Christians who call themselves “3-point, “4-point, and 5-point Calvinists. Some denominations (e.g., many Baptists) could be classified as “1-point Calvinists, simply because they usually reject all of the first four points and hold only to Point Five, the “Perseverance of the Saints, i.e., “once saved, always saved. But many major Calvinist teachers point out that Point Five is impossible without the other four points. They all stand or fall together.

The Surefire Proof That We Have Freewill

It should be obvious that most of the above differences hinge on the issue of “freewill and the ability to choose morally. A great inconsistency arises when people want to believe in freewill, but then try to believe in eternal security also. The result then is that freewill allows a person to choose to believe in Christ and thereby be saved, but later choose not to believe in Christ but retain his salvation. And yet, by biblical definition, only a believer in Christ is saved. There simply is no salvation for those who do not believe in Christ. Salvation for unbelievers would contradict everything in the New Testament!

So how do we prove freewill? This is a surefire method:

• First of all, it is obvious that in the Garden of Eden, God gave humans the power and freewill to make a choice: To eat or not eat the fruit. Even Calvinism must admit this existence of freewill at the beginning.
• Adam and Eve chose to eat of the fruit, fell into sin, became depraved, etc. Now Calvinism says that this depravity was so total and complete that, since that time, “all people by their own faculties are morally unable to choose to follow God and be saved because they are unwilling to do so out of the necessity of their own natures. That is, even if we still had freewill, that depraved freewill can by necessity choose only to go a downward way, an evil path, etc., and is completely unable to choose God.
• However, that is preposterous because thousands of years later, God Himself again gives the Israelites a chance to make a choice for Him and His way: “See, I have set before thee this day life and good, and death and evil; In that I command thee this day to love the LORD thy God, to walk in his ways, and to keep his commandments and his statutes and his judgments, that thou mayest live and multiply: and the LORD thy God shall bless thee in the land whither thou goest to possess it. But if thine heart turn away, so that thou wilt not hear, but shalt be drawn away, and worship other gods, and serve them; I denounce unto you this day, that ye shall surely perish, and that ye shall not prolong your days upon the land, whither thou passest over Jordan to go to possess it. I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live: That thou mayest love the LORD thy God, and that thou mayest obey his voice, and that thou mayest cleave unto him: for he is thy life, and the length of thy days (Deuteronomy 30:15-20).
• It’s pretty obvious here that the Lord God of heaven believes that these people actually are able to choose Him and His way. Otherwise, if their ability to choose God and righteousness was so impaired and “totally depraved, God would be grossly unfair and utterly mean-spirited to give them a “choice that they could not possibly make! He would be unrealistically expecting “blood out of a turnip, then judging and punishing the turnip for failing to do something it could not possibly do! And there are many other instances in the Bible where God gives fallen people a chance to exercise their freewill and expects them to choose Him. We can choose, and because of this, the whole first, foundational assumption of Calvinism, i.e., the “T in the TULIP, comes crashing down! And the rest of the theory falls with it.

The Faithfulness and Immutability of God

However, most proponents of OSAS today don’t even bother with the historical origins of eternal security, but generally base their beliefs on a few main popular arguments: (1) The faithfulness and immutability of God in His promises and gifts; (2) The analogy that spiritual birth and sonship is like natural birth and sonship; (3) The “No one can pluck them out of His hand concept in John 10:27-30; and (4) The “saved by grace, not by works argument.

Regarding the faithfulness and immutability of God, it is sometimes stated by proponents that “God is not an Indian-giver, meaning that whatever God gives, He gives for forever. He will never take His gifts back. “God’s gifts and His call are irrevocable (Romans 11:29 NIV). Since the “gift of God is eternal life (Romans 6:23), once He has given a soul eternal life, He will never take it back. They have that eternal life forever, no matter how they have behaved since they received it.

This may sound somewhat reasonable, until we read the rest of the passage and context, and discover that, once again, this promise is conditional. Romans 6:22-23 reads: “But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves to God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness and the result is eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. The conditions to be met here are plainly stated in verse 22: “If you are set free from sin and are slaves to God¦ The “result is eternal life. If you are not set free from sin, but have gone back into daily, habitual sin, and you are no longer a slave to God but are instead a slave again to evil, then it is not possible for the “result still to be eternal life. If you go back to living in sin, then the first part of verse 23 applies to you: “¦the wages of sin is death¦

God’s promises are immutable, but only to those who meet the conditions. Where the conditions are not met, the performance of the promise simply does not occur. The conditions God requires always involve His holy standards. If He were to fulfill His promise regardless of whether the conditions have been met or not, God would paint Himself into a corner of having to reward something that falls far below His standards. This would force Him into actually violating His own holy nature, and God cannot and will not contradict Himself. Therefore, all conditions must be met before His promises take effect.

But, regarding His gifts, some object that if God’s gifts are conditional, then they are not truly gifts but merely rewards for meeting the conditions.

The Analogy of Spiritual Birth and Sonship

The concept that once a child is born into a family it is always a member of that family is another linchpin doctrine of eternal security. We can only be naturally born into this world once; we can only be “born again into God’s kingdom once. Once a person is born again as a child of God, they are in His family forever. Being a bad child, even a disgraceful child, does not remove them from the family. So the reasoning goes.

This would not at first appear to be faulty reasoning. But all spiritual reasoning needs some kind of validation or confirmation from scripture, and there are no verses to support such reasoning. Who said that the spiritual family is in this respect like the natural family? Indeed, they are very different. In the natural family, babies are born into it without any choice of their wills. But no one is born into the spiritual family without making a deliberate choice to receive Christ. Our will enters the equation in the spiritual birth. Therefore, it follows that our wills must play a part in whether we remain part of the spiritual family.

We do not enter the spiritual family against our will, nor do we remain a member of the spiritual family against our will. In the New Testament, we have a few examples of men who did not choose to remain a part of the spiritual family, and scripture records they lost out with God:

• Judas (John 17:12 “None has been lost, but the son of perdition¦ Evidently, Judas had once been found or saved: One cannot lose something that was never possessed; Acts 1:15-26).
• Another example is Hymenaeus, Philetus, and Alexander (1 Timothy 1:19-20 “Some¦have shipwrecked their faith. Among them are Hymenaeus and Alexander¦; 2 Timothy 2:17-18 “Among them are Hymenaeus and Philetus, who have wandered away from the truth¦ ). This they willfully did (“apoÌ„theomai= “thrust away in 1 Tim 1:19). They obviously had at one time possessed true faith”but thrust it away, wandered away from it, wrecked it, and even “blasphemed it away (v. 20). They are not still saved.

“No Man Can Pluck Them Out of My Hand

            This verse, John 10:27-28, is probably the most quoted scripture used to support eternal security. “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me: And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. My Father, which gave them Me, is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them out of My Father’s hand.

Now this verse is indeed a very comforting and assuring verse from which all Christians can gather strength. However, it does not teach eternal security because, once again, this promise, too, is conditional. First of all, Jesus is talking about His “sheep. His sheep have several characteristics that constitute the conditions required for this promise. In verse 27 He says that “My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me¦ Then He promises them eternal life. So the condition is to be one of His sheep, which means that you “hear His voice. Inherent in this word “hear is the concept of “listening (NIV), heeding and obeying. Also, He says, “I know them¦ That is, Jesus and His sheep are in fellowship and communion together; they share in the same Spirit. Sin breaks fellowship (1 John 1; 2 Corinthians 6:14), and iniquity and doing one’s own thing causes Jesus to say, “I don’t know you (Matthew 25:12). Last, He says, “They follow Me¦ In other words, they are My disciples. They imitate Me; they obey Me. They do what I do, and go where I go. Following Jesus means that they have “denied themselves and “taken up their crosses (Matthew 16:24).

This, by definition, is a “sheep of Jesus Christ. And this is who He promises cannot be “plucked out of His hand. But this promise does not apply to some ex-Christian who has turned from following Jesus and is not “hearing or obeying His voice any longer. Such a person is no longer even in the hands of the Lord. Nobody “plucked him out; he removed himself. There is nothing stated in this verse or any other Bible passage that a person cannot voluntarily remove Himself from God’s hands. We cannot lose our salvation involuntarily, but we can give it up by our own freewill.

The “Saved By Grace, Not By Works Argument

Another main argument for eternal security is that which says, Since we did not receive salvation by works, we cannot be keep or maintain salvation by works. See Ephesians 2:8-10 and Titus 3:5, which state more or less that “we are saved by grace, through faith, not by works.

The rest of the scripture, verse 10, states plainly that we are not saved by good works, but we are definitely saved for good works, i.e., to do good works. The ability to do these “good works did not earn us our salvation but is a reliable proof or confirmation that we have salvation. Thus, it can be logically concluded that if our lives are not characterized by good works but instead by the normal habitual and sinful works of the flesh commonly committed by all unregenerate people, then we are most likely not saved. If at one time we did live a life characterized by good works but now we no longer do, then it is very likely that we once were saved but have now chosen not to be.

Also, we must be careful not to get too harsh or dogmatic about these “works concepts because Jesus Himself once told some people how to get saved: “Jesus replied, ˜This is the work (service) that God asks of you: that you believe in the One Whom He has sent [that you cleave to, trust, rely on, and have faith in His Messenger]’ (John 6:29 AMP). In other words, the work that we must perform to get saved is to believe! So believing or having faith is itself a “work” which saves us!

Philippians 2:12 should also prevent us from getting too dogmatic about works: “Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. This verse probably sounds worse than it actually is: It does not mean to work to earn your salvation, but to “cultivate, carry out to the goal, and fully complete (AMP) the good works that help us prove or confirm our existing salvation.

General Comments on the Above Positions

One of the basic rules of biblical interpretation is that, whenever you choose to interpret a passage of Scripture one way, then that interpretation cannot possibly be true IF it contradicts other clear biblical passages. If our interpretation does contradict other clear biblical passages, then it is obvious that we need to seek for another non-contradictory interpretation. That is, if our interpretation of a certain scripture causes conflicts with the rest of the Bible, then it must mean something other than what we thought it meant.

For example, if we decide that it is true that God only chooses certain individuals to be saved (predestination: ), then the biblical statement, “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 (2 Peter 3:9), is contradicted. God cannot BOTH choose only certain people to be saved but at the same time desire ALL people to be saved.

Or, if we lean too heavily on the idea that God Himself chooses or “elects which individuals to save and those who are not chosen can never be saved (predestination again), then we eliminate the concept of “freewill. When freewill is eliminated, we then contradict dozens of other scriptures that appear to assume free-will: “Whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely (Rev 22:17); “See, I have set before thee this day life and good, and death and evil (Deut 30:15); etc. But most of all, if we do not have free will, we cannot be held responsible and accountable. But the scripture is plain throughout that we are accountable to God for our behavior, choices, and moral decisions:  Luke 11:31-32; Romans 14:10; 2 Corinthians 5:10; Hebrews 9:27; 1 Peter 4:17; Jude 15; Matthew 12:36; Ecclesiastes 12:14 and 11:9; Psalm 1:5; Genesis 18:25; etc.

So the general conclusion that avoids conflicts and contradiction is that God elects all people to be saved who will call upon His name (Romans 10:1-21). It is left up to the individual’s free choice, which is talked about throughout the whole Bible, to accept or reject salvation and to accept the consequences of that choice.

Go to Part Two.