The Gospel in Twenty Questions (24 page)

I said one promise from the
Lord should be enough, and I’ve given you two. Just to settle matters once and
for all, here are seven more promises from your heavenly Father that speak
directly to your eternal security. Write them on your heart and take them to
the bank because they are gold.

For a
Christian to lose their salvation and be expelled from the kingdom…

1. God would have to forsake us, when he said he
wouldn’t (Hebrews 13:5).

2. God would have to cast us out, when he said he
wouldn’t (John 6:37).

3. God would have to condemn us, when he said he
wouldn’t (Romans 8:1, 34).

4. God would have to withdraw his Spirit, when he said
he wouldn’t (John 14:16–17).

5. God would have to remember our sins, when he said
he wouldn’t (Jeremiah 31:34, Hebrews 10:17).

6. God would have to forget that we are his children,
when he said he wouldn’t (Isaiah 49:15).

7. God would have to blot our names out of the book of
life, when he said he wouldn’t (Revelation 3:5).

Isn’t this good news? Come on! This
is the best news in the world! I know these promises aren’t widely proclaimed,
but they should be. God’s promises, which are embodied in Jesus, are meant to
be a sure foundation for your times (Isaiah 33:6).

“Paul, I
don’t quite get this. Are you saying we don’t need to respond to Jesus?” No,
you definitely need to respond. But the response God is looking for is child-like
faith, not a lifetime of flawless Christian performance. Faith is a rest. Faith
is saying, “I distrust myself; I trust Jesus. He has done it all.”

For no matter how many promises God has
made, they are “Yes” in Christ. (2 Corinthians 1:20a)

If you are trying to deliver on
promises you have made to God, you will be anxious and fruitless. You’ll lie
awake wondering if you have done enough to qualify. The cure for your
insecurity is Jesus. He is the emphatic “Yes!” to all of God’s promises.

The promises of God ought to be
an anchor for your soul, but when you don’t know God as your Father or you
haven’t seen the finished work of the cross, unbelief can be hard to shake. In
the minds of the anxious these promises can actually become threats. Consider
this promise from Jesus:

He who overcomes shall be clothed in white garments,
and I will not blot out his name from the Book of Life; but I will confess his
name before my Father and before his angels. (Revelation 3:5, NKJV)

Some Christians read this and
worry that Jesus will do the very thing he promised not to do. They fear he
will blot out their names from the Lamb’s Book of Life. And why would he do that?
Because we mess up and make mistakes. “If I don’t overcome in the trials of
life, I’m going to be blotted out. I’ll be disqualified from the kingdom.”

Why do they
read it this way? Because they have an old covenant mindset that says, “I’m
safe as long as I don’t sin.”

The Lord replied to Moses, “Whoever has sinned against
me I will blot out of my book.” (Exodus 32:33)

Under the old covenant, your
performance mattered a great deal. You were safe if you were good but lost if
you weren’t. Naturally this made people anxious and insecure.
What if I
stumble? What if I fall? God will blot me out of his book!

But we don’t
live under that old, sin-conscious covenant. We live under the new and better
covenant of God’s grace. Under grace, your performance affects your standing
not one bit. Jesus did it all. We are not blessed because we are faithful, but
because he is faithful.

If you are
worried about getting your name blotted out, you are reading a new covenant
promise through an old covenant lens. Read the words of Jesus again. “I will
never blot out his name.” Never means
never
. It’s meant to be good news.
It’s meant to give you peace and comfort. It’s meant to make you smile.

“But Paul,
it’s a promise with conditions. It only applies to those who overcome.” Don’t
you see? In the new covenant, Jesus fulfills all the
conditions
on your behalf. In him you have already overcome the world (John 16:33). There
is no overcoming outside of Jesu
s.

“Paul, you’re
taking this out of context. Jesus has just warned those in Sardis that they
need to repent or they will be in trouble.” Actually Jesus identifies two
groups of people in Sardis. There was a group that remained dead in sins and
needed to get saved and another group dressed in white (see Revelation 3:1–4).
Jesus is distinguishing those who trust him from those who don’t. The promises of
God are not for those who reject him. They’re for those who trust him. Have you
received the grace of God that comes through Jesus? Then the promise is for
you.

“It can’t be
that simple. If Jesus is offering a carrot, there must be a stick. If he’s
saying we can go in, there must be a chance we can go out.” Now there’s a
thought. It’s like Jesus is sitting in heaven with a pen in one hand and a
bottle of correction fluid in the other. Get saved, name goes in. Fail a test,
name goes out. Recommit your life to God, name goes back in. With all the recommitments
going on, you’d think Jesus was in danger of repetitive stress injury.

God knows you
better than you know yourself. When he added your name to his book he knew
everything you had done and everything you would do. There is nothing you can
do that will surprise him, nothing that would cause him to shake his head with
disappointment and say, “I made a mistake adopting that one.” God doesn’t make
mistakes. When he added you to his book it was for all eternity.

In the new
covenant there is only one thing that God promises to blot out, and it’s not
your name—it’s your sins:

I, even I, am he who blots out your transgressions,
for my own sake, and remembers your sins no more. (Isaiah 43:25)

God promised to blot out all
your sins and he did that already. If your sins have been blotted out, then
your name cannot be. This was good news for the saints in Sardis, and it’s good
news for us today.

“But Paul, what about all those
scriptures that say we have to hold fast, continue, and endure to the end?”
[41]

We’ll to get
to some of those scriptures in the coming chapters, but let me put your mind at
rest right now. Do you have a need to hold fast? Do you have a need to continue
and endure? Do you have a need to overcome, obey, avoid sin, be holy, and
persevere? Yes, we all have these needs. But look at this …

My God will meet all your needs according to the
riches of his glory in Christ Jesus. (Philippians 4:19)

How many of your needs will God
meet? All of them. How many of your needs must you supply to stay qualified for
the kingdom? None of them. Your part is to receive by faith what God has
already provided in Christ Jesus. Your part is to say, “Thank you Jesus!” and
then abide in that place of grateful trust.

Anything and
everything that needs to be done to see you safe to the end, will be done by
him. Trust him. The one who “began a good work in you will carry it on to
completion” (Philippians 1:6). (Another promise.) Salvation is not from
yourself, it is the gift of God (Ephesians 2:8), and his gifts are irrevocable
(Romans 11:29). (Two more promises!)

No doubt
there will be some who say I am presenting an unbalanced view, that I have left
out important bits of the Bible. What they really mean, though, is God is a
mealy-mouthed mincer of words who doesn’t say what he means or mean what he
says. I disagree. Through the death and resurrection of his Son, God shouts to
the human race, “I am for you and I will do whatever it takes to win you back
to myself!” I believe him. I put no confidence in my promises to him but choose
to stand on his promises to us. I encourage you to do likewise.

Saint, you
are one with the Lord. His future is your future. Since Jesus isn’t going to
lose his salvation and go to hell, it can’t happen to you. You may fall asleep
on the job, but the one who watches over you never slumbers (Psalm 121:3–4). Be
confident. Be secure. Be at peace.

The 135-mile Badwater
Ultramarathon is known as the world’s toughest
foot
race.
It is run in Death Valley in 130-degree summer heat, and there is
almost no shade. The course is so hot that runners who don’t stick to the straight
and narrow of the painted white lines can find their sneakers melting into the
tarmac. Not only is it hot and long, it’s uphill. The course covers three
mountain ranges, ascending a cumulative total of 13,000 feet.

Dean
Karnazes, who won the race in 2004, has said, “No matter how many times I
attempt the Badwater Ultramarathon, it never seems to get any easier.” It is
the mother of all endurance races.
[42]

The
New Testament writers likened Christianity to a race.
[43]
But what kind of race is it? Is the
Christian race like the Badwater Ultra? Is it something to be endured rather
than enjoyed? And do only those who endure to the end qualify for the kingdom?

You
might think so to read verses such as these: “
We must go through many hardships to enter the kingdom of God” (
Acts 14:22)
. “
If we
endure, we will also reign with him” (2 Timothy 2:12).
“
We have come to share in Christ if we hold firmly till the end the
confidence we had at first” (Hebrews 3:14).
“
Be
faithful, even to the point of death, and I will give you the crown of life” (Revelation
2:10).

What
are we to make of these scriptures? Read around and you will find there are two
views on endurance. The first says salvation is indeed conditional on enduring.
If you don’t endure to the end you’re lost forever. The second says enduring to
the end proves you are saved. If you didn’t endure, you weren’t saved to begin
with. I have problems with both views.

My problem with the
first view is that it contradicts the many promises of God regarding our
eternal salvation (see chapter 16). It’s a simple choice: Either God keeps us
strong to the end (like he promised) or he doesn’t. Either God will make us
stand firm in Christ (like he said) or he won’t.
[44]

Here’s
the bad news: If our salvation depends on us, then we’re not saved by his grace
but our enduring performance. And if
that
were true, God is a liar,
Jesus is a failure, and the Holy Spirit has not made his permanent home in us.

But
the good news declares that Jesus is both the author
and
the perfecter
of your faith. Jesus does good work and he never leaves a job unfinished. You
can trust him to complete the good work he started in you.

My problem with the
second view
—that enduring proves you were
saved—
is that it’s useless.
Since you won’t know until the end whether you have endured or not, how can you
have any assurance that you are saved today? You can’t. Instead of standing
secure on the promises of God, you’ll be unstable, tossed to and fro by every
wind of teaching. You’ll be easy prey for the insurance agents of dead
religion.
And your uncertainty
will cause you to be fearful of sin and intolerant of other people’s mistakes.
Consider the following conversation:

Stan:    “Did you hear that Paul Ellis
stumbled in sin? Such a great man of God too—who would’ve thought it?”

Jan:      “Well that just proves Paul was
never saved after all. Boy, were we fooled.”

Dan:    “Oh well, live and learn. Since
it’s impossible for those who have once been enlightened to be brought back to
the place of repentance, we won’t bother praying for him or calling him up to
encourage him. He’s a write-off. I can’t believe we wasted all that time on
him.”

Some Christians are so scared
of sin in the camp that when a brother sins, if he doesn’t leave the camp, they
just move the camp!

The scriptures on
endurance are not there to instill you with fear and uncertainty but to inspire
you to trust the One who said this:

I have told you these things, so that in
me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I
have overcome the world. (John 16:33)

At first glance,
these words of Jesus are a real head-scratcher.
Jesus says I will have
trouble, but he has overcome the world. How is this good news for me? I’m not
Jesus.

Jesus
is saying, “Life is one big endurance race, but take heart, I’ve already won
it.”
Again, Lord, how is this good news?
It is good news indeed for
those who are
in Christ
.

Look
again at Jesus’ words: “I have told you these things, so that
in me
you
may have peace.” The Christian race is a marathon, but for those of us
in
Christ
, the race begins at the finish line. Indeed, it begins on the
winners’ podium, for when you were placed into Christ, you were placed into the
race winner.

Jesus
said, “I have overcome the world.” What did he mean by that? He meant the devil
couldn’t tempt him, the law-lovers couldn’t silence him, Pilate couldn’t fault
him, death couldn’t keep him, and the grave couldn’t hold him. Jesus is the
ultimate overcomer. Look up the word
overcomer
in the dictionary and
you’ll find a picture of Jesus.

Again,
you might ask, “That’s all very fine for Jesus. But what about me? When Jesus
challenges me to be an overcomer, what does he mean?” Here is your answer:

You, dear children, are from God and have
overcome them, because the One who is in you is greater than the one who is in
the world. (1 John 4:4)

Overcoming is not
about jumping through hoops and impressing God with your overcoming
performance. It’s about depending on
the
Overcomer who lives in you.

For everyone born of God overcomes the
world. This is the victory that has overcome the world, even our faith. Who is
it that overcomes the world? Only the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of
God. (1 John 5:4
–
5)

Are you born of
God? Do you believe Jesus is the Son of God? If so, then the Overcomer lives in
you. His overcoming nature is your new nature. It’s who you truly are.