Dr. Mike Jones

Does the Bible Teaches Eternal Security?

Q: Does the Bible teach eternal security?

A: A well-known tele-evangelist’s son was on their network answering Bible questions, and I overheard him say to a listener, “I don’t intend to continue to answer this question: the Bible teaches that a [saved] person can walk away from God, and lose their salvation, because God has given each of us “total free will!”

That type of erroneous teaching handcuffs the nature and character of God. Once a person has genuinely repented and has totally committed to/sold out to Christ, the Bible states that the person will never be lost: he/she has eternal security.

God promised to preserve His own. He said in 2Corinthians 1:22, “Who hath also sealed us, and given the earnest of the Spirit in our hearts. In Ephesians 1:5, 13, “Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, … In whom ye also trusted, after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation: in whom also after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise.”

Our ‘standing’ with God will always be perfect, because of the Blood atoning sacrifice of Christ on Calvary’s Cross. Our ‘state’ with God can have glitches in it, because of the sinful flesh nature that haven’t been eradicated, until we receive our glorified bodies. That why we’re encouraged to renew our minds daily, according to Romans 12:1-2, “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.” If we don’t walk upright before God on a daily basis, our flesh will gain control, and we might say/do something that offends the Holy Spirit, which will put our ‘state’ out of balance, until we repent, and come back into fellowship.

We see so many people leaving the local churches, and very few show up for mid-week service(s); they’ve become what I deemed, “Sunday-only subscribers.” They don’t attend mid-week service(s), when Bible study is being conducted; and the Bible encourages us to do so in Hebrews 10:23-25, “Let us hold fast the profession of our faith without wavering; (for He is faithful that promised;) And let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works: Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another: and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching.”

A pastor friend made the following observation about his church, which is of a noted size. “During our mid-week service, a truck driver can literally drive an 18-wheeler into the sanctuary, make a U-Turn, and not touch a soul!”

The Apostle John addressed this issue in 1John 2:18-19, “Little children, it is the last time: and as ye have heard that antichrist shall come, even now are there many antichrists; whereby we know that it is the last time. They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would no doubt have continued with us: but they went out, that they might be made manifest that they were not all of us.”

Conclusion: A Christian does not have ‘total free will,’ in the sense, that he/she will always make the right choice, given a scenario. Theologically, we have ‘partial free will’ which says, because I still have to content with this flesh, I might not always make the right choice, as expressed by the Apostle Paul in Romans 7:18-21, “For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not. For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do. Now if I do that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me. I find then a law, that, when I would do good, evil is present with me.”

Revelation 17:8, gives us the exact time, when God [Himself] entered the names of the redeemed in the book of life: The beast that thou sawest was, and is not; and shall ascend out of the bottomless pit, and go into perdition: and they that dwell on the earth shall wonder, whose names were not written in the book of life from the foundation of the world, when they behold the beast that was, and is not, and yet is.” God wrote the names of those that will be saved, waaayyy before He even created the world. And to say, (or suggest), that a person, whose name is written in the Lamb’s Book of Life, to be blotted out at the end, is to make God, capable of erroring, thus, putting Him on the same plane as a mere man that’s also capable of making errors.

Emphatically YES! Once Saved-Always Saved!!!