Kept and Keeping On: Persevering in the Power of the Saviour 1 (The Plan and Power of God) - GBC Bulletin Column #59

By grace through faith in Christ, God’s redeemed people may have absolute assurance that they have been saved from sin and its eternal consequences. It has been suggested, however, that having received such salvation, it is possible to lose it - that having set out on the pathway to heaven, some will actually wind up in hell. This worrying thought has created much wavering insecurity amongst some professing Christians, robbing them of confidence, sapping them of spiritual vitality, and damaging their effectiveness to encourage fellow believers and boldly share the gospel with the lost. On the other hand, it might be said by those who are persuaded that salvation can be lost that those who believe otherwise run the risk of being so confident they become complacent, do not take sin seriously enough, and thereby damage their worship and witness. Emotional reactions, subjective arguments, and rigid loyalty to various traditions and Bible teachers have the potential to cloud the issue. Laying aside such baggage, what do the Scriptures teach? Can we lose our salvation?

To adequately answer this question, we must centre our thoughts on God, not man. Left on our own we would never find God or know his salvation but would hopelessly grope around in the darkness of our being for something that brings lasting satisfaction and joy. We wouldn’t be able to discuss whether salvation can be lost, because apart from the sovereign grace of God, we wouldn’t have found it in the first place! In amazing love, God chose not only to reveal himself to all people, but to actually save a particular people “for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace…” (Eph. 1:6).

The plan of God is to save people. And by his power, he does it. God knows that people are hindered by slavery to sin, have deceitful and depraved hearts, and dark minds, and cannot save themselves. Against the pathetic background that is fallen humanity, the glory of God’s grace shines from “the mystery of his will, according to his purpose”, a “plan for the fullness of time” to bring reconciliation to the universe by the redeeming, forgiving sacrifice of Christ on the cross (Eph. 1:7-10). People are born again and converted when, according to God’s purposes and through his appointed means, they hear the gospel, “the power of God for salvation” and believe in Jesus Christ (Rom. 1:16, Eph. 1:13a). 

To be continued. This is from the unedited version of an article published in the August 2014 edition of Grace Magazine. This was printed in the worship bulletin of Grace Baptist Church (Wood Green) on 28 September 2014.