Is a Gradate of Northwestern University in 1911
IN PART two, it was shown that the doctrines of the grace of God cannot be understood and fully accepted without the acceptance of the truth of eternal security. This section deals similarly with eternal security in its relation to godly living, or practical Christianity.
The great and widely accepted charge against the teaching of eternal security is that it leads to carelessness in the lives of Christians and robs the Church of its spiritual power. It is said that to teach that one who has been saved cannot be lost is to offer a licenses to sin. Incidents from the lives of individuals are cited as proof of this contention. The argument is always founded upon human observations and judgments.
In reply, much evidence might be offered both from the lives of living Christians and from history to refute this charge. The lives of the Puritans, who held this truth, are outstanding illustrations which might be used with considerable effect. But in a discussion of an issue as infinite as this, finite observations and often fallible conclusions based upon them, cannot be considered as conclusive evidence. The only evidence that can be admitted as final is that which is taken from God's own revelation, the Bible. That is absolute and infallible. Those who make the charge that teaching eternal security is to offer a licenses to sin never support their charge with any scripture passage.
The fact is, the charge that teaching eternal security leads to carelessness in Christian living is a direct contradiction of God's word. Many of the strongest appeals in the Bible for a pure, holy, righteous and godly life are based on statements which definitely teach the eternal security of the believer. This being true, as will be shown extensively in the following chapters, it is those who deny the eternal security of the believer and thereby rob these passages of their true and full meaning who are contributing to the low state of standards of Christian living. This can hardly be overstated.
God does not, as is the popular conception, make righteous living the condition for eternal life and glory with him. That, as has already been shown, is a matter of pure grace. It is the fact of eternal life and assurance of glory and all that these include that is the incentive to holy living. It is what God has already done through the operation of his sovereign grace. It is the doctrines of the grace of God which have been shown to demand the doctrine of eternal security upon which God rests his appeal for practical righteousness. Men who teach against eternal security do not fully understand these doctrines and therefore cannot appeal to holiness on God's own basis.
It is not God's holiness nor his righteousness; it is not the law, nor is it the threat of condemnation (being lost) that teaches Christians to live soberly, righteously and godly. It is his grace that does so. Paul wrote to Titus giving instructions as to what he should teach as rules of conduct. Then he gave the reason in these words: "For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men. It teaches us to say "No" to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age" (Titus 2:11, 12).
Thus those who limit the grace of God by denying the eternal security of the believer, limit that which God says teaches godly living; while those who magnify his grace are teaching that which God says teaches believers how to live lives that please him.
It is important to be guided, not by what man's judgment or conclusions teach, but by that which God's word reveals.
THE LOVE OF CHRIST COMPELS US
As the grace of God teaches how to live as children of God ought to live, so it is the love of Christ that compels the saved one so to live. Paul says "For Christ's love compels us" (Second Corinthians 5:14). Therefore, fear of the wrath of God (being lost) cannot be the dynamic of holy and righteous living. Neither can it be said that it is the righteousness or holiness of God that is the compelling influence.
It is that love that was expressed when Christ died and rose again. It was through that death and resurrection that all old things passed away, yes even the curse and the condemnation of the law, and the believer became a new creature in Christ that cannot die (Chapter 9). It is that love of God which he manifested when he was in Christ on the cross, reconciling the world to himself (Second Corinthians 5:15-19). It is that love of God from which the believer cannot be separated (see Chapter 15), and which guarantees the eternal security of everyone that has become the object of it.
If Paul's statement is true, then to proclaim that love, to magnify it, to call attention to its eternal and unchanging nature is to open the hearts and lives of Christians for that which compels them to be what God would have them be. On the other hand, to deny the unbroken flow of this love, by saying that one who has been the object of it can be lost, is to hinder God's own dynamic from operating in the life of the saved one.
This is undoubtedly the greatest charge that can be brought against the teaching that those whom God through infinite love, expressed in the death of his Son, has saved, can be lost.
It is grace that teaches and the love of Christ that compels believers to live as God would have them live. The need of the Church today is a clear teaching of this.
You have read a chapter from the book _"SHALL NEVER PERISH" by J. F. Strombeck you can read the entire book at,
Shall Never Perish - By J. F. Strombeck
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How
God Saves Men
Believing
Christ DIED, that’s HISTORY.
Believing
Christ DIED for YOU SINS and Rose again that’s SALVATION.
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