My Unusual Journal 64
Tuesday, February 28, 2012, 3:23 PM
Note: My writing career is marked by struggle. I am forever struggling to convey to my readers what God gives to me. Not that everything I say is that esoteric or “deep”; it is just that I am looking at the Word of God as oftentimes being relatively simple whereas we try to give it more so-called depth so that we can appear to be persons of profound knowledge and wisdom.
In this, post 64 of My Unusual Journal, I have looked at a previous post (#45) in this series and felt it did not fully express what I was trying to say on the matter of True Eternal Security. Therefore I have rewritten it and added to it in an effort to do what God wants me to do: Write the vision [message] and make it plain… so that he may run that readeth it [and proclaim what he has read].”
Please stay with me on this. Don’t reject what I am saying if it seems to veer away from what you believe. Hear me out.
What Is True Eternal Security? (Revised)
We were tainted with sin before we were born. For one of many confirmations of this statement, read Psa 51:5 (NIV): "Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me."
As a part of Adam we became sinful with him. Consequently, it would seem that, if we can inherit sin, we can also inherit the righteousness of our forbears, but not so. When Adam was made righteous by the sacrifice of an animal (Gen. 3.21), we did not become righteous with him. Righteousness cannot be inherited. Sin can. A clean vessel can be made unclean by an unclean object's touching it. An unclean vessel cannot be made clean by touching a clean object.
This evokes the illustration that Haggai used in demonstrating how easily a person might be defiled. "If one carries holy flesh in the skirt of his garment," he asked the priests who were experts in the law, "and touches with his skirt bread, or pottage, or wine...or any kind of food, does it [that which he touches] become holy?"
The priests answered, "No."
Haggai then asked them, "If one who is unclean by contact with a dead body touches any of these [the pottage, wine or food], does it become unclean?"
"Yes," they responded. Haggai had made his point. It is easy for a person to become defiled, but he has to make a deliberate effort to cleanse himself. This was true in the day of the Old Covenant and it is true now in this era of the New. But to become sanctified or holy requires contact with the Source of holiness.
A case in point is Jesus’ touching a leper and making him clean. (Mat. 8.1-3) The leper had come into contact with the Source. But we cannot surmise that, because Jesus was God, He did not ever become ceremonially defiled in His life prior to his officially entering into His ministry. Becoming unclean was an involuntary way of life with the Israelite just as becoming physically dirty is an involuntary way of life with any person, Jew or Gentile. Like any other man, Jesus had to wash away physical uncleanness as the occasion demanded. Like any other Jew, He had to go through the ceremonial ritual of cleansing Himself as the occasion demanded.
But on this occasion Jesus could not in any way be defiled by this symbol of sin. It would appear that ceremonial uncleanness was a symbolic matter that Jesus had endured previous to His public ministry for the sake of being human and being a Jew. I assume that during Jesus' life, prior to His full entry into His life's work, He would avoid contact with any unclean thing, including a leper. That was required of the ordinary Jew. But after His baptism and public approval by the Father, it is difficult to imagine His avoiding a leper, the symbol of sinners in general.
Jesus came with the express purpose of healing the sinner, and in so doing He would not shun the doubly cursed leprous sinner. It could in no way besmirch His righteous Self. Further, in this instance we see that Jesus in His divinity could not be considered even ceremonially unclean. On the contrary, He can transfer His wholeness to all who want it. Instead of His receiving uncleanness from the leprous (sinful) man, Jesus imparted His own sinless nature to him. He touched this doomed outcast of society and made him whole and completely sin‑free!
We today are living in the midst of sin. It is all around us and we may occasionally come into contact with an unclean object. It would defile us, so we continually come to our only Source of holiness that He may impart His righteous nature to us. The following Scriptures wrap it up:
"… Jesus, who went before us [into heaven], has entered on our behalf. He has become a high priest forever, in the order of Melchizedek." (Heb 6:20 NIV)
Continue the same thought in Heb 7:23-25 (NIV):
"Now there have been many…priests, since death prevented them from continuing in office; {24} but because Jesus lives forever, he has a permanent priesthood. {25} Therefore he is able to save completely those who come to God through him, because he always lives to intercede for them."
We do not jump in and out of the body of Christ. No sin, if we do not continue in it, will send us hurtling to hell. Christ did not die that we should live in terror of every unwitting misstep we might make. He died to give us life and peace and security. We have that life and peace and security in Him if we do not abuse this grace. To take proper advantage of this wondrous grace when we sin, we must acknowledge our sin, turn from it and trust in His unfailing grace. Christ is our eternal security if we maintain our faith in Him.
“Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ…” (Php 1:6 KJV)
It is not possible for any outside force to condemn you to hell. "Greater is he that is in you than he that is in the world." (1 John 4.4) Believers are like a tenant that has a lease that cannot be broken by any force of darkness. Even if he or she should do something that is contrary to the terms of the lease, they are not thrown immediately into the street, suddenly homeless and shelterless. They are advised by the Lessor (God) of their violation and allowed to continue their residency under the original terms of the lease.
God is by no means seeking for a reason to evict us from our place in Christ. It is not consistent with sound logic that God, in the person of Jesus Christ, would suffer such pain and horror of soul for us and then quickly leave us to our sinful selves at every sinful crook of our finger. Remember this: none of us fully knows what Jesus experienced during His hour of Passion; we have not yet plumbed in our minds the extreme suffering He endured for us and we have not yet mentally grasped the unfathomable depths of God’s love for all mankind, saved and unsaved.
The following are traits we so greatly need: 1) If we would only show Him at least a little LOVE (yes, it may be relatively pitiful and weak, but our trust is in HIS righteousness, not ours) as He has shown His love for us, 2) refuse to buckle under the severest of tests and trials, 3) continue to trust in God’s love and power, even when we have failed in this way or that so horribly, 4) we should never give up on God or on our own selves trusting in God.
If we do these minimal things required of us, He will never, never forsake us. As a matter of fact all these requirements can be summed up in this: All He asks of us is that we believe in Him despite the odds that are high against our enduring to the end. If we trust God, He alone will take care of our eternal security.
Forget your shortcomings and sins; deliberately ignore your own intrinsic worthlessness – trust and keep on trusting in the only Person who can never fail. That is all anyone of us can do. That, my friend, is true Eternal Security. True Eternal Security does not encourage you to sin; it is merely there to help you when and if (scratch that: you will sin in some way) you do sin.
True Eternal Security does not falsely assure you that it is completely impossible for you to be lost; it simply says that God will do all He can short of compelling you to have faith in Him. If you persistently, consistently and obstinately refuse to be corrected by God, at long last He will have to let you go. But He is not considering that awful contingency now. God’s best efforts are now directed solely toward taking you to heaven. Work with Him.
God Has Foreseen Our Sins after Grace and Cleansed Them
No one can commit a sin that God did not see before the one who sinned committed it. Would it not stand to reason, then, that the blood of Christ, which flows forever to cleanse sins that are presently uncommitted, cleanses (not merely will cleanse) all of these uncommitted sins? I am not subscribing to Unconditional Eternal Security because I believe this future cleansing is in effect only where the faith of the one who sins does not fail.
This may not give us the gratuitous gift of never ever falling, but it certainly should give all believers a vast sense of security. It makes us know that, when we do unintentionally sin, it is not recorded against us because our High Priest Jesus Christ is continually interceding for us and presenting His own atoning blood to the Father on our behalf. That is how we can testify to living above sin every day. The sinful deed is forgiven before its enactment because the Father foresaw our need and graciously forgave us before we could cry out, “Lord, forgive me!” We need only to trust in the blood of Jesus no matter how great our failure may be. Our difficulty lies not in the “greatness” of the sin we have committed, but in the constancy of our faith in the Rock Christ Jesus.
If we refuse to not believe in the blood of Jesus – “Lord, to whom shall we go?” – and if we maintain our trust in the efficacy of the shed blood of Christ – it is impossible for us ever to lose our salvation.
I can live with that!
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