Security of the Believer

There are verses that speak to the security of the believer. There are also verses that speak of losing your Salvation.

Calvin would tell me to trash, undercut, explain away or ignore every passage that speaks of losing your salvation.

Arminius would tell me to trash, undercut, explain away or ignore every passage that speaks to the security of the believer.

Having seen through the foolishness of both sides, I choose to understand that the believer is neither so secure as Calvin would have me to believe, nor on such shaky ground as Arminius would lead me to believe.

The truth is that Scripture speaks both to the security of the believer and to the very real possibility of losing your Salvation.

The same bible that quotes Jesus as saying, “No one shall pluck them out of my hand.” Says “You have been severed from Christ… you have fallen from grace.”

The same Bible that says, “you were sealed in Him with the Holy Spirit of promise”, says “Do not be conceited, but fear; for if God did not spare the natural branches, He will not spare you, either.”

Both Calvin and Arminius chose to trash bible passages that disagreed with their preconceived theses… “This I believe, this I will prove, where is my Bible?”

The Calvinist chooses to accept Calvin as his authority and to force all Scripture to agree with Calvin’s hypothesis. The Armenian accepts Arminius as his authority and forces all Scripture to agree with Arminius’ presuppositions. The Christian says “God speaks both to the security of the believer and the possibility of losing one’s salvation…” “Is there Scripture,” he asks, “that explains how the believer, who cannot be snatched out of Christ’s hand and has been sealed by the Holy Spirit should fear and tremble lest they be severed from Jesus and fall from grace?”

Of course, there is… but both Calvinists and Armenians flatly reject all Scripture that might even possibly resolve the conflict. It seems that their hero and the founder of their sect is far more important than God, Jesus and Scripture combined…

Yet Paul’s insisted that those believers who had come to trust in their own obedience to the Law for justification, had been severed from Christ and had fallen from grace. You cannot fall from where you are not, neither can you be severed from that to which you are not attached. Nor can you pretend that one who has been severed from Christ and has fallen from grace is saved and going to Heaven.

Both Calvin and Arminius seem to have believed that the loss of salvation would be centered on sin. In this, Calvin, who insisted that one was not saved by ceasing to sin and therefore could not be lost by committing sin was correct. Arminius, who seems to have believed that one is lost every time they sin and saved again every time they repent was wrong. I am most certainly a Christian and not a Calvinist, but on this point, Calvin got it right.

Galatians 5:4 addresses a particular group of people, those who “are seeking to be justified by law”. Had they fallen from grace and been severed from Christ because of sin? No. They were now lost, because they no longer believed. The faith God had given them was removed from Christ and placed in their own ability to follow the Law.

We are saved “by grace through faith in the Son of God” We are not lost when we sin and resaved when we repent. That is unscriptural. However, if we withdraw our faith from Jesus and place that faith in anything else. The Law, our own righteousness, not eating pork, going to church on the Sabbath, Calvin, Arminius, the Pope, or Donald Trump… We are lost.

Both the Calvinist and the Arminian reject this Scriptural truth, but Christians see it, accept it and rejoice in it…

Think about it…

David…