Salvation Is Irrevocable, Part 2

Your salvation is so intrinsically and intimately tied to the work of Jesus Christ as to be inseparable.

He died your death. He rose that you might walk in newness of life, and He was exalted into the glory of heaven, where He will be the firstborn among many brethren who will be made like unto Him in eternal glory. It's been said that there are two types of days. On good days, God is our focus from morning until night, and everything seems to go well. But on bad days, we keep God in the background and then feel battered by sin at day's end. If you're ever going to question the legitimacy of your salvation, undoubtedly it's on one of those bad days. But while what we think and feel about salvation may change, salvation itself does not.

It's irrevocable. That's the theme of John MacArthur's current study on grace to you. It's titled, The Grip of God. So open your Bible to the book of Romans, and here's John. Well, we have the opportunity to turn to the Word of God in Romans chapter 8, and we're coming to the end of this wonderful chapter. What a glorious time it's been in studying life in the Spirit, security in the Spirit, all the great truths of this monumental section of Scripture.

We find ourselves in the closing part of the chapter, verses 31 to the end, which is sort of a doxology that ends the chapter, but at the same time also it's a fitting summation of Paul's argument for the security of the believer. One hymn writer had it right. This is what he wrote, and you're familiar I'm sure with this hymn, many of you are. How firm a foundation, you saints of the Lord, is laid for your faith in His excellent Word. What more can He say than to you He has said, you who to Jesus for refuge have fled?

Fear not, I am with you. Oh, be not dismayed, for I am thy God and will still give the aid. I'll strengthen thee, help thee, and cause thee to stand upheld by my righteous, omnipotent hand. When through the deep waters I call thee to go, the rivers of grief shall not thee overflow, for I will be with thee thy troubles to bless and sanctify to thee thy deepest distress. When through fiery trials thy pathways shall lie, my grace all sufficient shall be thy supply, the flame shall not hurt thee, I only design thy dross to consume and thy gold to refine. The soul that on Jesus has leaned for repose, I will not, I cannot desert to its foes. That soul, though all hell should endeavor to shake, I'll never, no never, no never forsake. And that, of course, is a hymn based upon the great truth of Romans 8, no never forsake. That is the promise of God to those who are in Christ, there will never be any condemnation. Because He anticipates at this point that somebody is going to throw up some objections.

Remember, we talked about this. Somebody is going to say, well, that's all fine, but what about this possibility and what about that possibility? First possibility, there are some persons who can take away our salvation. Second possibility, there are some circumstances which can take away our salvation. Those are hypothetical and Paul knows that they might be raised by someone, so he wants to eliminate them altogether. So in verses 31 to 34, he deals with whether or not any person can take away our salvation and in verses 35 to 39, he deals with whether any circumstance can take away our eternal salvation. He does anticipate and well so that there will come people who in spite of this massive argument from verses 1 to 30 will conclude you can lose your salvation, somebody can take it away or some circumstance can take it away and rightly did he judge that because even today in the church of Jesus Christ, there are many who teach that you can lose your salvation through the influence of some person or some circumstance, some event. So Paul is arguing wisely against the possible arguments against eternal security. He assumes the objections and well he might because indeed they have come.

Now that takes us to verse 31. What then shall we say to these things? What's going to be our response to this? What is the appropriate response?

How do we react to this? Paul's answer is this, verse 31, if God is for us, who is against us? Bottom line, if God is for us, who can successfully defeat Him? If He is for us and He is making everything in our lives work together for good and He is taking us from being foreknown and predestined to be glorified, if that's His plan and He's God, who possibly could overturn that plan?

Answer, no one, no one. If God is for us, and by the way, Romans 3.21 to Romans 8.30 indicates God is for us, chapter 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8 are all about God being for us. If God is for us, who could be against us? Actually the Greek says, since God is for us, who can successfully be against us? Because of 1 John 4, 4, greater is He that is in you than he that is in the world. God is greater than all. The second hypothetical possibility is, well, okay, no created person could lead us away from our salvation. What about God Himself? Could God Himself, He's a person, could God Himself become so disgusted with us? Could we reach such a point of disobedience and protracted or prolonged or repeated sin that God Himself takes away our salvation? Verse 32 answers that.

Remember this? He who... And this is one of those typical Jewish arguments from the greater to the lesser. He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, that's talking about God giving Christ to die on the cross to purchase our salvation. How will He not also with Him, that is with Christ, freely give us all things?

The argument is simply this, very simple argument. God delivered up His own Son, Jesus, to die on the cross to provide our salvation. That was the greatest gift, the greatest sacrifice, the greatest act, and God will do all the lesser acts necessary to keep us saved.

That's the argument. If He gave the greatest gift to save us, He'll do less to keep us. The greatest act was God giving Christ, and He will do whatever else is necessary to sustain us in Christ. Whatever would be done by God to hold on to us would be something less than the greatest act, which was the giving of His own Son, to die in our behalf. And if He would do that to save us when we were enemies, what will He do to keep us while we're His children and His friends? Well, somebody says, okay, God isn't going to do it, and people aren't going to do it.

What about one other personality? What about Satan? Satan is a person. Satan is a created personality, created by God.

When God created all the angels who later fell and with Him a third of the angels and became known as demons. What about Satan? He's a very powerful being. Obviously, he was a supreme angel in the hierarchy of angelic hosts, a very powerful and influential angel. Is it not possible that Satan can rest us, as it were, out of the arms of Christ if we fall into patterns of sin and are guilty, isn't it possible that Satan can work to affect the loss of our salvation?

You say, well, how would it work? Well, we sin, we sin, we sin, and Satan keeps the record of our sin, and as he likes to do, goes before the throne of God and accuses us. Isn't that what he does? He's known as the accuser of the brethren, isn't he? Who night and day is before the throne of God, accusing believers. He is relentless, folks.

He is absolutely relentless. He is before the throne of God, Revelation 12, 10, accusing believers before God day and night, all the time, all the time. Now, remember this, Satan is not omnipresent. Those people who think Satan's everywhere in the world at the same time are wrong. He's in heaven day and night accusing the brethren. It's much more important to him, listen, it's much more important to Satan to get God to release his grip on us.

That's the only hope he has to get us back than it is for him to work on us. The idea that Satan is running around working on you personally, it may be that there are times when Satan deals with a specific human being. I wouldn't say that's not the case because we know in the case of Peter, Jesus said to him, why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit, right? So for his own purposes, there may be times when Satan is engaged and actually involved in the life of an individual, but for the most part, he has his minions concocting lies to confuse people and damn their souls and keep them from coming to the true gospel. And he works on believers simply by concocting a wicked world system that becomes tempting to them through the lust of the eyes, the lust of the flesh, and the pride of life. But one of his major enterprises relentlessly is to go before the throne of God with a litany of our iniquities and tell God to let us go because we're not worthy to be held by Him. He probably uses some of the things that he did with Job telling God the only reason Job is faithful to you is because you bless him. They're not worthy of you, he's not worthy of you, none of your people are worthy of you. Look at them, they sin.

They only are true to you because of all the blessings you give them. He goes to heaven to lay all of his accusations against us. Verse 33 answers that. Who will bring a charge against God's elect? Well, I just told you, who tries? Who is it? Satan.

Is he going to be successful at it? Verse 34, who is the one who condemns? Well, it could be Satan. He lays a charge, engkaleo, literally to bring a legal charge against somebody.

It's a law term, it's a courtroom term, it's a legal term. Satan literally goes before God with a list of accusations to ask God to condemn us. The personality primarily in view here is Satan.

If God won't cause us to be lost and other people can't cause us to be lost, can Satan cause us to be lost? Could he go successfully before God and get God to turn His back on us? Listen to Zechariah, the great prophet Zechariah chapter 3 verses 1 to 3. He showed me Joshua the high priest standing before the angel of the Lord. Here is Joshua the high priest in this vision. He's standing before the angel of the Lord and Satan standing at his right hand to accuse him.

Here is this faithful high priest in this vision standing before the angel of the Lord and of course the angel of the Lord is the defender of Israel and the defender of the priests of Israel and this is one of the priests, not to be confused with Joshua who led the children of Israel, but this is Joshua the high priest. And there is Satan right there, right in the presence of the angel of the Lord and he is accusing Joshua. And the Lord said to Satan, the Lord rebuke you Satan, the Lord rebuke you Satan. Can we be legitimately accused and condemned? Can we be damned? Will God hear such accusations?

Back to verse 33, here's the answer. Who will bring a charge against God's elect? God is the one who justifies. Literally, shall God, the justifying one, is God going to listen to such an accusation who has justified us? Can God, listen carefully, can God at the same time condemn us and justify us? If He has declared us righteous, can He at the same time condemn us? If He has made us righteous in Christ, if He has granted us the righteousness of Christ, can He at the same time hold us guilty?

Answer? No. If He did, it would be to negate the work of Christ, wouldn't it? It would be to depreciate the work of Christ. You see, the reason that we can stand before God is not because we're righteous. Accusing us of sin is not going to get it done. Satan may try to do that.

He does try to do that. It's not going to get it done because our salvation is not predicated on our righteousness, is it? It's predicated on the righteousness of Christ imputed to us. On the cross, Jesus bore all of our sins, took the full wrath of God. He bore our sins in His own body on the cross, Peter says. He was made sin for us, Paul says. God poured out all the fury of His wrath against Jesus Christ as our substitute, put all our sins on Christ, and then took the righteous life of Christ and covered us with it, imputed it to us. What we've said before, God treated Jesus as if He had committed all our sins so He can treat us as if we only lived Jesus' perfect life. It doesn't do any good for Satan to go before God and accuse us of sin because all that sin has been paid for, and we're not justified, we're not righteous, we're not holy before God because of our own righteousness, but because of the righteousness of Christ imputed to us. So if God were to take away that righteousness, then He would be demeaning the work of Christ, which is imputed to us. You don't have to hang on to your own salvation by your own righteousness, and that's the fallacy of the kind of theology that says you can lose your salvation. It's predicated on the idea that something you do creates salvation, and nothing you do can save you, and nothing you do or don't do can keep you saved.

It is purely the imputed righteousness of Jesus Christ. And look at it again, verse 33. Who will bring a charge against God's elect? There it is again, whom He foreknew, He predestined, whom He predestined, He called, whom He called, He justified, whom He justified, He glorified.

There is that theme of election again. We were chosen before the foundation of the world to be granted the righteousness of Jesus Christ that is imputed to us at the point of faith. Those, then, who stand at the bar of God are not outlaws, they're God's elect.

Oh, what great safety there is in election, John 10, 28, we are hid with Christ in God, we're placed in the Father's hand, and who's going to take us out of the Father's hand? God will never condemn us, we are His elect. He will never condemn us, He has imputed to us the righteousness of Jesus Christ. And if He were ever to turn against us and take away our salvation under the accusations of Satan, it would mean that Jesus Christ's righteousness was inadequate. That's impossible because He was holy, harmless, and undefiled, separate from sinners, and it was His perfect righteousness imputed to us.

And we'll take that even further. There's only perhaps one other possibility. If no human being can remove us from our salvation, if God can't remove us from our salvation, if Satan can't remove us from our salvation, what about Christ?

After all, if He's the lawyer for our defense and He's our advocate, what if He turns against us? It was Christ who brought us in, can it be Christ who sends us back out? God can't justify us and condemn us at the same time, and neither can Christ, listen, neither can Christ intercede for us and condemn us at the same time. Verse 34, who is the one who condemns?

Christ Jesus? Is He who died? Yes, rather, who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who also intercedes for us? You think the one who died and rose and was exalted and is interceding for us is going to all of a sudden negate all of that, reverse the whole thing and condemn us?

The thought is ludicrous. He who is our Savior, who is our resurrection life, who is our exalted King and who is our mediating High Priest cannot be our Condemner. Paul demonstrates that Christ provides a fourfold protection. This is a great, great verse, verse 34. It is a summation of the work of Christ.

Let's take those fourfold protections. Christ Jesus is He who died. Do you think Christ who died for you would condemn you? The point is that when Christ died, He paid the penalty for your sin.

He received your condemnation, certainly not His own because He was without sin. He died on the cross. He was being punished for your sin and my sin. He did all that was necessary to satisfy the justice of God.

He took the full force of judgment. He died on the cross for you and for me. His death, listen, is the only condemnation we will ever know.

And it's something we only know, praise God, and don't experience, isn't it? Do you think He would undo His cross? Do you think when He went into the garden and said, Father, if there's any way possible, let this cup pass from Me?

Nevertheless, Thy will be done. And with that resolution, went directly to the cross to bear our sins. Do you think He would reverse that whole horrible sin-bearing, that entirely undeserved crushing judgment of God that made Him cry out, My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me? Do you think He would do all of that for sinners and then undo that?

On the basis of what? Not only did He die for us, secondly, verse 34 says, Yes, rather, who was raised? Or literally, what is more, that He was raised again. Christ's death blotted out our sins, and this was affirmed by His resurrection. The fact that God raised Him from the dead was indicating that God was satisfied with His sacrifice. God was saying, that's enough, the sacrifice is paid, and He took Him right out of the grave because He had paid sufficiently the penalty for our sins. And God, therefore, raised Him from the dead as affirmation that the penalty had been paid. Romans 4.25, He was delivered up to the cross because of our transgressions and was raised because He had accomplished our justification. By the way, there are a myriad of Scriptures in the book of Romans and Ephesians, Colossians and Hebrews that point to the importance of His resurrection. The resurrection proves that He had accomplished sin-bearing. When God raised Jesus from the dead, He showed He was satisfied with His sacrifice.

Every demand of His holy law was met, and we were justified. His resurrection guarantees that we will be raised to eternal glory. Would Jesus undo His death?

Would Jesus undo His resurrection? Thirdly, in verse 34, Paul tells us He is at the right hand of God. He is at the right hand of God. That's referring to His coronation, to His ascension, to His exaltation. It wasn't that God was mildly satisfied when He raised Him from the dead, it was that God was completely satisfied. And so much was He satisfied that He lifted up Jesus Christ and sat Him on His own throne at His right hand.

It's an echo, this is an echo of the ancient text of Psalm 110, 1. The Lord said to my Lord, sit thou at My right hand. Hebrews depicts Jesus Christ, the Exalted High Priest, sitting at the right hand of the throne of God, and there is the place of exaltation. Hebrews 1, 3, after He had made purification of sins on the cross, He sat down at the right hand of the majesty on high, and He had inherited a more excellent name than angels. You know what the excellent name is?

Lord, sovereign. Hebrews emphasizes this not only in chapter 1, verse 3, but throughout the book of Hebrews. Chapter 2, verse 9, He was for a little while made lower than the angels, but then after that He was exalted.

Just temporarily was He made lower than the angels. Then because of the suffering of death, He was lifted up and crowned with glory and honor, because by the grace of God He had tasted death for everyone. Hebrews 7 says it, Hebrews 8, Hebrews 10, Hebrews 12, even once in chapter 4 and verse 14. Would the Father undo that honor? Would the Son undo that place of majesty? It's absolutely unthinkable, absolutely inconceivable, that the Lord Jesus Christ, who had accomplished all of that, would undo it. That His death would become meaningless, His resurrection meaningless, His exaltation meaningless. You see, folks, your salvation and my salvation is so intrinsically and intimately tied to the work of Jesus Christ as to be inseparable. He died your death, He rose that you might walk in newness of life, and He was exalted into the glory of heaven where He will be the firstborn among many brethren who will be made like unto Him in eternal glory. We are crucified with Christ, we are risen with Christ, and we are exalted with Christ. We have died with Him, we have risen with Him, and we will be lifted to sit on His throne with Him. He finished His work, and someday we will be exalted and be made like Him in glory.

The new sanctuary for us is heaven, and we're headed there for eternal glory. And then the fourth component, and really where His argument is going here, who also intercedes for us. Christ died, He rose, He ascended, and He intercedes. There is a summation of Christ's great work.

This is the high point. He keeps on making intercession for us. This is just a marvelous, marvelous reality. Satan is there night and day accusing the brethren, but we have an indefatigable and indefatigable lawyer for our defense, the Lord Jesus Christ.

And that gets to the reason Grace to You exists. We're here to help people dig into biblical truth and to process it and to apply it to their lives. And in keeping with that purpose, we're introducing, actually we're reintroducing, a line of study tools that for decades have helped God's people understand the Bible in a deep way. Yeah, you're referring to the study guides that we developed. Well, we stopped printing them about 25 years ago, and they're like treasures. Whenever I meet somebody who's got study guides, they're like gold.

They're hanging on to them. You know, we do verse-by-verse teaching, obviously, and that shows up in the commentaries that I've written on the New Testament. But the study guides were built around subjects. The way you approach the Bible is really twofold. You can approach the Scripture at a book, start with the beginning of the book and go through a book verse-by-verse, which is what we do, or you can approach the Bible on a subject.

Let's say you're looking for the subject of God's omniscience or God's omnipresence or God's omnipotence, and you can go through the Bible and find everything the Bible says about that subject. Well, the study guides are built around those kinds of themes. They are expositions of Scriptures, but expositions of Scriptures related to those themes. So we produced about 150 of them on key themes in the Bible. We are going to resurrect that material because it's so vital and because it specifically relates to subjects that people need to know and need to understand. The new series, however, the new edition of these study guides is going to be called Verse-by-Verse with John MacArthur, and it's verse-by-verse looking at a specific subject.

These are going to be a tremendous benefit as they roll out. And we're going to start with one titled Spiritual Boot Camp. It covers four subjects at the basic level of Christian life—how to study Scripture, how to pray, how to witness the gospel, how to function in the church. Spiritual Boot Camp. Here's the good news. This first new copy of Verse-by-Verse with John MacArthur titled Spiritual Boot Camp, we are going to be able to send it to anyone who has never contacted us before as a free gift.

Okay? It's our introductory gift to you. The Spiritual Boot Camp series, the audio series, will air on the radio late next month. So request your verse-by-verse study guide on Spiritual Boot Camp, and you can follow along when you listen to the series. Yes, call us or go to our website, and we will send you the Spiritual Boot Camp study guide for free if you've never contacted us before.

Get in touch today. Our toll-free number, 800-55-GRACE, or go to gty.org. As John mentioned, the Spiritual Boot Camp study guide shows you what Scripture says about Bible reading, prayer, evangelism, and serving the church.

It will answer questions you might have about those subjects and show you how those spiritual disciplines can transform your life. Again, the Spiritual Boot Camp study guide is our gift to you if you've never contacted us before. To request a copy, call 800-55-GRACE, or go to gty.org. Also, we would simply love to hear from you if something John said today has encouraged you.

If today's lesson helped you better understand the permanence of your salvation, won't you let us know? Send your letter to Grace to You, Box 4000, Panorama City, CA 91412. Or you can email us at letters at gty.org. Once more, that's letters at gty.org. Now for John MacArthur and the entire staff, I'm Phil Johnson. Thanks for tuning in today. And be here tomorrow when John continues his study from the book of Romans called The Grip of God. It's another half hour of unleashing God's truth, one verse at a time, on Grace to You.