Category: Salvation

According to Our Works

In one sense, there are only two eternal destinations: Heaven and Hell, no third option. (Mt 25:46) So the chosen strive to enter Heaven (Lk 13:24), seeking the Lord for eternal salvation until they have it. (He 11:6) We can’t afford to get this wrong. (Mt 16:26)

But this dual nature of eternity can be misleading; in only two possible general outcomes, we might fail to see the many possibilities within each one: there’s surely joy in every heavenly place (Jud 24), and sorrow throughout Hell, but some heavenly states are much more desirable than others (Mt 5:19), and some hellish places far worse than others. (Mt 11:24)

Scripture is clear that we’ll all be recompensed based on our behavior (2Co 11:15); those who’ve done good will be resurrected to life, and those who’ve done evil will be raised unto damnation. (Jn 5:28-29) It isn’t that we can earn salvation by being good, but those who know God love Him (1Pe 2:7), and do their best to please Him. All the saints will receive a reward (2Ti 4:8), yet some of us serve God better than others, and will get a better reward for our labor; it makes a difference how we live. (Ep 6:8)

Christ will repay each and every one of us according to our works (Mt 16:27); so, as there are degrees of good and evil, there will also be degrees of rewards (Mt 5:19) and punishments. (Lk 12:47-48a)

To the degree that our works are deficient, corrupt, tainted with wrong motives, even as believers in Heaven we suffer loss. (1Co 3:13-15) And if we’re actually despising the truth, headed for Hell (Ro 2:8), we’d be much better off if we’d never known the truth at all. (2Pe 2:21)

The boundaries of both Heaven and Hell lie in the infinitude of God Himself. His fury can address the deepest depravity, of Satan himself, and His delight the purest heart, that of Christ Himself. He is capable of giving the saints more than the very best of us can possibly fathom or enjoy (1Co 2:9), and is able to crush His enemies (Lk 20:18) with a fierceness and indignation that even the most rebellious heart cannot endure. (Na 1:6)

Though we aren’t saved by works (Ep 2:8-9), how we live each day does make an eternal difference (Mt 10:42); whatever we sow we reap (Ga 6:7); the more we sow the more we reap, whether for good or evil. Every single choice is thus an eternal one.

Run for a reward in God (1Co 9:26); He calls us to run that we may obtain (1Co 9:24), so run with all your might — for this reward is God Himself. (Ge 15:1, Php 3:8)

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Children of Wrath

It’s a privilege to grow up in a Christian environment, and be taught the Word of God as a child. (2Ti 3:15) If that’s been our heritage, we should be grateful, yet not presume we’ve always been a child of God because of this.

We all start out dead to God (Ep 2:1), seeking our own way and will (Tit 3:3), blind in our ignorance, alienated from God’s life (Ep 4:18) and under His wrath. (Ep 2:3) We may not seem as bad as those from more broken backgrounds, but measuring sin as the world does is unwise at best: in our selfishness and pride we’ve all been an abomination to God. (Pr 16:5)

So, God says we must each be born again (Jn 3:7), born anew, each and every one of us; in order to enter Heaven, at some point we must be converted (Mt 18:3), regenerated, made alive. (Ep 2:5).

It isn’t that we must know the exact day and hour we came to Christ, any more than we’d know exactly when we were born physically if no one told us. But the significance of the new birth, requiring that we understand the basics of the gospel and trust God for eternal salvation, and the radical inward transformation that always accompanies this miracle of God (Jn 1:13), suggest we’ll know the general time period, and distinctly remember experiencing assurance of salvation as we began our faith journey. (1Th 1:5)

Thinking we’re Christians simply because our parents were, or because they had us baptized, is to ignore our need for personal salvation and regeneration. There’s no guarantee of heaven in any ritual, or in the faith of others (Ga 6:15): we must each strive to enter the kingdom (Lk 13:24), seeking God until we find Him for ourselves. (He 11:6)

We should each examine ourselves, whether we be in the faith, and prove our salvation (2Co 13:5), laying hold on eternal life (1Ti 6:12), and ensuring the evidences which accompany salvation appear in our own lives. (He 6:9)

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Turning the Grace

Grace may be the most important word in the Christian Faith. We’re saved by grace (Ep 2:8) and we stand in grace. (Ro 5:2) If we get this foundational concept wrong, we may call our theology Christian, but it may still be foreign to God, and leave us with false hope.

God exhorts us to earnestly contend for the authentic, apostolic faith (Jud 3) because false teachers promote a counterfeit Christianity by changing the definition of grace, turning it into permission to indulge, essentially denying God’s nature. (vs 4)

Grace is commonly defined to be the unmerited favor of God, the idea that we may freely enjoy the blessings of God without deserving them. Since those who receive Christ are forgiven and loved by God unconditionally, the claim is that we’re free to sin against God on purpose, that even if we sin deliberately, God will never be angry or disappointed in us: He’s taken care of our sin in Christ. In other words, defining grace this way means we can receive all the benefits of salvation merely by receiving Christ as Savior, and that receiving Him as Lord is optional.

This teaching on grace effectively turns it into a type of open-ended leniency, permission to pursue our own interests, passions, and lusts. This is what Jude calls turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness, exposing those who promote this as ungodly, denying the Lordship of Christ. (Jud 4)

Routinely overlooking the willful, wrongful behavior of those we love is unhealthy at best. Claiming God is this way, and that we should be too, is foolish. God simply isn’t like this; He cares very deeply how we act, being grieved and angered by all intentional sin (He 10:26-27) This is clear in the Word, proof of His love. (Re 3:19)

The problem with the common definition of grace is that it fails to account for the miracle of the new birth, and the transforming dynamic inherent in grace. Grace isn’t freedom to sin, it’s freedom from sin (Ro 6:14); grace is God providing us a new nature (2Co 5:17) that’s inclined to obey Him. (1Pe 1:2)

Let no one deceive us (1Jn 3:7): those in Christ have received Him as He truly is, as both Savior and Lord. (Jn 1:12) Those who carelessly and willfully disobey Him as a manner of life don’t yet know Him. (1Jn 3:9)

The relentless assaults of false teachers require us to earnestly contend for the basics of godly faith as we engage each other to fight the good fight and lay hold on eternal life. (1Ti 6:12) God’s Word is unmistakably clear: those who don’t love Jesus Christ don’t belong to Him (1Co 16:22), and all who aren’t trying their best to honor and obey Him don’t love Him. (Jn 14:23)

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The Liberty

In Christ we’re free, absolutely free; He paid a great price to deliver us, so we should stand fast in that freedom, rejoice in it, and not return to bondage. (Ga 5:1) It’s like He’s given us the key to our own prison door and expects us to use it. But what exactly is freedom, and how do we walk in it?

Those who find A Scandalous Freedom (Steve Brown, 2004) in Christ, define freedom as “exemption or liberation from the control of some other person, or some arbitrary power.” (p.6) To them, freedom in Christ means we may live as we please, with no rules, constraints, expectations or obligations toward God. The claim is that we have God’s permission to do whatever we want; anything else is “a weird sort of freedom.” (p.7) Their claim is that God will love us just as much, be just as fond of us, no matter what we do, and that He will never be angry or disappointed in us. (p.14)

Yet Christ defines freedom differently, as the ability and tendency to keep God’s Law: when we break God’s law we become slaves to sin (Jn 8:34); so freedom is deliverance from the tendency and inclination to sin (Ro 7:24-25a), being given a new nature that aligns with God’s law. (He 8:10) He says, in effect, that freedom is the ability to live according to our design, and that our design is to be in right relationship with God, to love and obey Him; there’s no salvation, deliverance or freedom apart from this. (1Jn 3:7-8)

Freedom isn’t about having no master; it’s about having the right master. We all have a master: we either serve sin or we serve obedience. (Ro 6:16) Outside Christ we’re slaves to sin (vs 17), but Christ sets us free from sin to serve righteousness. (vs 18) Our new nature serves God’s law, but any lies remaining within us will always serve sin. (Ro 7:25b)

Sin always springs from a lie and takes us captive (2Ti 2:25-26); so freedom is walking in truth, for the truth makes us free. (Jn 8:32) Those who find permission in Christ to sin are simply twisting God’s grace into indulgence, missing Christ entirely. (Jud 1:4)

Lies about freedom are often rooted in a misunderstanding of grace, confusing it with leniency, mercy, and forgiveness, and thus reading related scriptures incorrectly. Grace is the divine influence upon the heart, and its reflection in the life. (Strong) Grace is the very power of God enabling us to live free of sin, to be aligned with His law. Grace is divine enablement, not unconditional forgiveness and love. So, thinking grace gives us freedom to sin is an open contradiction: it’s like freedom to be sick in our healing, or filthy in our cleansing. It is this misunderstanding of grace, turning God’s truth into a lie (Ro 1:25), which gives the half-truths of Christian “freedom” their insidious appeal.

It is true that God loves and forgives believers totally and unconditionally; there is no sin that Christ did not atone for, and He will never impute sin to any believer. (Ro 4:8) But this is only half of the truth.

The rest of the truth is that believers don’t sin, or break God’s Law (1Jn 3:4), on purpose, carelessly, negligently or presumptuously, as a manner of life. (1Jn 2:4) God has commanded us to keep His law diligently (Ps 119:4), and believers have a new nature that longs to be perfect (Ps 119:5); we actually are obedient to God (1Pe 1:2), inclined toward righteousness and holiness. (Ep 2:10)

Yet believers do sin (1Jn 1:8), drawn away by our own lusts and enticed (Ja 1:14), missing the mark of perfection even as we try our best to obey. And when we sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. (1Jn 2:1) So, once we have salvation we can never lose it: it is eternal. (He 5:9) But thinking this implies freedom to sin willfully and presumptuously is a gross misunderstanding of the gospel. (He 10:26-27)

As believers, we work out our deliverance from sin with fear and trembling (Php 2:13), knowing God Himself is working His grace in us according to His good pleasure. (vs 14) And He that began this good work in us will continue to perform it until the Day of Jesus Christ. (Php 1:6)

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The Gospel

Gospel means good news. In scripture, it relates to salvation (Ro 1:16): how we may be reconciled to God (Ro 5:10), delivered from both the penalty and power of our sin. (Ga 1:4)

This everlasting gospel is revealed and enabled in the divine sacrifice, of which the Old Testament animal sacrifices are a type (Jn 1:29); through His substitutionary death on our behalf, Christ became the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world. (1Jn 2:2) We know God is satisfied with Christ’s work because of the resurrection. (Ac 17:31)

But even with the facts of the gospel laid out in plain view, until God opens our eyes, and turns us from darkness to light (Ac 26:18), we remain blind, dead in our trespasses and sins. (Ep 2:1-3) Those who continue in doubt (He 4:1), or to pursue disobedience (1Jn 3:9), who don’t love God (1Co 16:22), who aren’t being transformed into His likeness, are like dead men walking — they haven’t believed this good news: they haven’t been reconciled to God or delivered from the power of sin. (1Jn 3:10)

When Christ came He preached this good news (Lk 20:1), but never once explicitly mentioned His death, burial or resurrection. A sinful woman found forgiveness of all of her sins in Christ through this gospel; overwhelmed in grateful tears, she loved Him intensely. (Lk 7:47)

Abraham believed the gospel when he took God at His word (Ro 4:3), that one of his descendants (Ga 3:16) would be in number as the stars, and God counted this in Abraham as perfect righteousness. (Ge 15:5-6)

King David believed this gospel, and found a place of perfect reconciliation and righteousness in God without working for it, a place where God would never again impute sin to him. (Ro 4:6-8)

This same gospel was also preached to unbelieving Israel in the wilderness, but it fell on deaf ears.  (He 4:2) Perhaps, as it was then, even so it is now, that very few perceive the gospel, though most of the world has heard of the death, burial and resurrection of Christ, and is aware that He died for our sins.

We aren’t reconciled to God, or saved, by acknowledging a set of historical facts, or by asking God to save us and committing our lives to serve Him; this is mere religion. We can know Jesus died for the sins of the world, and that He rose again, and still not believe the gospel, the good news, such that we’re saved from the power of sin and death. (Ro 8:2)

There’s only one gospel, one version of this good news, that’s legitimate; anyone preaching any other gospel is accursed. (Ga 1:8) Christ can quicken us (Col 2:13), make us spiritually alive, and take care of our sin (1Jn_3:5), and only Christ can do this. We can’t add anything to this, or take anything away from it, and still have the gospel.

There is no ritual that enables and facilitates receiving this gospel. (Ga 6:15) Salvation comes through an actual miracle of faith, where God gives us supernatural assurance and trust that He’s taken care of our sin in Christ (1Th 1:5), fully and completely, causing us to enter into His rest (He 4:3), and begins transforming our hearts with the living Christ, giving us a new nature (Ez 36:26), His own nature (Col 1:27), enabling us to love and obey Him.

Salvation is the receiving of God Himself, the divine Person, as He is. (Jn 1:12) This is the new birth; it is the work of God, not springing from the human will (Jn 1:13), but God conceiving us through His Word. (Ja 1:18)

Very few believe the gospel and find this salvation (Mt 7:14); we should each labor to enter into this rest (He 4:11), striving to enter (Lk 13:24), diligently ensuring our own calling and election. (2Pe 1:10)

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As a Little Child

Christ tells us that to enter God’s kingdom we must receive it like a little child would. (Lk 18:17) Some manner of childlikeness is therefore intrinsic in regeneration, so it’s important to understand what this looks like: there’s no salvation without it.

Firstly, we note that God isn’t telling us to be childish (1Co 13:11), foolish (Pr 22:15), or childlike in our understanding (1Co 14:20a,c); God wants us to be mature in knowledge and wisdom. Rather, we’re to be as children in malice (vs 20b), not bitter, vengeful, jaded and resentful, wishing harm to others for the sake of it.

Neither are we to be voluntarily weak and vulnerable, inappropriately dependent on others. God commands us to be poor in spirit (Mt 5:3), not spiritually self-sufficient (2Co 3:5), but He also commands us to be strong (1Co 16:13)

Godly childlikeness seems to be primarily in the context of humility: small children don’t tend to think too highly of themselves. (Mt 18:4) They’re not preoccupied with status, with how they stack up against others, or in feeling certain tasks are beneath them. They aren’t envious or bitter.

Further, small children are generally very teachable, curious, wanting to learn, grow and understand. (1Pe 2:2) They tend to trust what adults tell them, depending on those who are older and wiser to guide and protect them. This isn’t the same as being gullible (Pr 14:15); children aren’t capable of understanding the world well enough to navigate it wisely (Lk 2:52), so they’re involuntarily dependent and vulnerable. (Mt 18:6) They aren’t locked into preconceived biases which blind them to the truth when they hear it. They are, in a sense, strong in faith. This is how we’re to respond to God, as a little child trusts a loving parent: God is infinitely beyond us in power and knowledge, so we should trust what He says implicitly, and without reservation.

Small children tend to repent when appropriately corrected, and to try to please those in authority when consistently and lovingly disciplined. Their hearts aren’t hard; they enjoy being loved and cared for, being in relationship with their father, being close to him and nurtured by him. Similarly, regeneration produces in us an obedient heart (1Pe 1:2), one that readily yields to correction and seeks to serve and obey our Heavenly Father.

Unless we’re transformed, and become as little children, we won’t enter His kingdom. (Mt 18:3) We must find God at work in us, transforming us in humility and holiness such that we’re unassuming, trusting in the goodness of our Father, not pretending to be worthy of the gift, simply joyful and grateful.

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Save with Fear

Modern Evangelical Christians have dramatically shifted emphasis in presenting the Gospel, away from hellfire and brimstone as in earlier days, to focus almost entirely on God’s love.

The love of God is amazing, for sure, certainly less offensive than Hell fire; to comprehend it is to be filled with all the fullness of God. (Ep 3:19) But is this a good move? In other words, is this shift in focus a biblical one, or might it tend toward compromise, lukewarmness, and spiritual decay?

Putting it another way, should the unregenerate, those who don’t already deeply love Jesus Christ (1Co 16:22), be encouraged to meditate on God’s love? Or is this a topic which should generally be reserved for committed Christians?

If we consider the biblical emphasis, God’s universal love for Man is only explicitly highlighted twice in all of Scripture (Jn 3:16, Tit 3:4); entire gospel accounts – written to introduce the life and ministry of Christ to the world – don’t mention it, nether does the inspired history of the early Church, in showing us how to spread the Gospel to the nations.

However, the wrath of God is made plain several hundred times throughout the Word, and repeatedly emphasized by Christ Himself in the Gospels. John the Baptist introduces Christ by preaching repentance (Mt 3:2) and warning of eternal fire. (Mt 3:12) Paul is mindful of the terror of God as he’s persuading men (2Co 5:11), acutely aware that those who don’t know God are in real, eternal danger. (Php 3:18) Jude advises us to make an exception for certain kinds of people, compassionately entreating them with gentleness (Jud 22), but to generally use fear as a primary motivation in our witness. (23) Why might this be?

Telling those who don’t fear God how much He loves them isn’t actually a very loving thing to do; it tends to downplay the imminent danger they’re in, how urgently they must repent and turn to God. By the fear of the Lord we depart from evil (Pr 16:6); this is the first step in seeking God. (Is 55:7) Unless a lost soul is seriously going after God, seeking Him with all their heart (Je 29:13) and striving to enter the kingdom (Lk 13:24), they’re actually hardening their heart. (He 4:7) Focusing on love is simply inappropriate here.

As we prayerfully encourage souls to pursue the living God (Da 12:3), we must do so in love, being mindful of their peril, yet using discernment in how we engage. (Mt_7:6) Anyone in the West already has sufficient access to salvation truth to find God if they want to; shoving it in their face may actually do more harm than good. (2Pe 2:21) Christ only offers the gospel to those who are humbly seeking it (Lk 10:21), and the Apostle Paul does the same. (Act 17:31)

Let’s soberly contemplate the eternal, fiery torment of lost souls as we engage them in our witness. (He 10:31) May God melt our hearts until sinners feel our trembling (Php 2:12) and our tears (Ac 20:31), as God reaches out to them through us. (2Co 5:19) Our Lord, Man of sorrows (Is 53:3), lives in us, calling us to follow His steps. (1Pe 2:21)

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Far From the Wicked

Some people are far away from the kingdom of God (Ps 73:27), and some are not. (Mk 12:34) What’s the difference?

Salvation is far from the wicked, because they’re not seeking God’s statutes. (Ps 119:155) They’re at enmity with God because they aren’t subject to His Law (Ro 8:7); their very nature opposes it. (Je 13:23)

Thinking we’re saved, or that we even want to be saved while we’re committed to sin is a contradiction; salvation is from sin (Mt 1:21), not in sin. (Ro 6:1-2) If we intend to sin and are unconcerned about it, we don’t want to be saved from sin at all — just from the consequences.

Coming to God implies wanting to obey Him, desiring to be aligned with Him, to live in intimate fellowship with Him (Jn 14:21); there’s no salvation apart from this. (He 12:14) Regenerate souls delight in God’s Law (Ro 7:22); we keep it as well as we can (Ps 119:94), and ask God to quicken us so we can obey the rest. (Ps 119:35-37)

Spiritual life produces obedience (1Pe 1:2) in those who are God’s workmanship (Ep 2:10); those who hope in God’s salvation do His commandments  (Ps 119:166), obeying unto the transformation of their souls. (Ps 19:7) This is how we identify the children of God. (1Jn 3:10)

Let no one deceive us here (1Jn 3:7-8): unless we repent and turn away from our sin to God we perish. (Lk 13:3) Those who are willfully disobeying or neglecting any part of God’s Law as a manner of life, who know better, have no hope of eternal life (1Jn 3:6); they’re self-deceived (Ja 1:22) and will be trodden down by God. (Ps 119:118) Those who are neglecting Torah wouldn’t seek God even if someone came back from the dead to persuade them. (Lk 16:31)

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Everlasting Punishment

Fear of suffering eternally in Hell should move us (Jud 1:22-23) to seek the Lord earnestly, striving to enter the Way (Lk 13:23-24), until we know we have eternal life. (1Jn 5:13) The infinite cost of failure here makes any other outcome entirely unacceptable to the rational soul.

But is Hell, the second death, actually eternal? What if, as some teach, Hell has an explicit finality to it, where souls don’t suffer forever but are rather extinguished, annihilated, such that they cease to exist? Wouldn’t that be more consistent with a loving God?

Annihilationism is the claim that as the wicked are destroyed (Mt 10:28) they cease to exist, that spiritual death is final and complete, an eradication of body, soul and spirit, producing a state of non-existence. The motive is to frame God as more reasonable and compassionate when eternal torment is not perceived to be justifiable. (Ro 11:33) After all, how could a loving God torture souls eternally? 

To begin, observe that we can destroy something without annihilating it, say, by smashing a computer or a car and rendering it inoperative, incapable of fulfilling its intended purpose, forcing its components into an altered, unusable state.

Similarly, in death (separation of spirit and soul from body) spirit, soul and body continue to exist; none are annihilated. (Lk 16:22) So, verses including death and destroy do not, in themselves, imply Annihilationism.

Further, Annihilationism assumes sin has a finite degree (making infinite punishment unjust) and no benefit in eternal torment (making it unnecessary). But if Man’s unchecked sin is indeed infinite, in both intensity and duration, and if eternal suffering would bring glory to God, prompting worship in the righteous by uniquely revealing the nature of both God and Man, then Annihilationism is problematic. To verify this, let’s search the Scripture.

The Word states, as clearly as anything can be stated, that most souls will suffer consciously for eternity. (Re 14:11) This is not surprising, since we all, when left to ourselves, love darkness rather than light, because our deeds are evil. (Jn 3:19) This is deeply offensive and dishonoring to God. What should He do about it?

Conventional teaching has been that God angrily casts the wicked into a furnace of fire (Mt 13:42), consigning them there forever because they did not believe on Him in earthly life. (Jn 3:36) This punishment seems so harsh that many struggle to understand how this could possibly be consistent with God’s love and mercy, even if we see it in Scripture. Can anyone truly deserve such an end?

How can God impose this kind of fiery punishment for eternity and yet be loving and just? It is impossible to rightly understand these kinds of things without the proper context; as with many other theological problems, the resolution lies in a full comprehension of the nature of Man.

Everlasting, infinite punishment would only be unjust if the wicked were not infinitely so, if their rebellion were finite in either intensity or duration. Yet, Annihiliationism would explicitly hide this reality from us, such that we could never experience the timeless nature of either God or Man. But isn’t this God’s explicit purpose in Creation, to reveal and glorify Himself? (Ro 9:22-23) If so, how then might eternal punishment reveal and glorify God?

When God has suffered the indignity of our sin long enough, suppose all He does is simply unveil Himself (Is 25:7), showing us all Who He is and what He is like, unfiltered, exactly as He is. (Re 20:11) This will distill every place in the universe down to only one: the immediate presence of Almighty God. Infinite depravity will then begin to fully and intimately engage with infinite holiness, justice and love.

This simple unveiling of God changes everything. Whatever is in God and of God is fulfilled and completed (Col 2:10), home at last, while all outside God is incapacitated (Mt 15:13), shaken to the core (He 12:27), unable to function as designed: destroyed.

As this climactic event unfolds, a permanent standoff develops: the wicked remain opposed to God and at enmity with Him (Ro 8:7), while God remains infinitely holy, just and loving. These two natures are entirely irreconcilable; they cannot abide in harmony together, not even a little bit. Each side is absolutely intolerable to the other (Pr 11:20), and they clash with unfathomable violence and intensity. God’s indignant fury fills the wicked with terror (Na 1:6), yet there is no place to hide. The damned begin to suffer the real, ultimate consequence of their rebellion, destroyed by the very glory of the God they despise (2Th 1:9), the inevitable result of their own willful choices and nature.

Since God does not change (Ja 1:17), the only way this stalemate will ever end is if the wicked find it within themselves to repent and turn to God (Je 13:23), otherwise their punishment will indeed be everlasting (Mt 25:46), infinite in both degree and duration, according to their own nature. (Is 33:14)

So, as the wicked stubbornly continue in their unbridled rebellion, drowning in inextinguishable holy fire (Mk 9:43-44), they put their hatred for God on universal display (Ps 21:9), permanently showcasing themselves before God’s throne for the righteous to observe and contemplate. (Is 66:23-24) They are held by the cords of their own sin (Pr 5:22), in perpetual shame and everlasting contempt. (Da 12:2)

In this state, what should God do? Must He annihilate His enemies in order to be loving and just?

What if the holy arms of a loving God remain forever open (Ro 10:21), even to those in Hell (Re 22:17), offering mercy and pardon to any who will repent and turn to Him? (Is 55:7) And what if we begin to observe, in age after incredible age, that the damned will never return to God (Ps 81:15), not a single one (Ps 14:2-3), no matter what immense suffering their own relentless, stubborn blasphemy (Re 16:9) continually draws down upon their own heads? (Pr 27:22) If God ever does do such a thing, and the wicked play their hand as predicted, who could ever rightly complain against Him? (Re_15:4)

And if God did annihilate His enemies, how would we ever know how infinitely evil human nature truly is (Je 17:9), when God gives us up to fully pursue our own way?

Perhaps it is only then, as we actually experience eternity itself, that we will be enabled to fathom more and more the infinitude of our God (Ps 145:3), to glory in His infinite mercy (Ps 103:11), to experience the true nature of unregenerate Man (Ro 8:7), and agree that it’s inexcusable. (Ro 1:20) Perhaps this will enable us to begin to perceive the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us through His Son (Ep 2:7), as we explore the unsearchable riches of Christ. (Ep 3:8)

The eternal, infinite, willful, voluntarily self-imposed suffering of the damned will be a continual, tangible reminder of what we all are like without God, and what we all deserve. There will be no self-glory in His presence. (1Co 1:29) We will never forget what our Father has done for us. (1Jn 3:1)

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Call on the Name

One of the most abused texts in Scripture must be Romans 10:13 – “For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.” Today, it’s generally taken out of context to try to help people receive Christ, teaching that those who ask God to save them are guaranteed eternal life.

But the context indicates we must already believe in God in order to rightly call upon Him, (Ro 10:14a), and that those who thus believe are already saved. (Ro 10:10a) Salvation occurs as we first believe in God (Ga 3:6), as our basis of trust changes from ourselves to Christ, not when we ask to be saved.

This exposes a basic contradiction inherent in the typical evangelical gospel message: when we ask Christ to save us we’re admitting we aren’t saved, and if we aren’t saved then it follows that we don’t yet rightly believe on Christ. (Jn 3:18)

So, asking Christ to save us can’t be an expression of faith; it’s an admission of our unbelief. Teaching that one can be saved like this, by rote prayer as they continue in unbelief, is in fact another gospel (Ga 1:6), a false, perverted one, offering a lie for eternal life.

What’s missing from this mechanical gospel is faith: supernatural assurance that Christ’s atonement has already secured our salvation. Apprehending the true nature of Christ’s work produces solid assurance of eternal life (1Th 1:5); without it we’re still lost, dead in our sin. (Ep 2:1)

Trying to mechanize the gospel takes God Himself out of the equation: yet He must enable us to believe unto salvation (Jn_6:29), bringing us to life as He gives us faith in Christ. (Ep 2:5) Until we’ve experienced this supernatural work, we must continue to seek the Lord.

It doesn’t matter how many times we’ve called upon the Lord if we haven’t believed on Him. Do we believe? That’s the question. It’s about who we’re trusting in: Christ or ourselves.

One way to tell whether we’re grounded in Christ is to notice were we look for assurance of our salvation. Do we look to Christ, and to the work He’s done? Do we look first to the cross, and see the efficacy and completeness of His work, how God has made Christ to be sin on our behalf? Or do we look to something we’ve done, to some act of receiving Christ? It makes all the difference in the world.

To call on the name of God means to take Him at His word, to trust that He’s faithful, reliable, to enter into His rest. (He 4:1) Only those who believe on Him can do this. (He 4:10)

To corrupt the Gospel by twisting such concepts is to miss the narrow gate. (Mt 7:14) Strive to enter; give diligence to make your calling and election sure (2Pe 1:10), and be established in your faith as God intended. (Col 2:7)

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