Empty Words Series

Now here is where we come to a doctrinal fine line. We believe in the eternal security of the believer. The most redneck of us like to shout ‘once saved always saved’ even though that’s the closest they can come to an intelligent discussion on the subject, but at least they get the main point.

But I remember one of my Bible College instructors saying that although he too believed in the security of the believer, he found it difficult to imagine God, at the rapture, sending angels wading through bars and brothels looking for wayward Christians.

So we have a bit of a problem, don’t we? We believe that once we are saved we are secure in God, standing in Christ’s righteousness, for the rest of eternity. And we should believe that, because it is the clear teaching of the scriptures, and it is the only way to understand God’s amazing grace.

But then why are there so many verses of scripture written to Christians, warning against missing out on God?

Hebrews 6:4-6

“For in the case of those who have once been enlightened and have tasted of the heavenly gift and have been made partakers of the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come, and then have fallen away, it is impossible to renew them again to repentance, since they again crucify to themselves the Son of God, and put Him to open shame.”

And I’d have to quote almost all of I John, to show you all the places he says that if we say we’re a Christian but do or do not do certain things, we aren’t Christians at all!

So how do we reconcile this with the doctrine of eternal security? If we’re eternally secure and cannot be lost once we’re saved, then why any scriptural exhortations against sin and neglect and drifting away and all those things we’re warned against?

I’ve heard this one. “There’s spiritual Christians and there’s carnal Christians”. I have a hard time with that one. There is no fleshly Christian. We’re Christians spiritually, and the Divine Nature imparted to us is manifested through our members.

But as another of my instructors was fond of saying, very profoundly, “Either you is or you ain’t” You’re a Christian, or not a Christian. Saved, or unsaved. Of the family of God, or excluded from the family of God. Alive in Christ, or dead in sin.

So what I see the epistles telling me, is that if I can continue to practice sin as a lifestyle, unrepentant and un-convicted, then no matter what I say I am, I am not a Christian.

What you are is infinitely more important than what you say you are. Because when what you say you are runs contrary to what you really are, it is what you really are that’s going to dictate your responses, reactions and decisions in life, and testify to those around you of the truth.

What you really are, eventually, will expose what you say you are as a falsehood.

So I am constrained to offer solemn warning here; if you are the kind of person people might tend to label a “Carnal Christian”, because of your lifestyle; if you would excuse the things in your life by saying, “Well, I can’t help it, I’m still a carnal Christian…God isn’t finished with me yet”, then for the sake of your eternal soul I have to exhort you to examine yourself whether you really are a Christian at all.