Romans 5: Glorification & Eternal Security
Date: 6/29/08
At: Tioga Heights Christian Church
By: Wayne ODonnell
Web: http://bible.ag
Ok, good morning again. How are you doing? It must be the fifth Sunday, because I am here. The last time I was here, I started a survey of Romans. We covered chapters 1 through 4. Today I would like to look at Romans chapter 5. Is this too loud? No?
Today I would like to look at Romans chapter 5, which is about glorification and eternal security. This is a special topic to me, so I am really thankful that I can be here and share it with you.
The Three Tenses Of Our Salvation
We are going to start by looking at the first two verses of Romans chapter 5, and it is about the three tenses of our salvation. The past tense of our salvation is justification. Paul covered that in Romans chapters one through four. Chapter 5 verse 1 says, “Therefore being justified,” which is better translated “having been justified”, past tense, “by faith we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.”
To be justified means that God, who is holy, and his wrath is against all unrighteousness, counts a man who is not just, as if he were just. And he does that because of our faith in what Jesus Christ did for us as our substitute, in taking our sin and providing us his righteousness. And then “we have peace with God,” Rom5:1. “We”, who still commit acts of unrighteousness, “have peace with God,” the just holy judge, because God counts us as if we are just, as if we are righteous, “through Christ our Lord,” Rom5:1. So that is justification, the past aspect of our salvation. And I hope that is a past aspect for each person in this room, that we have already been justified in the past, that at some day in the past we believed on Jesus Christ.
The present aspect of our salvation is sanctification, a big word. And Paul is going to cover that in Romans 12 through 16. Romans 5:2 says, “By whom also we have access,” it should be “have had access,” past tense, “by faith into this grace wherein we stand.” So when you believed on Jesus Christ for justification something else happened and you didn’t realize it at the time; you also had access into grace through Jesus Christ at the same time. And it is a one way door into grace. You can go in, but you can’t come out. Nobody ever leaves grace once they enter in because we stand in grace. Nobody falls in grace. We don’t stumble in grace. It says, “Wherein we stand,” Rom5:2. Not some of us, not just for a little while; but, we stand in grace.
The future aspect of our salvation is glorification. Paul’s beginning that topic right here in Romans chapter 5 and it will go on through chapter 11. The end of chapter 5 verse 2 says, “And rejoice in hope of the glory of God.”
That word “hope” tells us that it is something about the future. It doesn’t mean “hope so”; like, “I hope it comes to pass”, “I’m not really sure”. It is a very certain thing that is going to happen in the future for all who have been justified. But the word “hope” is just there because it is something in the future. If there is something certain that happened in the past, like Christ’s death on the cross, we can have faith in that because it happened in the past. But if it is something sure that is going to happen in the future, we have hope in that.
And the thing that is in the future that is certain that we are looking forward to is the glory of God. Now that doesn’t mean that God is glorious, though he is. It is talking about the fact that God is going to give glory to man, to all who have been justified. We are not going to just see the glory of God, we are going to share in the glory of God. Praise the Lord.
And we rejoice in that hope of glory because it is a sure thing. If it wasn’t a sure thing it would be presumptuous of us to rejoice in it. If we didn’t know it was going to happen we should, out of humility, wait until we know for sure before we rejoice in it. But since it is going to happen, we rejoice in it now.
Now here is a diagram of the three tenses of our salvation. On the left hand side you see justification. That is a past event for those who have been justified, and it affects our spirits. On the right hand side you see glorification. That is a future event, and it affects our bodies. Our bodies didn’t change when we believed on Jesus Christ, except now they are older than they used to be. But in the future they will be changed.
And then the present aspect is sanctification. And that is not an event. It is a process. There is no second blessing that you can get as an event that is going to let you cruise through the Christian life without effort.
Ok, now let’s begin the main part of the chapter. I said the last time I was here that the main proposition of the book of Romans is that all -- this is based on Romans 1:16 -- all who have been justified will be glorified, and all who have been justified are being sanctified, because of the way in which we were justified. So since Paul talked about justification in chapters 1 through 4, now it makes sense for him to go on and show how all who have been justified will be glorified. And that is also called eternal security. So this chapter gives three reasons why we have eternal security.
1) We Have Eternal Security Because Of God’s Promise
Ok, reason number one: We have eternal security because of God’s promise. And we just looked at that verse, Romans 5:2. There are other promises in the New Testament about this, but we’ll just stick with this one. “And rejoice” or ‘boast’, the word is ‘kaukometha’ in Greek, “in hope of the glory of God.” Rom5:2. So the word is either ‘rejoice’ or ‘boast’. It is not the word used for joy in some other places. And, again, it is not presumption that we are boasting in this hope because it is a sure thing, because it is God’s promise. Paul would be very derelict here to say that we are rejoicing in this, and boasting in it, if it is not something that we know is going to happen.
Ok, so if our hope is the glory of God, sharing in the glory of God, well, what is glory? We should know what that is. And this may be surprising. Sometimes glory means ‘honor’. But often in the New Testament it means ‘brightness’. And people used to know that. That has just disappeared out of the modern dictionary so we have to go back to Webster’s original dictionary to see the definition. In the original dictionary of Webster, for ‘glory’, the number one meaning was ‘brightness’. But, of course what really matters is the Greek word, because that is the inspired word that God wrote.
In Liddle and Scott’s Greek English Lexicon, that means ‘dictionary’, for the word ‘doksa’, which is translated as ‘glory’, the third meaning is, “of external appearance, effulgence.” Ok, that doesn’t help us much, ‘effulgence’. We don’t use that word too much. So we have to go back to Webster’s original dictionary, and effulgence means “a flood of light, great luster or brightness.”
Now is that the way the word is used in the New Testament? Well, let’s take a look. 2 Corinthians 3:7, “The children of Israel could not stedfastly behold the face of Moses for the glory,” for the ‘brightness’, “of his countenance,” of his ‘face’. So Moses went up on the mountain, and he was with the shekinah glory for a while. And there is another use of the word ‘glory’ for ‘brightness’, the ‘shekinah glory’. And his face, by his being with the shekinah glory, was glorified. And when he came down from the mountain, he had to put a veil on his face because it was hurting the eyes of the people of Israel.
Here is another passage. This is about Paul on his way to Damascus, when he saw the resurrected Lord. After Jesus was resurrected, 40 days later he ascended into heaven, and then he was glorified. So as Paul saw him on the way to Damascus, he was shining brightly. “About noon, suddenly there shone from heaven a great light round about me.... And he said unto me, I am Jesus of Nazareth... And when I could not see for the glory,” for the brightness, “of that light, being led by the hand of them that were with me, I came into Damascus,” Acts22:6-11. So ‘honor’ is not going to hurt anyone’s eyes, but a bright ‘glory’ of light can blind a person for a while.
How does Jesus look today? When John saw him many years later in a vision in Revelation chapter 1, he was still shining, glorious. “His feet like unto fine brass, as if they burned in a furnace...and his countenance,” his face, “was as the sun shineth in his strength,” Rev1:15-16.
Now our bodies are going to be changed to be like his body in the future. That is called glorification. We are not going to receive a new body. The Bible never says we will receive a ‘new’ body. Our current bodies will be changed. Philippians 3:20, “We look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ: who shall change our vile body,” that is the body we have now, “that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body,” his brightly shining body, “according to the working whereby he is able even to subdue all things unto himself.”
Now we only get one body. God can no more replace my body than he can replace my spirit. If he gave me a new spirit, it wouldn’t be me anymore, it would be somebody else. If he replaces my body, it is not me anymore, it is somebody else, because both parts are me. My spirit is Wayne; my body is Wayne. Now if God didn’t change our present bodies, and he just threw them away and gave us new bodies, then that would mean Satan would have won a victory in that part of creation; a permanent victory, and God can’t allow that to happen. So he has to redeem our current bodies.
The meaning of ‘resurrection’ is that you take something that dies, and you raise it back up. If you don’t raise up that same thing, if you replace it with something else, that is not resurrection. Jesus tomb was empty. When Peter and John went into the tomb, they didn’t see Jesus’ old body laying there in the tomb and his new body walking around outside. The tomb was empty because it was his body that rose up.
And whether you are dead for a few days, or whether you are dead for 500 years and your body turns to dust, God has to take that same material and bring it back together, add water, and re-form it. Now the fingernails we trimmed over of our lifetime, he is not going to gather those back. But if we lose an arm, something essential, he will gather that wherever it is, whatever form it is in, and restore it with the rest of our body.
Our glorified bodies will be immortal: that means they can’t die. Incorruptible: they can’t sin. Spiritual: means their life is going to be from God. Spiritual, but not spirit. Physical things can be spiritual, but they can’t be spirit. Jesus said in Luke 24:39 after the resurrection, “Behold my hands and my feet, that it is I myself: handle me, and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have.” So it is true that flesh and blood shall not inherit the kingdom of God, 1 Corinthians 15:50, but flesh and bones shall inherit the kingdom of God, according to Luke 24:39.
Now this hope of glory that we are looking forward to, this is not just one of many hopes for us Christians. This is the hope. This is one third of our salvation: justification, sanctification, glorification. And that is why it is so important for us to know it. Titus 2:13 says, “Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious,” the ‘brightly shining’, “appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ.” Colossians 1:27 says, “Christ in you, the hope of glory”, of glorification.
2) We Have Eternal Security Because Of God’s Love
Ok, now let’s look at reason number two why we have eternal security. The first reason was God’s promise. He wouldn’t be telling us that we are going to rejoice in glory if it wasn’t true. Number two: We have eternal security because of God’s love.
Romans 5:3 says, “And not only so, but we glory...” And that is a very unfortunate translation because that is not the word ‘doksa’ translated ‘glory’ in the previous verse. This is the word ‘kaukometha’ translated ‘rejoice’ in the previous verse. So let’s read it again. “And not only so, but we rejoice,” or ‘boast’, ‘kaukometha’, “in tribulations also,” Rom5:3. So first, we rejoice in hope of glory. Second, we rejoice in tribulations also.
Now why would somebody rejoice in tribulation, in suffering? Is it logical to rejoice in suffering? Well, it is only logical if you know something. It says here “knowing.” “Knowing that tribulation worketh,” or ‘produces’, “patience,” Rom5:3. Patience means ‘endurance’, ‘perseverance’.
Suffering never produces falling or failure for anyone who has been justified. It always produces endurance. So that alone is worth rejoicing in, that we know no matter how hard the times get, that we are not going to stop believing on the Lord, and so during the easier times, of course, we are not going to stop believing either. But Paul goes on. “And patience, experience.” Experience means ‘proof’ or ‘passing the test’. “And experience, hope,” Rom5:5 Because if you pass the test, now you have more reward waiting for you in eternity. You have more to hope for. You have more to rejoice in.
So we rejoice in hope of glory, and we rejoice in sufferings because they result in more glory for us to look forward to. This is brought out in 2 Corinthians 4:17. “Our light affliction, which is but for a moment, works for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory.” Now our affliction is not light. It is often very heavy. But compared to the weight of glory that we get in exchange for it, it is light. And our affliction is not momentary. Sometimes it is very long. But compared to the eternity of glory that we receive for it, it is just a moment.
We don’t all receive the same amount of glory in eternity. We won’t shine with the same brightness. 1 Corinthians 15:41 says, “There is one glory,” or ‘brightness’, “of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars: for one star differeth from another star in glory,” in ‘brightness’. So after glorification, as soon as you see somebody, you will know immediately how much they have suffered, how faithful they have been, how hard they have labored, how much they shared the gospel, just by how brightly they are shining through eternity.
Now why is it that we persevere through sufferings without fail? Romans 5:5 says, “And hope maketh not ashamed.” That means we boasted that we are going to be glorified, and when the time comes, we are not going to find ourselves in the lake of fire. We are not going to be embarrassed or disappointed. Our glorification will come to pass.
“Hope maketh not ashamed; because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us,” Rom5:5. After we are justified, the love of God is free to be poured out without measure, without limit in a new way in our lives. Now the first thing God does at the very moment we believed is to give us the gift of the Holy Spirit to indwell us. And the Holy Spirit causes us to love God and to persevere and to reach glorification.
Let’s look at God’s love to sinners in Romans 5:6-8. I’m going to paraphrase this. “Not many people would die for somebody else, but if they do, they are not going to die for a really bad person like Hitler. But God who is even more offended by sin than we are, died for really bad people like us, sent his Son to die for really bad people like us.”
Let me read verse 8. “But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” Now that is a really amazing display of the love of God. But even that has a limit in it in this verse, because there are certain things that Christ, that God, can’t do for people who are not justified. He can’t give glorification to people who are not justified. And he can’t guarantee the justification of all those who Christ died for. And the problem is a legal one. It is because of this word “sinners”, Rom5:8. Sin is a legal obstacle that limits what the love of a holy God can do for us.
But now let’s look at God’s love to the justified in Romans 5:9. “Much more then...” And it is a “much more” comparison. “Much more then, being now justified by his blood...” Now that our sins were taken out of the way, God’s love is free to be poured out, to give us his Holy Spirit and to bring us, all who have been justified, to glorification. It says, “We shall be saved from wrath through him.” Notice the future tense. The future tense of our salvation is glorification. It means that we will be glorified instead of suffering the wrath of God in the judgment and in the lake of fire. And not only that, but it is all of us that will be glorified. It says, “We shall be saved.” Not some of us shall be saved. And it is certain. It says, “We shall be saved.” Not we might be saved.
So God provided a way of salvation for us before we were justified. Christ died for us. But “much more”, after we are justified, God doesn’t just provide glorification for us. He ensures our glorification. He guarantees our glorification because he is free to do that, because there is no more obstacle or sin to limit his love and what he would like to do for us. We see also in verse 10, “For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life.” Future tense. We shall be glorified.
3) We Have Eternal Security Because Of God’s Promise
Ok, now, reason number three. We saw that we have God’s promise, and that God’s love is poured out in a new way to guarantee our glorification, and reason number three: We have eternal security because of God’s work.
Romans 5:11 says, “And not only so, but we also joy,” that’s the word ‘rejoice’ or ‘boast’, ‘kaukometha’, “in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received the atonement.” So we rejoice in hope of glory, we rejoice in tribulations also, and we also rejoice in God.
In other words, we boast in God that he is going to bring us to glory, glorification. We don’t boast in ourselves that we are going to be able to do that, because it is God work in us. And he accomplishes that work through uniting us with Jesus Christ, “through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received the atonement,” Rom5:11. He united us with Christ at the time of the atonement. So the way he accomplished our justification results with certainty in our glorification.
Paul talks about our union with Adam in 5:12-14. And I’ll paraphrase this. “You can sin without law, but you can’t transgress without law, because you need a law to transgress. But all people died from Adam to Moses, except for Enoch whom God delivered. But they didn’t have a law to transgress. So it must have been that they transgressed when Adam transgressed, that Adam’s sin was imputed unto them, and Adam’s sin is imputed unto us.” And the reason it was imputed is because we were in him, and also he was our representative.
Now we may not particularly like that doctrine but at the end of verse 14, at the end of the paragraph, “who is the figure of him that was to come.” Adam is a figure of Jesus. And how can one man die for the sins of another? Well, our sins were imputed unto Christ, like Adam’s sins were imputed unto us, so the two go together.
There are some differences, though. In Romans 5:15, “But not,” so there is a difference here; “but not as the offence, so also is the free gift. For if through the offence of one many be dead, much more,” that’s the difference, “much more the grace of God, and the gift by grace, which is by one man, Jesus Christ, hath abounded,” that’s the difference, “unto many.” So God doesn’t just restore to us what we lost in Adam. He goes way beyond that in what he gives us in Jesus Christ, which is a “much more” situation.
In verse 16. “And not as it was by one that sinned...”, here is another difference, not like one sinned, “...so is the gift: for the judgment was by one...”, the one offence of one man, “...to condemnation, but the free gift is of many offences unto justification,” many offenses of many people. So justification had to cover not only the one sin of Adam that passed on to us, but it also had to cover all the sins of all people of all time.
And one of the things this means is that when you believed on Jesus Christ, what Jesus did counted for you, and since he died for all the sins of all time, it wasn’t just your past sins that were covered, but also your future sins. And since all your sins were covered, God could go ahead and pronounce you ‘justified’. And in the previous part of the verse we see a legal situation. “Judgment was by one to condemnation,” Rom5:16. That’s the verdict of ‘guilty’, ‘condemned’. Now we have the verdict of ‘justification’, ‘not guilty’.
And God could make that verdict as soon as we believed. He doesn’t have to wait for our death for all the evidence to come in, because all of our sins were forgiven at the time we believed. All the evidence is in already. There is no new evidence that can come in, so he could pronounce our justification at that time.
Let’s go on to 5:18. “Therefore as by the offence of one,” that’s Adam’s action, “judgment came upon all men to condemnation; even so by the righteousness,” that should be translated “righteous act,” from the Greek, “of one the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life.” “All men” there means ‘all men who are in that person’. All who were in Adam, which is the whole human race, suffered condemnation. All men who are in Christ, all who are justified, receive justification of life.
But the focus here is on the act: Adam’s act of transgression, Jesus’ act of righteousness. We don’t really have completely free choice in this world. We can’t just choose anything we want. We have a limited number of choices. It depends on what is provided to us to choose from. When we were born we had no choice that we would be born under the condemnation of Adam. It just happened because we were in Adam when he sinned. When we believed on Christ for our justification, our faith isn’t really a work, it is just accepting somebody else’s work that they have done for you. The really important part is Jesus work that he did, because if he hadn’t done that, we could have had faith all day and nothing would have come of it.
And for us to become unjustified we can’t just decide, “Ok, I’ll become unjustified now. I’ll leave Christ.” We don’t have that option. It would take a third person to come, and be identified with us and Christ, and to commit some act of sin that would count for us all, that then would ‘unjustify’ us and condemn us again. But, of course, Christ was able to do that and get us out of Adam and into Christ, because Christ is stronger than Adam. But nobody is stronger than Christ, so nobody is going to be able to come and provide that act that we could believe on so that we could become unjustified.
In fact, in 1 Corinthians 15, Paul calls Christ, not the ‘second Adam’, but he calls him the ‘last Adam’. There are only going to be two Adams, two representatives of the human race: Adam and Christ. There is not going to be a third that can come and provide some means of getting out of Christ, or out of grace, or becoming unjustified. That option just isn’t available. And nobody will make provision for that.
Now let’s look at grace in Romans 5:20. “Moreover the law entered,” and the Greek is ‘entered alongside’, “that the offence might abound,” and the word should be just ‘increase’, not ‘abound’, just more of it. And the way the law allows sin to increase is it gives men an opportunity, not only to sin, but also to transgress something, to transgress the law. “But where sin abounded,” ‘increased’ in the Greek, “grace did much more abound,” and there the word is ‘abound’, except it has a prefix ‘super’ in front of it, ‘super-abound’, and then it has “much more” in front of that. So Paul is exhausting the limits of language to try to show us the abounding nature of grace, that it ‘much more super-abounds’ over any amount of sin, so that God can guarantee us our glorification.
Verse 21, “That as sin hath reigned unto death...” Sin reigns over all who have not been justified. And that is why we see the world as it is. And what it means for sin to reign is that, at any moment in time, a person can resist and not sin. But because sin is their master, and has persistent influence over them, their general way of life will be one of sin, everybody to different degrees.
And then it says, “Even so might grace reign...” Rom5:21. Grace reigns also after we have been justified. Not merely just as powerfully, but even more powerfully, than the reign of sin. And so what it means for grace to reign, is that at any moment in time, we can resist the reign of grace in our lives, but because of the persistent influence of grace upon us, our lives will be characterized by righteousness, which is co-reigner with grace, and by what grace wants to accomplish in our lives.
So there is such a thing as irresistible grace, but it is not for those who are unjustified, because they haven’t entered into grace yet. It is when we believe on Jesus Christ that we have an entrance into this grace in which we stand. And also that is when grace begins to reign, and it is going to, without fail, bring us to the goal that it wants to accomplish, which is to bring us to our glorification. That grace might, “reign through righteousness unto eternal life,” Rom5:21, which means that at the time of the judgment, we are going to be glorified, we are not going to be condemned.
And people like to say that eternal life is a kind of life, but it is also a length of life. If you have life for only one year, you never had eternal life. If you have eternal life now, you have it a billion years from now. And, of course, eternal life is what we receive when we believe on Jesus Christ. And so we have all these things, grace, righteousness, and eternal life, by Jesus Christ our Lord.
And Romans 6:1 confirms our interpretation of Romans 5 because it says, “What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound?” Now if Paul had taught that if you are not good you can lose your salvation, then nobody would say, “Oh, I’ll just go out and sin all I want then.” But since he taught eternal security, that no matter what you do, you are going to be glorified, people raise the objection, “If you teach like that, people are just going to go out and sin.” And if your teaching doesn’t expose you to this charge, then you are not teaching eternal security and you are not teaching grace. Of course, anyone that makes that charge doesn’t understand the reign of grace and how powerful it is in our lives, like the reign of sin was before we were justified, only immeasurably stronger.
3) What Do You Give A Person Who Has Everything?
Ok, what do you give a person who has everything? We are going to have everything in eternity. How about a gemstone with a secret name written in like Revelation 2:17? Or how about a crown that only those who love his appearing can wear like in 2 Timothy 4:7-8?
Or how about different degrees of brightness? Daniel 12:2-3 says, “And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt,” those are the ones that aren’t justified; and the ones that are justified: “and they that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament; and they that turn many to righteousness,” who share the gospel and witness, “as the stars for ever and ever.”
Some when they are glorified won’t shine quite so brightly - for ever and ever. And we are not in competition with each other, but we should invest in our future. Jim Eliot said, “He is no fool who gives up what he cannot keep, to gain what he cannot lose.”
And if you don’t know the Lord today, thankfully your future judgment is not certain, it is not guaranteed. You can change your destiny today, unlike those of us who have believed. We are destined for glory, and there is nothing we can do to change that, thankfully. But you can believe on the Lord today. “God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on him, shall not perish, but have everlasting life.” So in your heart now, tell him you trust in what he did for you. Trust his Word that, if you believe, if you trust in him, you will have everlasting life.
Father, we ask that if there is someone here that doesn’t know you, that they will trust in you, and receive everlasting life, and that each of us would live in such a way that we would have more glory for eternity through your grace. Amen.
