INTRODUCTION
Please turn in your Bibles to Colossians 1:21-23.
Despite its great complexity, this passage gives us a wonderful opportunity to reflect on the course of God’s salvation. It is something of a road map, tracing the spiritual journey of God’s redeemed people from its beginning to its final destination. Thus, verses 13-14 help us understand what happens at the beginning of our spiritual journey, when we are converted to or confirmed in Christ for our salvation from spiritual darkness and death. Verses 15-20 celebrate Christ’s current and cosmic lordship over God’s creation and new creation, and show why we can be confident, even in the midst of a broken and fallen world, that the Lord Christ continues to mediate the blessings of God’s reconciling grace within the life of the new creation, the church. Finally, based on verses 21-23, we are drawn toward the future, the eternal consequences of our reconciliation with God through Christ.
Salvation is like a many-faceted diamond that can & should be valued from many different angles. This morning we’re going to look at a couple more exquisite qualities of our salvation; reconciliation and perseverance. Whereas reconciliation describes how Christ restores our broken relationship with God, vis-à-vis perseverance portrays how Christ keeps us in right relationship with God.
Recently I had a conversation with someone where the topic was raised about whether or not it is good for believers to think about our past condition, to think about what we were or what we would be apart from Christ. Should we not just look forward at the grace, the mercy, the hope, and the promises of the gospel rather than looking backward at the sin, wrath, hopelessness and judgment that we are being saved from?
It’s a good question. This text answers it. There is a helpful remembrance of our sin. There is a place for remembering our past condition apart from Christ. In fact, without it we can’t fully understand or be deeply affected by what it means to be united with God.
According to the text, He has now reconciled you if you are a believer and follower of Jesus Christ, crucified for you. Reconciliation is what this passage is about, and reconciliation is about restoring broken relationships. Reconciliation is about ending a rift between two people due to an offense. It’s about moving from enmity to intimacy.
And so, to understand reconciliation and to be moved by the thought of God reconciling us to himself, we must remember that there was a rift between us and God, that we were enemies at one time. Salvation is more than just a transfer from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of Jesus where life is better for us. Salvation is going from enmity with God to being friends with God, and knowing intimate, blessed fellowship with the person of God.
Title: We’ll Make It!
Big Idea: God permanently transforms his enemies into friends through the cross of Christ.
To see this, we’re going to look at three stages of human existence. As we go through these, let’s allow the Holy Spirit to reveal in which state we are currently living. We’ll begin with our former condition apart from Christ – the state we were in that needed to be reconciled. Then we’ll look at our present condition in Christ, the reconciliation that is ours through the cross. We’ll close with our future condition because of Christ, that ultimate end that God had in mind in reconciling us to himself.
God permanently transforms his enemies into friends through the cross of Christ.
Our first stage of human existence is that we were or still are God’s…
1. Enemy: Our Former Condition Apart from Christ
Paul said this in verse 21. And you, “who once were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds,” those who sin separated from God in both their thoughts and actions.
That’s the condition of every person apart from Christ. Paul was talking here about what the Colossian believers were before salvation. Alienated. Hostile. Doing evil deeds.
Now when I hear words like alienated, hostile and doing evil deeds, the image that first comes to my mind is one of criminals, or the rebellious teenager, or the person who is just obnoxious and unfriendly and who doesn’t want anything to do with other people.
When I hear those words I want to believe that it doesn’t have anything to do with me. That the Colossian believers must have had a really bad past, that they were exceptionally wicked, that this doesn’t describe the average person like me. But it does have something to do with me. It does describe who I was, and it describes who you were if you are now believers in Christ, and even who you are right now if you are not believers.
Paul You see, did not know the Colossian believers first hand. He didn’t plant this church. He wasn’t intimately involved with each of them. He probably had never been there. He knew some things about them through Epapharus their pastor, but he couldn’t say specifically what the sin life was like for every member of that church. Yet he says with authority, without qualification, without exception, that these believers were at one time alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds. How can he know that? It’s because Paul knew the condition of fallen man apart from the saving grace of God. He knew the verdict of God about mankind in Psalm 14:3, They have all turned aside; together they have become corrupt; there is none who does good, not even one. We are all alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds apart from Christ. That was true of the Colossians and it’s true of us also.
Let’s explore these terms to better understand this condition.
Alienation is about being estranged from someone, about being on bad terms with someone, not speaking to one another, no longer a part of the circle of friendship. If you’re alienated from someone it’s because there’s some kind of offense between you, something that keeps you separate, that destroys relationship.
I remember when my family of origin went to visit Curt, my half-brother and his family, and although they were home they would not open the door, or return our phone calls. Someone obviously was offended and unwilling to interact with us but none of us knew why. We were alienated. There was an offense between us. It hurt then and it still hurts today when someone you care about shuts you out of their lives. It is indeed a sad course of events when people cannot get along with one another whom they have seen is there any wonder that we were or still are out-of-sorts with God whom we have not seen?
Paul says that’s what our relationship with God looks like apart from Christ. There’s an offense there between us, something that keeps us separate and keeps us from friendship. We were alienated from God; we were on bad terms with him.
But there’s more. Paul goes on to say that we were not only alienated but hostile in mind. That’s a deeper explanation of why we’re alienated from God. You see, if two people are alienated from each other, it could be because of a misunderstanding, that we’re not really to blame. We want to be friends but we don’t know how to be, we don’t know what’s wrong. Sort of like when you stop hearing from someone you were friends with and you wonder, “Why haven’t I heard from so and so for a while? We’re not close anymore.” Alienation doesn’t have to be about anything bad in us.
But Paul says we were hostile in mind. That means that we had something against God. We were uncooperative; we were even actively opposed to God. In other words we weren’t innocent in the matter. The person who is in a state of unbelief, who is outside of Christ and lost in sin, is not there just because of a lack of information. A person is not unsaved just because he hasn’t been exposed to the right materials, or because he hasn’t seen a good example of a humble believer.
Hostile in mind is about having our will set against God and being an enemy of God. In fact, Paul even uses that term in Romans 5:10 where he says that while we were enemies we were reconciled to God. Apart from Christ we are enemies of God, actively rejecting him and his purposes for our lives. That’s why a person is alienated from God ultimately.
Now you might not think that was true of you if you’re a believer today, especially if you grew up in a Christian home. You might hear that description and say to yourself, “I never rejected God. I wasn’t hostile to God. I’ve been content to go to church and read the Bible and be a good person. This stuff about hostile in mind doesn’t seem to apply to me.”
Well, listen to this description of hostility from James 4:4. You adulteresses, do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. (NASB)
Hostility toward God doesn’t have to look like sticking your fist up in the air at him. It can also look like being a friend of the world. To be an enemy of God can look like being content to simply have a form of religion in your life while really putting your hope in just fitting into the world and enjoying the things in it.
Enmity with God is a conscious choice not to submit to God’s will and to live to honor and enjoy him.
Good kids in a Christian home can live that way. I lived that way, though I wasn’t raised in a Christian home. I was considered a good kid growing up. I wasn’t in trouble. I was interested in God. But I loved the world and I chose not to believe that I was a sinner in need of a Savior. I chose not to honor God by recognizing the great sacrifice he made by sending his own beloved Son to die that sinners might live.
In the language of James 4:4, I made myself an enemy of God. I wasn’t innocent. And neither were you if now you are in Christ. And if you are here this morning as a church-goer but are not trusting Christ for forgiveness of your sins, then you are at this moment still an enemy of God, alienated from him, hostile in mind, doing evil deeds.
But it doesn’t have to remain that way. And for all who are in Christ it is not that way any longer. Because there’s good news!
The good news is that God permanently transforms his enemies into friends through the cross of Christ. God pursues his rebellious people with goodness and loving kindness and brings a fundamental change to how we think about God and how we respond to God.
God permanently transforms his enemies into friends through the cross of Christ.
Our second stage of human existence is that we are or can be God’s…
2. Friend: Our Present Condition in Christ
Verses 21-22 read that you, who once were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, he has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death…
Our present condition as believers in Christ is that we are now reconciled to God through the death of Christ. That is how things now stand at this very moment.
God has now reconciled to himself all who place their trust in Christ. That means God pursues his enemies and makes them his friends by removing the offense of their sin through the cross. He accepted Christ’s payment for our sin as our payment for our sin. Therefore, believers are no longer on bad terms with God, but rather, we have intimate fellowship with him and rich blessings from him. That’s what it means to be reconciled to God.
We are familiar with what this looks like. Suppose you have an argument with your friend or someone in your family and you say harsh words to them. Now your friendship is strained. There is tension. You don’t want to be by each other for a while. When you see each other, the words you spoke come back to you, and the issue that you were angry about is right there. As long as that remains unaddressed, there is alienation.
But then after a time you say to yourself, “I would like to be friends again. I want to enjoy this friend’s company again and have relationship with them. I want to laugh with them and experience good things together. I don’t want this tension between us. So I will seek to remove this barrier that my angry words created.”
And so you take the initiative. You seek forgiveness. You admit to your wrongdoing and that those words should not have been said. As far as you are able you seek to remove the cause of your alienation. You deal with the root issue. You don’t just go on your way and hope that time heals all wounds. Genuine reconciliation only happens when the cause of your alienation has been exposed and dealt with openly.
This is what God does with us. God takes the initiative to restore the relationship that our sin has created. Our sin is an offense to God, and in our sin we are enemies of God. But he decides that we are going to be his friends, that we are going to enjoy his fellowship, and that we are going to know and enjoy blessings forevermore in the company of him who created all things. So he goes after the root issue of our sin and he removes it as a barrier to a relationship with him.
How does God reconcile us to himself? He has now reconciled [us] in his body of flesh by his death. God the Father has removed the barrier of our sin by the death of Christ, the Son of God made flesh. Through Christ’s death God considers the offense of our sin as having been dealt with. He is satisfied that nothing more needs to be done by him or by us to enjoy unrestricted acceptance and favor in relationship with him. He accomplished the reconciliation for us.
How does the death of Jesus deal with the guilt of my sin? After all, isn’t the person who sinned in the relationship the one who is supposed to go to the other person and make it right? If I sin against God then doesn’t reconciliation require that I do something to put away the barrier that my sin created? How can God remove the barrier of my sin through someone else, namely, through Christ?
Well, there’s mystery there, but this much we can say. It’s because God considers us to have paid our debt to him through the death of Christ. He considers us as having made it right through the beloved Son who did make it right.
You see, all who place their trust in Christ for salvation are united to Christ by faith. So in a real way God joins us to Christ. And in that union with Christ crucified, God considers his death for sin as our death for sin. He considers the judgment Jesus received as the judgment we received for our sin.
As Paul said in Galatians 2:20, “I have been crucified with Christ.” His death for sin counts as our death for sin, as our making it right with God. The way God reconciles us to him is in [Christ’s] body of flesh by his death, which God considers to be our death, our judgment, and our payment for sin.
We are reconciled in his body and by his death, which we are joined to by faith. We are not reconciled in our body, nor by anything we do to make up for our sin and try to restore the relationship. It is all ours through faith in Christ. We are reconciled through faith.
That’s why God is satisfied that the barrier of our sin is removed, and that’s why we don’t need to do anything to add to the cross of Christ to reconcile ourselves to God.
Friendship with God, reconciliation, is the believer’s present condition in Christ.
So how does that affect us today? How will this make a difference in our everyday lives?
Let me first speak to you if you are not a believer in Christ, though this is for all of our ears as well. Here’s what this means to you. It means that if you are hoping that God is your friend, that you are on good terms with him, because you are a good person, it’s a false hope. You can’t be reconciled to God that way, nor can any of us.
You see, our sin is so grave an issue that it takes the death of the Son of God to remove it as a barrier. Our sin is a serious offense, a serious debt. It’s so serious that only God can pay it. But his promise to you is that if you trust that Jesus died to pay that debt, you will be reconciled. You will be on good terms with God. You will enjoy friendship with God now and forever. I pray you will do that.
Now let me speak to you if you are a believer, and especially if you are a believer who struggles with feeling far from God because you are ashamed of your sin. Here’s the encouragement to you. It means that even on our worst days when we are very conscious of our sin and failure, that we are still reconciled to God. We are still friends with God. He has now reconciled you. That’s where things stand.
There is no sin that you can commit as a reconciled believer in Christ that could separate you from the love of God. You cannot become alienated from him ever again.
Now, that is not an encouragement to sin, and that is not to minimize the seriousness of sin. Nor is that saying that there is no effect on our experiential relationship with God when we sin. There is an effect, and God will graciously bring us correction when we sin. But it is simply to say that if friendship with God was accomplished by the cross of Christ, then it is accomplished. It is finished. That’s the invisible reality. We are his friends and he will never be estranged from us, but will always relate to us with love, with eagerness to do us good, with genuine affection. We are not in conflict with him anymore. Rather, we are the objects of his favor and blessing, always.
So when you’re having one of those days or weeks when your conscience condemns you and you don’t feel reconciled, those times of failing and sin that you feel guilty about, and you fear that God is angry with you and estranged from you, then lay hold of the promise of Colossians 1:22. Tell yourself the truth. He has now reconciled [you] in his body of flesh by his death. That’s how things stand between you and God. Nothing shall separate you from the love of God. You cannot become alienated from him ever again. You are friends.
We might ask though, how do I explain then the continuing presence of sin in my life? I mean, the text says that I once was alienated, hostile in mind and doing evil deeds. But I still see some of that in my life. And isn’t reconciliation a two-way relationship, where both sides are friendly to each other? And yet I still do things that aren’t friendly to God. I know his will but I often do the opposite. Sin is still attractive to me. You say the reality is verse 22 – that I am now reconciled – but my experience feels more like verse 21 – doing evil deeds. Doesn’t this argue against reconciliation with God?
Well, it could argue against it if your sin is a settled pattern of life and you don’t want to change. That could very well be an indication that you never had a saving faith in Christ that joined you to him and receives the reconciliation.
But if you are sincerely concerned about your sin, that’s a good sign that you have been reconciled, because it means you aren’t hostile to God anymore. It means that you grieve over what grieves him, that you don’t want barriers to your experience of relationship with God. And that heart response is the first fruits of the reconciliation that God gives us in Christ.
Reconciliation, friendship with God, is a reality for every believer even though we continue to fall short and to sin. The reconciliation is real, but the effects of it are still working their way out in our lives.
In reconciliation, God has removed the barrier of sin, but he hasn’t removed the presence of sin. At least not yet; but that day is coming.
And that leads to the last truth about our reconciliation, which has to do with our future condition because of Christ.
God permanently transforms his enemies into friends through the cross of Christ.
Our third and final stage of human existence is that we are or can be God’s…
3. Saint: Our Future Condition because of Christ
Let me read verses 22
You (the one who is in Christ)…he has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death, in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before him,
There is a purpose behind our reconciliation, something that it is all heading toward.
We are going to be presented before him. We are going to be in the presence of God, presented before him at the second coming of the Savior, when he on the last day reconciles all things to himself. God is going to bring us to himself as friends, to join him in the eternal heavenly city where he will dwell among us.
Reconciliation for now is an invisible reality. But God does not intend for it to be an invisible reality forever. He is going to make it a visible reality. He fully intends to carry out his plan to have face-to-face relationship with his redeemed people because he created them for relationship with him. It was said of Moses that the LORD used to speak to Moses face to face, as a man speaks to his friend (Exodus 33:11). That was just a foretaste. We’re going to experience the fullness of that.
God once walked with man in peace in the Garden before sin came. Then sin ruined man’s relationship with God. But that relationship will be fully restored with the people of God whom he came to save. God will walk with redeemed man once again, with you and me and all who are reconciled to him by the death of the Savior.
And unlike the garden experience, which was short-lived, this experience will never come to an end by sin again.
When we are presented before him it will not be in the condition we are now in. We will be presented before him holy and blameless and above reproach. That means presented to him in sinless perfection. It means to be presented to him without any grounds for accusation, to be without blame, to be blameless in the courtroom of God.
Now that is incredibly staggering to consider it. In this life, we might consider someone above reproach if they are doing reasonably well in pursuing holiness, if there are no glaring patterns of sin that stain their reputation. Elders and deacons are supposed to be above reproach, meaning that they can’t have any disqualifying sin that would undermine their fitness for leadership. The idea of being above reproach before men doesn’t mean sinless perfection. It just means having a certain standard of righteousness before men, who are also sinners just as they are.
But the audience for this presentation is God himself. God the holy, whose eyes are too pure to look on sin. God the just, who cannot endure one single violation of his law. God the pure, who cannot allow any unclean thing into his heavenly city. And it is before this God that we will be considered holy, blameless and above reproach. And if that is the holy God’s verdict of our future condition, then on that day we will most certainly be holy, blameless and above reproach.
God intends not only removes the barrier of our sin, but he will also remove the very presence of sin from our lives. Unlike with Adam in the garden, God will ensure that no sin will ever again come between us or bring us into alienation with him again.
Now there is some serious hope in that my friends! There is cause for encouragement to all who are weary and heavy laden with your own struggle with sin. It means that your current experience will not be your eternal experience. Your struggle with sin is temporary. Your struggle with sin is passing away.
A new day is coming. We who were once God’s enemies have become his friends. And we will stand in the presence of holiness without fear, for we shall be holy as he is holy, the final and permanent stage of our reconciliation with God.
Verse 23a seems to challenge this comfortable position of the believer. It adds a question mark to this seemingly guaranteed outcome. Having said that we have now been reconciled and that we will be presented before God blameless, Paul says all this is true if… something. “if you continue in your faith, established and firm, not moved from the hope held out in the gospel.”
Let me paint a picture from my early Christian life that stresses this issue.
When I became a believer and a new creation in Christ in 1973, the Bible suddenly came alive to me, as was probably your experience as well. It began to be encouraging and life-giving, particularly assurances like Colossians 1:21-22 that told me that I was for sure going to heaven because I’d believed in Christ. Having been convicted of sin and realizing I needed forgiveness; I hung onto verses that told me I was forgiven and right with God. I still do. But verses like verse 23 bothered me, and I didn’t know what to do with them. Verse 23 seems to be saying that it isn’t over yet, that my salvation is still in question, that initial faith in Christ was the beginning, but something more is still required. God will present me before him… blameless…if [I] continue in the faith. It sounds like my salvation is conditional on what I do from this point on, that I have to keep up my faith or I’ll be lost.
As a new believer I encountered other texts like this one and it scared me. It scared me because if my salvation depends on holding God’s word fast and enduring to the end of my life in faith, I didn’t see any hope for me. How do I know I’m going to endure? I can’t get through a single day without sinning. And what if I end up being persecuted for my faith? I don’t know that I would remain faithful in that situation. I might do what Peter did and deny that I even know Jesus. Would that mean I’ll be lost? So I tried not to think about those verses and just focus on the verses that assured me I was saved because I trusted Christ in 1973. Thus, I took comfort in my past profession of faith and or my current religious activity for my assurance of salvation.
The topic of “The Perseverance of the Saints” (Remaining Christian) speaks to these questions. “The perseverance of the saints means that all those who are truly born again will be kept by God’s power and will persevere as Christians until the end of their lives, and that only those who persevere until the end have been truly born again.”
This definition has two parts to it: an assurance and warning . On the one hand, there is assurance to be given to those who are truly born again, for it reminds them that God’s power will keep them as Christians until they die, and they will surely live with Christ in heaven forever. On the other hand, there is a warning to be given for avoiding false assurance since it is also clear that continuing in the Christian life is one of the evidences that a person is truly born again.
It should be noted that this question is one on which evangelical Christians have long had significant disagreement. Many within Wesleyan/Arminian tradition (my former position) have held that it is possible to for someone who is truly born again to lose his or her salvation, while Reformed Christians (my current position) have held that that is not possible for someone who is truly born again. That understanding has been called eternal security. Theologians call it the doctrine of final perseverance, or the perseverance of the saints. And most Christians believe it, that they can’t lose their salvation, but I suspect many are like I was, they believe it without knowing how to reconcile it with verses like Colossians 1:23 that make salvation seem conditional on how we finish our lives.
Can true Christians lose their salvation? How can we know if we are truly saved? If we are save, how do we know that we shall continue to be Christians throughout our lives? Is there anything that will keep us from falling away from Christ, anything to guarantee that we will remain Christians until we die and that we will in fact live with God in heaven forever? Or might it be that we will turn away from Christ and lost the blessings of our salvation?
Well, I want to wholeheartedly affirm the truth that a genuine believer in Christ cannot lose their salvation. Whoever is reconciled to God through faith in Christ will definitely be presented to God holy and blameless and above reproach. None who are saved can be lost. That’s the truth of verses 21-22, and we believe that. But to be faithful to the word, we also need to wholeheartedly affirm the truth of verse 23 and other texts as well, which teach that only those who persevere in the faith will be saved (2x).
That may sound scary, and it would be scary if it was something we needed to do to add to Christ’s work on the cross. But it isn’t something we do to add to the cross, and I trust that before we’re done we’ll see that it isn’t something for the genuine believer to fear, though it does serve as a warning to the false believer.
We’ll go about this by asking some questions of the text. First we’ll ask, what does it means to continue in the faith? Then we’ll ask, how is continuing in the faith related to our salvation? And then we’re going to ask how this applies to us.
God permanently transforms his enemies into friends through the cross of Christ.
1. What does it mean to continue in the faith?
Well, if Paul is urging the Colossian believers to continue in the faith, he’s thinking of something they’ve already been doing and he hopes they will keep doing. In verse 4 Paul said he had heard of [their] faith in Christ Jesus… These believers had been demonstrating their faith in Christ through actions that could be heard about. They believed Jesus to be the Son of God who spoke the word of God and they were following him in faith-filled obedience. Their lives were marked by things like growing in Christ-like character, building the local church, and spreading the gospel.
That’s what it looks like to continue in the faith and clearly Paul believes it to be important for the Colossians and for us to be this way. We are to continue in the obedience and demonstration of faith in Christ Jesus, resulting in actions and attitudes that one can hear about.
But Paul goes on. There are certain qualities to this continuing faith. It is to be stable and steadfast. These are words that describe a house that is immovable, that is not easily knocked off its foundation by wind and storm and floods. The person who continues in the faith has a solid foundation of truth that is not easily undermined and they continue to follow the Savior despite the obstacles.
That doesn’t mean a believer never falls into sin again. We won’t be presented sinless before God until the final day. Those who continue in the faith may be confused at times and go down some unprofitable rabbit trails based on the latest book they’ve read or teaching they’ve received. They may also struggle in faith during trials. But in all of this, they do not lose their faith. They continue to trust Christ even when times are hard. They are like the person in Proverbs 24:16, the righteous falls seven times and rises again. That’s what continuing in the faith looks like.
And Paul says one more thing about what continuing in the faith looks like. It looks like not shifting from the hope of the gospel that you heard, which has been proclaimed in all creation under heaven… The life of faith, of faithful obedience to God, is one that is constantly fueled by hope in the gospel.
We read earlier in this letter that the faith in Christ Jesus that Paul heard about in the Colossians came about because of the hope laid up for [them] in heaven, the hope they heard about in the gospel. They did what they did because they had hope in the promises of God guaranteed to them through the death of the Savior on their behalf.
So continuing in the faith is not simply about continuing to perform the duties of obedience to God, to continue to go to church, to serve in the choir, to give money to the mission or to stay away from sinful activities. It’s about continuing to do those things out of a current and consistent trust that because Christ reconciled me to God by his death, it is well with my soul.
It’s to not shift from this hope… Though Satan should buffet, though trials should come, Let this blessed assurance control, That Christ has regarded my helpless estate, And hath shed His own blood for my soul.
To continue in the faith is to live a life of faith-filled obedience to God despite the obstacles because of your continuing hope in the gospel. It’s not a perfect life of faith. But it is a genuine life of faith.
So here’s where the tension comes in, the thing that scared me as a young believer.
According to Paul, only those who live this way will be saved. God has now reconciled you to himself and will present you to himself holy and blameless and above reproach, if you continue in the faith.
And the clear implication is that if you don’t continue in the faith, he hasn’t reconciled you and he won’t present you to himself blameless. Only those who continue in the faith will be presented blameless before God.
And that sounds scary, because how do you know you’ll do that? It seems to undermine any assurance of salvation that we could have. It seems that our salvation is still yet to be decided, depending on how well we do over the next however many years.
So that begs the second question.
God permanently transforms his enemies into friends through the cross of Christ.
2. How is continuing in the faith related to our salvation?
Does verse 23 mean that God is waiting to see how my life turns out before he decides if I’m going to be reconciled to him and received into his presence? Or to put it another way, am I saved because I continue in the faith?
Well the answer is no, I’m not, and neither are you if you are a believer. We’re not saved because we continue in the faith. Rather, we continue in the faith because we’re saved. Or to say it this way, reconciliation produces continuation.
Let’s considers Paul’s words very carefully here, taking the main flow of his thought. He does not say, “you …he will reconcile …if you continue in the faith. That would mean that God is waiting to see how our lives turn out to decide if he is going to remove the barrier of our sin so he can present us to himself holy and blameless. It would mean we have to meet the standard of lifelong persevering in the faith and then because we’ve met the standard he will save us. That would make salvation dependent on us.
But he doesn’t say that. Here’s what he says of believers. “You …he has now reconciled…if you continue in the faith.” In other words, if you continue in the faith it means he has now reconciled you. Continuing in the faith is the evidence that God has now reconciled you. Reconciliation produces continuation.
Paul is saying, how do you know if someone is on good terms with God, that God has removed the barrier of their sin so he will present them holy and blameless before him on the final day? How do you know this has happened? You know it if they continue in the faith. Continuing in the faith isn’t the cause of our salvation. It’s the result.
Being reconciled to God happens only one way: it happens in [Christ’s] body of flesh by his death, and that reconciliation becomes ours the moment we believe it in saving faith. It is on the cross alone where the offense of our sin was removed as Christ took on the guilt of our sins and God executed his justice for our sins. That offense is not removed by the life of faithful obedience that flows from that. We are reconciled by Christ’s death, not by our continuing in the faith. We add nothing to our reconciliation.
And all who are reconciled to God will on the last day be presented to God holy and blameless and above reproach. No one who is now reconciled to God through the cross will fail to be presented before him in glory.
And that is the reason we can say with confidence, “once saved, always saved” or “you can fall on board but never overboard” if you are a genuine believer in Christ. Nothing that can happen in the future can change that. You can never again be alienated from God if you are united to Christ by faith.
But, in the meantime, between our past conversion and our future sinless presentation before God, all who have been reconciled through faith will continue in the faith. Continuing faith is the evidence that your initial faith was really a saving faith. A life of gospel-motivated, faith-filled obedience to Christ necessarily flows if you are truly reconciled to God.
You see, God is not content simply to remove the barrier of our sin at conversion and then be unconcerned about what we do with the rest of our lives until the final day when he receives us into heaven. No, his goal in reconciliation is Romans 8:29, those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son. God’s goal is not just our rescue from hell but our conformity to the image of Christ.
He removes the barrier of our sin and then begins a renovation process of removing the presence of sin so that his Son’s character is revealed in us to a world still mostly bound in the domain of darkness. God is not only concerned about our future holiness in heaven, but our current holiness on earth.
That’s why those who are now reconciled by the death of Christ will continue in the faith. It pleases God to form Christ’s character in us, which is a gospel-motivated faith-filled life of obedience to Christ. And if you are reconciled to God, this will happen to you. God will make sure it happens to you. Reconciliation guarantees your continuation.
Now, this leads to some implications. We need to ask the question about how this applies to us.
God permanently transforms his enemies into friends through the cross of Christ.
3. How does this apply to us?
Here’s one way this applies. It serves as a warning to the person who thinks they are reconciled to God even though they don’t continue in the faith. It challenges the person who is confident that they are on good terms with God even though their life is not characterized by ongoing hope in the gospel and the presence of acts of faith and obedience to God that are motivated by that hope.
Now, I don’t assume that there is no such person like that in this room. Perhaps you are a person who is sure of your salvation because of a past profession of faith, and because you believe “once saved, always saved” so you are not concerned about growing in godliness, you believe obedience to God is not necessary because he accepts you even in your sin.
Well, it is true that if you are once saved you are always saved. But how do you know if you were once saved? You know if you continue in the faith. You know if you don’t shift from the hope of the gospel that you heard to some other hope such as your past profession of faith. Our hope isn’t in our past profession of faith. It is in the truth of Christ crucified for us that we might be friends with God. If your past profession was real, then the faith you exercised there will still be present. Your hope then will still be your hope now. Our assurance of salvation does not rest on a past profession, but on a current trust in Christ today.
It is also possible to be a religious person who does many things with other believers and participates in the church and yet not continue in the faith; to be doing those things all the while trusting in your own goodness rather than in the gospel, and your works don’t flow from faith in Christ. Such a person also has no grounds for believing they are reconciled to God.
I know that’s possible because it is exactly that person whom Jesus rebukes in Matthew 7:22-23 where he says, On that day many will say to me, ’Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ And then will I declare to them, ’I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’
Many religious people are workers of lawlessness because they do many works in Jesus’ name, but all the while trusting in those works rather than despairing of their own righteousness and saying, “God be merciful to me, a sinner.”
The application for all of us - and especially if you are resting on a past profession of faith or on your current religious activity for your assurance before God - the application is to heed 2 Corinthians 13:5, where Paul said, Examine yourselves, to see whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves.
Thomas Wilcox put it this way in Honey Out of the Rock: Look over your soul daily, and ask: Where is the blood of Christ to be seen upon my soul? What righteousness is it that I stand upon to be saved? … if you have not the blood of Christ at the root of your religion, it will wither, and prove but painted pageantry to go to hell in.
Are you trusting in Christ? Or have you shifted from the hope of the gospel? If you are experiencing any conviction right now, it’s because the Savior is calling you to repent and put your faith in him and his death on the cross alone to be reconciled to God. I pray you will do that.
Now, there is another way this text applies to our lives. It serves as an encouragement to the believer who wants to continue in the faith, who wants to live a life of gospel-motivated faith-filled obedience to God, but who is aware of how hard that is and who doesn’t know how he or she can persevere in it.
Paul told Timothy to “fight the good fight of faith” and at the end of his life he said “I have fought the good fight …I have kept the faith.” You might be one who can relate to fighting the fight, but some days you wonder if you are going to keep the faith to the end like Paul did.
But this text gives us encouragement that we’re not left to ourselves to fight that fight. God himself is the one who makes sure that those he has reconciled will continue in the faith until the end of their lives. We’re fighting the fight, but he’s keeping us in the ring and causing us to persevere in faith against all odds until the end.
There are many texts that describe this. Let me just read a few for your encouragement.
Philippians 1:6 says I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ. If God began his good work in you by granting you saving faith and reconciling you to himself through the cross, then he will complete his work in you by causing you to continue in that faith and be conformed to the image of his Son until the final day when he completes that work in his presence.
2 Corinthians 3:18 says, And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit. Where does transformation into the image of the Lord come from? It comes from the Lord. We’re being transformed by him. Gospel-motivated, faith-filled obedience that reflects the Lord’s character comes from the Lord himself. He’s at work producing this in us.
Here’s one more. 1 Corinthians 1:7-8 says that, our Lord Jesus Christ …will sustain you to the end, guiltless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. Who will sustain us to the end? Who will assure that we will be presented before God guiltless on the final day?
The Lord Jesus will. That’s why the genuine believer doesn’t need to fear when he reads the texts that say we must endure to the end to be saved, or that we must hold fast to the gospel or we aren’t being saved, or that it’s only the ones who continue in the faith who will be presented holy and blameless before God. There’s no reason to fear those statements because Christ himself will see to it that those who are reconciled through his cross will endure to the end, they will hold fast the gospel, and they will continue in the faith. Why? Because our Lord Jesus Christ …will sustain you to the end. It’s not all up to you. God is working to cause you to persevere in the faith.
This truth is pictured in the book Pilgrim’s Progress by John Bunyan. There’s a scene in which Christian is taken into a room by the Interpreter, who is explaining various truths to him. Here is the scene. (I’ve smoothed out some of the King James English in a couple spots to make it more readable.)
Then I saw in my dream that the Interpreter took Christian by the hand, and led him into a place where was a fire burning against a wall, and one standing by it, always casting much water upon it, to quench it; yet did the fire burn higher and hotter.
Then said Christian, What means this? The enemy Interpreter answered, this fire is the work of grace that is wrought in the heart; he that casts water upon it, to extinguish and put it out, is the Devil; but in that you see the fire still burning higher and hotter, you shall also see the reason for that. So he had him about to the backside of the wall, where he saw a man with a vessel of oil in his hand, of which he did also continually cast, but secretly, into the fire.
Then said Christian, What means this? The Interpreter answered, this is Christ, who continually, with the oil of his grace, maintains the work already begun in the heart: by means of which, no matter what the devil can do, the souls of his people prove gracious still. And in that you saw that the man stood behind the wall to maintain the fire, that is to teach you that it is hard for the tempted to see how this work of grace is maintained in the soul.
In other words, Christ maintains the work of faith begun in our hearts, though to our eyes we find it hard to see how that will happen. You might be very aware of your failings and weaknesses.
You might be going through a hard time of trial right now – illness or financial trouble or concerns about the future and what it holds, perhaps persecution for your faith. And you might wonder if you are going to persevere in faith.
Well, the encouragement from Scripture is that if you are now reconciled to God through faith in Christ, you will persevere. The Lord Christ will maintain the work begun in your heart. You may have your days of doubt and discouragement. Your faith will be tested, it may waver, but if God has reconciled you then you are fundamentally changed. The faith he gave you at the moment of your conversion he continues to give you after it. It may not be as large of faith as someone else’s, but as long as it is genuine faith rooted in the hope of the gospel, just faith the size of a mustard seed will do. And you will continue in it, sustained to the end by our Lord Jesus Christ.
That’s the encouragement for every believer in Jesus.
God permanently transforms his enemies into friends through the cross of Christ.
CONCLUSION
So friends, let us not shift from the hope of the gospel that we have heard. Let us go back daily to the hope that is the engine of faith-filled obedience to Christ, for the glory of his name. And let us persevere in the faith against all obstacles, knowing that the Lord himself is enabling us to do this and will complete in us the work that he has begun.
That is part of this great salvation that we have. That is what we are to thank God for. He has now reconciled [us] in his body of flesh by his death. It is all possible only because of the cross of Christ.
God has now reconciled to himself all who place their trust in Christ. That means God pursues his enemies and makes them his friends by removing the offense of their sin through the cross. He accepted Christ’s payment for our sin as our payment for our sin. Therefore, believers are no longer on bad terms with God, but rather, we have intimate fellowship with him and rich blessings from him. That’s what it means to be reconciled to God.
And as a result of that, believers have the happy expectation and promise from God that he has not only removed the barrier of our sin, but he will also, on the final day, remove the very presence of sin from our lives, as well. He will present us to himself blameless and above reproach, without sin in his eyes. Never again can sin alienate us from God. The cross has brought us into blessed friendship with God, now and forevermore.
BENEDICTION: JUDE 1:24-25
Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy, to the only God, our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen.
