Eternal Security, Conditional or Unconditional
By Pastor James May
One of the most dangerous doctrines that have been perpetrated upon the church for a long time is the doctrine of “Unconditional Eternal Security”. Many of the main-line, denominational churches and a good percentage of the fringe denominations of the church world have accepted this doctrine and perverted the real meaning of the scriptures to make them say what they would want to be true. However, believing something is truth, and teaching it as truth, and interpreting scripture to make it sound like truth, does not make false doctrine really true after all.
Too many people, I fear, have passed from this life into the next, absolutely convinced that they are going to Heaven just because they were converted, baptized into Christ and confessed their sin many years before but have lived like the world and for the pleasures and sin of this world for a long time. I do not accept the doctrine of “Unconditional Eternal Security” and it seems to me that any minister of the gospel would easily recognize that God’s grace is extended to man conditional upon man’s acceptance and obedience to God’s Word.
There are numerous scriptures throughout the Bible that refute the doctrine of Unconditional Eternal Security and I will not have the time to cover all of them in this message, however I will cover many.
I know that if anyone out there is convinced, however wrong his conviction may be, that he is going to Heaven because of past experiences only, there is very little that I could say or do in this simple message to dissuade that person from believing in false doctrine. Often the teaching is so engrained that it causes a closed mind that refuses to accept reason. The mind and heart of man would rather believe in a doctrine that allows him to live any way he wants to because he believes that God’s grace will never leave him alone in Hell. That, my friend, is a dangerous place to live.
I will also confess that, should anyone like to try to change my mind on this doctrine, my mind is closed to the possibility of the “Once Saved Always Saved” point of view as well. I have examined the scriptures for myself. I have preached and taught the Word of God for many years now, and not once have I ever found even a single scripture that fully supports and establishes this erroneous doctrine. I don’t accept the words of any man at face value and I always prove them by the Word of God, so my conviction and understanding comes on a first hand basis and not by proxy from some other student who has his own agenda or belief system that he is trying to prop up. On the other hand, in my studies, I have found many scriptures that refute this doctrine.
These will not be “new scriptures”. There isn’t one of these that I have added, reprinted or changed in any fashion. They are directly from the Word of God that we have had for centuries. I don’t claim to be a Bible Scholar but I don’t believe that learning these kinds of truths require a high level of education to understand. God’s Word is never hidden, and never hard to interpret, under the leading of the Holy Spirit. God wants his people to know his Word, so why should He make it hard to understand or study.
Revelation 2:26, “And he that overcometh, and keepeth my works unto the end, to him will I give power over the nations…”
Notice here that the Lord Jesus Christ is walking in the midst of the Golden Candlesticks, representing the churches of the world. He is there as a guide, a judge, a Savior and as Almighty God. His words are always edifying, but they aren’t always easy to swallow. Here Jesus tells His church that we must be overcomers and obedient to the Word of God “unto the end”. Only if we are faithful to the end will we reign with Him.
Jesus says, we have to overcome the world, not conform to it. We have to live the kind of lifestyle that He lived, in obedience to God’s Laws of morality and justice, and we have to live that holy life unto the end of our days.
Romans 2:7, “To them who by patient continuance in well doing seek for glory and honour and immortality, eternal life…”
What can Jesus mean by the words “patient continuance” and “seek for”? Can there be any doubt that Jesus says we are to be ever seeking to obey the Word of God and ever seeking to live as holy as we can in every effort to emulate Jesus?
Galatians 5:19-21,” Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, Idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, Envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like: of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.”
Those who are convinced that they cannot lose their salvation no matter how unholy they live should think hard about what these verses say concerning their erroneous doctrine.
The church world today, protestant and Catholic alike, is filled with people who live like the devil and still claim to be saved. Satan has blinded them to the eternal consequences of the sin that they enjoy so much.
Can we not remember that to be a friend with this world is to be an enemy of God? Do we honestly believe that we can live according to the flesh, pleasing only the desires of the flesh, forget about God’s holiness for days without number, and then waltz into Heaven with all of those sins clinging to our back? This list of sins in Galatians speaks to the very condition of the heart of the church today. Are not all of these sins so prevalent in the hearts of young people and old alike? How can we live in sin, love sin, and serve the devil and then expect to make Heaven our home?
My friend, light and darkness do not mix. Where the Spirit of the Lord is, sin must be exposed and repented of before God will allow us to be near to him. Surely we make mistakes. All of us do. And I do not believe that every little mistake will cause you to lose your salvation either. There is a provision in the Word of God for every child of God who sins.
1 John 2:1-6, "My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not. And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous: And he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world. And hereby we do know that we know him, if we keep his commandments. He that saith, I know him, and keepeth not his commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him. But whoso keepeth his word, in him verily is the love of God perfected: hereby know we that we are in him. He that saith he abideth in him ought himself also so to walk, even as he walked."
How much more plain can the message be than this? My little children means we are already the Children of God through Jesus Christ. But even a child of God can and does sin from time to time. Jesus died for those sins too, not just the ones committed before we were born again, but every sin, every mistake that we will make until this life is over.
That does not give us the right to go out and sin willfully and continually however. Continuing to live in disobedience comes under a different category than that man or woman of God who fails in a moment of weakness. One is a sin due to weakness, the other a sin due to willful disobedience and stubborn rebelliousness. Both are sin, true enough, but the sin is forgiven the moment that sinner turns back to God. Just where the line is drawn is unclear because only God knows the heart of each man or woman. I cannot tell when the sin was due to a moment of weakness or an attitude of rebellion against God, but God can! He knows your heart and my heart better than we do and He is the judge, not us. God knows when we have crossed the line and when we have crossed the line from committing sin due to weakness, to willfully committing sin out of rebellion, that’s when our salvation is in danger.
Remember, you can lie, steal, cheat, even murder in a moment of weakness and temper, and it will be sin, but if you fall on your face in repentance God will forgive you and your salvation remains intact. However, if you willfully and continually do those things, they are still sin, and if you don’t repent of them, the scripture plainly says that those who do those things will not enter Heaven.
1 Corinthians 15:2 says, speaking of the salvation that Paul preached to them, "By which also ye are saved, if ye keep in memory what I preached unto you, unless ye have believed in vain."
That’s Paul speaking under the direction of the Holy Spirit to let us know that we can be Believers, saved by grace through faith in Jesus Christ, but if we don’t constantly refresh ourselves in God’s Word, and constantly stay in a state of repentance for the sin that enters our hearts, then we will have believed in vain. Believed in vain means that we will have believed for nothing because our belief will have no eternal effect, but our soul will still spend eternity in Hell.
Hebrews 10:39 But we are not of them who draw back unto perdition; but of them that believe to the saving of the soul.
Here is Paul again, writing to the Hebrews, saying to us that people who are the chosen, anointed and called people of God, like Israel was, and is, can still draw away from God, like Israel has done for so many years, and still not live with God in the end. We must continue to hold fast to Jesus, continue to live for him, drawing ever closer to Him if we are going to be among those few who believe to the point where their soul is finally safe in Heaven.
James 5:19-20 says, “Brethren, if any of you do err from the truth, and one convert him; Let him know, that he which converteth the sinner from the error of his way shall save a soul from death, and shall hide a multitude of sins”.
Does this scripture say that a born again Christian can sin and be “unconverted” or “reconverted” back to the devil? It certainly does. If a “Brethren”, one of the members of the Body of Christ, who is saved, strays from Jesus, and begins to live a life of sin once again, he has placed his soul in eternal damnation of his own free will. No man has taken him out of Jesus’ hand. He did it himself. God will not override your free-will moral choice to sin if that’s what you want to do. But he will not allow that sin to enter Heaven. So, if one of his faithful brothers in Christ comes to the wayward sinner and opens the scriptures to him so that the Holy Spirit brings him under conviction for sin again, and that wayward sinner, or backslider, repents and turns again to Jesus, then his soul is again saved from death and his sins are cast into a sea to be remembered no more.
What do you suppose would happen to that wayward, or backslidden, brother had he not turned back to Jesus in repentance? His soul would have been dead in sin and he would have spent eternity in hell. I didn’t say that, James did.
John I 3:10 also says, “In this the children of God are manifest, and the children of the devil: whosoever doeth not righteousness is not of God, neither he that loveth not his brother.”
Now you can believe that you can live in sin and still make Heaven our home if you want to, but the Word of God says here that you are believing a lie. If you live in unrighteousness, you are not of God and that you are a child of the devil. I want you to know that no child of the devil will be in Heaven.
Galatians 6:7-8, Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. For he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting.
God’s Laws of sowing and reaping are not rescinded for the Christian. What we sow, we will reap in due time. Sin will beget sin, and the wages of sin is always death, eternal death, not just physical death. Obedience to the Word of God and holy living will produce fruits of righteousness and we will become more like Jesus.
Now, lest I be misunderstood, let say right here that I do not believe that “works” will save you. I do believe that we are saved only by grace, through the blood of Jesus Christ. But I do believe that evil works can and will destroy your relationship with God and eventually your very soul will die. Any man depending upon his good works, his good morality and his faithfulness to the church alone is also believing a lie for those things will not save you. Yet we will want to do those things if we really love Jesus because our desire will be to please him and serve him, not the devil or the things of the world.
I John 2:4 He that saith, I know him, and keepeth not his commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him.
1 John 1:6 – 7 also says, If we say that we have fellowship with him, and walk in darkness, we lie, and do not the truth: But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin
Here is the crux of the matter. We can confess that we are saved and that we know Jesus all we want to, but unless the manner of life that we live is holy according to the commandments of God, then we are a liar, and no liar shall enter Heaven without repenting of his lies. We must walk in the light of the righteousness of Christ, as Jesus did, before we can claim to have any fellowship with Jesus, or claim to be washed in the Blood of the Lamb of God.
Let me give you a few more verses that may dispel this false doctrine of “Once Saved, Always Saved”!
Hebrews 12:15 says, “Looking diligently lest any man fail of the grace of God; lest any root of bitterness springing up trouble you, and thereby many be defiled;
Matthew 24:12-13, And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold. But he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved.
II Peter 2:20 – 22, For if after they have escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled therein, and overcome, the latter end is worse with them than the beginning. For it had been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than, after they have known it, to turn from the holy commandment delivered unto them. But it is happened unto them according to the true proverb, The dog is turned to his own vomit again; and the sow that was washed to her wallowing in the mire.
These verses cannot more plainly say that we can fail from grace by allowing sin to spring up within us like a root of bitterness. That sin will defile, or make us unclean and unfit for the Kingdom of Heaven. Then, because sin grows ever larger, and we grow more rebellious against the righteousness that Jesus demands of his disciples, our love for God will grow cold and we will willfully leave the protection of God’s salvation plan.
Unless we stay faithful all the time, and unto the very end of our life, we will not be saved, for only those who are faithful to the end will be saved.
What can be worse than being lost the first time? It is turning away from God and losing our salvation.
The condition of the backslider, the wayward Christian, is worse than that of a sinner who has never known the Lord.
What is worse than spending eternity in hell for never accepting Christ as Savior? It’s spending eternity in hell knowing that we had it in our grasp and then threw it all away to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a short time. It’s watching those in Heaven enjoying a life of blessedness and peace while we suffer for eternity, alone and forgotten, without God, forever and ever and ever.
That’s what happens when the proverb comes true and the sinner that was washed of his sins, then turns again to wallowing in that same mire of sin and is finally overcome by that sin.
Now let me give you the real doctrine of Eternal Security! I do believe that you can be eternally secure in your salvation. I do believe that you can live in such a manner as to never, ever be pulled back into the world of sin. I do believe that you can be saved and stay saved forever, but it is conditional based upon your obedience to the Word of God.
I believe that we can choose to stay in the church, stay in Jesus, stay living in a holy, righteous manner, stay in an attitude of repentance for sin, stay in a position of trusting in the finished work of the Cross where Jesus died, and always strive to please the Lord in our manner of living. If we will have that kind of spirit and attitude for a lifetime, without fail, then I believe that your salvation is assured and you will enter Heaven.
Jude 1:24 says, “ Now unto him that is able to keep you from falling, and to present you faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy…”
Yes my friends Jesus can and will do His part to keep you from falling and to present you blameless and innocent of sin unto the Father in Heaven. Jesus is your advocate with the Father in Heaven. Through His blood you will make Heaven your home. That will be a happy day!
But Jesus will not force you to live for him, nor will He force you to enter Heaven. That choice is yours, and yours alone. We will enter Heaven not just because of the fact that Jesus shed His blood for our sin, but because we chose to accept His sacrifice and to live in obedience to His Word. We are ultimately and completely accountable for the life we live and the choices we make. We can either choose to make Heaven our home or choose to spend eternity in Hell.
There are many more verses that could be quoted and used to prove the error of the false doctrine accepted by so many but if what I have given is not enough, then the rest just won’t matter. Either we will believe the truth and be surely saved, or we can believe a lie and risk eternal punishment.
What is your choice today?
As a final statement let me say this:
Suppose I am wrong and the doctrine of “Unconditional Eternity Security” is right? What then?
If it is right, I will still spend eternity in Heaven because I have been saved by the Blood of Jesus Christ through His mercy and grace.
Suppose then that I am right and the doctrine of “Unconditional Eternity Security” is wrong. What then?
If you have lived a sinful, disobedient life, not obeying the Word of God, and not performing works of righteousness, then you will have lost everything because you only have one chance to live and there is no coming back.
Yet I will still be in Heaven. Perhaps I did live a life on earth that won’t allow me to enjoy many of the pleasures of sin that you enjoyed. I believe that Heaven will be more than worth anything that I may have missed in this life. Besides, I don’t miss those pleasures of sin now. I can lay my head on the pillow at night in perfect peace and I know that if Jesus came right now, I have no doubt whatsoever that I would be in Heaven in the blink of an eye.
Can you say that under the authority of God’s Holy Word? I can!
