Kept by the Power of God
A Biblical Defense of Eternal Security
by Ed Enochs
“And I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; neither shall anyone snatch them out of My hand. My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of My Father’s hand. I and My Father are one” (John 10:28-30).
“Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:37-39).
“Being confident of this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ” (Philippians 1:6).
“Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling, And to present you faultless before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy.” (Jude 24).
Recently, a long time friend asked me to give him my take on the Eternal Security issue that often caused confusion and controversy in the Evangelical Christian Church. For the record, I do not believe a true believer in the Lord Jesus Christ can lose his or her salvation if they are truly God’s elect and that the Bible explicitly and emphatically teaches that those who have been justified by God’s grace are eternally secure in their salvation and will without fail or exception persevere in their Christian faith. My primary reason for believing that a true believer in Jesus Christ is eternally secure in their salvation and cannot lose his or her salvation is that this is the proper exegetical line of argumentation found in the infallible Holy Scriptures and that God’s sovereign election of His Saints to salvation and ultimate glorification in Jesus Christ is non-negotiable and impenetrably irrevocable and our election to glory has been inalterably decreed before the foundation of world, as the Scriptures clearly delineate,
And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose. For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren. Moreover whom He predestined, these He also called; whom He called, these He also justified; and whom He justified, these He also glorified.” (Romans 8:28-30).
“In Him also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestined according to the purpose of Him who works all things according to the counsel of His will, that we who first trusted in Christ should be to the praise of His glory” (Ephesians 1:11-12).
The Scriptures clearly teach that God has an elect people who have been chosen to salvation and glorification before time began. God’s elect have been called, elected, adopted, justified, sanctified and will ultimately persevere in this most Holy Faith exclusively upon the basis of God’s sovereign and unmerited grace alone and that God’s electing love is not increased or diminished upon the basis of our works based righteousness or degree of faithfulness to God’s holy commands. We are justified by grace and preserved in the Christian faith until the end by God’s sovereign grace alone through faith in Jesus Christ and His atonement upon the Cross of Calvary alone, based on the exclusive authority of the Bible alone.
“Then they said to Him, “What shall we do, that we may work the works of God?” Jesus answered and said to them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He sent” (John 6:28-29).
“Therefore by the deeds of the law no flesh will be justified in His sight, for by the law is the knowledge of sin” (Romans 3:20).
“Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us, through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit, 6 whom He poured out on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Savior” (Titus 3:5-6).
“For by grace you have been saved through faith and not that of yourselves, it is the gift of God and not by works lest anyone should boast. For we are His workmanship, created for God works that He prepared beforehand that we should walk in them” (Ephesians 2:8-10).
However, despite the uncontestable evidence that the Bible teaches that Christians have been chosen and elected by an all powerful and sovereign God from the foundation of the world, there are many believers in Christ who teach that a true Christian can lose his or her salvation and be eternally lost on the basis of their unbelief, disobedience and other actions of faithlessness before God.
Throughout the annals of Church history a tremendous controversy had raged within the Body of Christ over the doctrine of the Perseverance of the Saints or in modern Evangelical terms, the theological view known as "Eternal Security." At least since the seminal theological disputations between the North African Bishop Augustine (354-430 A.D.) and the British Monk Pelagius (354-420 A.D.) in the fifth Century A.D., the question has been raised and debated over whether or not a true believer in Jesus Christ can fall from saving, electing grace and be eternally lost.
For classification and categorization purposes, historically and traditionally those believers in Christ who believe that a true Christian can fall from grace and lose his or her salvation have followed in the theological tradition of Pelagius and hence, have been called "Pelagian", and those Christians who believe that a true Christian cannot lose his or her salvation have been called "Augustinian" and there has been an irreconcilable impasse between these theological camps ever since. The dramatic controversy between Augustine and Pelagius focused on the later theologian's disdain for Augustine's views on, Human Depravity, Predestination and Grace that postulated the theological view that since believers in Christ have been predestined to salvation from the foundation of the world they cannot lose their salvation.
Hence the term Pelagianism is a theological view, postulated by Pelagius that essentially argues that Adam’s “original sin” did not subsequently corrupt and taint human nature as Augustine argued and that the mortal will, without the aid of God’s Spirit and electing grace is still capable in itself, of choosing good or evil without divine aid. Thus, in Pelagius’ understanding of Original Sin, Adam’s sinful rebellion had the effect of only setting a “bad example” for his human progeny and that Adam’s sin is not imputed to his subsequent human descendants. Hence, in Pelagius’ view, men and women are born morally neutral and uncorrupted by Adam’s sin and born with the full capacity and ability within themselves to obey God’s commands
The subsequent historical and theological controversy known as the Calvinism vs. Arminianism Debate that has raged at various times within the Church, is essentially a continuation and restatement of the Augustinian and Pelagian Controversy of the 5th Century A.D., with the followers of the Protestant Reformer John Calvin (1509-1564), substantially agreeing with Augustine’s views on the sinful depravity of humanity, divine predestination and unmerited electing grace and the followers of Jacob Arminius (1560-1609), rejecting the Augustinian and Calvinist understanding of human depravity and God’s Sovereign election and substantially agreeing with Pelagius (with some modifications) on free will and conditional election.
iHence, Augustinian’s and Calvinist’s teach that that men and women, due to Original Sin, via the Fall of Adam, are born dead in trespasses and sin, spiritually blinded, enslaved to sin, under the power and sway of Satan and in this totally depraved state, we humans, according to the Bible, are rendered absolutely incapable of saving ourselves or cooperating with God’s sovereign grace in the obtainment of salvation. However, in radical counter distinction to the Augustinian and Calvinist understanding of original sin, human depravity, election, grace and predestination, Pelagian’s and Arminian reject the notion that men and women, in their natural and unregenerated state are morally ruined and incapable of choosing God and argue that men and women have the ability within themselves to choose to believe and obey God’s commands without divine aid.
Now, for the purposes of this study on the Protestant Doctrine of the Perseverance of the Saints, or “Eternal Security” it is of paramount importance to recognize that there is a direct relationship and correlation between the Augustinian / Calvinist –Pelagian / Arminian controversy, since in the Augustinian and Calvinist understanding of divine, unmerited grace and predestination, God’s elect have been chosen to salvation since before the foundation and formulation of the world and hence eternally secure in Christ, since their salvation is not contigent or earned on the basis of a person’s obedience or lack of obedience to God’s command’s. Rather, salvation is based on the eternal, unchanging decree of God.
Thus, in this Augustinian and Calvinist understading of salvation, those whom God has chosen to salvation will most certainly be saved without exeption and, God’s election and bestowing of grace is wrought by God without any consideration to any external or outside factors to God’s decree in His own right. Simply put, in the Calvinist and Augustinian understanding of election and divine grace, God’s elect are eternally secure in Christ and our salvation is determined and wrought by God before the foundation of the world and is not secured or lost by our ability or inability to obey or disobey God, but established exclusively upon the bedrock foundation of God Himself who promised to keep to the end, those He has chosen to salvation.
God’s elect, according to the Augustinian and Calvinist understanding of Grace and Election cannot lose their salvation since God is the author and finisher of their election to glory apart from any works or obedience on the part of those being elected to salvation. The guarantee of the elect’s perseverance to ultimate glory, who cannot lie, change or abrogate His promise to keep and
“I tell you the truth, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be condemned; he has crossed over from death to life” (John 5:24).
“For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons,neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:38-39).
“I know whom I have believed, and am convinced that He is able to guard what I have entrusted to him for that day” (2 Timothy 1:12b).
There are many who argue that a true believer can lose their salvation based on a lack of faithfulness to God, but this is a gross misunderstanding of God’s sovereign grace and a massive misinterpretation of the Scriptures that teach that true believers are chosen in Christ from before the foundation of the world.
Ultimately, to deny that true believers in Jesus Christ are eternally secure in their salvation and to deem erroneous the historic Evangelical and Reformed Doctrine of the Perseverance of the Saints is to ultimately undermine the integrity of Trinity itself since God is the one that has placed our election in the hands of Christ and if Christ cannot be faitfu to keep us in this faith then He is not God.
“All things have been delivered to Me by My Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father. Nor does anyone know the Father except the Son, and the one to whom the Son wills to reveal Him” (Matthew 11:27).
“And I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; neither shall anyone snatch them out of My hand. My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of My Father’s hand” (John 10:28-29).
Next time: Answering Arminian Objections to Eternal Security.
