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Session 7 – Soteriology (Cont.) (Abstract of Systematic Theology by James P. Boyce)

Video: Session 7 – Soteriology (Cont.)

Abstract of Systematic Theology by James Petigru Boyce
Session 7 – chapters 28-38
Subject: Soteriology (Cont.)
Wednesday Logos – 7-15-26

Sermon Transcript

The following is a lightly edited transcript generated from the audio; it may contain small errors.

Opening

I will never believe that the King James was here. It’s called the Vaughan version. Because I heard you were seeing some of the new King James stuff. And I’m like, well, you probably memorized it. Pretty much. Yeah, it’s like some of it is the New King James is coming out. Some of it’s my own little explanation translation. All right. You guys ready? You sure? You going to take notes, or you just going to—I forgot my laptop.

This week and two more. I think we said the 22nd. We have at least two more weeks. Maybe a third week; we’ll let you know at the end. I actually might want to add one. We might do that. So please plan to return the 29th as well. We will let you know. But tonight is round two, part two of soteriology with Pastor Vaughan. So I’m going to turn it over to him.

All right. Well, there was a little confusion there. We got it worked out. Remember I need a pen? I got a whole box of pens. Let me get my Bible out. If you guys want me to use a whiteboard, I’ll use a whiteboard. I don’t need a whiteboard.

We’re going to do part two. Listen, I had a weird day. Okay, just tell them. Caleb knows. So I come downstairs this morning, there’s water all over my floor. My refrigerator is leaking. Well, you know how easy it is to get somebody to come that day to do anything? I call like, hey, I got my refrigerator is leaking, it’s all over the floor. They said, oh, let’s see if we can be in there. I’ll be in there in two weeks. No, I ain’t going to work. So eventually my wife, who’s actually in San Diego, made some phone calls. She just called from San Diego. She’s calling back here getting a hold of companies. She found somebody to come today. It was a mess. Anyway, it’s fixed. I hope. I think. Everybody said, oh, it’s your ice maker. So he comes and he does this thing. I said, it’s the ice maker, right? He said, nope. I’ll tell you this story. Apparently, modern fridges have a little heater in them. Roger would know this story. Yeah, so about every eight hours, it kicks on and then does a little melting so your thing doesn’t freeze up, like the old fridges. And then the water drains and it gets processed. Well, the tube of that thing is what clogged up. So it was kicking on and defrosting, but then that water was backing up and coming out the back of the refrigerator on the floor. Not a good thing.

So then I was in a hurry to get here, because I had to meet Shawn first. And I forgot my computer. How do I show PowerPoints without a computer? Anyway, I wasn’t going to do anything fancy. I was just going to show this list again, which we are working our way through. Did I give you copies of this list? Okay. Hey, Jake, can you make copies of this? I’m going to get you copies.

Okay, so when you get that, you’re going to see. We’re going to talk about three of those tonight, mainly two, but I’m going to mention a third one. Now I keep on saying this because I feel bad, and that is that, you know, this is a fly-by operation, okay? True. I mean, what we should be doing is two hours a night on one topic, at least two hours a night at least, but we’re not. We’re zipping through. I am going to make a proposal to the elders that we fix that in the future, and we’ll see what happens. I want to have a monthly theology class. Once a month, but for two or three hours we dig into a topic, not this flyover thing we’re doing now. Not that that’s bad; it’s good to get an overview, right? Okay, so now, I guess we’re going to wait for the list.

Regeneration

Regeneration. Somebody smart in the room is going to tell me what that big word means. Is anybody smart in the room? No, nobody is smart, come on. You want to tell me what it means? You don’t know. Do you know? He’s not even listening! Okay, what’s regeneration mean? If you don’t know, say I don’t know. That’s fine. Susie. Becoming new? Becoming new, very good. New life? What’s the common biblical phrase for that? Born again. Go to John 3. We’ll look at that first.

If I’m a little slow, it’s my new Bible’s all stuck together. John 3, Jesus is talking to Nicodemus. Verse 2, Nicodemus came to Jesus by night and said to him,

Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher come from God, for no one can do these signs that you do unless God is with him. Jesus answered him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.” Nicodemus said to him, “How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born?” Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’”

(John 3:2–7)

Now this phrase “born again” can also be translated differently, and maybe it is in your version. Do you know what the other translation is? What? Born from above. The Greek word is called anōthen. Anōthen can mean again or above. Most translators prefer in this context again because of the context, although you could say from above. It really means essentially the same thing, because the new birth, which is an “again” birth, right? You’re born physically of your mother, but then when you’re saved, you are born again. But it’s a spiritual birth of your spirit. And it will result in a new body. So in a way, it’s like a whole birth. And it comes from above. It’s God who does it. So you could say born from above, but it’s common to say born again.

The word actual regeneration is used in Titus, if you want to turn there to chapter 3, Titus. The T books go in alphabetical order. Timothy, Timothy, Titus. Chapter 3, verse 3: “For we ourselves also were sometimes foolish, disobedient, deceived…” Then, “not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit, which he shed on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Savior, that being justified by his grace we should be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life.”

But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that being justified by his grace we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.

(Titus 3:4–7)

Now, regeneration is used one other time. It’s translated regeneration. That refers to the renewal, actually not just the renewal of the individual, but a renewal of the universe, basically. Regeneration is referred to as God’s work where he creates a new heaven and a new earth. But the phrase “born of God” is also very common, especially in John. You read the first epistle of John. He speaks frequently of being born of God. Those who are born of God do not sin, right? Those who are born of God love those who are born of God. That sort of thing. That’s the same thing. Born of God, born from above, born again, same concept. Different phraseology, same idea.

So, the new birth is this: this is the moment in time when a person truly embraces Christ. I mean truly, it’s real, it’s real, it’s happening, okay? And at that moment the Holy Spirit of God enters into their soul. And that moment there’s a quickening of their spirit, which the Scripture says that we are dead before then. So our spirit is cut off from God, and then with that quickening we are then alive to God. And it is us receiving the Holy Spirit. But in this process of making us alive to God, something else happens. And that’s where we are united to Jesus Christ.

Union with Christ

The union of the believer with Jesus is not a symbolic union. It’s not just some kind of weird mystical union. It’s real. The Spirit in you, if you’re saved, you have the Holy Spirit, who is also referred to as the Spirit of Christ. That Spirit is in you, and that Spirit is the same Spirit in Jesus. You cannot be any closer to Jesus than sharing the same Spirit. Okay? And we all share it. All true believers share it. That’s why the Lord prayed to the Father in John 17 about us being one the way they were one. Because we all have the same Spirit. How is it Christians fight? In our view, if two people are fighting, one of those two people is not listening to the Spirit, not following the Spirit, because that’s not what the Spirit would do. The Spirit doesn’t attack the Spirit.

So this union with Christ is talked about in Ephesians 2 and Romans 6–8. Let’s go to Ephesians 2 if you want, real quick. Okay, is anybody else hot in here? No? I’m burning up up here. It’s me, I guess. Would you let the fan on? That’d be awesome. Oh yeah, plug it in. That’s right, check the power. I think it’s a great illustration of the Christian life, right? What’s wrong with my Christian life? What’s wrong? You’re not plugged in. Plug into Jesus. Okay. Ephesians 2, right? Who wants to read today? You do? Okay, but you’ve got to stand up and face that way. I’m sorry, you’re talking to the wall otherwise. Okay, cool. Just read 2:1 through 10.

And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience—among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.

(Ephesians 2:1–10)

Thank you, Sean. Amen. Notice it says that we are dead in trespasses and sins. That’s our natural condition as a result of our first birth. That’s our first birth. We are born spiritually separated, alienated from God. We are alienated from the life of God. We are in Adam, if you will. Adam is under judgment and condemnation. But then, when we’re saved, we truly believe, it says we are made alive, or we are quickened. And notice it says in verse 5, even when we were dead in sin, God has quickened, or made us alive together with Christ. That phrase is key: together with Christ. And Romans 6 talks about being buried with Christ in baptism and then risen again to new life. We are united to Jesus Christ through the reception of the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit quickens us.

Well, let me just say this. Jesus said, John 14, he’s ready to leave, right? Ready to get crucified, he’s going to leave, going to ascend into heaven. He says, I will not leave you as orphans, right? I will come to you, he says. And then what is he going to talk about? The Holy Spirit. He will come to us in the person of his Holy Spirit, who will then, he says, he will not only be with you, he will abide in you. So the Spirit is with us in the sense that he is in our midst also, but he’s also in our hearts. And we’re commanded in different places to walk in the Spirit, right? To walk in the Spirit is to walk in communion with Jesus Christ.

Union and Communion

And there’s an important distinction between union and communion. The distinction is this. Our union with Jesus Christ is a fact. I don’t care how out of fellowship—that’s the phrase we use—how out of fellowship you are. You’re still united to Jesus Christ if you are his. If you are his, you are his, because his Spirit abides in you, and you have been united to him, but you’re not walking in communion with the one you’re united with. Good example, marriage. You hear me? Ever have a little spat with your spouse, maybe? And you’re still united in marriage, but you’re not communing. Well, that’s how it is in the Christian life. Our union is set—we’re in heaven, as far as Paul is concerned. We’ve already been united to Jesus Christ. We’ve been raised up from the dead with Jesus Christ. We’ve been made to sit in the heavens with Jesus Christ. That’s the truth. The challenge of the Christian life is walking that out so the reality of it manifests itself in our lives. So are you united with Jesus? Yes. Are you communing with Jesus? Maybe. That all depends on you. But he’s so close, and he’s always that close. He’s always dwelling with you. You have to learn how to walk with him in that intimacy.

Okay, so the moment in time we believe in Christ as our Savior, we embrace him. The Spirit of God comes into us, quickens our hearts. We are alive. We are united to Jesus Christ at that moment. That is the beginning of the next thing we’re going to talk about. This regeneration is not really technically ongoing. Regeneration happens in a moment, just like justification does. Justification is positional; regeneration is experiential. It happens. But it’s the beginning of another one of our words: the word sanctification. So in Titus, when it talks about regeneration, it talks about the washing of regeneration. That’s because this begins the washing, if you will, that’s associated with sanctification, which is a lifelong process. The Christian life in many ways is nothing more than you, a redeemed sinner, becoming like Jesus more and more. It’s a progressive transformation. It’s not a progressive, you’re going to be saved judicially. No, you’re saved judicially, but practically you’re being conformed to the image of Jesus Christ. Right? That’s called sanctification.

The Meaning of Sanctification

Let me make a few comments about sanctification. Okay, now, first point is this. We’ll talk about the meaning of it. I think you already got the idea, the basic idea, but then we’ll talk about the means of it. The meaning of sanctification is really a continuation of the work of regeneration. It’s the new life in us, which is the life of Jesus Christ, progressively transforming us, our entire person, body, soul, and spirit. The Greek and Hebrew words here for sanctification or sanctify, they mean two things.

One, consecrate or set apart. That’s the fundamental concept of sanctification. There’s also the fundamental concept of holy. When we say God is holy, I’m thinking God is pure, right? Well, he is. But we mean something even more fundamental. We’re saying God is other. He’s other. He’s not like us, but better. There’s not a long chain of being between God and man. Between us and God, there’s a huge difference, because he’s other, set apart. But he’s also set apart from what? Sin. Any error, any sin, any weakness. So in that sense, sanctification is the idea of consecrating or setting something apart for God’s use.

So this word sanctify can be used in the Old Testament of vessels in the temple that are set apart for God’s service, not to be used for anything else. Animals that are set aside for sacrifices are sanctified. This means they’re set apart. Holy days were sanctified. The Sabbath was set apart. It wasn’t a common day. And then people are set apart. We are set apart. I’ll come back to that in a moment. The second idea that we probably more usually associate with sanctify is the idea to purify, cleanse, or make holy. Now these things often merge in the Bible. Those holy vessels were set apart for God’s use, but they kept them clean, they kept them pure, but that’s not what made them holy. It was that God had set them aside for his use. But when we think of our sanctification, it’s not just that we’re set aside for God’s use, which we are, but that we’re being cleansed.

Positional and Practical

So positionally, here we are with our positional thing again, it’s true of us, of every Christian. They are already sanctified in the sense that they’re already set apart for God. You, I don’t care if it’s your worst day, I don’t care if you’re not going to get up for church because you’re so out of fellowship. You just ain’t going. You’re as much of a saint on that day as the day that you’re walking with Jesus singing hymns, because that sanctification was accomplished the moment you got saved. You were set apart at that moment. You were born of your mother, a son of Adam. And then you’re born of God. Glorious gospel, amen. And that’s a fact. But you still have to get holy. So that’s the practical part of the sanctification. God is in the process, our entire lives, of making us holy, where our practical lives actually conform to our position.

We’ll look at a couple verses real quick. Let’s see. Go to 1 Corinthians chapter 1 for a second. First Corinthians, come on. Okay, first chapter of 1 Corinthians. Now, you know the backstory on Corinthians, right? These people are really messed up. Of all the New Testament churches other than Laodicea, they were one of the worst. On the one hand, they were doing great things and God was working miracles in their midst. Corinthians is the book where God talks more about his spiritual gifts than any other book. Because the Spirit of God was moving there and working there. But there was a lot of sin going on there. But notice in his opening here in 1 Corinthians chapter 1 he says, “unto the church of God which is at Corinth, to them that are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints.”

To the church of God that is in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints.

(1 Corinthians 1:2)

Now, anybody that knew the Corinthians wouldn’t call them sanctified. So he’s not talking about them on a practical level. He’s talking about their position in Jesus Christ. In Christ they are sanctified, they are set apart, they are saints. You don’t become a saint like in the Catholic Church. You are a saint. Amen.

All right. Let’s see. Now look at 2 Corinthians 6, starting in verse 14.

Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness? And what concord hath Christ with Belial? or what part hath he that believeth with an infidel? And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? for ye are the temple of the living God; as God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you, and will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty. Having therefore these promises, dearly beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God.

(2 Corinthians 6:14–7:1)

Chapter 1 of the first epistle says they’re sanctified, they’re saints. Here he’s saying clearly they’re not sanctified, right? So how do you square these things? One’s positional, the other one’s practical. Live in such a way that your profession, your life, actually shows that you’re a saint. Live out a saintly life. But that’s a lifelong process of God transforming us into ultimately the image of Jesus Christ.

The Work of the Holy Spirit

Let me just make a few other observations about the Holy Spirit. I’m going to write these down. Number one, sanctification is the work of the Holy Spirit. That may be the most important thing I can say about this topic. Legalism, which is very alive in the church, not just the Catholic Church, but in the evangelical Protestant church, maybe even in your heart—legalism says I’m holy by obedience. I’m holy by what I do. Well, that’s only kind of true, but not fundamentally true. Because you in and of yourself do not have the power to defeat sin, do you understand? Paul says, “In me, that is, in my flesh, dwells no good thing.” I’m going to say, huh, pretty good? I used to be a Pharisee. I used to keep the law. Oh yeah, no, no good thing. That’s how powerful sin is. So powerful that at the end of chapter 7 in Romans he says, “Who will deliver me from this body of death?”

Because as Paul talks about his struggle, what I want to do, I don’t do; what I don’t want to do, I do—back and forth, back and forth. Why? Because there’s a law in my members, the law of sin that was in my flesh. This is a saved man talking, okay? A saved man. And any saved man here will tell you, you don’t cease to fight with sin when you get saved. You don’t cease to fight with sin when you get full of the Holy Spirit. No, no, no. Your battle has just begun. Just begun. Because we, I just said, we don’t understand the depth of our wickedness. I don’t mean to bum you out tonight, but let me just tell you this, you’re bad. You’re bad. I’m bad. I’m probably worse than you’re bad. But we’re bad. We’re like an onion. You keep on peeling those layers off. You think you dealt with it. You think you got this victory? Well, now you’ve got to do this thing. Now you’ve got to deal with this thing. And you just find the flesh does not want to die. Remember, call it to labor against it.

That’s why we need the Holy Ghost. Only he can empower us enough to live above that pull of the flesh. Because if you walk in the Spirit, you will not what? You will not fulfill or satisfy the lust of the flesh. It makes it sound like it’s one or the other. You walk in the Spirit, you don’t fulfill the flesh; you walk in the flesh, you do not fulfill the Spirit. So the Holy Spirit convicts us of sin, he illuminates the Word, he excites repentance and faith, he works in us to will and to do of God’s good pleasure, right? He makes the sacraments efficacious. The Spirit makes all of this you read about in here real. It’s real. And God wants it real in your life, in your home, in your church, in your work. The Holy Spirit real. Otherwise it’s just a cool fairy tale about a really cool guy named Jesus who was a Middle Eastern guru and he died because he loved me. See, God loves me, and that’s it. No, Christianity is about you being transformed so that you’re like Jesus. That means conquering sin, but we don’t have the power to conquer sin, but the Spirit of God does. In all these glorious things we read about in the New Testament about Jesus, the love of God, the height, the width, the breadth, all this stuff—it can be real in our lives, but we have to yield to the Holy Ghost. We have to invite him every day and many times in the day to fill us, to lead us, to guide us, to instruct us.

I remember every day when I went to work, I put my hand on the door, and I said, Lord, fill me with your Holy Spirit. And I went from hating my job to not only loving my job, but God using me at my job to lead people to Christ, because I would pray that prayer every day. Lord, fill me with your Holy Spirit, and he did. I take no credit. He did it. He did it. We’ve got to call upon the Spirit. We’ve got to be filled with the Spirit. We have got to fully yield to the Spirit if we want to see that transformation in our lives.

The Entire Person and the Means

Secondly, sanctification is of the entire person. I already said it, body, soul, and spirit. Number three, sanctification is gradual. Over time, you will find some things in your life change immediately. When I got saved, guess what? I quit cussing. I quit drinking. I quit all kinds of stuff. I just walked out of this meeting where I got saved. I’m like, what just happened to me? All of a sudden, I wanted to read the Bible. Literally, that day, that same day, I had no interest in the Bible. Now, I just wanted to read it. Before I came to the meeting, I thought, I’m going to this meeting with all these weirdos, these weird Christians, you know, weird, weird. And I went to this meeting on one condition. I said, I’ll go if you promise me. I was talking to this friend of my brother who was saved. I said, I’ll go on one condition. You never ask me to go to a meeting again. Never again. I’m tired of all this haranguing, you know. So I went to the meeting, and guess what? They didn’t have to ask me again, because I wanted to go back now. Transformed. But it wasn’t like every sin was gone. And little did I know that the less obvious sin—we think of sin as bad, you know, drinking or whoring or whatever. I had worse sins. I had pride. I had anger, unforgiveness. Those sins are deep and they’re rooted. And you have them for so many years, just intertwined with everything about your soul and your mind, and it warps you. You’re really warped, and the Holy Spirit has to clean all that out and straighten you out. You know, that’s a process. It can be a painful process, but it’s a glorious process. Because the end of that process is you being like Jesus. How glorious is that? Amen?

So how does God do this? Like I said, his Spirit. But on our part it means that we have to exercise the virtues of faith, of love, of hope, of joy. We have to believe. We have to trust. We have to labor. We don’t just sit on the couch and watch the hockey game and say, come on, Holy Spirit. We get on our knees at home and plead with him for the fullness of the Spirit. And we use the means that he will. We read Scripture. We pray. We separate from known sin. I’m not talking about the sins of anger or pride that are deep in your heart. You can’t just separate those. I mean, God will separate you from those. But I mean like, you quit going to the bar and hanging out with the whores. You just stop it. You stop the obvious stuff, okay? You stop watching dirty movies. You stop listening to profane music. You stop. You influence yourself; in your power you can do that. And then of course we use the sacraments and everything related to corporate worship. This means the prayer, the actual worship, the listening, the fellowshipping with the body—all of those things are means that God uses to sanctify us.

Number five, sanctification is both a work in us. God is working in us to will and to do of his good pleasure. But it’s also a duty, because we’re told repeatedly to put off the old man. Put off those heinous sins associated with the old man. Last point, number six, sanctification is completed or finished when? In glory. In heaven.

Completed in Glory

1 John chapter 3. I’m going to read this and then I’m going to take a quick break. 1 John 3. It says, Behold, verse 1, what manner of love the Father has bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God. Not that we should become, but we should be called. We are now the sons of God, right? We are now saints of God. Therefore the world does not know us, because it knew him not. Beloved, now are we the sons of God, or children of God. It does not yet appear what we shall be, but we know that when he shall appear, he, Jesus—we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. And every man that has this hope in him purifies himself, even as he is pure.

See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him. Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is. And everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure.

(1 John 3:1–3)

If you really believe—I mean really believe, not just say it—you really believe that you’re going to meet Jesus face to face, you’re going to get your act together. Let me tell you something. Since January of ’24 till now, I almost died four times. I had three strokes and I had a life-threatening blood infection. I woke up in the hospital and the doctor saying, Mr. Vaughan, you have a terminal infection, you might die. That’ll wake you up. Any one of the strokes could have killed me. So guess what I’ve been thinking about a lot? Glory. Glory. Glory. Glory. I’m getting ready for glory, and I’m serious about it. I am repenting of every sin I’ve ever committed. I’m not kidding. Anytime God brings anything in my mind that I did wrong, any word, any thought, anything. I don’t care if I was five years old or fifty years old, I confess it and I repent. Because now I finally understand this verse. If I have this hope in me that I’m going to see the perfect One, then I need to prepare for that. And that’s what I’m doing. And I hope you are too. Anyway, I don’t want to preach. I’m supposed to teach. Sorry. Let’s take a break. Take about five, ten minutes; come back. We’ll work through the next one.

A Short Break

[audio unclear — class break]

All right, we got to roll. All right, we good?

Perseverance of the Saints

All right, so if you look at the list, we started at regeneration tonight, which was the last of this side, and then you flip it over, sanctification, and then we’re going to skip this adoption and go to perseverance. The reason is that perseverance is, I think, an often misunderstood doctrine. And that’s partly because of the way it’s been explained or described. You may have heard the phrase “once saved, always saved,” right? I’m saying that is not exactly related, maybe, to what the Bible is saying.

Let me just say this also: one of the things about reading theology you’ll find is there’s two kinds of people that write theology. People that really explain things, and people that just don’t. And what I mean by that is I’ve read a lot of theology books over the years, and some of them are informative, but they don’t solve your questions. You’ll know the basic teaching because he just reiterates it, you know. Let’s say, well, the catechism says this, then he just says what the catechism says. Like, thank you very much. And a lot of times they don’t deal with the obvious questions people have.

Tensions in Scripture

Now there’s a reason that in Protestantism there’s two major camps. One is called Reformed, the other one is called Arminian. Some people say Calvinist or Arminian. Now Lutherans are there. I like the Lutheran guys I read; I like a lot. They provide a balance to some of the Reformed stuff, I think, a little bit too. Anyway, other theologians are good at explaining things, and the reason you need to explain things is because there’s two views on certain things. And the reason is there’s Scriptures that seem to say that, and there’s Scriptures that seem to say that. Anybody know what I mean? Like, well, how do I do that? How do I put those together? And often people will pick a side, if you will, and then once they pick their system, they just disregard those texts, or they interpret them through the grid, and they’re not really being honest with the text.

A good preacher will preach in such a way that when he’s preaching on a Calvinist text, everybody there will swear they’re Calvinists. But when they preach on an Arminian text, everybody will swear he’s an Arminian. That’s a good preacher. A bad preacher will gloss over one or the other, depending on his camp. And then you just can’t do that, okay? Besides being dishonest, you also lose the richness, really, of God’s revelation to us. The main points of salvation I think are pretty clear in the Bible. But there are things that are not clear, or should I say there are things that can be confusing, and it’s okay to say I’m confused by this. Perfect example is Paul’s emphasis on salvation or justification by faith, right? Faith, no works, no works. James: you’re saved by works. What is that? Well, you’ve got to work that through, you’ve got to work it out without twisting either side.

And I think sometimes part of my problem with the Reformed camp is that a lot of these guys, in my opinion, just say things that beg for clarification, but they never give it. Like Sproul says—I love Sproul. I just got a new set of his. I got two sets of his actually recently. So I really do. I wanted to get on his radio program, and I think he got sick or something, so it never happened. You know, this guy never had a cell phone. True, and he never had a computer, and the only way you could get a hold of him was talk to a secretary and she talked to him. Well, that’s why he wrote like 50 books, right? Wasn’t doom-scrolling all day. So a great teacher, great videos on the internet, great books, but he said something that really disordered me once. He said, if you want to know God’s will, it’s whatever happened yesterday. Okay, now that’s a great quip, but start thinking about that. Think about it, long and hard, when you think of all the children that were aborted yesterday. Think about all the little girls that were raped yesterday and molested yesterday. That was God’s will? Was that really God’s will? Did God really want that to happen? You’ve got to—I mean, it’s where you need distinctions, right? Between God’s decretive will and God’s moral will, God’s permissive will, and all these things that have to be clarified. And too often theologians that I’ve encountered, not all, will just say things, or they just reiterate the standard Reformed position, and they don’t answer the hard questions.

Well, we need to be able to raise our hand and say, I got a hard question. I don’t get this. I see this text here, and I see this text here, and I don’t see those things going together. And that’s okay, because there really is what I call a—not a contradiction in the Bible, but there are tensions in the Bible. I think those tensions are intentional, get it? I do. I think they’re intentional. Because the truth has to be delicately balanced, at least in this world. In the world to come, it may all be clear to us. I think rather we just won’t care. I think a lot of these things we won’t really care then. Because we will be beholding God in his glory, right? We’ll be enraptured with him. And I’m not sure if we’re going to care much about James chapter 2.

So all that to say, I think several of the doctrines on this list, like election, predestination, also get tied up in that easy, here’s the standard answer. When there’s tough questions, well, if that’s your answer, then you’re really implying this and implying this and implying this. I see the text is saying that, but I can’t buy the deduction you’re getting out of it. You know what I’m saying? I don’t like the implication of what you’re saying. And sometimes it’s just a matter of how they say it. It’s not what they’re saying, but sometimes it’s how they say it. So I think perseverance is one of them. Because we hear things like, once saved, always saved. And many people react to that negatively because they think it’s saying you can live as you please. Let me just live as I please, I’m saved. Don’t worry about it, you’re saved. That’s not what the Bible teaches. If you read your Bible at all, you’ll see that there are many texts where we are warned or exhorted. It even says, without holiness we will not see the Lord. Well, I thought I was safe in Jesus, you know. Well, a little more complicated, or should I say it’s multifaceted.

A Definition

So I do want to talk about what is often called eternal security, that’s another phrase, and the Reformed phrase is the perseverance of the saints. So let me give you a definition, because in some ways the key to this whole thing is the definition. You have to understand what’s being said, and then you can decide if you’re going to agree or disagree with it. If you want, I can make you copies of this stuff later. You don’t have to write this down. I didn’t print it out. But perseverance is that doctrine of Scripture which teaches us that once an individual is truly saved—and notice the word truly; catch the word truly—that is, born again, justified, sanctified by the Spirit, that person who through the Holy Spirit is united to Jesus, is in union with him, that saved person, he will continue to be saved until the end. But we’re not done. He will not utterly—important word—or finally fall away. But he will, by the grace and power of God, persevere in faith until the day of redemption.

Notice that the person here is persevering in the faith. He’s persevering in obedience. He’s persevering, but he’s doing it by the power of God. It is God that is enabling him to persevere, but he perseveres. It’s not the guy that walked the aisle when he was 18, and then when he’s 50, he’s at home getting drunk every night watching the ball game. That guy is probably on a short road to hell. It’s the person who perseveres, but we don’t take the credit for persevering, because it’s God’s work in us both to will and to do of his good pleasure. That’s Philippians 2:13. Sorry. I’m getting old here.

Okay. Perseverance or what’s called security does not teach that all those who make a profession of faith and join the visible church will necessarily be eternally saved. The church has always been a mixture of tares and wheat. Jesus himself said that. Jesus himself said in the parable of the sower, there were four types of soil and only one of them was good. Three of the four were false believers or temporary believers, because they were not truly born of God and united to Jesus Christ through the Holy Spirit. They might have changed then. I led a guy to Christ years ago. There were some outward changes. He started going to Bible study every week. He seemed excited. Well then he got messed up with a girl. It’s always a girl, right? They started fornicating. He, quote, fell away. He’s never come back, and I don’t think he’s coming back. He didn’t persevere, but he didn’t persevere because he wasn’t saved. He was one of the soils that responded with joy, looked real at first, but then time will tell, time will tell if it’s real. And if the conversion is real, if that inner transformation is real, if you’ve gone from darkness to light, if the Holy Spirit is in you, if you’re united to Jesus Christ, if you’re truly justified in God’s court, you will persevere. But not because you do nothing. Perseverance by its very definition is you doing all of those things, but you’re doing it by the power of God. He’s keeping you.

Jesus talks in John 10 about us being in his hand, right? And then he talks about being in the Father’s hand. So the picture is there. That’s the best picture of perseverance. It is God holding our hand, not us holding God’s hand. I’ve got little grandkids, 6 and 4. When we go across the street, guess what? I don’t say hold my hand. I grab their hand and I hold their hand. That’s what God does to us: holding our hand so that we persevere. Yes, we can stumble, yes we can fall, yes we can sin. We can have very dark times. I remember after I was saved I fell into a deep depression over a girl, of course. She broke my heart. I mean, it was bad. I was even thinking, how can I end this all? But then I thought, you know, I don’t want to disgrace Jesus. I told everybody I knew about Jesus. They knew I was a Christian. If I end my life, Jesus will be blasphemed. I couldn’t do it. God got me through it. He did that. He got me through it.

Scriptural Basis

Okay, now there’s, I’m going to have to recreate copies of all this for you because we’ll never get through it all. But when you talk about perseverance, there’s what I call the scriptural basis, which means isolated texts. Okay, you just grab texts. Why don’t you just go to the one in John, right? No one will snatch you out of my hand. And then, no one will snatch them out of my Father’s hand. And then there’s also the doctrinal basis. If you understand certain doctrines, you’ll understand that the idea of losing one’s salvation, or not persevering, is inconsistent with those other doctrines. That’s the beauty of systematic theology, is that you see how different doctrines fit together. So I just mentioned a couple verses, but there are many, many more, and I’ll have to, like I said, print this out for you. Let’s go to John 5. We’ll just walk through some Scriptures. Gospel of John, chapter 5, verse 24. Verse 21, for as the Father, this is Jesus talking:

For as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so also the Son gives life to whom he will. For the Father judges no one, but has given all judgment to the Son, that all may honor the Son, just as they honor the Father. Whoever does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent him. Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life.

(John 5:21–24)

Notice the verb tenses in this passage. He does not say, he that believes on me shall have everlasting life. He says he that believes on me has everlasting life now. He shall not come into condemnation, but is passed from death to life. This is the new birth we talked about. In the moment you truly put your faith in Jesus, you’re born of God. Now the Spirit’s in you now. You’re quickened now. Eternal life dwells in you now. And how long does eternal life last? Eternal. Eternal. Go to John 6, verse 35. I’m going to let David, not only 35 to 40.

Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst. But I said to you that you have seen me and yet do not believe. All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out. For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will but the will of him who sent me. And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day. For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.”

(John 6:35–40)

Everyone the Father has given the Son—of all of them, Jesus says he will lose none of them. None. That’s security. That’s assurance, none. In the Greek there is this weird thing where they have a double negative. You know what that is? In English you can’t do that, a double negative. In John 10:27–30, that’s where Jesus talks about being in the hand of the Father. John 11:25–26, just write that down. It’s another “never” passage. I mean, this is common language for Jesus on this topic. It’s not, well, maybe, or I hope so. It’s no, never. You will not be lost. No, never. You are secure in me. Never will I cast you out.

Okay. So many passages like this. I’ll make copies of this for you. We don’t have time to go through them all. We could spend all next hour reading these verses. And maybe when I make copies of this for you, you should read through them all. But there’s something even just as important as isolated verses, and that is the doctrinal connection here.

Doctrinal Basis

So there’s connections between perseverance and other doctrines. For example, I want you to just think about this for a minute. Scripture says we are saved by what? Come on, everybody. Yeah, by grace are you saved through what? Okay, so you’re saved by grace through faith. Common theme. And Paul often says not just that, but he’ll add, without works. Without works. He’s emphasizing. Not just faith, because you could say, I believe you say by faith, and because of faith you do good works, so really it’s faith and works. No. That’s what Paul says. Faith without works. Faith, not works, because it is by grace, not you work a little bit for it. It’s completely a matter of faith in God. So salvation is a gift bestowed on us by faith, and faith is the act by which we extend the empty hand, if you will, to God and take what he’s offered.

Now here’s the question: if you didn’t earn salvation, how do you unearn it? Truly. Because if you believe that your salvation can be lost, you’re saying the implication of that is that you actually work for your salvation. Because if you can lose it, then you can earn it back. Then you lose it again, then you earn it back. So it’s either a gift that’s secure, or it’s not a gift. So we say, oh no, it’s free, it’s free, it’s free, until you sin, then it’s taken away. No, that’s not free. That is a profound inconsistency. But many people think that way because they’re not really thinking through the doctrinal basis of salvation. We are saved by faith, not works. We do not earn salvation even a little bit. Therefore we don’t gain it by works and we don’t lose it by works.

The other doctrinal issue is not only how we, quote, get salvation, but what do we really mean by salvation? Some people have a very simplistic idea of what salvation is. That is, I believe in Jesus, so when I die I’m going to heaven. That’s it. And they’ll have that their whole Christian life. They don’t grow in knowledge or anything. When you think about what really happened in salvation, when you think about God’s declaration of justification, you’re no longer condemned. When you think about the fact that the Spirit of God now dwells in you, when you think about the fact that you are united to Jesus Christ, that you now are redeemed from the law, that you are now redeemed from the power of the devil, that you are now reconciled to God, everything involved in salvation—it’s like, God, you can’t lose that. I am not the same person I was before I was saved. Because then I was dead, I’m alive now. I am alive, I am a saint, I am seated in heaven. Those are facts, those aren’t wishes or hopes, they’re facts.

Objections

Now you know the objections, right? I’m going long. Should I go or should I stop? Tell me what to do. I’ll just go a couple minutes. I’m really abbreviating because I got pages of notes here. And this is actually really good stuff. The obvious objection is that if you teach people that once saved, always saved, then you’re teaching them to relax regarding obedience, or be lax regarding morals.

I was sharing the gospel and I said—you’re saying you just got to believe Jesus and then live as you please? I said, let me tell you this, when I got saved the first thing I wanted to do was not take a machine gun and go shoot up a mob. Because that’s the implication. I said you don’t understand what salvation is. Because you haven’t experienced it. I was changed. I was transformed by the Spirit of God. I want to obey. I want to be holy. I love God’s Word. I love God. Do I fail? Yes. Do I sin? Yes. But I don’t like it. So it’s a profound misunderstanding of the nature of regeneration, which is what we started with tonight. The transformation that takes place in a true believer is so profound and shifts everything about their mind, their soul, their body, out of the world, out of Adam, out of sin, into Jesus Christ. That having assurance or security is not encouraging them to sin at all.

And besides, in addition to the fact that we’re transformed, when we do sin, guess what God does? Come on, somebody tell me. He spanks you. It hurts. Read Hebrews 12, and he talks about how God chastens those that are his children. He even uses the word scourges. You know what that means? He whips you highly hard. It’s painful, but it’s done out of love. For whom the Lord loves, he chastens. Right? Maybe you have kids, and I trust that because you love your kids, at some point you discipline them. And that means maybe the rod on the bod in the name of God, right? Out of love, and that’s what God does to us. We obey God, ultimately because we love him, not because we fear him—not because we respect him, we want to honor him, and that’s not to be fair, but not that slavish fear of, oh no, if I sin God’s going to send me to hell. I can tell you this, that if you don’t have assurance, which is what this doctrine is really about, you will not persevere. I mean, you will not continue in the Christian life. You can’t carry that. You cannot progress spiritually if anytime you mess up, God is going to cast you out.

Some people say that if you teach perseverance, then you’re really denying human freedom, because if someone gets saved they can’t get unsaved, or if they want to get unsaved—my question is, is anybody in their right mind really want to be unsaved? Exactly right. Bingo. I’ve met people that don’t like God’s attention. And Lewis talks in his book about The Four Loves, about how agape love is such a love at times it can really be irritating. Because God won’t leave you alone. Won’t leave you the way you are. He’s going to change you, and that can be painful. But it’s love-driven, right?

When we’re in heaven, are we going to have free will? I think so. And there’s no problem. We’re not going to want to get out of there. Currently we have a free will, but if you’re saved, then we’re not going to want to do stupid things. So we’re going to want to do what pleases God. We’re going to have a free will in heaven; it will be because we want to do stuff that will please God. Just as in our natural state we have a will bent against God, called depravity, when we’re born again, that will is turned toward God. Now, currently we have a conflict, right? The flesh and the Spirit. But in heaven, in glory, no conflict. So we will be free to choose as we please, and we will choose God because he is pleasing. And I think that another piece of that is that we have a free will now. And even when we have the same conflict, if we choose to do something that doesn’t please God, just like I used to say to my kids, you can do what I said or not. But if you don’t, you’ll wish you had. So in a way, that’s what God does with us. Because here’s what I would like done. So it can be the easy way or the hard way. Yeah. But God’s will will be done. He’s working in us to will and to do of his good pleasure.

All right, listen, our time’s up. There’s other Scriptures I want to go through. So I’m going to get permission to do more later, or I’m just going to have to print stuff out for you. I will get it to you. I’m sorry we didn’t get to everything, because I know it’s important. All right. A couple of guys are going to pray as we close. Jake does, I think. And, you want to pray? Sure. Okay. Why don’t you two men stand and pray for us?

Closing Prayer

[audio unclear — closing prayers by Jake and Matthew]

Father, we thank you for this time that we can come and learn more about you, and through the teaching and preaching of your Word that you have given us. We pray that you would help us to learn more about you in the rest of the class and throughout our lives and throughout eternity, that we may learn more about the works that you have done, you are doing, and will do. And we pray that you would bless us all. Amen. All right. Mike’s up next week. Don’t miss it. It’ll be good.