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Eternal Security: Part 5
By Dr. Arnold Frutchenbaum
Here are eleven additional points to consider regarding eternal security:[1]
1) When Yeshua died for the sins of the world, He died for all of the sins of the world, not only until the next sin was committed. The very fact that the work of Jesus was finished -the fact that He does not need to come and die again – shows that those who have received the benefits of His work cannot lose it. Those who have received salvation cannot, therefore, lose it, because it would require the Messiah to do His work all over again (Heb. 10:12-18).
2) In I Peter 1:4-5 we see that believers have been kept through faith, and are kept unto the final consummation. God is doing the keeping. Indeed, if the retaining of salvation were dependent upon the believer, everyone would lose it.
3) Every believer is a new creature or creation (II Cor. 5:17). This fact means that one cannot suddenly now eternally cease to exist.
4) Just as no one can obtain salvation by works, but only through faith, even so, no one is going to keep his salvation by works. Read Ephesians 2:8-9.
5) According to John 6:37-40, the believer is a gift given by God the Father to the Son because of the Son's obedience.
6) In I John 3:9, we read that the seed abides. The seed is the gospel seed that produces eternal life. This eternal life continually abides; it does not at some point become inoperative.
7) Salvation is a free gift (Rom. 11:29). A free gift is not truly free if it can be demanded back. When God gives a gift, it is a free gift of grace; it is not something that He will take back from the one to whom He has given it.
8) Salvation is also a birth, a new birth (Jn. 1:12; 3:3; Jas. 1:18; I Pet. 1:3, 23). The fact that salvation is a birth makes it final and unchangeable. Just as a child's physical birth is final and unchangeable, so that it cannot be put back into the womb to start all over again, even so, believers are born again.
9) A believer is not able to keep himself saved any more than he was able to save himself in the first place (Gal. 3:3). Just as God saves, God is the One who is going to keep.
10) God has paid the highest price for believers: the blood of His Son. That is too high a price to give them up now.
11) Gross sins are punished, but never at the loss of salvation (e.g. I Cor 5:1-5; 11:29-32).
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[a] This post is a modified version of Dr. Arnold Fruchtenbaum's original Messianic Bible Study. The full version may be obtained here.
Original Article
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