Eph 670, 813, 1030ff 3/30/89

DOCTRINE OF ETERNAL SECURITY

A. The Virtue of God Rationale.

1. This rationale says that God cannot cancel the forty things that He gives you at the moment of salvation through faith in Christ.

2. Eternal life is imputed to us at salvation because the Holy Spirit regenerates us by creating in us a human spirit for the imputation of eternal life.

3. God cannot cancel eternal life. When God gives, He does not take it back. He has given us His righteousness and His life, so that we are qualified to live with Him forever.

4. This does not imply, however, that we will succeed as believers. Whether we fail or succeed in executing the protocol plan of God for the Church Age, whether we become invisible heroes or losers, depends entirely upon our attitude toward Bible doctrine.

5. The imputation of divine righteousness is the only means of justification. Justification is an eternal relationship with God based on His integrity, not ours. It is based upon our possessing His righteousness.

6. Rom 5:1-3, “Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom also we have obtained our access by means of faith into this grace in which we stand. Consequently, let us have esprit-de-corps because of confidence in the glory of God.”

a. Our relationship with God does not depend on our integrity, morality, virtue or failure. It depends on His holiness and integrity.

b. The very concept of eternal security is the fact that the integrity of God is at stake. God gives and does not withdraw. He gives forty things at salvation and does not take back any of them.

c. We have peace with God because He gave us His righteousness. We do not have peace with God because of our self-righteousness.

d. When we “stand in grace,” this does not refer to our morality or self-righteousness, but the virtue of God. The Christian way of life is not morality but is far above morality. Virtue is infinitely greater than morality, but virtue can only be produced by the filling of the Spirit and the perception of doctrine. Morality can be produced by human self-determination and the energy of the flesh. This is why so many unbelievers have a morality greater than that of believers.

e. We stand in grace, not in merit. It is God that provides the grace and our standing. We don’t stand on our own strength; if so we would collapse. We stand in the grace of God.

f. Confidence in the glory of God is personal love for God the Father and occupation with Christ. That begins at spiritual self-esteem.

g. You can’t lose your salvation because it is strictly the work of God. You did nothing to gain it or maintain it; it is the work of God. God will not let you go because you’re a failure.

h. God never gives His righteousness without putting it in a permanent container: our eternal security. We cannot lose our salvation. You cannot lose what the integrity of God gives you.

7. Eternal security is defined as an unbreakable relationship with the integrity of God, depending on the integrity of God. It is an unbreakable relationship because God will not break the relationship regardless of what we do or fail to do.

a. Neither God nor man nor angel can cancel or destroy this unbreakable relationship with God. The moment we believe in Jesus Christ, God gives us forty things. Demons cannot cancel those forty things. We cannot cancel them by renouncing God or our faith.

b. You have to be arrogant to think that you can commit a sin or make a renunciation of God that can cancel the work of God!

c. There is nothing the believer can do to cancel the one-second decision of believing in Christ. You don’t have the power or ability to cancel it, no matter how evil you are.

d. In other words, God is greater than you. Yet people are so arrogant that they think they are greater than God. The dumbest people are those who think they can reject eternal security, who attempt to cancel the grace of God.

e. Knowing the doctrine of eternal security doesn’t cause you to go out and raise hell. Rather, it motivates you to want to know this wonderful God who has provided such fantastic things for you because of one non-meritorious decision you made in a few seconds.

f. To think you can help God is arrogance. God doesn’t need our help; we need His help! That’s the grace policy of the plan of God.

8. Man’s failure does not abrogate the integrity of God. Man’s weakness does not cancel God’s strength. Lack of integrity in the believer cannot cancel the integrity of God. Failure to execute the protocol plan of God does not cancel your eternal salvation. Yet we are more impressed with our failures than with the integrity of God, and that’s our problem. We need to be more impressed with the integrity of God and less impressed with our failures. This is why many believers don’t believe in eternal security.

9. Salvation through faith in Christ results in receiving one-half of divine integrity, the righteousness of God. The possession of the righteousness of God forever eliminates the possibility of losing salvation by any failure on our part. Our righteousness breaks down because we have an old sin nature. But God’s righteousness will never let us down. We have it permanently. Therefore, we stand before God, not on the basis of our righteousness, but on the basis of His righteousness.

10. It is the quintessence of human arrogance to assume we can do anything to cancel or abrogate our eternal salvation. The forty things received at the moment of faith in Christ cannot be canceled or nullified by any failure on our part after salvation. The integrity of God is infinitely greater than any failure of man, 2 Tim 2:12-13.

11. Jn 3:16, “For God loved the world so much that He gave His Son [deity of Christ], the uniquely-born One [humanity of Christ] that whosoever believes in Him shall never perish but have eternal life.” Note that no conditions are added to “shall never perish.” All you have to do is believe in Jesus Christ; nothing is added to faith.

B. Exegetical Rationale for Eternal Security, Eph 2:8-9. “For by grace you have been saved in the past with the result that you stand saved forever through faith, and this [salvation] is not from yourselves; it is a gift from God, not by works, lest any man should boast.”

1. The Greek perfect periphrastic in Eph 2:8 is composed of two verbs: the perfect passive participle of SOZO and the present active indicative of EIMI.

2. The periphrasis is carried over from the Attic Greek. It indicates that the writer cannot get all the details into one verbal form. Therefore, he uses two verbal forms to provide a more forceful expression. Nothing is more forceful than the expression of eternal security of the believer in this periphrastic perfect.

3. The periphrasis is one of the most powerful most forceful of all expressions in any language. In the Greek, it is so strong and powerful that it has no loopholes and no leaks of any kind. We’re tied into eternal life forever simply by the few seconds it takes to believe in Christ.

4. The first verb is the perfect passive participle of SOZO.

a. The intensive perfect of SOZO emphasizes the present state from a past action. The past action is faith in Christ. So this indicates the completion of an action at the moment of faith in Jesus Christ with an emphasis on the existing results: once saved, always saved. It emphasizes the finished product, which means you are saved and have eternal security.

b. The intensive perfect is a strong way of saying a thing is. There is nothing more real than eternal security. The intensive perfect is the emphatic method in the Greek of presenting the fact of eternal security after salvation through faith in Jesus Christ.

c. The passive voice of SOZO means that, at the point of faith in Jesus Christ, the believer receives the action of the verb. We received forty things at salvation.

d. Verbs in the passive voice are generally intransitive. A transitive verb makes an incomplete affirmation and requires a direct object to complete its meaning. There is no direct object here. The intransitive verb, as here, makes a complete affirmation of eternal security and does not require an object of the verb to complete its meaning.

e. The participle is circumstantial.

5. The finite verb is added for duration, i.e., the present active indicative of EIMI.

a. The gnomic present of EIMI expresses a universal doctrine (eternal security). It expresses a doctrine or fact, an absolute truth, a state of condition that perpetually exists and will never be changed.

b. The time element is remote, because the doctrine of eternal security is true all the time. You never lose your salvation for a second.

c. This might be called a static present because eternal security is a condition which perpetually exists.

d. The active voice of EIMI involves you, and you will never lose your salvation. The believer produces the action of the verb by being in a perpetual state of salvation.

e. The declarative indicative mood of EIMI is used for a dogmatic statement of doctrine, the doctrine of eternal security. Salvation is not relative; it is an absolute. In just a few seconds of time, you believe in Jesus Christ and possess eternal life.

6. A periphrastic denotes a completed action with eternal results, and so teaches the doctrine of eternal security.

a. The participle of SOZO denotes a completed action in past time, at the moment of faith in Christ. The same perfect tense denotes the completed result of eternal security.

b. The finite verb EIMI is added to give duration to that continuous and eternal result of faith in Jesus Christ.

c. The periphrastic portrays eternal salvation in retrospective exposition. Hence, in one moment of faith in Christ, the believer has eternal salvation, which means eternal security.

7. Both grace (CHARIS) and faith (PISTIS) are in the feminine gender. The demonstrative pronoun, HOUTOS (“this"), is in the neuter gender. Therefore, HOUTOS, the near demonstrative pronoun, refers to neither grace nor faith. The use of the neuter gender is the Greek way of saying “and this” refers to the whole idea of salvation.

8. “This [salvation] is not from yourselves.” There is nothing you can do.

a. Faith is the absence of human merit. Furthermore, we are spiritually dead when we believe in Christ. In efficacious grace, God the Holy Spirit takes only faith in Christ and makes it effective for salvation.

b. Mankind does nothing to attain salvation, and he can do nothing to lose his salvation once he believes in Christ.

c. Salvation and eternal security are both the work of God.

C. The Positional Sanctification Rationale.

1. Rom 8:38-39, “I have confidence 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.” The last prepositional phrase, “in Christ Jesus,” is technical for our union with Christ by the baptism of the Holy Spirit. Because we are in union with Christ, nothing can separate us from our eternal salvation. We can never get out of union with Christ.

2. This can also be called the baptism of the Spirit rationale. Through the baptism of the Spirit at the point of faith in Christ, every believer is entered into union with Christ in the Church Age. This is called positional sanctification. Therefore, every Church Age believer shares who and what Christ is.

3. Jesus Christ is eternal life. Being in union with Him means we share His life, 1 Jn 5:11-12, “This is the record: God has given to us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. He who has the Son has [eternal] life; he who does not have the Son does not have [eternal] life.”

4. We share Jesus Christ’s divine righteousness, 2 Cor 5:21.

5. We are accepted in Christ forever, Eph 1:6.

6. We share the destiny of Christ, Eph 1:5.

7. We share the heirship of Christ, Eph 1:4.

8. We share the election of Christ.

9. We are sanctified in Christ, 1 Cor 1:2, 30.

D. The Logical Approach.

1. Rom 8:31, “Therefore, to what conclusion are we forced? If God is for us, who is against us?” The moment you believed, you know God was for you because He gave you forty things. Most people are against themselves if they don’t believe in eternal security.

2. Rom 8:32, “He [God the Father] who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him over to judgment on behalf of us all, how shall He not also with Him freely give us all things?” In one second of time at your salvation, God gave you forty things. Therefore, God gives you many more than forty things.

3. This passage uses the system of logic called a fortiori, meaning “with stronger reason” in the Latin. A fortiori says, in effect, that if God did the greatest thing at salvation by not sparing His own Son, it follows logically that He can do less than the greatest thereafter - give you eternal security.

a. The less than the greatest is all that God provides for us in grace during our lifetime and forever in eternity. If the justice of God can provide the greater at salvation, it follows logically that the justice of God can provide the lesser for the believer.

b. If grace does a greater thing at salvation, then grace can do a lesser thing after salvation. If God did the greater for us at salvation, it follows, a fortiori, that God can keep us saved (eternal security).

4. Nothing and no one else can hinder blessings from the justice of God to the mature believer except his own negative volition. Eternal security is related to blessings from the justice of God.

5. Capacity for blessing includes total awareness of security from the integrity of God. You’re aware that the potential is always there.

6. No believer who rejects the doctrine of eternal security ever attains maturity. He never receives blessings or eternal rewards from the justice of God. But he still has eternal security; he hasn’t lost his salvation.

7. An awareness of eternal security from the integrity of God is a part of capacity for blessing from the justice of God.

8. You have two realities in life: eternal security and prosperity from the integrity of God. Eternal security is a reality that never changes; prosperity is a potential reality.

9. Eternal security is not potential; it always exists. Eternal security is complete and total as of salvation. Reality of prosperity comes with maturity.

10. You can never be a mature believer and reject eternal security. No one can be mature without total cognizance of the integrity of God, and that includes knowledge of eternal security.

E. The Family of God Rationale.

1. Gal 3:26, “For all of you are the sons of God by faith in Christ Jesus.”

a. Once we are born into a human family, we cannot be unborn and removed from that family. Once in the family of God, no believer can be removed from the family of God. So the moment you believe in Jesus Christ, you are born into the family of God.

b. More than that, believers in the Church Age are born into the royal family of God. Whether you succeed or fail is not the issue in eternal security.

c. Every member of the human race has a father and a mother. Once in that family, he is always in that family. So once in the family of God, you are always in the family of God. No matter how you turn out in your life, you will always belong to the same family. Some children of God turn out well and some don’t, but they are all part of God’s family.

d. All believers in Christ are born again into the same royal family of God. That is eternal security.

2. Therefore, every believer possesses an eternal inheritance, 1 Pet 1:4-5, “To obtain an inheritance which is incorruptible and undefiled, that will not fade away, reserved in heaven for you who are guarded by the omnipotence of God through faith unto salvation, ready to be revealed in the last time.” The believer cannot lose his inheritance through any sin, evil, or failure on his part. Since all believers are members of the same family of God and cannot lose their family identity, they also have an heirship.

3. Rom 8:16-17, “The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are the children of God. And if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint-heirs with the Son of God.” You will always be an heir of God no matter how you fail or succeed.

4. Gal 4:7, “Therefore, you are no longer a slave but a son, a child of God, and if a son, then an heir through God.”

5. Tit 3:7, “That being justified by His grace, we might be made heirs on the basis of the confidence of eternal life.”

F. The Body Metaphor for Eternal Security.

1. In the royal family of God, Jesus Christ is the head, and every believer is a member or part of His body. Jesus as the head is found in Eph 1:22, 4:15; Col 1:8. 2. In 1 Cor 12:21 are some analogies from this metaphor. “The eye cannot say to the hand, `I have no need of you.’ The head cannot say to the feet, `I have no need of you.’”

a. The eye is a more prominent part of the body, but the hand is just as needed as the eye. The foot is the lowest of all parts of the body, yet Jesus Christ needs every part of His body.

b. At the time of writing, the eye referred to those with the gift of tongues who tended to get arrogant over their very sensational gift.

c. The foot is another inconspicuous gift. The head is Jesus Christ, Col 1:18. To the most insignificant of believers, Jesus Christ cannot say, “I don’t need you.” That’s eternal security.

3. This is eternal security. Because at salvation, the justice of God gave you divine righteousness. The justice of God can never divorce itself from or deny divine righteousness.

4. Therefore, with divine righteousness in you and the justice of God at the other end of the grace pipeline, there’s no possible way you can ever get out of this eternal relationship with God. The opinion of other believers cannot cancel your salvation, nor can anything else whether, in heaven or on earth.

5. In other words, your status as a member of the royal family of God is immutable.

G. The Essence of God Rationale.

1. Because of the immutable, eternal, infinite attributes of God, He cannot cancel the salvation of any believer, no matter how gross that believer may be.

2. Jude 24, “Now unto Him who is able to keep you from falling and present you faultless before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy, to the only wise God our Savior be glory and majesty, dominion and power both now and forevermore.” We do not keep ourselves from falling; God does as a matter of grace. This verse says that God has the ability to maintain the relationship which He alone started.

3. The perfect integrity of God cannot be canceled by the failure or renunciation of any believer living on earth, according to 2 Tim 2:11-13. “Faithful is the Word. If we died with Him [and we have], we shall with Him. If we endure [in suffering for blessing], we shall rule with Him [as mature believers]. If we deny Him, He will deny us [rewards, escrow blessings]. If we are unfaithful [disbelieving, faithless], He remains faithful, for He cannot deny Himself.”

a. The fact that we are unfaithful and losers does not change the faithfulness of God.

b. Every believer is indwelt by God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. God cannot deny Himself since He indwells the believer.

c. Just because we are jerks doesn’t mean God is. Yet we have a tendency to superimpose our stupid thinking on God.

4. According to 2 Pet 3:9, God is “not willing that any should perish.” Therefore, He is certainly not going to lose anyone who is past the point of perishing once they believe in Jesus Christ.

H. Anthropomorphism for Eternal Security.

1. An anthropomorphism ascribes to God a human characteristic or a part of the human body which God doesn’t have, but it is used to explain some divine policy to us in terms of human anatomy.

2. In the Old Testament, the anthropomorphism is found in Ps 37:24. “Though he falls [believer’s failure], he shall not be completely cast down, because the Lord is the One who sustains him with his hands.”

3. In the New Testament, the anthropomorphism is found in Jn 10:28. “I give to them eternal life. They shall never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand.” This anthropomorphism says you’re in the Lord’s grip forever; and He never lets go.

I. Sealing Metaphor for Eternal Security.

1. Eph 1:13, “In whom, when you heard the message of truth, the Gospel of your salvation [common grace]; in whom, when you believed [efficacious grace], you were also sealed by means of the Holy Spirit.” The signature guarantee of the Holy Spirit includes the following:

a. Sealing is the guarantee of the ministry of the Holy Spirit in common and efficacious grace. This is pre-salvation grace.

b. Sealing is the guarantee of eternal salvation at the moment of faith in Christ. This is salvation grace.

c. Sealing is the guarantee of eternal security in time. This is post-salvation grace.

d. Sealing is the guarantee of your portfolio of invisible assets in time. This is post-salvation grace.

2. Eph 4:30, “Stop grieving the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you have been sealed to the day of redemption.”

a. Sealing was a sign of possession. Therefore, a seal attached to something signifies ownership.

b. So no matter what happens after salvation, God owns us and will deliver us at the point of ultimate sanctification, i.e., the Rapture of the Church.

c. Anything to which God attaches His seal belongs to God forever. Through the function of the integrity of God, we are permanently owned by God.

d. Hence, the sealing of the Holy Spirit at salvation is used as a challenge to the believer to avoid carnality and reversionism, and to keep going, no matter how he fails.

J. The Eternal Security Rationale.

1. God is perfect integrity, holiness, and virtue. He is immutable, and always has perfect integrity. Therefore, God always keeps His word.

2. In this dispensation, when we believe in Christ, God does forty things for us immediately. God cannot cancel those forty things He gives to us at the moment of our salvation.

3. There are three categories of grace involved in God’s relationship with mankind.

a. Pre-salvation grace.

b. Salvation grace.

c. Post-salvation grace.

4. We learn that in pre-salvation grace, the Holy Spirit takes only faith in Christ and makes it effective for salvation. At the moment of salvation through faith in Christ, every believer receives eternal life.

5. Eternal life cannot be canceled, 1 Jn 5:11-13, “This is the deposition, that God has given to us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. He who has the Son has [eternal] life; he who does not have the Son does not have [eternal] life. These things I have written to you who believe in the person of the Son of God, in order that you may know that you have eternal life.”

a. Eternal life means eternal security.

b. When we were born physically, God imputed human life to our soul. When we believed in Christ, God the Holy Spirit created a human spirit, to which God the Father imputed eternal life. Eternal life is the basis for eternal security.

c. So there are two categories of life. Soul life is everlasting, and it will live forever in the unbeliever in the lake of fire. Eternal life is life forever with God.

6. Both eternal life and eternal security are guaranteed by the virtue or integrity of God.

7. Eternal security is an unbreakable relationship, because it depends entirely on who and what God is, never on who and what we are. For grace always depends on God as the divine policy of God in dealing with us believers.

8. Man’s weakness cannot cancel God’s strength. Man’s failures cannot abrogate or nullify the integrity of God.

K. Conclusion.

1. When the spiritually dead person believes in Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit makes his faith effective for eternal salvation.

2. At the moment of salvation, God gives us forty things, none of which can be canceled. God cannot cancel them because of our failure; we cannot do anything to lose them. Those forty things cannot be canceled by our failure or renunciation of God or by any evil we may do.

3. Eternal security is infinitely greater than any sin, any evil, and any human good. 4. The permanent possession of eternal life carries with it the guarantee of eternal security in time.

L. Losers have eternal security.

1. For some believers, there will be disgrace at the Judgment Seat of Christ. But that does not in any way cancel their salvation. 1 Jn 2:28.

2. Losers do not lose their salvation. Losers do lose their escrow blessings for time and eternity. Since escrow blessings are irrevocable, they remain on deposit forever in heaven as a memorial to lost opportunity and failure to utilize the grace assets of our portfolio in order the fulfill God’s plan.

3. Therefore, lost opportunity is not loss of salvation, but failure to glorify God in time.

4. There will be believers at the Rapture who were losers in their modus operandi in life, though they did not lose their salvation. Phil 3:18-19, “For many keep walking, concerning whom I have communicated many times to you, and now continue communicating, even though weeping. They are the enemies of the cross of Christ, whose end is destruction, whose god is his emotion, whose glory is their shame, who keep on thinking about earthly things.”

a. With his great understanding of doctrine, Paul did weep. It was very frustrating for him to realize that those losers could just as easily be winners.

b. Such losers are the enemies of Christ, and so they will die the sin unto death.

c. Such people make emotions their criterion. But emotions are relative, and should never be a criterion for anything. Grace is an absolute; metabolized doctrine is absolute truth.

d. Shame at the Judgment Seat of Christ occurs because many believers in the Church Age fail to execute the protocol plan of God after salvation, due to malfunction of post-salvation epistemological rehabilitation, i.e., perception of the mystery doctrine of the Church Age.

e. Many believers fail to glorify God because they are the enemies of the cross. They become the enemies of the cross by adding something to faith in Christ for salvation. They never come to the point of grace orientation.

f. The only condition for receiving eternal life from God is personal faith in Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ provided eternal salvation on the cross through His substitutionary spiritual death, when He received the imputation and judgment of our sins.

g. Believers who are the enemy of the cross always use their arrogance to add something to faith in Jesus Christ, whether it is faith plus: baptism; repentance as sorrow for sins; submission to the Lordship of Christ; inviting Christ into your heart; discipleship; preparing for salvation by self-improvement by giving up certain sins and bad habits; psychological activity such as raising hands, walking aisles, weeping tears of repentance; or emotionalism. These concepts represent salvation by works, which is not salvation at all. Nothing can be added to faith in Jesus Christ for salvation.

5. For the believer in Jesus Christ who gives #1 priority to the mystery doctrine of the Church Age, he becomes a “workman who does not need to be ashamed,” 2 Tim 2:15.

6. “Dead works” (Heb 6:1 and 9:14) can be defined in two ways.

a. Those who add to faith for salvation.

b. And those believers who reject the invisible of their portfolio and refuse to function under the power of God.

c. They fail to execute the protocol plan of God. They substitute energy of the flesh for the power of God; human viewpoint for Bible doctrine.

7. Winners are described in Phil 1:20, “According to my earnest expectation and hope [motivation], that 1 shall not be put to shame in anything [Judgment Seat of Christ], but with all boldness [confidence], Christ shall even now as always be glorified in my body, whether by life or by death.”

M. Eternal Security and the Grace of God.

1. No believer can orient to the grace of God until he understands that salvation is by grace through faith alone.

a. Adherence to any system of salvation by works, adding anything to faith for salvation results in one of two categories of legalism.

(1) Salvation by works.

(2) Spirituality by works.

b. Some people are confused about eternal security because they were really not saved in the first place. They added something to faith, thus nullifying that faith.

2. No believer can orient to the grace of God until he understands the protocol plan of God, the portfolio of invisible assets, the available power of God, the assigning #1 priority to the mystery doctrine of the Church Age, which mystery doctrine is the quintessence of God’s eternal and infinite wealth.

3. Grace has provided for every believer infinite wealth which cannot be destroyed by anything. This wealth is permanent is eternal, but is only available if you understand your portfolio of invisible assets.

a. Rom 9:23, “In order that He might make known the riches of His glory on vessels of mercy, which He prepared in advance for glory.” We re the vessels of mercy, and God has provided for us eternal and infinite riches. These riches must be made known to glorify God.

b. Rom 11:33ff, “Oh the depth of the wealth, both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How inscrutable are His decrees; how unteachable His ways. Who then has known the mind of the Lord? Who has become His advisor? Who has given to Him and not been compensated? For from Him, through Him, and to Him are all things, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen.” The key to understanding God’s wealth is in knowledge, which is the perception of doctrine, and in wisdom, which is the application of doctrine. Wherever wealth is mentioned, the context teaches that we must know it to have it.

c. Eph 1:18, “That the eyes of your right lobe may be enlightened, that you may know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints.”

d. Eph 3:8, “To me, the very least of all the saints, this grace has been given to preach to the Gentiles the inscrutable wealth of Christ.”

e. Eph 3:16, “That He may give you, on the basis of His riches in glory, to become strong by means of power through the Spirit in your inner being.” The ministry of the Spirit in teaching Bible doctrine is the basis for understanding your wealth.

f. Col 1:27, “In whom God willed to reveal to the Gentiles the glorious riches of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.”

g. Col 2:2, “That their right lobes may be encouraged, having been knit together in virtue love, and attaining to all the wealth that comes from the full assurance of understanding on the basis of epignosis knowledge of God’s mystery.”

h. So if you don’t understand it, you will never be able to use in this life the infinite, eternal wealth that God has provided for you! That wealth cannot in any way be destroyed, but it is not available to you if you’re ignorant of it. Your perception of doctrine is your only hope to start exploiting the wealth of grace!

N. Eternal Security and Confidence in God.

1. Eternal security is a gift from God at salvation, Eph 2:8. It is something every believer possesses forever regardless of his experiential status. Confidence is not possessed by every believer. Confidence is a virtue directed toward God.

2. Eternal security at salvation is something God does for us, while confidence in God is something that happens to the believer who fulfills the principle of post-salvation epistemological rehabilitation. But whether you have confidence in God or not doesn’t change God’s attitude toward you.

3. Eternal security is inherited at salvation. We acquire confidence through perception of Bible doctrine. Understanding eternal security and other doctrines gives us confidence.

a. Confidence is an experience which comes through learning, metabolizing, and applying more and more doctrine. Only believers with spiritual self-esteem possess confidence.

b. Ignorance of Bible doctrine is simply failure or malfunction of post-salvation epistemological rehabilitation. Ignorance is costly because it deprives the believer of confidence based on eternal security, and motivation from that confidence.

c. It is the quintessence of human arrogance to assume you can do something to cancel the forty things God gave you at the moment of salvation. Therefore, every believer has eternal security; no one can cancel it.

4. Eternal security is inherited at salvation as a part of grace, while confidence is acquired as a post-salvation function from epistemological rehabilitation. It results in spiritual self-esteem, which is cognitive self-confidence.

5. Eternal security is permanent and cannot be destroyed by the believer’s failure.

6 Confidence in God is a temporary experience which can be nullified through ignorance, rejection of doctrine, or continued residence in Satan’s cosmic system. Confidence is a virtue which can be destroyed by residence in the cosmic system, or misdirected by dependence on man rather than God.

7. Eternal security depends on the faithfulness and integrity of God. Confidence depends upon the believer’s execution of the protocol plan of God. Eternal security is a guarantee, never to be lost. Confidence toward God is a virtue manufactured inside the divine dynasphere.

8. All believers possess eternal security. Few believers possess confidence in God.

9. Since all virtue is manufactured inside the divine dynasphere, confidence toward God exists to the extent that the believer resides and functions inside the divine dynasphere; or confidence toward God completely vanishes to the extent that the believer resides and functions inside the cosmic system.

10. 1 Jn 2:28, “And now, dear children, keep residing in it [divine dynasphere], so that if He should appear [Rapture], we might have confidence and not be put to shame at His coming.”

11. 1 Jn 3:21, “Beloved, if our right lobes do not condemn us, we keep on having confidence before God.” This confidence is based upon cognitive self-assurance, or perception of doctrine so that you know when you have failed or sinned, and when you have not.

12. 1 Jn 4:17, “By this, virtue love has been accomplished by us, that we might have confidence in the day of evaluation, because just as He is, so also we are in the world.”

13. Losers and winners all go to heaven. How they die, which is a part of life, is very different. Losers will die the sin unto death, the most miserable experience in life. But for winners with confidence, dying is the ultimate in blessing. Phil 1:21, “For me, living is Christ; dying is profit.”

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