the security of the believer's salvation -- part 1.

the security of the believer’s salvation.

That the individual who has repented of sin, turned to Christ in faith and belief, and evidenced a life of holiness showing a true heart change is safe and secure is a theme which is replete in the Scriptures. The doctrine of eternal security or the perseverance of the saints is absolutely undeniable in the Scriptures and could not be more logical in the doctrine of salvation.

I hope over these next few posts to show why the believer is eternally saved, how the believer is eternally saved, and what the person, work, and character of God has to do in the security of the believer’s salvation. I trust it will be encouraging, challenging, and educational. For those who doubt this doctrine and believe that an individual can go from believing to “not believing” thereby losing or forfeiting salvation is an unfortunate misreading of the Scriptures and is nowhere warranted in all of Scripture. If it were possible or a believer to lose salvation, then the believer would rightly live in constant fear and trepidation over the reality of being separated from the God who “saved him by His mercy and grace.”

In this first essay, I endeavor to show from Romans 5:1 that because the believer has been justified (past and accomplished fact with ongoing and emphatic results), the result of being at “peace with God” is the first proof that a believer in Jesus Christ cannot lose his salvation (5:1).

Romans 5:1 Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,

Because the believer has been justified by faith alone in Christ—which is the very theme that Paul labored to argue and illustrate from Romans 3–4—the first consequence that Paul lists for us here is that “we have peace with God.”

If we now have peace with God as a saved Christian, the obvious and undeniable reality is that before we were all enemies with God while unbelievers and unregenerate. Hear Scripture prove this fact:

Psalm 5:5-6 ⁵ The boastful shall not stand before Your eyes; You hate all who do iniquity. ⁶ You destroy those who speak falsehood; The LORD abhors the man of bloodshed and deceit.

Psalm 9:7-8 ⁷ But the LORD abides forever; He has established His throne for judgment, ⁸ And He will judge the world in righteousness; He will execute judgment for the peoples with equity.

Psalm 11:5-6 ⁵ The LORD tests the righteous and the wicked, And the one who loves violence His soul hates. ⁶ Upon the wicked He will rain snares; Fire and brimstone and burning wind will be the portion of their cup.

Ephesians 2:1-3 And you were dead in your trespasses and sins, ² in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience. ³ Among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest.

Romans 5:10 ¹⁰ For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life.

It is clear from the aforementioned Scriptures that all the unregenerate are enemies of God. They are at war with God. There is no hope for them apart from Jesus Christ. All who die without Jesus Christ as their advocate will reside under the mighty, fierce, and eternal wrath of God forever—without end.

Therefore, if we, as Romans 5:1 states so plainly, are at peace with God because of our justification, how can we ever be enemies of God again? How can we move from being on God’s side to being abandoned by God? This is completely opposite of what Romans 8 teaches:

Romans 8:35 ³⁵ Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?

And again…

Romans 8:38-39 ³⁸ For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, ³⁹ nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

These are encouraging verses for the believer. Once the sinner has placed saving faith in Jesus Christ and His sufficient, sacrificial, and substitutionary death on Calvary’s cross he has become a friend of God—yes, even a Son of God. The believer has been enveloped into the “family of God.” How could God—who promises that nothing can separate us from the love of Christ (Rom 8:35, 38-39)—abandon us and forsake us to be his enemies after being at peace with God?

If almighty anger and wrath and fury has been subsided because of justification, then the peace with God that the believer has is inevitably safe and secure.

Listen to the remainder of Ephesians 2:

Ephesians 2:4-7 ⁴ But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, ⁵ even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), ⁶ and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, ⁷ so that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.

If the believer, who now has peace with God, has been “made alive together with Christ” and is “raised up with Christ,” and is “seated in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus” then how could that person ever move from the state of being at “peace with God” back to the original state of being at war, enmity, hostility, hatred of God? It is inconceivable and impossible!

Therefore, because the saved sinner is at peace with God through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ and His perfect righteousness that has been attributed to the account of the believer, the regenerate individual who is now at peace with God cannot ever be at war with God again—period.