BTW RFW, if you liked the Campbell commentary, you will love this...
I have posted this before, so you have already read it, please bear with me.
From: ”The Reign of the Servant Kings” by Dr. Joseph C. Dillow Th.D
The Golden Chain.
Rom. 8:28-30 describes an unbreakable chain consisting of five links:
“For whom He foreknew, He also predestined, and these He also justified; and whom He justified, these He also glorified.”
Note the terms, “whom” and “these also.” They link, as in a chain, the history of the same group which was foreknown, will also ultimately be glorified.
Foreknowledge
Predestination
Calling
Justification
Glorification
The two verse chain with its five-fold unbreakable links, “those…he also,” is a clear statement of the eternal security of the saints. Can a saved person lose his salvation? Only if it depends upon him. A belief in conditional security necessarily leads to consideration of what sin or sins are necessary to forfeit salvation. If we entertain even the remotest possibility that there is something we can do or not do which can nullify the value of the blood of Christ, we will focus our attention on our obedience, and not Christ’s blood. This is the way human nature works. (Prov. 14:12). If 99% of saved people cannot be lost, but 1% can, we have no sense of security ever. (Eph. 6:17a). We would be no different than anyone else (1 Cor. 10:13).
Salvation depends upon God. Since it depends upon Him and not upon us, it cannot be lost. First of all, our eternal security …
Depends upon God the Father.
From eternity past God’s firm purpose has been established (Eph. 1:3-5). It is therefore clear that our eternal security depends, first of all…
Upon His Sovereign Purpose.
Predestined to glory. God’s eternal purpose cannot be defeated in the realization of all He intends, and bringing His redeemed to glory is a major aspect of His divine purpose.
” In whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will:
That we should be to the praise of his glory, who first trusted in Christ.”
“When anyone is born again of the Holy Spirit and justified in Christ, it is because God has formed, from eternity, the unchangeable purpose of that soul. The work of grace in it is the mere carrying out of that unchangeable purpose. As the plan is unchangeab;e, so must be its execution.” Robert Dabney, Lectures in Systematic Theology 1878.
We have an anchor within the veil. The writer of Hebrews makes this point in Heb. 6:17-20:
” Wherein God, willing more abundantly to shew unto the heirs of promise the immutability of his counsel, confirmed it by an oath:
That by two immutable things, in which it was impossible for God to lie, we might have a strong consolation, who have fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hope set before us:
Which hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and stedfast, and which entereth into that within the veil;
Whither the forerunner is for us entered, even Jesus, made an high priest for ever after the order of Melchisedec.
God wanted to show the unchangeable nature of His eternal purpose to give us an anchor within the veil and confirmed it with an oath. Now if He purposed before the foundation of the world to save His elect, His elect will be saved.
His solemn purpose. Now all that He has purposed, He unconditionally promises to His elect (John 6:40). Our salvation depends upon His promise (Rom. 4:16). Our eternal security depends not only upon His sovereign purpose, but also…
Upon His Infinite Power.
He is free to save us. If we can lose salvation, then we must conclude that there is some sin which is sufficiently serious to cause us to forfeit it. Perhaps adultery, drunkenness, etc. This assumes that we were less worthy of salvation after having committed this sin than before, and it reduced salvation down to human ability to merit it. Our eternal security does not depend upon our moral worthiness. If it did, none of us would be saved (Eph. 2:1-5; Rom. 5:8 ).
We all have imperfections. If salvation can be lost because of a high degree of imperfection, then we have to draw arbitrary lines of distinction between sins which are able to damn and those which are not. Who therefore is worthy? Not Paul, you, or this writer.
He has purposed to keep us saved. In no uncertain terms our Lord declares:
“ And this is the Father’s will which hath sent me, that of all which He hath given me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up again at the last day.
And this is the will of Him that sent me, that every one which seeth the Son, and believeth on Him, may have everlasting life: and I will raise him up at the last day. John 6:39-40
My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me:
And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand.
My Father, which gave them me, is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father’s hand. John 10:27-29
The phrase “shall never” is a double negative in the Greek. It is very emphatic.
Those who will not believe are not His sheep (vs. 26). However, the sheep of Christ’s are His past, present, and future sheep, and they shall all be glorified with Christ in heaven. John 17:19-24. (Unless of course you take the stand that the Father didn’t answer His prayer in John 17.) So our eternal security depends…
Upon His “Much More” Love.
The preservation of the saved flows from the free and unchangeable love of the Father. It was God’s love, not the Christian’s worthiness, which was the reason for His salvation in the first place. The Scripture make it plain that God saved no man because he observed some good, attractive, or meriting attribute in an individual sinner. Rather He saved us for reasons independent of us and outside us. He was motivated by His electing love, and not by observation of good in the sinner.
” And not only this; but when Rebecca also had conceived by one, even by our father Isaac;
(For the children being not yet born, neither having done any good
or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand,
not of works, but of him that calleth)
It was said unto her, The elder shall serve the younger.
As it is written, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated.
What shall we say then? Is there unrighteousness with God? God
forbid.
For he saith to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion.
So then it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy. Rom. 9:10-16.
Now, since the cause of the sinner’s salvation had nothing to do with any imagined merit or goodness in the sinner, neither does the preservation of the saints. Since God was not motivated to impart saving grace based on foreseen good works, the subsequent absence of those works should be no motive for Him to withdraw His saving grace. Eternal security is grounded in the Father’s faithfulness; it does not depend upon us. Rather it depends…
Upon His Answer to the Prayer of His Son,
The saved are called many things in Scripture: saints, believers, sheep, Christians, partakers of the heavenly calling, etc. But the title most dear to the heart of Christ is repeated seven times in His high priestly prayer in John 17 “those whom You have given Me” (John 17:2,6,9,11-12,20,34). This phrase, according to John 17:20, includes all who would believe in Him through the ages. Even if the Father had no personal interest in keeping them saved, which He does, He must respond to the prayer of the Son, whose prayers are always answered (John 11:42). Jesus prays that we will be kept from hell (John 17:15) and that we will be with Him in heaven (John 17:20,24). Will not the prayers of the Son of God be answered?
The keeping is from perishing. Christ kept the chosen from perishing while He was on the earth, and now He asks the Father to keep us. Judas was not kept because he was never one whom the Father had given Him; he was to be the son of perdition (John 6:64).
It is thus the prayer of the Son of God to the Father that becomes one of the major factors in the believer’s security. To deny the safekeeping of the believer is to imply that the prayer of the Son of God will not be answered.
Not only has God the Father committed Himself by oath to guarantee the eternal security of His elect, but God the Son, through His active and passive obedience has made our final arrival into heaven certain. Our eternal security does not depend on us, but it…
Depends upon God the Son.
The apostle Paul specifically raises the question of eternal security in his magnificent conclusion to Rom. 8:
What, then, shall we say in response to this? (8:31)
Paul has just finished presenting the “golden chain” (8:29-30). These five unbreakable links guarantee the believer’s eternal destiny. What shall we say in response to this “golden chain,” he now asks?
If God be for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare His own Son, but gave Him up for us all—how will He not also, along with Him, graciously give us all things? Who will bring a charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies (Rom. 8:31-33).
Paul’s argument is that, if God has already justified the man who believes in Jesus (Rom. 3:26; 5:9; 8:30), how can He or anyone else lay anything to the charge of His justified one? This justification comes from the imputed righteousness of Christ and is legally ours. It is not a subject of merit, and its loss cannot be a subject of demerit. Like a human father, God can and does correct His earthly children, but they always remain His children. The truth is that God, who justifies the ungodly (Rom. 4:5), will not and cannot contradict Himself by charging them with evil. To do so amounts to reversing their justification. Christ either died for our sins and has paid the penalty or He has not. The Arminian cannot have it both ways. God is the only one ultimately who could bring a charge against His elect, and as Paul says, God had already rendered His verdict…justified.
In his answer to the second question, Who is the one that condemns? Paul gives four answers. Each of the answers affirms the absolute security of the believer as unconditionally safe forever:
1. Christ died
2. He is risen
3. He advocates
4. He intercedes
Because of these four ministries of Christ, “nothing will be able to separate us from the love of God” (8:39), that is to cause us to forfeit our justification. Our eternal security also depends …
Upon His Substitutionary Death.
Paul’s first answer is “Christ has died!” Who can condemn us, he says, if the penalty for our sins has already been paid? The greatest proof of eternal security is justification by faith. Justification refers to how God sees us, not the way we ourselves or others see us. Justification is “exterior” to us. It lies utterly outside us. The interior change is due to regeneration. Justification is forensic; it is entirely a legal matter. This is how God will judge us. We have been declared righteous. It was on the basis of Christ’s death for sin that we were saved in the first place, and is now on that basis that no one can condemn us.
In Col. 2:14 Paul refers to the accumulation of sin as a “certificate of debt.”
He forgave us all our sin, having cancelled the certificate of debt, with its regulations, that was against us and that stood opposed to us; He took it away, nailing it to the cross. NASB
In the ancient world when a prisoner was incarcerated, a “certificate of dept” was nailed to the door of his cell. On the crime he had committed and the duration and nature of the punishment was written. When the weary prisoner had paid his debt, the prison guard came to his cell, tore down the certificate of debt, and wrote a Greek word across it, tetelestai, which means, paid in full. Then the cell door was opened and the man was free.
Recall our Lord’s last words from the cross. Just before He died He looked to heaven and screamed to the Father, “It is finished” (John 19:30). The Greek word is tetelestai, “It is pain in full.”
Either Christ’s death for sin actually paid the penalty or it did not. If it did, then the believer cannot be condemned for the very sins for which Christ died. All sins which we would ever commit were future to the death of Christ. If our sins are a ground of judgment against the believer, then Christ’s death was not propitious. If it was propitious, then our sin is no longer a ground of condemnation. (John 3:18 ). It is either one or the other.
However, when Christ paid the certificate of debt, it was not just for sins prior to our imprisonment, but for all sin. In contrast to the temporary atonement we might make for our own sin by imprisonment or that an OT priest might make by offering sacrifices, Christ made an eternal redemption.
Neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood he entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us. Heb. 9:12
But this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins for ever, sat down on the right hand of God; Heb. 10:12
For by one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified. Heb. 10:14
When Christ our Priest finished His sacrificial work, it is declared that He “sat down.” The notion of a seated priest was foreign to the Jewish economy. In fact, there were no chairs in the tabernacle because a priest’s work is never done. But here is a Priest who has finisher his work. He sat down! There is nothing more to do as far as paying the penalty for sin.
Christ guaranteed our eternal security not only by means of His substitutionary death, but also by means of…
His Substitutionary Life.
Paul does not bring in this aspect of Christ’s substitutionary work in Rom. 8:31-34, but it is the subject of a large body of Scripture. Christ was our substitute by His death, His so-called passive obedience, but He was also our substitute by His life, His so-called active obedience. We can and could do neither (Mt. 5:48; 19:26). But by His righteousness life Christ obeyed for us (forensicly speaking concerning justification).
There is a material cause and an instrumental cause of our salvation. The material cause is the active and passive obedience of Christ. The instrumental cause is our faith in Him. We are justified by His blood and saved by His life (Rom. 5:9-10). The righteousness which the Law required is imputed to us when we believe.
This is necessary because to merely atone for past sin would not be a complete salvation. It would save a man from hell but not make him fit for heaven. He would be delivered from the law’s punishment to a point, but not entitled to the law’s reward. The law required perfect obedience. The mediator then must both pay the law’s penalty, as well as obey the law in the man’s stead if he is to do for man everything that the law requires:
For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth. Rom. 10:4
Christ died for us, but He also lives to intercede for us. Paul emphasizes this in Rom. 8:34 when he mentions that Christ is seated in heaven. Because of His work of intercession, our eternal security depends…
Upon His Present Session.
Paul also bases our eternal security on the fact that Jesus rose from the dead and is seated at the right hand of God. He is our Advocate (1 John 2:1) and Intercessor. This is sometimes called the present priestly ministry of Christ, or His present session.
Arminians have feared that this doctrine will tend to sin. John says in 1 John that there is a motivation in this doctrine not to sin. The heavenly courtroom is opened. Satan the accuser of the brethren (Rev. 12:10), brings the sinning Christian before the tribunal. In his role as prosecuting attorney he presents his case. His accusations are correct. God is just. But Jesus points out that He has already paid he penalty for the sin. “Case dismissed!”
For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. 2 Cor. 5:21
In 1 John 2:2 we are told that this Righteous One is righteous because of His work for us, He is the propitiation for our sins. Thus, when the Father withholds condemnation, He is just. Christ’s advocacy is presented under the picture of His entrance into the heavenly sanctuary in Heb. 9:24.
It is obvious that while God will exercise parental discipline (Heb. 12:3-15), His child will never be condemned because our Advocate has satisfied the claims of justice.
And the former priests, on the one hand, existed in greater numbers, because they were prevented by death from continuing, but He, on the other hand, because He abides forever, holds His priesthood permanently. Hence, also, He is able to save forever those who draw near to God through Him, since He always lives to make intercession for them.
Not only does the eternal security of the believer depend upon God the Father and God the Son, but it also…
Depends upon God the Holy Spirit
The ministry of the Holy Spirit toward the believer in Christ is also devoted to keeping him saved forever. Three specific works of the Holy Spirit are related to the issue of eternal security. Our eternal security depends, first of all…
Upon His Ministry of Regeneration.
The ministry of the Holy Spirit in regeneration results in the birth of a new man and the gift of eternal life. Both of these effects imply irreversible change and a permanent new condition.
Spiritual birth. When Jesus told Nicodemus, “you must be born again,” He taught that there are certain similarities between physical and spiritual birth. In each a new thing is created:
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 Ghost; Titus 3:5
When this happens, a new thing is produced, the new creation:
Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new. 2 Cor. 5:17
This new creation is His workmanship and unites us with the Divine nature itself:
For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them. Eph. 2:10
Can a man be unborn? Of course he can die, but this in no way reverses the fact of his son-ship and birth, or the love of his parents. Both physical and spiritual birth are onetime events with permanent consequences. Even physical death does not reverse either one. Our conscience existence never ends, and one day all will be raised from the dead (John 5:28-29).
The son of the human parent may rebel and disobey, but he is still of the nature of his parent. That never changes. God similarly has created a new man; He gave birth to all true believers. Even if we rebel and God disinherits us, as an earthly father can, but we will never cease to be His Sons.
There is nothing that can be done to reverse regeneration. Even if we decided we did not want to be God’s children any longer, it would do no good. It was God’s decision and not ours. Spiritual and physical birth cannot be reversed. Is it not obvious that one cannot give his physical birth back to his human parent? Neither can he give his spiritual birth back to his divine parent. If that were possible, then the gospel promise would be contradicted, and a person who had believed in God’s Son would perish and would not have everlasting life after all (John 3:16).
Eternal Life. Not only are we born into His family, but through regeneration we receive the gift of eternal life. Eternal life implies endless existence. Robert Shank in his work, Life in the Son: A Study of the Doctrine of Perseverance, insists however, that eternal life can only be shared by men. Not permanently possessed by them (pg. 52). However, if a man has eternal existence, he will live endlessly. Eternal life is owner permanently the moment it is given. It is a characteristic of the new creation. To be given the gift of eternal life, according to Shank, is to be given the gift of living until you die and no longer live forever. This is absurdity. Jesus himself argued that eternal life was first of all the promise that a believer will rise from the dead after he physically dies John 11:25-26). But He also says that a Christian has eternal life right now and this means he cannot cease to live. Over and over again the Savior stresses the permanent nature of the gift of eternal life. He told the woman at the well that, after drinking the water He would give, she would “never thirst” (John 4:14). He said, “I am the bread of life; he who comes to Me shall never hunger, and he who believes in Me shall never thirst” (John 6:35). Eternal life is permanent. “All that the Father gives Me shall come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will certainly not cast out” (John 6:37).
The Christian will “certainly not be cast out.” Second, our eternal life depends…
Upon His Baptizing Ministry.
In 1 Cor. 12:13 Paul tells us:
”For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body.”NASB
Through the baptizing ministry of the Holy Spirit we are brought into organic union with Christ. Paul develops this further in Rom. 6:
Or do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death?” Rom. 6:3 NASB
In this famous passage on sanctification Paul explains that Christ’s history has become ours. His death to (our) sin has become ours. But there are permanent effects of this union:
Now if we have died with Christ we believe that we shall also live with Him, knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, is never to die again; death no longer is master over Him. For the death that He died, He died to sin, once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God. Rom. 6:8-10 NASB
Because of the baptizing work of the Holy Spirit, uniting us to Christ, what is true of Him has become true of the believer. One thing that is true of Him is that He died to sin “once and for all” and that He will “never die again.” Paul specifically tells us that this is true of us as well:
”Even so consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus.” Rom. 6:11 NASB
But, finally, our eternal security depends…
Upon His Sealing Ministry.
There are three references to the sealing ministry of the Holy Spirit:
Who also sealed (sphragizo) us and gave us the Spirit in our hearts as a pledge (arrabon). 2 Cor. 1:211-22 NASB
In Him, you also, after listening to the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation—having also believed, (note the Parable of the Sower) you were sealed (sphragizo) in Him with the Holy Spirit of promise, who is given as a pledge (arrabon) of our inheritance, with a view to the redemption of God’s own possession, (His children) to the praise of His glory. Eph. 1:13-14
And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed (sphragizo) for the day of redemption. Eph. 4:30
Two things stand out in these verses: (1) the Holy Spirit has sealed us, and (2) the Holy Spirit is the pledge.
The ancient practice of using seals is behind the figurative use of the word here. A seal is a mark of protection and ownership. The Greek word sphragizo is used of a stone being fastened with a seal to prevent its being moved from a position. In fact this was apparently the earliest method of distinguishing one’s property. The seal was engraved with a design or mark distinctive to the owner. The seal of ownership or protection was often made in soft wax with a signet ring. An impression was left on the wax signifying the owner of the thing sealed. When the Holy Spirit seals us, He presses the signet ring of our heavenly Father on our hearts of wax and leaves the permanent mark of ownership. We belong to Him (1 Cor. 6:20).
In Eph. 1:13-14 we are told that the Holy Spirit Himself is the seal. He is impressed upon us, so to speak. The Holy Spirit cannot be broken. In Eph. 4:30 we are told that we are sealed unto the day of redemption. This sealing ministry of the Spirit is forever and guarantees that we will arrive safely for the redemption of our bodies and entrance into heaven (Rom. 8:23).
We are forever protected from wrath (Rom. 5:9). We cannot lose our salvation anymore than we can break the seal. We would have to have greater power to lose salvation than the Holy Spirit has to keep us saved.
About all Arminian Robert Shank can do is to weakly object, “But the Holy Spirit can do nothing for those who refuse His ministry” (pg 186). But He certainly can! That is precisely what these verses are saying. Shank lists various experiential ministries which the believer can refuse to accept as proof, such as filling (Eph. 5:18 ) and points out that we can grieve the Spirit (Eph. 4:30). But, those ministries are experiential ministries; sealing and pledging are not. Nowhere are believers asked to allow the Spirit to seal them or to become their pledge. These are things which happen to all believers at the point in time they believed, “having also believed, you were also sealed.” Eph. 1:13
Along with our seal, the Holy Spirit is our pledge. The word refers to a first installment, down payment, deposit, pledge which obligates the contracting party to make further payments unto full purchase. It is a legal concept from the language of business and trade:
1. An installment, with which a man secures a legal claim upon a thing as yet unpaid for.
2. An earnest, an advance payment, by which a contract becomes valid in law.
3. A pledge in one passage (Gen. 38:17)
Similarly, in Rom. 8:23 Paul speaks of the “first fruits” of the Spirit, a down payment to be followed by more. We wait for the redemption of our bodies. We are sealed unto that day.
God, so to speak, has legally bound Himself to our eternal security. The choice of the legal term arrabon (“earnest”) implies that God has legally and morally obligated Himself to bring His children to heaven. A down payment was a statement of one’s honor, one’s word. If one person who was born again in Christ ever fails to enter into heaven when he dies, then God has broken His pledge. No human conditions are mentioned.
Conclusion. If our eternal security depends upon anything in us, it is certain that it is not secure. However, the Scriptures that our final entrance into heaven is guaranteed by the work of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Since it depends upon an infinite Person, who is faithful and true, it is inconceivable that the salvation of any child of God could ever be lost.
