The Book of Hebrews 6:4-8 "Absolute Security of Salvation"
Hebrews 6:4-8 · Vern Peterman · Sep 8, 2013
Hebrews, No. 21
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://www.hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/492641356555

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

Good morning. We're going to proceed with our study of Hebrews. First, we have something to visit, having just begun the football season here. So we need to look here at Holly Hills. It's time for us to glance at the game outlook for the upcoming season at Holly Hills. This will be important for us to take a look at, just to kind of look at things ahead and make sure we've got our game strategy correct. The great Holly Hills Bible Church scoring drive.

Jeremy and Ginny Doan are going to come up with a touchdown. That's expected in October. And then we also have Craig and Jessica Johnson expecting a touchdown in December. So that'll be great to have those. So two of those. Now, we will need some extra points to go on top of those. And we have that coming up here. So just so you know. Mark and Angie Henderson, okay, are going to contribute two field goals for the extra points. You're wondering about why two field goals, because, well, Roger and Bonnie are only slightly excited about this, but also Megan, too. Okay? So, just so you know. All right? Okay.

So, well, that will shift to our study of Hebrews here. We're going to take a kind of a topical study here today kind of branching off of our study of Hebrews 6 4 through 8 and So a special topic here Today's sermon title and we couldn't fit it all in the bottom of your handout.

So I'm sorry about that didn't make it all on Once a believer is saved Is that person always saved from then on out, or can he lose that salvation by his own doing, moral failure, termination of belief, I don't believe anymore, or by his own negligence, or by any action by God or others to remove him from that place of being saved? So that's the question. Got that memorized? Probably not, which is why it's in your handout on the first slide. The reason we're heading off with this question is this.

There were three positions we presented regarding Hebrews 6, 4 through 8, and the second one, which is one we said was not correct, however, this is a view taught by some, and they say that the people this passage is talking about are believers, but who lose their salvation having fallen away. In other words, they were believers. but they've actually fallen away and lose their salvation. So that stirs the question, what does the Bible teach? Can you lose your salvation? And what difference does that make?

First, we have an important question to look at up front. There are those places, almost 200 of them in scripture, that say that salvation is by faith. That's a key teaching. Not quite 200, but close to that number. of the Bible. There's one place where the gospel message, however, is quite clear, and that's 1st Corinthians 15, 3 and 4. Paul presented that, and from that we draw this brief set of words.

In order for a person to be saved, they must believe that, one, Christ the Son of God died for our sins. Christ the Son of God died for our sins. was buried and he rose again. Do you believe that? If you do, you're saved. It's that simple. If you do, you're saved.

I know one of the things we encountered on previous trips to Uganda, you would come across people who would say, I would like to be a Christian, but I can't afford it. Which is a stunning sort of thing, but it's because you have to pay to get baptized in some of the churches over there. And so I can't come up with that sum of money, so I guess I'd like to be a Christian, but I can't. No, this is it. Christ, the Son of God, died for our sins.

He was buried. He rose again. Do you believe it? You're saved. It's that simple. I believed that when I was four and a half and I was saved. All right. Now, here's how we'll approach the question. We'll read the Bible. Okay, all right. We'll look at several different approaches to answering our question, looking at the grammar and vocabulary of the Bible in verses that particularly address the point we're looking at here. We'll see explicit statements as we do that about whether salvation can be lost or not. And we'll look at a lot of the identification truth passages. And if you're scratching your head saying, what's that?

We'll see that in a minute. and see if those are ever reversed. So that's the approach we'll take in summary here. Now, we're going to start with, there's not the slightest chance. There are a pair of words in the New Testament, it looks like on the screen there, al-mi, please don't al-mi, okay? It's actually pronounced u-me, okay? U-me, that pair of simple words, they mean literally, not not. Well, in English, that would be very bad grammar, right? But in Greek, what that means is absolutely not, or not the slightest chance, not remotely possible, those kinds of expressions. It absolutely isn't going to take place. That's what that word pair means, and it shows up a number of places in the New Testament, and some of those address the issue of whether or not we can lose our salvation.

And one of those places that comes up is John 10, 28 and 29. Here is Jesus talking to the Jews. These are Jewish leaders who are challenging him. And what they want to do is they want to have Jesus give evidence that he is in fact the Messiah. And what he does, he comes back and he says, I'll do better than that.

I'll do better than that. and so in John 10, 28 and 29 is a part of his answer and I have it in what I call expanded and explained and you have this on a slide on page one of your handout and it reads like this Jesus is therefore saying that eternal life is something that he gives constantly to his sheep and that there is not even the slightest chance that they can lose that eternal life so as to perish in hell even of their own doing because the way the grammar comes across is Even of your own action, you cannot remove yourself from that salvation. Isn't that neat? I can't blow it. I can blow it in terms of my fellowship, but my relationship, I can't blow it. That's great news.

It doesn't depend upon me. Even of their own doing, and no other outside entity can remove those sheep, those to whom he constantly gives life from his hand. I can't remove myself from his hand and nobody and nothing else will either. That's what he just said.

Now, it goes beyond that. Verse 29 even takes that one step further with Christ saying that His sheep were given to Him by the Father and they cannot be taken out of the Father's hand either. The picture that Jesus used there is His sheep are in His hand and the Father's hand is there as well. Both the Father and the Son have you in their grip. Both the Father and the Son have you in their grip and nobody can take them out of the Father's hand and the Son's hand and you can't either. That's cool. That's really cool. I can't blow it. Here's another one, Hebrews 13, 5.

Make sure that your character is free from the love of money. And I want to make a comment about that love of money. That the Greek word that's put together, that's translated love of money, means an affectionate and brotherly attachment to silver. Isn't that interesting? It is like fellowship with silver. Being content with what you have. Being content with what you have.

For he himself has said, and this is really cool, I will never, umme, desert you, nor, umme, will I ever forsake you. Double emphatic, saying in the strongest possible terms in the Greek language, it is not even remotely possible that I'll ever leave you, and it's not even remotely possible that I'll ever forsake you. Are you at heaven's gate on a banana peel? No. You're in. Okay? You're in.

Now, so the above verse, the same word pair that is in John 10, 28, that says it's not remotely possible that they will lose their salvation or their own doing, shows up twice in this word pair, ume, as if to tell us there's not even the slightest chance, and not even remotely, that He will ever leave us or forsake us. That is a double emphatic negation. Is He ever going to leave you or forsake you? Not going to happen.

You can count on it forever. There's another thing that shows up repeatedly in the New Testament, and that is what's called the perfect tense. I don't want you to be perfectly tense about it, so let's look at what this means. A completed past action with ongoing results on into the future implying permanence unless the context says otherwise. Here's one example of it and we'll look at others.

I have been crucified with Christ. That is in the perfect tense. I have been crucified with Christ and that's a completed past action with ongoing results on into the future implying permanence. See that? When Jesus was on the cross and right before his death, remember he said in words that are translated, it is finished. It's actually an accounting term that means it's all paid. That is also in the perfect tense. All the sins of the whole world are all completely paid for. That's a completed action, completed past action with ongoing results into the future, and it's permanent. See that? That's what the perfect tense tells us. Now it shows up in numerous places in the New Testament, but it's a tense we don't exactly have the equivalent of, which is why it takes so many words to explain it. Right?

So here's 1 Corinthians 1.12 and Acts 28.18 and Hebrews 10.10 would be other examples of that use. Here is Paul. He is writing to the church that is in Corinth. And he begins, this is 1 Corinthians, it says, To the church of God which is at Corinth, to those who have been sanctified, and this is in the perfect tense, those who have been sanctified as a completed past action with ongoing results on into the future, implying permanence. All you Corinthians, you have been completely made holy in your eternal position. And nothing is going to change it. It's permanent. It's all done.

This was a church, now I have to remind you, that was fleshly, that's chapter 3. They were guilty of tolerating sins not even the pagans approved of. This is going into chapter 5 and 6. And some had sinned so badly that they died. Chapter 11. This was a church that had lots and lots of serious problems.

But what did he do? He started off telling them All you people with serious problems, hey, your church with serious problems, but you've all been completely, totally, permanently sanctified and made holy in your eternal position in Christ. You've been set apart and made holy in the perfect tense. Abundantly clear. Problems? Oh, lots of them. Serious? Big time.

But completely and permanently saved. Ephesians 2, 4 through 9, I won't read through all of it, but one of the things I want to point out is twice here, verse 5 and verse 8, Paul writes nearly the identical thing and it says, by grace you have been saved, in the perfect tense, and then he writes it again in verse 8, for by grace you have been saved, perfect tense, through faith. By grace you have been saved as a completed past action with ongoing results into the future implying permanence.

Do you feel insecure? I hope not. There's no reason for it. We can take confidence. As a matter of fact, Paul is emphatic here with these believers. Later on, he's going to talk to them in chapter 4. He says, you guys have problems with stealing. You have problems with lying. You have things you need to forgive one another for. You guys have issues. I'm not setting that aside. But you have been saved completely and permanently. Done deal. Here is our position in Christ. These are the identification truths that we referred to.

The New Testament letters, mostly of the Apostle Paul, say that the believer is in Christ. The book of Ephesians is an example. Here's a book with six chapters. In six chapters, 36 times it says you're in Christ. And it doesn't always put it in that form. In him, in the beloved, in whom, etc. We give some examples here of that 36 time record. You are placed into Christ, spiritually speaking.

Now, there are some things we have to make clear here. You're not in Christ in everything regarding Christ, but in five specific events. Five specific events. When Christ went across the Sea of Galilee in the boat and He calmed the storm, you weren't identified with Him in that. When Christ was born in Bethlehem, you weren't identified with Him in that. When Christ would heal people. You weren't identified with him in that.

But you were identified with him in these five things. You're identified with him, the Bible says, in his crucifixion, his burial, his resurrection, his ascension and seeding. Those five things specifically, it's called out that we have been identified in him.

Now, there are identification truth synonyms. That is, different terms are used just as we saw in Christ, as sometimes in whom, in him, in the beloved. The first one of those we have listed, of course, is in. That's being placed entirely in Christ so as to share an identity with Him. Entirely in Christ so as to share an identity. And by the way, this being identified with Christ is a spiritual identity. We didn't go back physically 2,000 years to be identified with Christ's resurrection. This is a spiritual identity.

The next one, with or joined. And that's intimately joined in action and consequence. Seated with Christ, for example, is one of those. Together with, as above, but together underscoring the same identity in action. Us together with Him. United with. United is one that shows up there in Romans 6. United implies a oneness, so a spiritual oneness is communicated.

And then baptized into is one used in Romans 6 and Galatians 3. Baptized means to be immersed or entirely placed into so as to be permanently changed by the immersion or entire placement. We give the examples of a piece of cloth being dipped, baptized into the dye so as to come out permanently changed. We give the example of a sword being fashioned and being made white hot and then plunged into water, baptized into the water to give it a case hardening. Those would be examples of being baptized from the culture of the time. So a baptism is not just what we do in water here, but it is also, in fact, a term used in other ways. But it means to be immersed in an entirely place, to be permanently changed, to come out different. All right.

Those five ways in which we've been identified with Christ, the first one is crucifixion. And by the way, the order of those identifications is not incidental, but they're actually essential. The first one, crucified. Every person who believed or will believe in the past or in the future, from Acts 2, that is the day of Pentecost, the beginning of the church, to the rapture, when the Lord comes to take us home, every one who has believed from that time was there with christ in his crucifixion being crucified with him spiritually one of the ways that we've gotten that across is I've kind of rewritten the song uh... were you there when they crucified my lord were you there when they crucified my lord that one and we do it i was there when they crucified my lord I was there when they crucified my Lord and the reason we sing it that way is so we get the idea yes we were and we put it first person so that we understand yes I as a believer was there I was present we could also say that the cross was crowded because every single one of us here this morning who is a believer has been identified with Christ in his crucifixion But we also need to very much take it personally. That means if I'm a believer, me. I was there. God made sure of it. The old man, is a term from scripture, all of who we were in Adam, spiritually speaking, of each one of us who believed was crucified there that day.

Romans 6, 1-10, Galatians 2, 19 and 20, and we have some other passages, Romans 7, 4-6, Colossians 2, 20 and 3, 9 are passages, and that's not all of them, that talk about this crucifixion that took place and our co-crucifixion with Christ.

It's the first one of the five ways we've been identified. We also have it in pictorial form here. When we were in Adam, before faith in Christ, we were separated from Christ. We were joined to the sin nature, the principle of law, and the world. Those three things. When we believed, and that's all we did, we were placed into Christ and we were then joined to Christ, having been separated from him before. We are now separated from the sin nature and the principle of law and the world.

That's what took place when we were crucified. The quick summary of the consequence of co-crucifixion. Next, we were identified with him in his burial. We were buried with him. Christ being buried is the full assurance that Christ's death actually took place. He didn't just faint. He didn't just swoon. He didn't just say, boy, I've had a bad day. He actually died. He tasted death means, yes, he really died. The death wasn't anything partway. It wasn't some kind of a coma.

Jesus Christ really and actually died. Romans 6, 4 and Colossians 2, 12 both have it that Christ's burial, and that confirms his death, he was buried, means we were buried with Christ in baptism into his real and actual death. We genuinely died with him and then were buried with him as full assurance that the death took place. You don't take a hundred pounds of all kinds of cloth, and aloes, and spices, and everything else, and wrap that around somebody, and put them in some closed stale tomb for three days, and have them come jumping out.

That doesn't happen. He was raised. We were raised with Him. If Christ had not been raised, His death and His burial would have been of no effect. The resurrection was absolutely essential to our salvation. Without the resurrection, crucifixion doesn't mean much. Crucifixion doesn't mean much. He's dead, and so are we. Christ was raised from the dead.

We have multiple testimony to that effect. Over 500 people saw him resurrected. That one resurrection has changed all of us forever because we were identified with him in that resurrection. You see that tomb that day, what people saw was one guy got out of there. Those who were witnesses. One guy got out of there. But actually the tomb had a mass exodus. And it's you and me. Leaving the tomb with him.

Ephesians 2, 4-6 says it this way, But God, being rich in mercy, because of his great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ, for by grace you have been saved, and raised us up with him. Wow, that's potent. We've been identified with Christ in his crucifixion, his burial, and his resurrection. And now, his ascension.

Some days later, Christ ascended. Here's the disciples, soon to be turned into apostles, and they're starting to ask Jesus questions, and Jesus says, enough questions, I'm leaving. Isn't that amazing? Imagine they're puzzlement. But Lord, we've got questions! But no, he takes off, and they're going, wow, what was that?

The ascension of Christ is recorded in Luke 24 and in Acts chapter 1. Dr. Luke is the author of both of those passages, and so it's interesting that he's been given to record those historically for us. The meaning, however, of his ascension for us is given in Ephesians 4, 8-10, quoting Psalm 68, 18. The ascension of Christ and our having been ascended with Him, remember here's this word with, takes us spiritually from here on earth to the heavenlies.

This is a momentous spiritual relocation and it changes everything. And what's really cool is God took care of all of our moving expenses. He just paid it all, right? He took care of all of our moving expenses, moving us spiritually from here up to there. That's the ascension.

We were identified with Him during that move. And finally, seated. That's the fifth one. Seated with Christ. Having ascended, Christ was seated at the right hand of God the Father. This is Psalm 110. It is quoted in the New Testament more often than any other Old Testament verse in the New Testament. We were seated with Christ, where we are blessed, where we have our citizenship, where we who believe have our blessings from the Father and a heavenly calling. This is an amazing thing. That's the place that's home. That's home. Not here. That's home. We were seated with Him in our home. We're just waiting for our body to catch up to it all, right?

You have these passages from Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, and Hebrews that lay out these truths. One of the things we find as we go through the Bible, I can show you all these different passages here, and I didn't show you all of them. All these passages about how we've been identified with Christ and His crucifixion, His burial, His resurrection, His ascension, and His seeding, and those are put in numerous and multiple places. And stated largely by the Apostle Paul, and certainly explained by the Apostle Paul, But even John and Peter have passages that include that. What we find, though, as we examine the New Testament, there is absolutely no UN. What do I mean by that?

There is no Bible passage that states or threatens that a believer is removed from being in Christ, with Christ. There is no undo. There is no undo icon. There is no undo button. The identification truths, we've been crucified, buried, raised, ascended and seated, regarding believers, is entirely one way. Our eternal position in Christ is, we're in. We're in. No undo button.

No believer receives. You can't find it anywhere. No believer receives or is threatened with being unseated with Christ. Imagine being unseated with Christ. Unseated with Christ. Unascended. Uncrucified. Unburied. Unresurrected. None of that ever happens. You better be careful or you're going to get unseated with Christ. You ever find that? Imagine what it would feel like to be unresurrected. I don't know how that works. But anyway, there isn't any place. And nobody even gets threatened with it.

Sometimes some really bad things can happen to Christians. It may even have happened to you. But the reality is, none of this stuff gets reversed. The believers in 1 Corinthians 11 who died, guess what? They were still identified with Christ. Even though what happened in this world was really, really bad, nothing undid their spiritual identification with Christ. Nothing touched it. It's untouchable in the heavenlies.

As we pointed out earlier, I have been crucified with Christ in Galatians 2.20 is a perfect tense verb. It's permanent. There is no undoing it. You don't get unidentified with Christ in his crucifixion. It's a done deal. No undo icon. Can't happen. You find no place in the New Testament that ever has that. Now, there's another.

The Holy Spirit has almost two dozen Different ministries among believers. We previously made a one-page list that Hal Malloy put together available. You've been having this class on the Holy Spirit and the elective downstairs. Wonderful ministries of the Holy Spirit. Some of these things that the Holy Spirit has done are one-time positional things that happen when we believe, and those include He places believers in the body of Christ.

1 Corinthians 12.13 lays that out. that we have no instance of that being reversed. Somebody gets plucked out of the body of Christ. It doesn't happen. He indwells each and all believers in Christ, and I didn't say each and every, but I say each and all. The reason is this.

1 Corinthians 6.19 says that each one of us is a temple of the Holy Spirit, but 1 Corinthians 3.16 says that we corporately, that is, we together, are also a temple of the Holy Spirit. So each and all believers in Christ are indwelt, are a temple of the Holy Spirit. He is the seal and pledge of believers.

That's spelled out in these three passages, 2 Corinthians 1.22. There's again these same crazy Corinthians, right? They're sealed with the Holy Spirit.

Ephesians 1.13 and 4.30 both have us sealed as believers with the Holy Spirit. Is there any passage which reverses or even threatens to reverse any of these three truths, these positional truths about the Holy Spirit?

You read about anybody getting unsealed? You read about anybody getting unindwelt? No. It doesn't happen. You read about anybody being plucked out of the body of Christ? No. The reality is, these also point to the permanence of our salvation, and the permanence of the effect, all the things that are consequences of our salvation. The answer is, is there any passage that reverses these? No, none. Now, we haven't addressed a number of things here. And we haven't looked at, for example, passages that people point to and see as loss of salvation. I haven't looked at that. We won't go through those in detail. We will summarize. The issue in those passages is often loss of reward.

And while a believer's eternal position is never at issue, the consequences of chronic sin can be intense and severe. One of the reasons that we've included this biblical crowns and rewards is not because we're going to go through it in detail, we won't have time to do that today, but simply to point out here are throughout the New Testament, and it's not just the Apostle Paul, although it's substantially his, it's also in the writings of John, James, and Peter, we have crowns and rewards spelled out specifically for believers with no indication from this that it has to do with loss of salvation, But there is an exhortation, and this is from 2 John 8. Watch yourselves that you do not lose what you have accomplished, but that you may receive a full reward. What are you going to lose? Are you going to lose your salvation? No. What's at issue is the reward. What's at issue is the reward.

1 Corinthians 3, verses 10-15 says some will be saved, and that's all they'll have to save for their salvation. No reward. None. Zip. So it's critical to understand what's being spoken about in some of these passages that people point to. See what they lost? No, they didn't lose their salvation. They lost reward. They lost fellowship.

Those kinds of things. Not salvation. That's key. Now, our eternal position in Christ is totally secure because God did it all. Did I save myself? No. Not a chance. All I did was believe. And my believing is not my merit. My believing is in His merit. See that?

1 Corinthians 1.30, but by God's doing, you are in Christ Jesus. I didn't work my way there. I'm not halfway there. I'm not trying to get there. Hey, I'm not trying to stay there. By God's doing, you're in Christ Jesus.

It's all His and none of mine. At issue, each moment is our walk with Christ. Each and every single day, I'm not going around biting my fingernails thinking, boy, I sure hope I don't lose my salvation today. Instead, what is at issue is the Lord saying, walk with me. That's what's at issue, not loss of salvation.

As we walk in fellowship with Him, beholding Christ's Word, we grow in grace. We have eternal security as believers so that we're free to not worry about it and we're free to behold Him and to grow. If I'm worried about losing my salvation, I'm looking at me. If I'm instead focused on I am saved permanently, then I'm focused on Him. Earthly condition.

There is so much to be gained by a walk of fellowship with Christ that not walking in fellowship is a huge loss. It's a huge loss. Now I want to address a question that I don't have a slide for here, but I think it's important to bring up. And that is, do any of you know, and I'm not looking for a show of hands, but do any of you know someone who once claimed faith in Christ and then walked away?

Do you know someone in that position? I do. Numerous ones. And what I would say is this. Rather than have yourself be in this tension and angst over them, what I would suggest is this, that the best position to take is to take their once claim to belief as still effective, but that their time of walking out of fellowship is a time that's not going to gain them any reward. They will have loss of reward, but not loss of salvation. and pray for that person, God ultimately knows their heart and will make the decision as to whether or not they're going to spend eternity with Him. But we can, in those circumstances, we can say, you know, they once made a profession of faith, I'm going to rest in that, but I'm going to pray that they would return to a walk of fellowship with you.

And I've seen that happen. I've seen that happen, where people will walk away and then come back. I was sitting down with a fellow just a little over a week ago, Friday night, and he was a fellow who had walked away from the Lord for some years, and some other believers came around him and were talking to him, and he's now restored to a walk of fellowship with the Lord. So that's an example. The Lord can do that. The Lord can do that. There's a ministry of the Holy Spirit in the hearts of those who have walked away, and it's still there. And they can become resensitized to the grieving of the Holy Spirit.

And so if you know someone like that, don't give up hope, and please don't be anxious. Instead, take it on their proclamation of faith before, and just pray for them. Pray for them. And if the Lord grants opportunity, that they might respond. And maybe even opportunity for you to talk to them. But I would recommend that you rest in that, rather than wringing your hands and getting anxious for them. Pray for them. They need to be returned to faith. Let's go to our Lord in prayer.

Lord, thank you for these most assuring verses and passages and truths that you brought out. Dozens and dozens and dozens of them, basically. passages that point out that our salvation is in you. It is your doing. It's not ours to even undo. And we thank you for that assurance that we can have. And we do pray, Lord, in the case of those who seem to have walked away, we pray for your Holy Spirit's work in their hearts that they might be restored to ministry. And we do just thank you, Lord, for the comfort and assurance that we can have not only that, but that we can actually focus on beholding you and fellowshipping with you instead of worrying about what we might lose. We do give you thanks for these wonderful and marvelous and comforting truths. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.