the Security of Salvation #10

 

Salvation is Irrevocable - Part 2
Romans 8:33-34
 
The theme of this chapter is the security of the believer. The marvelous summation of how God works this security is in verses 28 to 30.
 
"God causes all things to work together for good," remember...good being our eternal good. All things that happen in our lives whether good things or bad things or righteous things or sinful things, God causes them all to work together for our eternal good because we love God and are called according to His purpose.
 
Why? "For whom He foreknew He predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son." When He predestined us it was to the end of our salvation, not the beginning of it. We were predestined to the ultimate conformity to the image of His Son which occurs in eternal glory when we're made like Christ. "Whom He predestined," verse 30, "He called, whom He called He justified, whom He justified He glorified," and nobody gets lost along the way.
 
 
All the predestined will be called. All the called will be justified. All the justified will be glorified. So he has summed up this great, great truth that there is no condemnation. Everything in the life of those who belong to Christ works together for their eternal glory.
 
Now having done all of that, we come to verse 31. And while verse 31 to verse 39 is doxological, in a sense, it is also a very important part of Paul's argument because he anticipates at this point that somebody is going to throw up some objections. Remember, we talked about this. Somebody is going to say, "Well, that's all fine, but what about this possibility and what about that possibility?"
 
The first possibility, there are some persons who can take away our salvation. Second possibility, there are some circumstances which can take away our salvation. Those are hypothetical and Paul knows that they might be raised by someone so he wants to eliminate them all together.
 
So in verses 31 to 34 he deals with whether or not any person can take away our salvation. And in verses 35 to 39 he deals with whether any circumstance can take away our eternal salvation.
We began this study last week, so I’ll take just a moment to review. 
 
First of all, could some human being take away our salvation?
 
Paul's answer is this, verse 31, "If God is for us, who is against us?" Bottom line, if God is for us who can successfully defeat Him. If He is for us and He is making everything in our lives work together for good and He is taking us from being foreknown and predestined to be glorified, if that's His plan and He's God, who possibly could overturn that plan?
 
Answer: no one, no one. If God is for us, who could be against us? Actually the Greek says, "Since God is for us, who can successfully be against us?" After all, as says 1 John 4:4, "Greater is He that is in you than he that is in the world." God is greater than all.
 
The second hypothetical possibility is what about God Himself? He's a person. Could God Himself become so disgusted with us, could we reach such a point of that God Himself takes away our salvation?
 
Verse 32 answers that. 
 
 
The argument is a very simple argument. God delivered up His own Son, Jesus, to die on the cross to provide our salvation. That was the greatest gift, the greatest sacrifice, the greatest act and God will do all the lesser acts necessary to keep us saved. That's the argument. If He gave the greatest gift to save us, He'll do less to keep us.
 
Whatever would be done by God to hold on to us would be something less than the greatest act, which was the giving of His own Son to die on our behalf. And if He would do that to save us when we were enemies, what will He do to keep us while we're His children and His friends?
 
Well, somebody says, "Okay, God isn't going to do it and people aren't going to do it but that brings us to where we left off last week. 
 
What about Satan? Satan is a person. Satan is a created personality. He's a very powerful being, obviously. He was a supreme angel in the hierarchy of the angelic hosts, a very powerful and influential angel.
 
is it not possible that Satan can take us out of the arms of Christ if we fall into patterns of sin and are guilty? 
Isn't it possible that Satan can work to effect the loss of our salvation?
 
After all, we sin, and Satan keeps the record of our sin and as he likes to do, he goes before the throne of God and accuses us. Isn't that what he does? He's known as the accuser of the brethren. 
 
And he is absolutely relentless. He is before the throne of God, Revelation 12:10, accusing believers before God day and night, all the time.
 
Now remember this, Satan is not omnipresent. Those people who think Satan is everywhere in the world at the same time are wrong. He's in heaven day and night accusing the brethren.
 
It's much more important Satan to get God to release His grip on us than it is for him to work on us. That's the only hope he has to get us back.
 
There may be times when Satan is engaged and actually involved in the life of an individual. But for the most part he has minions concocting lies to confuse people and damn their souls and keep them from coming to the truth of the gospel.
And he works on believers simply by concocting a wicked world system that becomes tempting to them through the lust of the eyes, the lust of the flesh and the pride of life. But one of his major enterprises relentlessly is to go before the throne of God with a litany of our iniquities and tell God to let us go because we're not worthy to be held by Him.
 
He probably uses some of the things he did with Job, telling God the only reason Job is faithful to you is because you bless him. They're not worthy of You, he's not worthy of You, none of Your people are worthy of You. Look at them, they sin, they only are true to You because of all the blessings You've given them. He goes to heaven to lay all of his accusations against us.
 
So what about Satan? Can He convince God to let us go? 
 
Verse 33 answers that. "Who will bring a charge against God's elect?" Well, I just told you who tries, who is it? Satan. Is he going to be successful at it?
 
Verse 34, "Who is the one who condemns?"
 
There is the strategy of Satan. He brings a charge against somebody. It's a law term. It's a courtroom term. It's a legal term. Satan literally goes before God with a list of accusations to ask God to condemn us.
 
So if God won't cause us to be lost and other people can't cause us to be lost, can Satan cause us to be lost? Could he go successfully before God and get God to turn His back on us?
 
Can we legitimately be accused and condemned? Will God hear such accusations?
 
Back to verse 33, here's the answer. "Who will bring a charge against God's elect? God is the One who justifies."
 
Literally: Will the God who justified us in the first place listen and respond to those accusations?
 
Think about it this way: Can God at the same time condemn us and justify us? If He has declared us righteous, can He at the same time condemn us? If He has made us righteous in Christ, if He has granted us the righteousness of Christ, can He at the same time hold us guilty?
The answer very obviously is “No”. If He did it would be to negate the work of Christ. Why would he listen to the accusation of Satan and then choose to undo what He has done through the work of Jesus Christ? It just makes no sense.
 
You see, the reason we can stand before God is not because we're righteous. Accusing us of sin is not going to get it done. Satan may try to do that, he does try to do that. It's not going to get it done because our salvation is not based on our righteousness.
 
Hey listen, God doesn’t need Satan to tell Him we are no-good sinners. He knows that already. That’s why He sent Jesus. He came to seek and save those who were lost. Therefore our salvation is not based on our goodness and the possibility of losing it or sinning it away. We don’t have anything to offer. 
 
Think about it: what’s Satan going to accuse me of? God, did you know Terry lies? Did you know he’s unfaithful? Did you know he thinks impure thoughts? God knows all about me. And my justification, my right standing before God is not because I’m so good.
 
It is predicated on the righteousness of Christ imputed to us. On the cross Jesus bore all of our sins, took the full wrath of God, He bore our sins in His own body on the cross, Peter says. He was made sin for us, Paul says. God poured out all the fury of His wrath against Jesus Christ as our substitute, put all our sins on Christ and then took the righteous life of Christ and covered us with it, imputed it to us.
 
God treated Jesus as if He had committed all our sins, so He can treat us as if we only lived Jesus perfect life. It doesn't do any good for Satan to go before God and accuse us of sin because all that sin has been paid for and we're not justified, we're not righteous, we're not holy before God because of our own righteousness, but because of the righteousness of Christ imputed to us.
 
You don't have to hang on to your own salvation by your own righteousness. That is nothing more than a works-based salvation. In that kind of theology you can lose your salvation only because you earn your salvation, and it is based on the false idea that something you do creates salvation. 
 
 
But the truth of the matter is nothing you do can save you and nothing you do or don't do can keep you saved, it is purely the imputed righteousness of Jesus Christ, and there I nothing Satan can do about it!
 
So no human can interfere in your salvation, God is not going to reverse His work and undo it, and Satan can’t convince God to go back on His word. 
 
There's only perhaps one other possibility, if no human being can remove us from our salvation, if God can't remove us from our salvation, if Satan can't remove us from our salvation, what about Christ? After all, if He's the lawyer for our defense, if He's our Advocate, what if He turns against us? It was Christ who brought us in, can it be Christ who sends us back out?
 
Well if God can't justify us and condemn us at the same time, neither can Christ intercede for us and condemn us at the same time.
 
Verse 34
 
 
 
 
Does it make sense that the One who died and rose and was exalted and is interceding for us is going to all of a sudden negate all of that and reverse the whole thing and condemn us? The thought is ludicrous.
 
He who is our Savior, who is our resurrection life, who is our exalted King and who is our mediating High Priest cannot be our condemner. In fact, Paul demonstrates that instead of condemning us, Christ provides a four-fold protection.
 
Look at them in verse 34:
 
Let's take those four-fold protections.
 
First of all, "Christ Jesus is He who died."
 
Do you think Christ who died for you would condemn you? The point is when Christ died He paid the penalty for your sin. He received your condemnation, certainly not His own because He was without sin. When he died on the cross, He was being punished for your sin and my sin.
 
He did all that was necessary to satisfy the justice of God, He took the full force of judgment. He died on the cross for you and for me.
Do you think He would undo His cross? Do you think when He went into the garden and said, "Father, if there's any way possible that this cup pass from Me, nevertheless Thy will be done," and with that resolution went directly to the cross to bear our sins, do you think He would reverse that whole horrible sin-bearing, that entirely undeserved crushing judgment of God that made Him cry out, "My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?" Do you think He would do all of that for sinners and then undo that?
 
Not only did He die for us, secondly, verse 34 says, "
 
Yes, rather who was raised," or literally what is more, "He was raised again."
 
Christ's death blotted out our sins and this was affirmed by His resurrection. The fact that God raised Him from the dead was indicating that God was satisfied with His sacrifice. God was saying, "That's enough, the sacrifice is paid," and He took Him right out of the grave because He had paid sufficiently the penalty for our sins. And God therefore raised Him from the dead as affirmation that the penalty had been paid.
 
The resurrection proves that He had accomplished sin bearing. When God raised Jesus from the dead He showed that He was satisfied with His sacrifice. Every demand of His holy law was met and we were justified. His resurrection guarantees that we will be raised to eternal glory. Would Jesus undo His death? Would Jesus undo His resurrection?
 
Thirdly, in verse 34, Paul tells us He is at the right hand of God.
 
That's referring to His coronation, to His ascension, to His exaltation. It wasn't that God was mildly satisfied when He raised Him from the dead. It was that God was completely satisfied. So much was He satisfied that He lifted up Jesus Christ and sat Him on His own throne at His right hand.
 
Hebrews depicts Jesus Christ the exalted High Priest sitting at the right hand of the throne of God and there is the place of exaltation.
 
Hebrews 1:3, "After He had made purification of sins on the cross, He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high and He had inherited a more excellent name than angels." You know what the excellent name is? Lord, sovereign.
Hebrews emphasizes this not only in chapter 1 verse 3 but throughout the book of Hebrews...chapter 2 verse 9, He was a little while made lower than the angels, but then after that He was exalted. Just temporarily was He made lower than the angels. Then because of the suffering of death, He was lifted up and crowned with glory and honor because by the grace of God He had tasted death for everyone.
 
Hebrews 7 says it, Hebrews 8, Hebrews 10, Hebrews 12. 
 
Would the Father undo that honor? Would the Son undo that place of majesty? It's absolutely unthinkable...absolutely inconceivable that the Lord Jesus Christ who had accomplished all of that would undo it, that His death would become meaningless, His resurrection meaningless, His exaltation meaningless.
 
You see, folks, your salvation and my salvation is so intrinsically and intimately tied to the work of Jesus Christ as to be inseparable. He died your death. He rose that you might walk in newness of life. 
 
 
He was exalted into the glory of heaven where He will be the firstborn among many brethren who will be made like unto Him in eternal glory. We are crucified with Christ, we are risen with Christ and we are exalted with Christ. We have died with Him, we have risen with Him, and we will be lifted to sit on His throne with Him.
 
And then the fourth component, and really where his argument is going here, "Who also intercedes for us."
 
Christ died, He rose, He ascended and He intercedes, and therein is the summation of Christ's great work. This is the high point. He keeps on making intercession for us. This is just a marvelous, marvelous reality. Satan is there night and day accusing the brethren but we have an indefatigable and undefeatable lawyer for our defense, the Lord Jesus Christ.
 
I love Isaiah 53, one of the great chapters of the Old Testament. Unfortunately the unconverted Jews who reject Jesus Christ don't understand it, but to those who do understand it, it is so rich. Isaiah 53 which talks about how He carried our griefs and our sorrows and all of that, He was led as a sheep to slaughter and so forth.
But at the very end of Isaiah 53, down in verse 12, it says, "He poured out Himself to death, He was numbered with the transgressors, yet He Himself bore the sin of many," that's talking about Christ in His sacrificial death, but Isaiah 53 ends with this line, "And interceded for the transgressors."
 
Every time an accusation might come before God, you have a lawyer for your defense, the High Priest Jesus Christ interceding on your behalf. And when Satan comes with a list of iniquities, Christ is there to say, "I paid for that one...I paid for that one...I died for that one...I suffered for that one...I was separated from God for that one...That one's covered...They're all covered...The price has been paid...It's all done...It's all accomplished."
 
No accusation can stand because the lawyer for the defense was Himself the sufficient sacrifice. What a tremendous truth that is.
 
So how secure are you? There is no person who can change that plan. God Himself won't do it because He already did the greatest thing in giving His Son. He'll do the lesser things to keep those who are in His Son for whom His Son was given.
Satan can't do it because no matter what he accuses us of, it's already been paid for and we're not righteous on our own anyway, but we have been given the righteousness of Christ.
 
And Christ won't do it because Christ died for us, rose for us, was exalted for us and continues to intercede for us.
 
Let's pray.