Salvation - Sustained by God’s Mighty Hand

The glorious truth contained in John 10:28-29 is that God graciously gives eternal life that will never perish, for no one is able to snatch us from God’s hand. Paul elaborates near the end of Romans 8 that nothing, be it trials, temptations, government oppression, absence of material needs, threat of harm or death, the Devil himself – nothing in all of creation can separate his people from the love of Christ. In the 90s, Max Lucado wrote a book titled, In the Grip of Grace. That brief title provides a powerful picture of God’s control over our salvation.

Having relatively new experiences of being a father, this imagery makes me think of playing with my daughter Annie. She has an obsession with anything round and bouncy. She’s one-and-a-half, and her favorite word, bar da-da (just kidding, Christine, I know it’s ma-ma), is ball. To her, every round, quasi-round or even two dimensional circular object in God’s created order is a ball, so we hear this word no less than 120 times every day. It’s the first thing on her mind in the morning when she gets up, storming through the house with her wild, curly hair bouncing back-and-forth to secure the location of every ball in the house. I like to occasionally tease Annie by holding her little bouncy ball tightly in my hand as she tries to pry it away. She thinks it’s really funny at first until the laughter suddenly turns to frustration, so I promptly give it to her, realizing I’m on the cusp of “provoking my child to anger” as Paul warns fathers not to do.

If I truly desired to prevent Annie from getting her bouncy ball, no matter how hard she tried or what tactics she employed, that ball is not coming out of my hand. So if little Annie can’t pry her ball from the grip of my hand, how immeasurably less capable is any of God’s creation to snatch his chosen from the mighty hand of the all-powerful Creator! To understand God’s sovereign protection over our salvation, even from ourselves, the differing views of salvation we’ve considered the past few weeks are relevant. If the decisive factor in man’s salvation is God’s sovereign grace, then it goes without question that he, too, sovereignly secures and preserves it. Otherwise, only two options remain. The first is most consistent. If man’s choice (free will) decisively secures salvation, then salvation can be lost. Second, many Christians uphold both man’s decisive choice and God’s preservation of salvation. This view begs the following question, “Is it consistent that God overrides man’s free will post-salvation?”

Perhaps the most common western (and possibly the world) Christian view contends for both man’s free will with a “once saved, always saved” understanding of salvation. Several often overlapping influences incline people to adopt this viewpoint. From the initial salvation side, insisting on man’s libertarian free will shields God from claims of injustice within and outside of the church. Additionally, the individualistic culture in which we live makes it difficult to accept salvation being ultimately independent from our will. From the God preserves salvation side, biblical texts affirming this truth largely outweigh texts that may seem to indicate otherwise. In addition to the passage in John 10 mentioned above, numerous other verses clearly indicate God’s role in preserving salvation (1 Cor 1:8-9, Phil1:6, 1 Thes 5:23-24, 1 Pet 1:5, Jude 24-25). But, via the following musing below, consider in more depth the logical inconsistencies imposed by this view:

In order for God to be truly fair and just, as not to bring charges against His character, all men must have the same opportunity to accept or reject Christ. God can’t interfere with respect to one person’s choice in a way He would not with another. If God ultimately elects people according to His sovereign will, people aren’t truly expressing genuine love. However, upon man’s choice to place their faith in Christ, which causes the new birth (according to this view), God must necessarily override their former free will in order to sustain and preserve the salvation that they chose.

Must not this scenario be the case? Otherwise, at some point the Christian could exercise his free will to deny Christ with their mouth and/or through an unrepentant life of sin. Many scriptures either warn of apostasy or an unrepentant sinful lifestyle (Rom 8:13, Gal 5:19-22, Gal 6:7-8, 1 Jn 2:19,1 Jn 3:2-4,8, 1 Jn 5:18), revealing a person wasn’t truly saved, and other texts affirm that true believers will persevere until death (Mk 13:13, Lk 8:15, Jn 8:31, 1 Cor 15:1-2, Col 1:22-23, 2 Tim 2:11-12, 2 Pet 1:10, Rev 2:25-26, Rev 3:5). Certainly God must both prevent and cause these conditions.

A common philosophical charge against Christians upholding sovereign grace is often presented in this (or similar) rhetorical question: “Did God create people with real choices or did He create robots?” However, it seems logically inconsistent to argue that on one hand people can’t truly love and choose God if he’s decisively responsible for their choice, but on the other hand, post-salvation they have no choice to deny him! This simply flips the order of supposed “robot” status and also interjects an understanding of love that does not find its source in scripture. Granted, much of God’s ways are indeed a mystery, and both sides are known to present philosophical arguments, but the whole counsel of scripture must be the litmus test for rightly understanding both God’s role and man’s role in salvation.

Two common mistakes are made by many people when standing at the crossroads of God’s sovereignty and man’s responsibility. First, based on human logic and philosophical possibilities, some believe that man’s choices are invalid or less than legitimate if God is completely sovereign over all things. Second, downplaying clear biblical commands to preach the gospel, repent, believe, pray, obey, and the like, some assume (if not consensually, often functionally) God brings forth his will apart from real human choice and their associated actions. But, there is another alternative termed “compatibility” that affirms both are true – God has complete sovereignty over everything including salvation, and people are fully responsible for their real, effective choices.

Many of the topics concerning salvation we’ve addressed over the past few weeks come together in the following summary (for additional textual references please see previous posts):
No man deserves salvation, or even the choice of such; we all deserve hell. The free will of man will always reject God’s plan of salvation unless God intervenes by rescuing his elect. When the Holy Spirit acts in regeneration, man’s free will chooses the only rational thing a person with crystal clear sight would – repenting and trusting in the person and work of Jesus Christ for their salvation. Once this has occurred, God holds our salvation securely in his hand, and he brings about evidences of salvation in our lives. Simultaneously, God calls us to make real choices to obey, abide in Christ, and “work out our own salvation,” all the while knowing that “it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure” (both quotes from Phil 2:12-13).