Verses Misapply For Salvation
Matthew
24:13 But the one who endures to the end, he will be saved.
Some think this verse means a person will not go to heaven unless he continues
to do good until he dies. They are confused by thinking the word “saved”
refers to eternal salvation when actually, it refers to physical
deliverance. The context of chapter 24 clearly refers to people who
become believers during the Tribulation and survive up to the end. They will
then be physically delivered from the judgment that occurs when the Lord
returns so that they can populate the earth during the Millennium. Their
deliverance is from the baptism of fire.
James
2:14, 17, 24
What use is it, my brethren, if a man says he has
faith, but he has no works? Can that faith save him? Even so faith,
if it has no works, is dead, being by itself You see that a man is justified by
works, and not by faith alone. People quote this verse when trying to
prove that good works must be added to faith in order to be saved. But
notice that James is writing to “brethren”, people who are already saved. He
was not warning believers that their eternal security was in jeopardy but that
they were in danger of an untimely death due to a dead faith that produced no
good works.
Believers
who choose to rebel against their heavenly Father by living a fruitless
unprincipled life are in danger of an early physical death (sin unto death)
Proverbs
The Bible
is full of commands to do good works but many believers ignore them because
they have no motivation to please neither God nor compassion for their fellow
man. James calls this a “dead faith”. It cannot cause him to lose
his salvation but it can cause him to: Come under divine discipline to
the point of losing his physical life, Lose rewards in heaven. Have
no witness before unbelievers.
The key to
understanding what James has written is to recognize that there are two kinds
of justification. One is by faith and the other is by works. We are
justified before God by our faith and we are justified before other people by
our works. We are not justified before God by our faith and our works;
that is heresy!
Mark
Hebrews
6:4-6 For it is impossible to
renew to repentance those who . . . have fallen away since they again
crucify to themselves the Son of God, and put Him to an open shame. Is this saying that a person can
lose eternal life and that once he has, it is impossible to get it back?
Absolutely not! This was written to Jews who had believed in Jesus Christ
but continued to sacrifice animals even after Christ was sacrificed on the
cross. It was hard for them to stop observing a ritual that their ancestors
had observed for over a thousand years. So the writer of Hebrews reminded
them in Hebrews 10:12. But He, having offered one Sacrifice for sins for all
time, sat down at the right hand of
God.
These
Jewish believers had fallen away from the fundamentals of the Christian faith
which they had been taught. Every time they sacrificed an animal they were
again crucifying the Son of God and putting Him up to an open shame, as if His
sacrifice was not sufficient. As long as they continued to do this, it
was impossible to renew them to “repentance”, which means to “change their
mind” to line up with correct fundamental doctrines.
Philippians
2:12-13 Therefore, my beloved, as
you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my
absence, work out your salvation with fear and trembling . . .Again, this was written to
believers who already possessed eternal life. The word “salvation” causes
confusion because most people automatically equate it with eternal life. But
this is never its meaning in the entire book of Philippians. It is used
to convey the idea of being physically delivered from something. From
what do believers need delivering?
Before
this can be answered, one must first understand that some believers are winners
and some are losers. The winners are obedient to the commands of God such
as growing up spiritually by studying the Word (II Tim.
They
will receive rewards, decorations, special blessings and privileges that will
last for all eternity. Loser believers waste their time on earth by being
disobedient and indifferent to God and His Word. They have bought Satan’s
lie that happiness and contentment can be found in money, sex, power, friends,
a big house, a different spouse, a fun time, etc. Consequently, they never grow
up spiritually and they lose out on the great things that winner believers
receive. “Working out your salvation” is a call to be a winner believer.
It is a plea to be delivered from the miserable life and losses of the loser
believer. Fear and trembling are mentioned in this verse to warn
believers that losing eternal rewards is no trivial matter.
Galatians
5:4 You have been severed from
Christ, you who are seeking to be justified by the law; you have fallen
from grace. There is a big difference between an
unbeliever who is condemned for rejecting God’s grace and a believer who has
drifted off course by trying to maintain his salvation by works. The
Galatians believers fell for the lies of the Jews that salvation is secured by
keeping the Mosaic Law. They fell away from the correct teaching that salvation
is obtained and maintained entirely by God’s grace. The Greek word used
for falling away is “ekpipto” which means to drift off course. Believers
drift off course when they exchange grace and freedom for the slavery of
legalism and divine discipline.
Hebrews
10:26 For if we go on sinning
willfully after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a
sacrifice for sins but
a certain terrifying expectation of judgment and the fury of a fire which will
consume the adversaries. All sin is willful in the sense that we sin because we
want to. However the willful sinning here refers to believers who have
abandoned the Christian faith.
They
have deliberately ignored the commands (in
Hebrews
Principles:
The only people who can lay hold of grace are those who recognize their need for mercy.
Mercy must remove the condemnation we rightfully deserved before grace can bestow
the blessings that we rightfully we cannot earn and never deserve
