Home Topics Index Download
Transcript 435A
— Eternal Security
— Did God Know that Adam Would Sin?
— Music in the Church
HC: Good evening. Welcome to Open Forum.
CALLER: Yes. I'd like you to discuss eternal security, and the idea that you can fall from grace. And also, about the spirituality of music in the church. Some church music seems melancholy, and in some churches now we have a lot of rock music, religious rock. And one other point I'd like you to discuss would be, did God know that Adam was going to fall, that man was going to fall?
HC: All right. Let me ask you one question concerning your first question, eternal security. If someone asked you (if you believe you're saved), "What are you saved from?" how would you answer him?
CALLER: I'm saved from eternal damnation.
HC: You're saved from eternal damnation, good answer. Now why is it that you're saved from eternal damnation? In other words, what was going to bring you to eternal damnation in the first place?
CALLER: Because Christ died on the cross.
HC: Why did that save you from eternal damnation?
CALLER: I accepted Him into my heart.
HC: Why did the fact that you accepted Him into your heart save you from eternal damnation? In other words, what did Christ's dying on the cross, or the fact that you accepted Him, have to do with the fact that you're saved from eternal damnation? You notice there's a gap of some kind there, isn't there?
CALLER: I know that we have to follow in good works. In Ephesians 2:8-10 it talks about that.
HC: All right. We have to do good works after we're saved. But does that save us from eternal damnation?
CALLER: It says, "If you love Me you will keep My commandments."
HC: "If you love Me you will keep My commandments." Okay. So by keeping His commandments, does that insure that we will be saved from eternal damnation?
CALLER: Well, we're saved by His grace.
HC: We're saved by His grace. We're saved from eternal damnation by His grace. All right, but what does that mean, that we've been saved by His grace?
CALLER: Through faith.
HC: Through faith. What does that mean? You see, the missing ingredient in our discussion, I purposely asked you these questions to get you thinking, because once you understand salvation you'll automatically know the answer to the question of eternal security.
Those who believe we can fall from grace, that we can lose our salvation, do not, I'm afraid, understand what salvation really is. They don't really understand what happened that our salvation was accomplished.
Now let's start at the beginning. Here I stand. I'm a sinner. It's because of my sin that I must go to hell. Is that true?
CALLER: That's true, yes.
HC: "The wages of sin is death." That is the reason I'm condemned to hell. Now the only way that I can not go to hell is that something has to be done about the judgment of God that rightly ought to come against me because of my sins. Someone has to take care of that situation.
And that's what Christ did when He went to the cross. The Bible says He became sin for me. And He was found guilty for my sins, and God poured out His wrath on Him as payment for my sins. That is why when Christ went to the cross He made possible my salvation, or He made possible the fact that I will not suffer eternal damnation, because He suffered eternal damnation on my behalf, as my substitute. He became sin for me. He took my guilt for all of my sins, and paid for my guilt. So therefore no guilt can be imputed to me any longer. Is that clear?
CALLER: Yes.
HC: Now what sin would I have to commit in order to lose my salvation? What sin would it be? When you stop to think of it, there is no sin, is there? Because Christ became sin for me. He took all of my sins, and paid for them. So there's no way that I could lose my salvation.
More than that, when I was saved God declared that I have eternal life. Now what does that mean? Is that just a figure of speech? I have eternal life, the seed or the possibility of eternal life exists within me? Or do I actually have eternal life? The Bible says I have eternal life.
The Bible also says I'm born again. The Bible also says I'm a new creature in Christ. Well, how is all of this? The Bible teaches that in my soul, or in my spirit, I have experienced the resurrection. I have received my resurrected soul. I've been raised with Him. Now it didn't happen in my body, but it happened in my soul.
At death what happens? In my body I can't go into Heaven, because I still have my sin-cursed body. But lo and behold, in my soul I do go into Heaven, don't I? Because my soul has already experienced eternal life. Now if I have eternal life, then I can't die. Otherwise my life would not be eternal. So from that vantage point I could never lose my salvation.
Or again, Jesus Himself said in John 10:27, "My sheep hear My voice and follow Me, and I have given them eternal life, and they shall never perish. And no one shall snatch them out of My hand." These are the promises, you see. And there are many other promises of a similar nature.
CALLER: In Revelation it talks about being blotted out of the Lamb's Book of Life.
HC: Not out of the Lamb's Book of Life, but it speaks about being blotted out of the Book of Life. At least in Psalm 68 it speaks of that.
You see, in Adam we all begin in the Book of Life. Because Adam was the head of the whole human race, in a real sense we were in his loins. And he began without sin, he began as an eternal being who would live forever with God. In the day that he sinned, of course, the seeds of death were sown in him, he experienced physical death, and he also was estranged spiritually from God, in spiritual death. And that became the lot of all mankind.
The Bible uses the figure that we are in the Book of Life, but if we die wicked, that is, unsaved, then we cannot remain in the Book of Life. We are included amongst those who are cast in to hell. Or it uses another figure, that we are enrolled in the Lamb's Book of Life, if we are saved.
CALLER: Okay. There is a man who has led an extremely Godly life. He has professed Christ openly in the church, been baptized in water. As far as those in the congregation, we see this man as a Godly man, as being saved, a born again Christian. And he leads a Godly life for several years. But then he backslides. (And it talks about backsliding in II Peter, I believe.) And then let's say now he's backslidden, and Christ comes back. At that point is that man saved?
HC: Now remember, when a man is saved he is born again. He's received his resurrected soul. Now there are all kinds of people in the church today (and I don't know who they are, but God knows them, we can't point the figure at anyone else, but God knows who they are, and the Bible speaks of these) who really believe they're saved. But actually they're not saved. They are really making like Christians. They're trying to do things that Christians do, and desperately they're trying to live a life that is pleasing to God so that God will look with kindness upon them. But they have never never personally broken before God, admitting their own sinful rottenness and cried out to God for mercy. They don't really know what it is to be born again. They don't really know what it is to trust altogether only on the Lord Jesus Christ for salvation. There are all kinds of people in the church today who are trusting in their good works in one sense or another. And if we do that in any sense at all, then we're not saved.
Now as near as we can tell, we think they're saved, because they look just like someone who is saved. As long as they continue to stay that way in the church, and if they died that way, we would have to assume that they went to Heaven. But frequently they don't continue that faithfully. The temptations of materialism or of pleasure or some other sin come along, and they fall away. And so then we have the evidence that they were never saved. They were never saved, no matter how holy they may have looked.
If they were truly born again, and they began to fall into sin, by the temptations of lust or materialism or pleasure, or whatever, they could not continue in that sin, because in their new soul, their resurrected soul, they would be violated. They would be so troubled, they would be so oppressed, they would be so abhorred by their sin as they got deeper and deeper into it, that finally they couldn't stand it. They would cry out, "Oh God, have mercy on me. How could I go this way?"
If someone claims to be a believer and lives like a believer for many years, and now he falls into sin, and in the face of what the Bible says, in the face of what the elders of the church admonish him about, he continues in his sin and he excuses his sin, and alibis for his sin, the likelihood is that he's not born again at all. That's incongruous. That's an impossibility for him to live this way.
CALLER: Okay. So he was professing Christ, but he wasn't possessed by Christ.
HC: He was professing Christ, but he had never become born again
CALLER: That makes sense.
HC: All right. Now your other two questions. Let me answer the last question first. Did God know that Adam was going to sin? Absolutely yes. We read in Ephesians 1:4 that we were chosen in Christ from before the foundations of the earth. We read in Revelation 13 that the Lamb of God was slain from the foundations of the earth.
The whole program of salvation was carefully developed and designed and outlined, down to its most minute detail, before God ever created the heavens and the earth. God has never been surprised by anything that has happened on this earth.
The other question that's been raised is concerning music. A lot of Christian music today is of the rock variety, or something between the rock variety and some other kind of contemporary music. Just how does all of this fit into the plan of God? Or how are we to relate to it?
The Bible teaches in Ephesians 5:18, "Don't be drunk with wine, but be filled with the Holy Spirit, addressing one another with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs." Now the content of this language really is that it's talking about music that is related to God. And if it's related to God it's going to be related to His word. Putting it in another way, it's going to be holy music. It is going to be music that is set apart from the music of the world in a very distinctive way, because it is the music that is conveying the thoughts that relate man to a holy God, a just God. It's going to convey the love of God, and all of the other attributes that we find concerning God in the Bible.
A lot of the music of the world, you'll find, is like the painting that you see, where someone apparently splotches some different colors on the canvas. I was in an art studio a few weeks ago, and they had some paintings on display. One painting was for sale for $1,500, and my 4-year-old grandson could have done just as well, I think. It was really a pain to behold. I thought it was a travesty on the whole art profession. Well, that's my personal feeling about it.
Actually, that painting, however, was indicating the confused and bewildered and mixed-up nature of the soul of the artist. And music is frequently the same way. A lot of the rock music, and a lot of even Christian music that we hear, is conveying the confusion that exists within the soul of the composer.
The music we ought to sing, however, is not music that's confused and messed up and mixed up. It ought to be music that identifies with the Bible, with the holiness of God, with the majesty of God, with the greatness of God, with the love of God, with the wonder of God. The most sublime, the most beautiful, the most marvelous music on the face of the earth ought to be the Christian music. It's the music that soothes the soul. It's not the music that gets us all upset inside and agitated, and so on. That's not Christian music. Gospel music ought to be majestic, it ought to be holy music, set apart from the music of the world in a very distinctive fashion.
Now of course because music very frequently has lyrics, there are voices that are singing, we have a double opportunity to make it great and grand music, because in the lyrics God can be praised. In the words that are offered the will of God can be articulated in a very beautiful way.
That's the goal of Christian music. And when we view a lot of the music that calls itself Christian, we have to say no, no, no. It will never make it.