Minority Report is an article based on the teaching series Safe & Sound it is an initial discussion on the case for Eternal Security also known as Once Saved Always Saved." Belief in the immutable assurance of salvation is in our opinion the first in the series of building blocks that enable the believer to build his or her faith on firm foundations.

"Nothing can separate me from the love of God"
Roms 8:39
Based on a teaching series entitled "Safe & Sound"
Paul Anderson-Walsh

When the Lord first birthed the idea of The Grace Project in me, He gave me the strap line, "Empowerment through assurance". More recently, this has evolved into its present incarnation, "Discover who you REALLY are". Nonetheless, the assurance motif remains the basic tenet upon which the work is founded as it is one of the essential building blocks for a healthy Christian life. However, sadly, the concept of the believer's unconditional and immutable assurance remains very much the Minority Report among evangelicals where the "anti-security" message dominates. By anti-security we mean that there are those (the vast majority of Christians, in fact) who believe that it is possible to lose their salvation. In upholding that view, they see no apparent contradiction with the nature of the agape God of the Bible. Charles Stanley counters this notion deftly when he says:

"If my unfaithfulness has a bearing on my salvation and therefore, my relationship with God, then is it correct to call His love for me unconditional? If God's holiness demands something in return from those it loves, then it is clear that His holiness makes God incapable of unconditional love. If holiness is a condition, then His love is not unconditional. If His nature forces Him to disassociate with certain types of people, His nature stands in the way of him loving unconditionally."

It is our view that peace, assurance and freedom from fear of punishment are among the inalienable rights of all believers. Moreover, the only charitable reason we can find for these rights being withheld is an impoverished view of salvation among many pastors and teachers of the New Testament. Some time ago, I addressed a meeting of Christian leaders and asked them a single question, "What is a Christian?" The answers that came from the delegates focused almost exclusively on what Christians do as opposed to identifying the fundamental essence of who Christians are. When seen in terms of behaviour and performance, it is not difficult to see why some might feel that non-performance or under-achievement might result in the forfeiture of position.

How righteous are you?

In other articles, we have explored the subject of righteousness and this question is pertinent to the issue of Eternal Security as what needs to be settled in this debate is, "How righteous are you?" If you are reading this and you are a Christian, then you are as righteous as Jesus (2 Cor 5:21). The apostle Paul equates salvation to receiving righteousness. Not "self-achieved" righteousness but Christ righteousness. Salvation is the eternal participation in the replacement life of Jesus as a free unconditional gift (Eph 2:8ff), that is, the transference of the indwelling nature from that of sin to that of Christ (Eph 2:3; 2 Pet 1:2). Viewed from this premise, it is impossible to conclude that salvation is a tenuous or, in anyway, a conditional proposition especially when Paul affirms that "The gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable" (Roms 11:27) and for the avoidance of doubt, Paul tell us in the same letter that the gift of God is eternal life (Roms 6:23).

Yet, Sunday-by-Sunday, believers will sit under teaching that will call this immutable truth into question. "He loves me, He loves me not" is the evangelical mantra. We argue that unless a believer knows that he or she is safe, the believer cannot be sound. "Having been justified by faith, we have peace with God." (Roms 5:1). Peace is the absence of uncertainty. Where there is uncertainty, there is fear and where there is fear, a person cannot be perfected in love. Perfect love casts out fear for fear has to do with punishment (1 Jn 4:18) and this is the most basic truth of the New Covenant - "There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, for the law of the Spirit of life has set me free from the law of sin and death" (Roms 8:1-2).

Why then do so many still live under condemnation? The answer lies in one of the most startling satanic confidence tricks. How cunning of the old serpent to have achieved the "impossible trick". He has been able to lull the lost man into a false sense of security and the saved man into a false sense of insecurity. In both cases, he is able to get a foothold in their "self-righteousness". To the lost man who knows nothing of God's standard of righteousness (Mtt 5:48), his appeal is, "You are not that bad". And to the saved man who is made aware of God's standard of righteousness week after week in church, he says, "You are not that good". So, with varying shades of subtlety, he is able to convince the lost man that God is merciful to the extent that whilst the lost man may not be good enough to go to heaven, the lost man is not bad enough to go to hell. The old serpent's advice is, "No need for you to do anything - after all, He made you as you are".

Then, turning to the Christian, the old serpent's appeal is reversed. To the Christian, he says, "You may not be bad enough to go to hell, but how can you be sure that you are good enough to go to heaven?" His advice is, "Do something - There are things that you need to do to become like God and be liked by God".

That the old "Once Saved Always Saved" debate still rages on remains to me both a mystery and a great sadness. Elsewhere, we have given an extensive treatment to explain why we simply do not believe that the believer can lose his or her salvation, see "Safe & Sound" [www.thegraceproject.com - click on interactive]. The purpose of this article is to simply restate what to us seems the self-evident truth. Perhaps, part of what clouds the issue is the term, "Once Saved Always Saved". The Bible never uses the term and that is something we ought to be mindful of when we do. The insistence on using the term has, I think, been partly responsible for shifting the debate into maverick and esoteric waters rather than letting it sail on the glass calm waters of Biblical logic, namely, the foundational principle of Justification by Faith.

Vying for our sympathies are four main concepts which we can summarize as follows:

Once saved could be lost;
Once saved always saved ... provided that you persevere to the end;
If saved always saved;
Once saved always saved.

At stake is a vitally important question - "Do you believe that after a person has come to a saving knowledge of Jesus, it is possible for such an individual to, one day, end up in the Lake of Fire?" Our answer is an unequivocal "NO, that is not possible!" In this article, we will introduce some of the reasons why we find any argument to the contrary difficult to sustain.

A few diagnostic questions might help us at this juncture:

1. When you were saved, did you respond to a god that rewards the righteous or The God who justifies the wicked?

2. Is salvation (a) a work of God for man or (b) a work of man for God?

3. Who is responsible for salvation? Three possible answers:
(i) All of God and none of me;
(ii) Some of God and some of me;
(iii) All of me and none of God.

4. Is salvation: (i) All of man and none of God?
(ii) Some of man and some of God?
(iii) All of God and none of man?

Most of us would not hesitate in picking answer (iii) where salvation is "All of God and none of man". However, the relevant question here is "Whose responsibility is it to maintain salvation?", to wit we say unequivocally, "It is God's". Salvation is the gift that we could not earn and cannot lose.

A common trap that we fall into when confronted with the belief that one cannot lose their salvation is to immediately ask questions along the lines of "What about that person who, after being saved, goes off and becomes a mass murderer, or the backslider who now professes that there is no God?" The core issue with regard to salvation is not the individual's behaviour, but the character of God and the quality of the salvation He gives.

Question: Did you respond to the call of a god who rewards the righteous orThe God who justifies the wicked?

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Charles Stanley, "Eternal Security", p17. The Arminian view and certainly the majority view in the church. This seems to summarize the Calvinistic view which relies upon what is called the Perseverance of the Saints and it seems to me to be at least as unsatisfactory as the Arminian view. For more information on the Arminian/Calvin debate, see "Safe & Sound Part 3". Nettleton's tension - "I know that once I am saved, I am saved but the difficulty is - How can I be sure that I am saved?" All of the above positions seem to result in introspection and uncertainty which, to my mind at least, underminds the entire basis of peace and assurance.