Addressing a Reader’s Comment
There was a presentation made on a Christian website concerning eternal security, where a reader made the following comment, and I responded as well.

The Comment
We are saved by faith, walk by faith and are kept by faith. Willful sin will destroy faith and our hearts will once again condemn us. This sin if not repented of will become our God and we will lose the grace of God and die spiritually. It happens, it happened to me. God revealed to me that in this state I would lose my soul in hell forever. I found my way back to him and repented of my sin and found wonderful peace and assurance of his salvation once again. If we trust in eternal security rather than keeping our trust in him we will be deceived.

My response
I don’t want to come across condescending, but you are absolutely wrong – 100% wrong.

What you have stated is the premise of many of those who believe that you can lose your salvation based upon a misunderstanding of the Scripture, in fact what you stated is heretical to Christianity, though I know you did not mean it that way

I point this out not to embarrass you, but to display how dangerous this teaching is, though its proponents would claim the opposite – I beg of you to please bear with me and you’ll see what I mean.

We are not saved by faith, we are saved by grace as the Scripture says:

“For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.”  (Ephesians 2:8-10 KJV).

We are not saved by good works, we are saved to do good works.

Now, you may say that was a misstatement that you made, but you display that your belief system is based upon merit, that you must do something to be saved.

This is the opposite of being saved by grace.

Grace is God’s unmerited favor, by its very definition there can be nothing that merits this favor, and by you saying that you’re trading faith for salvation, you are saying you merit salvation.

It is because of the superficial teaching found in many churches that this kind of thing goes on.

We are saved by grace, end of story.

You thinking that you trade faith for salvation is a works based theology that will send you to hell.

You see if you read the Greek grammar you can tell that faith is not traded, faith is the state of the inner man (soul) that perceives something as being fact, it’s not a tool to achieve that thing (Heb. 11:1).

I can have faith all day long that I can fly, but when I tried to earn the ability to fly, all I do is break my neck when I jump off the top of the barn.

Let me give you an analogy that the Greek grammar supports, and that you can understand whenever were talking about grace and faith.

If I tell you that I have had a house built that cost me hundred million dollars, that it is filled with every toy and convenience I could ever think of, that it has a safe that has $1 billion in cash in the basement with the door wide open waiting for the occupant,

And I told you that if you went to the Dallas Metrodome, and looked underneath seat # 777, and found a set of car keys to a Porsche parked in that parking lot.

And that if you would get the car keys walk into the parking lot and push the remote button every time you saw Porsche, you would eventually find the car that I left for you.

And inside the glove compartment was the deed for this house left blank for you to write your name in.

And that there was $10,000 cash to get you started, that there was a description telling you where the house was, and advising you of an attorney that was waiting for you to call to transfer all other assets to you.

You would think I was crazy.

In fact the only way that you would receive this great gift from me is if you believe that it existed, that I was telling you the truth and that you could only receive it by the action of faith, by driving to the Metrodome, look for the car keys, find the car, go to the house and take possession, write your name on the deed, and lastly call the attorney that I have listed to give him your name so that all the assets and privileges of ownership are yours – you did nothing to earn any of it – you didn’t even trade the inconvenience of driving from Southern California, if that’s where you lived; to the Dallas area.

Yes, it may have been inconvenient, but did you trade; no you stepped out in faith and it cost you something to do so, but everything that you did was motivated upon a belief of what I told you, or had written in a book to you, is true (such as in the case of the Bible).

It is your exercise of faith in what I said that gains you these great gifts which you never paid for or earned.

You never did anything to get them, and attempting to say that driving to Dallas is how you earned the house is ridiculous.

It presumes that anyone that would drive to Dallas would receive $1 billion, that presumption is completely false, and so is it the thought that by exercising faith you trade this for salvation.

You see brother the problem you have is a way that you are thinking, you’re displaying a mindset of reciprocity, of thinking that you’ve done something or paid a price to be a child of God.

I have no doubt that you feel like you’ve sacrificed much while other unbelievers have fun in life, yet a mindset of reciprocity again will send you to hell.

None of us have done anything at any time to deserve salvation.

And by the way salvation is not a lack of sin, or even being freed from sin, which is a consequence of salvation.

Salvation according to Jesus Christ is defined as gaining “eternal life.”

Every time Jesus speaks about salvation He refers to it as “eternal life.”

(see: https://faithbibleministriesblog.com/2016/03/25/jesus-definition-of-salvation-eternal-life/)

Was Jesus a liar, did He mean a different word for eternal, no He met what He said and said what He meant.

Salvation is eternal life and it cannot therefore be temporary, you cannot lose it, because you did not gain it by merit or any works of your own.  It is a free gift of God, you simply received it.

So how can eternal life be anything but eternal and therefore permanent?

I’m not attempting to do any solicitation here, but perhaps reading some of my articles on this subject based upon the Greek language which I’ve not even discussed here, wherein every time salvation is addressed in the Bible, the Greek grammar mainly uses the present tense, meaning it is a current action that never ever ends.

There is evidence after evidence in the Greek language that give no other conclusion than eternal life is eternal and cannot be lost.

The only question is if an individual has actually been saved in the first place, as opposed to those that did all the church activities, who were administrators of ministries, which would be a necessity to cast out evil spirit and did miracles.

You see they didn’t do the miracles, God is the only one that does miracles.

God can do miracles simply because the recipient seeks the miracle out of faith, just because a person presiding over them in prayer, does mean that they were the ones that God responded to and brought the miracle.

Jesus told us that there would be many that are self-deceived thinking that they are believers when in reality their fraudulent.

Their self-deceived, thinking that they are doing something that God is doing, thinking they understand what Christianity is.

Christianity is not being saved by faith, Christianity has been, and always will be about being saved by grace, and grace can only be accepted in faith.

Brent