"My Salvation Shall Be Forever!"

Isaiah 51:6

These are God's own words by which he describes his great work of grace - "My salvation shall be forever!" If salvation is something we do, something we make with our hands, something we get by our freewill, it will soon wither. But if salvation is the work of God alone, something that God does, something that God gives, as the Scriptures universally declare (Psa. 37:39; John 2:9; Eph. 2:8; II Tim. 1:9), it must be forever (Eccles. 3:14). Nothing can be taken from it. Nothing can be added to it. God himself will never take it away, because his gifts are without repentance (Rom. 11:29). We cannot destroy it, because it does not depend upon us in anyway (Rom. 9:16). And satan can never overthrow it because he has no ability to hurt or destroy anything without God's permission, and God will never give him permission to destroy one of his elect (Job 1:1-2:10).

God says, "My salvation shall be forever!" Were the covenant founded upon works, it would fail. If it depended upon us (fickle, sinful creatures of dust) it would soon be destroyed. But it is not so! The covenant of grace by which we are saved is "an everlasting covenant, ordered in all things and sure" (II Sam. 23:5). It cannot fail! It has come to us by the promise of God who cannot lie (Tit. 2:2). Therefore, we are assured that he who has begun a good work in us will perform it until it is complete (Phil. 1:6).

God's salvation is forever. It was accomplished from everlasting in the sovereign purpose of God (Rom. 8:28-30). All the blessings of grace received by men in this world come "according as he hath chosen us in Christ before the foundation of the world" (Eph. 1:3-6). Salvation is not by man's freewill, but by God's sovereign will. Men are not saved by chance, but by divine predestination. This salvation was purchased for God's elect at Calvary and obtained for us by the merits of Christ's blood (Heb. 9:12). All the redeemed, all God's elect have salvation performed in them by the sovereign, irresistible power of God the Holy Spirit in regeneration (Eph. 2:1-4). And all who were predestinated, redeemed, and called of God shall be found in heaven to the praise of the glory of his grace, because his salvation is forever!

Don Fortner