Eternal Salvation          

Romans 8:28-30

 

     Salvation is a work of grace experienced in time. Regeneration, faith, repentance, conversion, sanctification and preservation are things which God's elect experience in this world. But salvation began in eternity. Long, long before God began his work of grace in us, he began his work of grace for us. If your thoughts about salvation are limited to what you experience in time, you have a very limited and perverted view of God's work. Salvation includes the past, the present and the future. I have been saved. I am being saved. And I shall yet be saved.

     If we would understand this wonderful thing called "salvation", we must begin where God began, with the eternal election of his people in Christ. To whom are we indebted for this, the first of all spiritual blessings? Pride says, "To me." Self-righteousness says, "To me." Free-will says, "To me." But faith joins with God's Word and says, "Not unto us, O LORD, not unto us, but unto thy name give glory, for thy mercy, and for thy truth's sake" (Psa. 115:1).

     Is the election of grace based in anyway upon something God "foresaw" the sinner would do? Hear the testimony of the Apostle Paul: "There is a remnant," not all, but some; and that remnant chosen by God shall be saved, "According to the election of grace." What do those words mean? Paul tells us, "If by grace, then it is no more of works: otherwise grace is no more grace" (Rom. 11:5-6). As Augustus Toplady wrote, "Grace ceases to be grace, unless it be totally and absolutely irrespective of anything and everything, whether good or bad, in the objects of it."

     God's election of some to salvation and eternal life was a work of unconditional and eternal grace. Grace and conditionality are two incompatible opposites. They cannot exist together, any more than two things can occupy the same place at one time. If you slip works into the scheme of salvation, you push out grace altogether. If you establish grace as the grounds of salvation, you must throw out works altogether. Grace and works will not mix! Salvation begins with God's eternal election. And God's election was a work of grace alone. Therefore God alone shall have the praise, honor and glory for that eternal salvation which is ours in Christ.

 

Don Fortner