Sermon Tone Analysis

We believe that salvation is an eternal gift not a transitory state.

We believe and embrace this doctrine ...

Because salvation is by grace alone and not based upon human achievement.

This is the fundamental aspect of the gospel - God saves you from your sin based upon the work of Christ.

It is his work that saves not yours.

It is his righteousness that saves not yours.

Michael Horton stated,

“Those who think they can lose their salvation are not trusting in Jesus Christ alone for salvation but partly trusting in their own righteousness.”

“Such persons think Christ made the down payment on their salvation but that they have to keep up the monthly installments."

God not only saves you by His grace but He keeps you by that same grace.

JB Philips Translates

O you dear idiots of Galatia (JB Philips)

We believe and embrace this doctrine ...

Because salvation promises that God’s wrath against us has been turned away.

Slide for Propitiation

Propitiation (Gk.

hilasmos) here means “a sacrifice that bears God’s wrath and turns it to favor,”

Crossway Bibles, The ESV Study Bible (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2008), 2431.

That’s why Paul can state so emphatically that there is no condemnation.

That is why the hymn writer could state!

“My sin, oh, the bliss of this glorious thought

My sin, not in part but the whole,

Is nailed to the cross, and I bear it no more,

Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, o my soul”

We believe and embrace this doctrine ...

Because eternal life can never be temporary.

If it is possible to lose eternal life then the designation eternal is meaningless.

Reads - If you look at the original Greek - Please notice two little words.

There are two words - Not - Never - You should NOT - Never use a double negative.

“κἀγὼ δίδωμι αὐτοῖς ζωὴν αἰώνιον καὶ οὐ μὴ ἀπόλωνται εἰς τὸν αἰῶνα καὶ οὐχ ἁρπάσει τις αὐτὰ ἐκ τῆς χειρός μου.” ()

We believe and embrace this doctrine ...

Because God always finishes what He starts.

Phil 1:

Spergeon States

If our religion be of our own getting or making, it will perish; and the sooner it goes, the better; but if our religion is a matter of God's giving, we know that He shall never take back what He gives, and that, if He has commenced to work in us by His grace, He will never leave it unfinished.

Question

What about those who abandon the faith?

Do they lose their salvation?

Wayne Grudem States -

Those who are truly born again will be kept by God’s power and will persevere as Christians until the end of their lives, and that only those who persevere until the end have been truly born again.