Once Saved, Always Saved? What the Early Christians Never Said | Daniel Willis

Lesson Transcript

Salvation: one race, one way. Jesus is the way; the earliest believers were called the followers of the way, and this race—this course we are on—is the way He set in front of us. We are not making our own paths; we are walking in His. The New Testament gives us a simple picture: we were saved, we are being saved, and we will be saved if we finish the race. My goals for today is to clear the muddy water around salvation, and to make the path of this race clear again.

To show that salvation isn't something we can earn; it is a race we must run. There are real requirements to enter it and to run it, but nothing we can do can ever earn it. I want to show how to live in that race with assurance and ongoing cleansing. Salvation is an already-and-not-yet journey. Just like the Kingdom of God is already here, but not yet in its fullness; it's here with us, but we don't see Him face to face yet. I want to help people read every New Testament verse without tension.

Salvation is simple, but is it? Over the centuries, as the Church drifted from the faith once delivered, what God made clear, Satan has muddied. And today I want to expose that mud. Most of us don't feel like salvation is very clear. Many of us come from worlds where salvation is talked about like this: "We were saved by grace through faith alone, not by works, so that no one can boast." That's Scripture, except for the word alone, which muddies everything. They continue to pile on the mud.

Christ plus anything is a false gospel. If you think you have any part of your salvation, you were never really saved to begin with. All of righteousness is filthy rags. Nothing we can do can ever truly please the Lord. Once you're saved, you can never lose it. If you fall away, it proves you were never really saved to begin with. If you're still struggling with sin, maybe you were never really born again. If you believe baptism does anything, you're going to hell.

Those aren't just abstract lines; those are things that were said by real people. Those were things said directly to me. People also tell stories like this: "I was out in a field one day, and I suddenly felt God, and I cried and repented, and that is when I was born again." And because of stories like this, whole groups point to Christians who haven't had an emotional born-again moment and claim they were never truly born again. This is another area where the waters have gotten muddied, and I want to clear it up.

And let me be very clear: I am not discounting those experiences. There is no doubt God works in moments like that. But historically, from the beginning, an emotional encounter wasn't viewed as the moment a person was born again. Then, whenever anyone talks about actually living righteously, another layer of mud gets thrown in. "There was no one righteous." No, not one. All of our righteousness is filthy rags. We don't have any righteousness, only Christ's righteousness.

If we talk about doing what is right, you're being self-righteous, maybe not even saved. Again, this is not made up. This is from real experiences. So a lot of sincere Christians end up thinking, "I'm not supposed to be righteous in any real sense. If I try to live righteously, I'm self-righteous.

If I say obedience matters, people will accuse me of trusting in my own works." Some of us even had Bible verses used as weapons thrown at us, like John 3:16 and Ephesians 2:8-9, because we believe that being on the way means to actually follow the way of Jesus. Most Christians who say these things love Jesus. They really do. And they're doing their best, the best they know how. I am not here to condemn Christians who talk this way. I am not here to pronounce who is saved and who isn't.

My target today is confusion, not people. Listening to the early Christians: over the time, I realized something about the early Christians. Sometimes the most revealing thing is not what they did say, but what they never said at all. They never taught "once saved, always saved." You don't find them talking about automatic eternal security or irreversible salvation that can never be forfeited. Instead, they warn repeatedly that real believers can fall away if they turn back to sin and unbelief.

Writers like Hermas, Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian, Origen, and others are very clear: you can be truly forgiven, truly in the faith, and then truly fall if you abandon the way. They never said people are born apart from baptism. Unless one is born of the water and Spirit, he cannot enter the Kingdom of God. Every early Christian who talks about being born again or regenerated ties it directly back to baptism. They see John 3, born of water and Spirit, as being fulfilled when a repentant believer is immersed.

Today, many people treat "born again" as a particular feeling or experience they had somewhere, a moment crying in the field. And they assume that is when they were born again apart from baptism. Often, people who had this kind of experience assume that if someone doesn't have the same kind of story, they must not really be born again. But the earliest Christians don't talk that way.

Tertullian says, "They who think they can be born again without water despise the grace of baptism." So when we hear "born again" in John 3, we should hear "born of water and the Spirit," not just a private feeling, but a rebirth that happens when a repentant believer is united to Christ in baptism. And this matters of how we think of other Christians.

If an Amish brother or sister has repented, believed, and has been baptized into Christ, whether or not they had a dramatic story, they have been born again according to the Scriptures and the early Church. Forgiven, adopted, given the Spirit, and joined to the Church. They do not teach faith alone. They preach faith alone strongly, but they never separate faith from obedience. For them, true faith is faithfulness. To believe in Christ is to follow Christ.

They did not use righteousness as filthy rags to cancel obedience. They knew Isaiah 64:6, but they read it as describing Israel's simple condition, not the normal Christian life. Writers like Clement of Rome, Justin, and Irenaeus call Christians to practice righteousness, to walk blamelessly, and to pursue holiness. They did not tell believers that any attempt to live righteously is filthy and disgusting to God. They never taught assurance by feeling or emotions.

You don't find them saying, "I know I have been saved because I had a powerful feeling once." For them, salvation was recognized by a changed life, especially by practicing righteousness and loving the brothers. They lean on verses like 1 John 3:7: "Little children, let no one deceive you. He who practices righteousness is righteous, just as he is righteous." They emphasize perseverance.

Again and again, they quote Jesus: "He who endures to the end will be saved." For them, salvation is by grace, but it requires continued faithfulness, repentance, and obedience. Not just starting the race, but finishing it. So when we talk about unmudding the waters, we're not rearranging modern slogans. We're listening to the earliest Christians and paying attention to both what they did say and what they never said at all. So the historic pattern is simple: salvation is received, then lived, then completed.

And the Christian life is not a slogan; it is a way. It is Jesus's way. Now let's look at another big area of confusion: what the Bible actually says about salvation, how it talks about it. The three tenses. The confusion begins when we read every reference to being saved as though it describes a once-and-done event, rather than recognizing the fuller biblical context of living a way, His way. But Scripture speaks of salvation in three ways: we were saved, a real beginning, something that has already been done.

We are being saved, an ongoing work in process. We will be saved if we complete the race. If we flatten those together, we create knots the Bible never tied. Why defining the terms unties the knots? When people collapse these three tenses of salvation into one instant transaction, everything gets muddied.

If salvation is treated as a once-and-done moment, like saying a quick prayer or one moment of belief, then all kinds of confusing slogans suddenly make sense, even though the Scriptures and the early Church don't talk that way. But once you understand the three tenses the way the Bible actually teaches them, the knot unties. The race makes sense. The commands make sense. The warnings make sense. Grace and obedience finally harmonize instead of fighting each other. I'm going to read a long string of verses.

Don't worry about writing down all the passages, but just pay attention to all the tenses: past, present, and future, or the ideas of the tenses in them. We were saved, the real beginning. There is a real sense in which salvation is something already done in the past. For by grace you have been saved through faith, and it is not of your own doing. It is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast. By grace, Polycarp, you are saved, not of works, but by the will of God through Jesus Christ.

But He who raised Him up from the dead will raise us up also, if we do His will and walk in His commands. Titus: "Not by works of righteousness, which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us." God has saved us and called us to a holy calling. And therefore, being justified by faith, we have peace with God, having been justified. There is a real past. We have been saved. We have been justified. God has saved us and called us. We are being saved, the present race.

There is a strong line of verses that speak of salvation as an ongoing present process. Pay attention: "For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us." Who's speaking? Paul is speaking. And who's he speaking to? We'll see in a second. To us who are being saved, it is the power of God. The cross is the power of God to us who are being saved. To the Church of God—this is just a few verses earlier.

This letter was written to the Church of God that is in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints. By this gospel, you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word which I have preached to you. The Lord has added to the Church daily those who are being saved. We are, to God, the fragrance of Christ among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing. Work out your salvation with fear and trembling.

God is the one working in you, giving both the desire and the ability to do what pleases Him. By one offering, He has perfected forever those who are being sanctified, receiving the end of your faith, the salvation of your souls. Receive with meekness the implanted word which is able to save your souls. Now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves to God, you have your fruit to holiness and the end, everlasting life. We all are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory.

That is not a once-and-done snapshot. That is a race being run. That is a life being transformed, a salvation being worked out as God works in us. We will be saved, the final finish line. And then there are verses that clearly point to the future salvation. Now our salvation is nearer than when we first believed. Christ will appear a second time, not dealing with sin, but to bring salvation to those who are waiting for Him. A salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.

He who endures to the end will be saved over and over. Much more, we shall be saved from His wrath through Him. We shall be saved by His life, by His way. God has appointed us to obtain salvation through the Lord Jesus Christ. We eagerly await a Savior who will transform our lowly bodies to be like His glorious body. We wait eagerly for the adoption, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope, we were saved. He puts all the tenses in there. We were saved. We are being saved. And we will be saved.

Now, with that frame in place, we'll unmuddy a few more key terms. These, starting with faith: pistos is faith. Pistos is the action of that faith, faithfulness. In Scripture, faith is always understood together with its actions. Faith cannot be divorced from faithfulness. Likewise, belief cannot be separated from obedience. Belief and obedience, love and obedience.

"For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life." That "believes" is a present, ongoing word. It's the one who is believing and keeps on believing. It's not a once-and-done thing. And just a few verses later, "He who believes in the Son of God has everlasting life.

He who disobeys the Son of God shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him." So this shows that disobedience and unbelief are equated, and belief and obedience are equated. To whom did He swear that they would not enter His rest, but to those who disobeyed? So we see that they cannot enter because of unbelief. Again, disobedience is equals to unbelief. If God tells you to do A, B, C and you do A, B, C, you believed Him.

But if God tells you to do A, B, C and you do X, Y, Z, even if you say you believe Him, you didn't believe Him. In Scripture, belief and obedience travel together. Unbelief and disobedience travel together. Believing is not just acknowledging that Jesus exists. Believing is trusting Him enough to obey Him. Jesus ties this directly to love. "If you love me, you will keep my commandments. He who has my commandments and keeps them is the one who loves me.

If anyone loves me, he will keep my word." 1 John echoes this: "By this we know that we know Him, if we keep His commandments." This is the love of God, that we keep His commandments. And His commandments are not burdensome. So when we hear faith in the New Testament, don't picture a checkbox. Picture faithfulness, a trust that obeys. Now to the term lawlessness.

Many of you will say to me on that day, "Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name and cast out demons in Your name and done many wonders in Your name?" And then I will declare to them, "I never knew you. Depart from me, you who practice lawlessness." See, those works are lawlessness. They're trying to please the Lord and earn your salvation with prophesying and miracles. All your works are just filthy rags. That's why He says, "Depart from me." Lawlessness is trying to please the Lord. You can never do that.

But John tells us plainly that lawlessness, what lawlessness actually is. He explains in 1 John 3:4, "Sin is lawlessness." They were right that these acts of righteousness were like filthy rags. Because in Isaiah 64:6, God was rebuking people who lived in deliberate sin while trying to please Him with religious acts. When someone is living—pay attention to the word living, not just a once-one sin—but living in disobedience, their works are disgusting to God.

But when someone is not living in deliberate sin and he is walking in His ways, righteousness is pleasing to him. So lawlessness isn't trying too hard. Lawlessness is ongoing, unrepentant disobedience, a life that refuses His will. We can and should aim to please the Lord. So we make it our aim to please Him. Walk worthily of the Lord, fully pleasing Him, fruitful in every good work. How you ought to walk and to please God, just as you are doing, that you may do so more and more. We can please Him.

Another muddy place is the word perfect. Some Christians will say, "Look, Jesus said, 'Be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect.'" That's impossible. So clearly, He doesn't really expect us to do these things. They do this with other perfect verses in James and elsewhere, and they assume perfect means sinless, flawless, and never failing. So they argue, "See, you can't actually obey His teaching. He set the bar too high just to show you you can't do it." But that's not what the word perfect means in the Bible.

The Greek word Jesus uses is teleos. Teleos never means perfect in the modern English sense of the word, as sinless or flawless. It means complete, whole, mature, brought to the intended goal. When it's used for God or His will, that completeness includes sinless and flawless. But the word itself doesn't lexically mean sinless or flawless.

So when Jesus says, "Be teleos," He is saying, "Be complete, be whole, be mature, be brought to the goal of the love that looks like the Father's love." And in context here, He's talking about loving your enemies. And we know how Jesus loved His enemies. God sends the rain on the just and unjust. God shows kindness even to the ungrateful and the evil. "Be teleos as your Father is teleos" means let your love grow up into the full, mature, complete love of the Father, even loving your enemies into death.

Clemente of Alexandria in this dramata, the perfection of the Christian is the knowledge of God accompanied by a righteous life. In other words, maturity comes from both knowledge and obedience. That's what makes someone complete and mature Christian. So the perfect passages don't excuse disobedience. They call us into a race made complete and whole in love, part of the "we are being saved" passages. Now to righteousness. 2 Clemente: "Let us not only call Him Lord, for that will not save us.

He who works righteousness will be saved." A lot of churches will use Romans 10:13 and say, "Anyone who calls in the name of the Lord will be saved." But it's not only calling Him. We often hear, "There is no one righteous, no, not one." This gets used almost like a shield to shield any talk of righteous living. But Scripture itself calls people righteous. Noah, a righteous man, blameless in his generation. Job, that man was blameless and upright. Lot, that righteous man.

Zachariah and Elizabeth, both righteous and blameless. Joseph, the husband of Mary, a righteous man. Little children, "Let no one deceive you." This, every time the Scriptures say, "Let no one deceive you," pay attention. "He who does what is right is righteous, just as He is righteous." In Scripture, righteousness is not just God pretending that wicked people are righteous. Righteousness is also a way of life, doing what is right by His grace.

Not everyone who says to me, "Lord, Lord," will enter the kingdom of heaven, but "He who does the will of my Father who is in heaven." So the Bible can call people righteous, and it can call us to righteousness, because righteousness also means doing what is right by His grace. Continuing with righteous, is it Christ-righteousness, or our way, or His way? People often say, "We have Christ-righteousness." Like when you're baptized, you're clothed with Christ.

And so when Jesus looks down at you, no matter what you do, He only sees Christ in His perfectness. Not our own way. Our righteousness is filthy rags. There is truth to that, but it gets used in a muddy way. We do have Christ-righteousness, but how do we have it? We have Christ-righteousness when we walk His way. When He says, "Love your enemies," and instead of fighting back, we love and bless, that is His righteousness at work in us.

When He says, "Give in secret, don't blow the trumpet before you," and instead of boasting, we give quietly, that is His righteousness at work in us. When He says, "Go the second mile," and everything in us wants to say, "No, I've gone far enough," but we go further because of Him, that is His righteousness at work in us. If it were our way, we would fight back. We would announce our giving, and we would refuse the second mile.

But when we obey Christ and His teachings, by faith, we are living out His righteousness. It's not our own plan of righteousness. It's His way, received as a gift, and walked in obedience. So yes, we have Christ-righteousness by faith, and that faith shows itself by doing what He says. As we mature and our will aligns with His, we learn to joyfully embrace both suffering and His way. Cleaning the terms, this is a recap of what I just said. Love and obedience cannot be separated.

Belief and obedience cannot be separated. Rebirth is at baptism. Faith is never alone. Faith is never without faithfulness. Salvation is an ongoing race. Righteousness equals doing what is right. Obeying Christ is not self-righteousness. Lawlessness equals practicing sin and rejecting His commands and making peace with sin. To believe is to obey, and to obey is to love. Perfect is not equal to sinless or flawless. It's mature and being made complete.

If you hold all these ideas together when you read the Scriptures, everything starts to harmonize. Verses that once felt harsh or confusing stop feeling like weapons. Instead, they become clear and encouraging. You see that no verse cancels another out. Every passage works together. It's a both-and, not an either-or. A quick announcement: no more paywall. The historic faith is now free for everyone. Explore over 2,500 Bible translations in over 2,200 languages. There are also 39 courses and over 600 lessons.

And David has answered 164 Q&As so far. Freely listen to 11 of David's most popular audiobooks. And also Dean Taylor's audiobook. Listen to the early Christians through modernized Anti-Nicaean writings. And study the Bible and early Christians with Strong's tools. Every lesson and audiobook includes discussion questions designed for personal study, families, and church groups. Click on any verse and discover what the early Christians believe.

Build playlists, join discussions, chat with others, and go deeper with guided questions. Donations keep it running, but access and sign-up are free. Visit thehistoricfaith.com. Every passage works together. It's a both-and, not an either-or. Starting the race. We were saved. We truly passed from death to life. We became new creatures. We were set free from Satan's kingdom. We were adopted as children. We were given the Spirit and added to the church. The baby has been born. Now the race must be run.

As soon as we say there are conditions—faith, repentance, baptism—some people assume we are trying to earn our salvation. "For by grace you have been saved through faith," they quote, "and that not of yourselves. This is a gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast." And to that we say, "Amen." Ignatius of Antioch. If He were to reward us according to our works, we would cease to be. Salvation is a gift of God. You can never earn that.

Eternal life, new perfect flawless bodies, a new heaven and earth, a world without sin, no death, no sorrow, no pain, you cannot earn that ever. But a gift can still have conditions of receiving and accepting it without becoming a wage or payment. Years ago, while we were living in China, my father-in-law told us he wanted to buy us a house. At first, we smiled and did nothing. We weren't even sure he was serious. We weren't sure foreigners can even own property.

A month later, he asked, "Did you find the house yet?" That's when we realized he meant it. So we started researching laws about foreigners buying property, how to move money into the country, which banks, which windows, which paperwork to file. We finally bought a place. It took a long time. It was bare concrete. Then we spent another six months renovating it. And at the end, every bit of that money came from my father-in-law. We did not pay for it. We did not deserve it.

It was his generosity from start to finish. But there were still things we had to do to receive that gift. We had to believe he was serious. We had to look for a place and go to the right offices and sign the paperwork and cooperate with the process. And when it was all said and done, we didn't say, "Look what we've earned." We said, "Can you believe this gift he gave us?" The requirement didn't turn that gift into a payment or wages. They were the steps of receiving what he had decided to give us.

Salvation is like that, but infinitely more valuable than a house. We can't pay for it. We can't deserve it. But the God who gives that gift has the right to say how it is to be accepted and received, and how it is to be walked and lived. Right after, "By grace you have been saved," Paul writes, "for we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them." And that's our fruit. We're going to move to fruit here. We are not saved by works.

We are saved for good works, to walk in them. That is the start of the race. We were saved by grace through faith. We were born again at baptism by water and Spirit. And we were created in Christ Jesus for good works, to walk in them. The gun has fired. The race has begun. Running the race, we are being saved. Jesus gives this picture of the race in 1 John 15: "I am the true vine, and my Father is the vine-dresser.

Every branch in me that does not bear fruit, he takes away, and every branch that bears fruit, he prunes, that it may bear more fruit. Abide in me, and I in you, as the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine. Neither can you, unless you abide in me. I am the vine, and you are the branches." Not me, but you know. "He who abides in me, and I in him, bears much fruit. For without me, you can do nothing. If anyone does not abide in me, he is cast out as a branch and is withered.

And they gather them and throw them into the fire, and they are burned." Ignatius, the tree is made manifest by its fruit. Those who profess to be Christians will be recognized by their conduct. Running the race means abiding, staying connected to Christ, letting His word abide in us and bearing fruit, welcoming His pruning so we bear more fruit. Abide, stay connected, keep bearing fruit. Hebrews 12 shows another side: discipline.

"My son, do not despise the chastening of the Lord, nor be discouraged when you are rebuked by him. For whom the Lord loves, he chastens and scourges every son whom he receives. If you endure chastening, God deals with you as with sons. For what son is there whom the Father does not chasten? But if you are without chastening, which all of us have become partakers, then you are illegitimate and not sons. Now, no chastening seems to be joyful for the present, but painful.

Nevertheless, afterwards, it yields a peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it. Discipline is not a sign that God has rejected us. It's proof He accepts us as children and is training us. Running the race means expecting to be pruned as branches, expecting to be chastened as sons, letting that discipline train us into righteousness. Now to the race. Do you not know that those who run in a race run, but only one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may obtain it.

I discipline my body and bring it into subjection, lest when I have preached to others, I myself should be disqualified." He continues that very same thought in the next verse, beginning in chapter 10. There were no chapter divisions back then, where he uses Israel as an example for us. They were all under the cloud. They were all passed through the sea. They were baptized into Moses in the cloud and the sea.

They all ate the same spiritual food and drank the same spiritual drink, for they drank from the spiritual rock that followed them, and that rock was Christ. In other words, they had their own version of what we might call baptism and the Lord's Supper and spiritual blessings. "With most of them, God was not well pleased, for their bodies were scattered in the wilderness. They lusted. They were idolaters. They committed sexual immorality.

They tempted Christ, and they murmured." Paul says, "Now these things became our examples, to the intent that we should not lust after evil things, as they also lusted. Therefore, let him who thinks he stands firm take heed, lest he fall. No temptation has overtaken you, except such as what is common to man. But God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able.

But with the temptation, he will also make the way of escape, that you may be able to bear it." So we have both real warning, "Take heed, lest you fall," real encouragement, "God is faithful, he will give you a way of escape." Cyprian of Carthage, "Not the one who merely begins the race, but he who perseveres unto the end is crowned." The marathon story: starting, stumbling, and finishing. I think of my father-in-law again in this illustration. He is a runner. He runs one to three miles a day.

He's not a professional athlete, but he keeps at it. One day, he randomly decided, "I'm going to run a marathon." He hadn't trained for long distances at all, just his regular short runs. But he signed up anyway. On race day, he started near the back. He ran slowly. He wasn't anywhere near the front of the race. And during that marathon, he decided to do something that sounds almost wrong in a race story. He stopped and got breakfast. Later, he stopped and got lunch. He stopped multiple times. He walked part of it.

He ran part of it. He shuffled through parts of it. I'm sure during those breaks, he was tempted to quit. The race was long. It was hard. It was easier to sit. There were distractions, but he kept going. He kept putting one foot in front of the other. He walked. He jogged. He ate. He rested a bit. And then he started again. In the end, he finished the race. And a lot of people that day did not finish. Some dropped out. Some were taken off the course. Some even had heart attacks.

And he's a heart surgeon, and he actually helped with a heart attack. Now I am in that story. I wish I could say he ran perfectly. He never stopped. And he trained, like Paul says, and beat his body and brought it into subjection. I actually do think he brought it into subjection. For the next week, his toes all started to turn black and his toenails all fell off.

And spiritually, that's what we want to do, not the toenails falling off, to train, to discipline ourselves, and to stay far away from temptations that pull us toward quitting. But I also think this: the key thing is not that he ran beautifully. The key thing was that he didn't quit. He took distractions he shouldn't have taken. He had long pauses where he could have said, "I'm done." But he didn't walk off the course. He stayed in the race and crossed the finish line. In the Christian race, we want to train well.

We want to avoid distractions. We want to beat our bodies, like Paul says, so that we're not disqualified. But when we do stumble or slow down or get distracted, the answer is not to say, "Well, I guess I'm done. I might as well quit." The answer is to take the way of escape God provides, to repent, to get up, to start running again, to stay on the course with God's people, not alone. Salvation is a race in progress. We are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory.

Irenaeus says, "Little by little, we are being trained to receive and bear the presence of God." Ignatius, you are like living stones being built up for God's house, your faith pulling you upward and your love forming the path that leads to God. Irenaeus, the Spirit nourishes and helps us grow while we ourselves make progress day by day moving toward perfection, toward completeness, maturity. Ignatius to Polycarp, keep pressing forward and increase your pace.

Be firm in prayer and ask God to give you even greater understanding than you already have. We don't run this race alone. That brings us to another piece: assurance and community. At baptism, Jesus' blood cleanses our past sins. But when we sin again, and we all do, Scripture in the earliest Christians teach that his blood continues to cleanse us as we walk in his way. The New Testament points us to these ongoing practices through which forgiveness is applied to God's children. Walking the light.

If we walk in the light, the blood of Jesus, his Son, cleanses us from all sin. Confession. If we confess our sins, he is faithful to forgive and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Forgiving others. If you forgive men, your Father in heaven will forgive you. If you do not forgive, neither will your Father. Ongoing repentance. Repent and pray that you may be forgiven. Almsgiving and mercy. Give alms, and everything is clean to you. Love indeed. Love covers a multitude of sins.

These do not replace Christ's blood. They are the way in which we keep in step with him, so that his blood keeps on cleansing us. Past sins are forgiven at birth. Future sins are forgiven as we continue in his way. Walking in the light, confessing, forgiving, repenting, showing mercy, loving, praying, and restoring. Can we have assurance in the middle of the race? People worry. If salvation is a race, if there is a real danger of falling away, then do we have assurance?

Are we just losing it and finding it and losing it again? "Whoever believes in him," they quote, "whoever believes in him shall not perish, but have everlasting life." And we quote it. "I have written these things to you that you believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life." So if you have eternal life now and it's eternal, then you can never lose it, right? That's been brought up to me a bunch.

But the same John who wrote those verses also wrote about abiding in Christ, brothers leaving the faith, love growing cold, and people walking in darkness. Eternal life now, but we must remain in that life. It is true. When we are born of water and Spirit, we truly pass from death to life. We truly begin to share eternal life now. But having eternal life now doesn't mean we can never walk away from that life. Adam and Eve walked away from paradise. Branches in the vine can be cut off when they don't remain.

John's concern in 1 John is not to say, "Once you've had a moment, you're locked in forever." His concern is to show us how we can know we are abiding in Christ right now. John's test of assurance, personal and communal. When John says, "I have written these things so that you may know you have eternal life," what are these things? I would argue it's the whole book of 1 John. He gives us tests, fruits of faith, signs of abiding.

Walking in the light as he is in the light, keeping his commands, walking as Jesus walked, not loving the world or its lust, practicing righteousness and not living in sin, loving indeed and truth and having our hearts assured before him, overcoming the world by faith, keeping ourselves from idols, confess our sins instead of denying we have any, love the brothers over and over.

That's John's version of assurance, not, "Once you've said a prayer, you can never be lost." But if you're walking in the light, keeping his commands, loving the brothers, confessing our sins, overcoming the world by faith, then you may know you have eternal life. And if we see that we've drifted from those things, the solution is not despair. The solution is repent and return, to start running again, to abide again in the life that is eternal.

Assurance is real, but it's a living assurance, rooted in an ongoing relationship of belief that obeys and a love that keeps his commands, in the middle of a community that practices those things together. Fear and chastening. And now I want to speak to the tender conscience, the person who hears all this and feels fear. A lot of our fear comes from here. When we hear John's test, we think, "I haven't run a perfect race. I've stumbled and I've sinned and I've failed.

I know what shuts you out of the kingdom of God, and I've done some of those things. How can I be sure?" I want to suggest this: in one sense, we never have assurance the way some people talk about it. As a cold mathematical certificate, no matter what I do from this point on, no matter how I live, heaven is guaranteed. The New Testament nor the early Christians ever talked that way. In another sense, we do have a very real living assurance. And strangely, part of that comes through our fear.

Think about where that fear comes from. It comes from a heart that actually wants to please the Lord. It comes from knowing God's warning and not wanting to be excluded from his kingdom. It comes from grieving over our sins instead of making peace with them. The people in Romans 1, the one God gives over, don't wrestle like that. They suppress the truth and unrighteousness. God gives them over to their desires. They are not trembling at his word. They are not afraid of missing his kingdom.

They are proud of their sins. So when you feel that godly fear, when you're troubled over your sins, when you worry, "Lord, I don't want to be cast away," that is often not a sign that you're outside the race. It's a sign that you're still in it and God is disciplining you. "Whom the Lord loves, he chastens. If you endure chastening, God deals with you as with sons.

If you are without chastening, you are illegitimate and not sons." Our trembling, our sorrow over sin, our refusal to make peace with disobedience, those are signs of God's chastening love. So I'd say it like this: we never have assurance in the sense that I can stop caring. No matter what I do, it's guaranteed. But we always have assurance as long as we are feeling his correction, responding to his discipline, caring about his commands, repenting when we fall, refusing to make peace with sin.

That fear is not your enemy. It's part of how God keeps you in the race and shows you you haven't been abandoned or given over. Now we can see why the Bible speaks of both falling away and of assurance. If we stay on the way, keep believing, keep obeying, keep abiding, keep loving, we are saved and being saved and will be saved. If we leave the way, harden our hearts, cling to lawlessness, refuse correction, then by our own actions we deny him. Finishing in the race. We will be saved. Now the finish.

Scripture points us to a future completion. Christ will appear a second time to bring salvation to those who are waiting to him. There is a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. He who endures to the end will be saved. God has appointed us to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ. We eagerly await a Savior who will transform our lowly bodies to be like his glorious body. We wait eagerly for the redemption of our bodies. Resurrection of the body. New heavens and new earth.

No sin, no death, no pain, no sorrow. Full adoption, full glorification, full conformity to Christ, reigning with him forever. In that final day, we could truly say in the fullest, "Once saved, always saved." The race will be over. There will be no more danger, no more falling away, just eternal joy. Right now we live in the already not yet. We were saved. We are being saved. And we will be saved if we endure to the end. I'm going to take one minute to summarize, bringing it all together. We were saved.

We believed. We repented. We were born of water and the Spirit at baptism. Our past sins were forgiven. We were cleansed, adopted, delivered from Satan, given the Spirit, and added to the church. We are being saved. We abide in Christ, the vine. We are pruned and disciplined so we bear more fruit. We work out our salvation while God works in us. We put off the old man and put on the new. We are being transformed from glory to glory.

We add to our faith virtue, knowledge, self-control, perseverance, godliness, and brotherly kindness and love. We love the brothers, walk in the light, confess our sins, overcome the world by faith, and run together as a community. If we finish the race, if we endure to the end, if we keep believing, keep abiding, keep loving, keep obeying until we see him face to face, salvation is a gift we can never earn, but it is also a race we must run.

As long as we are on the way, following the way of Christ, the danger is not that we might misplace salvation like car keys. The danger is that we might leave the way, let unbelief and disobedience take over, and refuse discipline. The call is simple. Stay on the way. Keep running the race set before you, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith. One race, one way. We begin it, we run it, and we finish it.