Summary: When you trust Jesus Christ as your Savior, God gives you a new nature (aka “heart” or inner spirit) and He comes to live in you, thereby joining His life to you (1 Corinthians 6:17). You receive both the gift of righteousness (Romans 5:17) and the gift of eternal life (1 John 5:11,12a), thereby making you secure forever.
Is the doctrine of "once saved, always saved" a Biblical teaching or a lie from hell? The idea of unconditional eternal security is an affront to many people because they believe it gives "license to sin" and it allows people to do nothing for the Lord and still go to heaven. They believe that a holy God could never allow someone to go around sinning as much as they want and still go to heaven. John 1:1
The two key concepts to understanding whether eternal security is true of not are …
1. What it means to be saved, and
2. The inner “man” and outer “man”
What is "Salvation"
Those who reject eternal security view “salvation” and the forgiveness of sins as being the same thing. Therefore, a person who keeps sinning obviously cannot be saved. But, this point of view has a questionable foundation: it says if you commit many or grievous sins, you probably are not a believer but if you only commit occasional or minor sins, you can confess them and get back into “fellowship” with God.
What is missing here is the requirement that you must be fully righteous to be in the family of God. Under the Old Covenant Law, you would have had to keep the entire Law all your life to be declared righteous before God. Only Jesus Christ did this. So, confessing infrequent or minor sins will not result in you being declared righteous as there is no Biblical basis for getting back into fellowship with God.
Salvation is not having your sins forgiven; rather, it is when God comes to live in the born again heart of those who trust in Jesus Christ as their Savior. The Bible teaches very clearly that the sins of all people for all time were forgiven on the Cross of Jesus Christ (2 Corinthians 5:19; Mark 3:28; Hebrews 9:26b) because without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness (Hebrews 9:22b); this happened only one time on the Cross of Christ. God forgave your sins because of Christ Jesus, not your response to it.
Inner and Outer “Man”
To understand whether eternal security is true or not, you also must recognize the distinction between your inner “man” and the outer “man.” This truth is rarely taught but the Bible is quite clear. You have an inner spirit and an outer mortal body.
2 Corinthians 4:16 Therefore we do not lose heart, but though our outer man is decaying, yet our inner man is being renewed day by day.
There is something quite different going on between your inner and outer person; your body is growing old and will die, while your spirit, your inner “man,” is getting better in some way.
Another verse makes the same distinction …
Romans 8:10 and if Christ is in you, though the body is dead because of sin, yet the spirit is alive because of righteousness.
It says that your body is dead but your spirit is alive. It is the epic issue of sin versus righteousness.
The Inner "Man"
Whereas your response was not a factor in forgiveness, it is essential when it comes to eternal life. Only when you trust Jesus Christ as your Savior does God remove your old sinful nature (Romans 6:6) and replace it with a brand new, clean heart indwelled by the Holy Spirit (Ezekiel 11:19; Ezekiel 36:26). God joins His righteous and eternal life to you. You are now in the family of God, having been transferred into the kingdom of Jesus Christ (Colossians 1:13).
The second half of that same verse in Romans shows that you are righteous in you inner spirit.
Romans 8:10 and if Christ is in you, …, yet the spirit is alive because of righteousness (because your inner man has been redeemed and made righteous).
God gives you what is required to realize eternal life, the gift of righteousness (Romans 5:17). You are righteous because Jesus Christ lives in you. Nothing can ever change that. There is no verse in the Bible that remotely supports the notion that Jesus can come to live in you and then leave (Romans 8:1).
The Outer "Man"
Your mortal body, however, has not yet been redeemed or made righteous; it awaits a future redemption (Romans 8:23b). This is the reason you can still sin in your mortal flesh, and this is the reason many are opposed to unconditional eternal security. They are looking at the outward behavior instead of the inner spirit. The Apostle Paul addresses this specific issue.
Romans 6:1-2 What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin so that grace may increase? [2] May it never be! How can we who died to sin still live in it?
You died to sin when God removed your old sinful nature; your new nature is righteous because Christ lives in you. Yet, you still live in a mortal body that can still sin. Grace scares people because you cannot out-sin grace. Those who abuse grace in this way most likely have never been taught about our inner and outer person.
You have a mortal body incapable of being righteous. This is the very reason we live by faith. Faith is letting Jesus live His righteous life in us and through us (Galatians 2:20). When we don't live by faith but rather try to live by our own human strength, we are at risk of sinning because our "flesh" (mortal body and human mind) doesn't have the power to be righteous.
Your born again heart is the real, eternal you, not your mortal body; your physical body is your temporary "house" (2 Corinthians 5:2,4) that will one day see decay. So, even though you can sin in your mortal body, your inner spirit remains holy because of the indwelling presence of Jesus Christ.
This might help: consider what will happen when you die. Your body will go to the grave because it has not yet been redeemed; but, your spirit will remain joined as one to the Lord forever (2 Corinthians 5:8).
Jesus is Your Eternal Security
Maybe the best way to understand eternal security is to understand that Jesus alone possesses eternal life. Jesus Christ is Eternal Life.
1 John 1:2 and the life was manifested, and we have seen and testify and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was manifested to us-
1 John 5:11 and the testimony is this, that God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son.
The Bible specifically states that if you have Jesus, you have eternal life; if you are not born again you do not have eternal life.
1 John 5:12 He who has the Son has the life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have the life.
Therefore, once you know that Jesus Christ lives in your born again heart (Colossians 1:27; Colossians 3:3), and that Jesus is the life, the answer to the question of eternal security is clear. Eternal security is indeed a wonderful promise of God.
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