HOW GOD KEEPS US FOREVER HIS
Posted by Pastor Greg Allen on July 19, 2020 under 2020 |
Bethany Bible Church Sunday Message; July 19, 2020 from 2 Corinthians 1:21-22
Theme: The God who has saved us for Himself has also provided for our safekeeping in salvation.
(All Scripture is taken from The New King James Version, unless otherwise indicated).
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And that’s particularly true in this morning’s passage. It’s only two relatively short verses. But what’s told to us in those two short verses is enormously precious and important. They tell us of what the Father has done to assure us that all of the promises He has made toward us in Christ will be fully kept. And though they are a part of the context of what Paul was saying in the whole of 2 Corinthians 1, these two verses actually stand alone in the wonderful and edifying truth that they declare to us.
In 2 Corinthians 1:21-22, Paul the apostle wrote;
Now He who establishes us with you in Christ and has anointed us is God, who also has sealed us and given us the Spirit in our hearts as a guarantee (vv. 21-22).
Here, we find a four-fold assurance from God that we are kept for the completion of all His promises to us in Christ. He Himself is establishing us in this salvation; and has anointed us, has sealed us, and has given us the guarantee of its full completion.
And whatever God secures will be fully kept.
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Now; this touches on a precious doctrine of the Christian faith. And that’s the doctrine of the security of the believer. The idea of the security of the believer is simply that the believer—once saved—is forever kept secure in that salvation by God Himself.
People sometimes have a difficult struggle with the whole idea of the security of the believer. They often think that it is presumptuous to think that you can be saved and never be lost. They think of it as claiming too great a thing for one’s self. But it seems to me that people who think that way are often thinking that salvation is—somehow—ultimately dependent upon the efforts of the person being saved. And of course, if salvation were in any way dependent upon ourselves, then there would be unlimited reasons for us to be insecure about it. I may have done something that could bring me into a state of salvation at one point; but then, I may do countless other things afterward that would cause me to lose my salvation.
It’s important to remember that our salvation is only as secure as that upon which it is based. If it is based, in any way, upon my works or upon my worth or upon my faithfulness, then I could never be secure about it. I’m just too fallible. But if my salvation is based on the work of Someone who can never fail—if it is based on the work of God the Father—then it is as secure as the Father Himself.
And these two short verses remind us that while it is true that we are saved by God’s grace through our faith in Jesus, it is the Father who gives us that faith to believe, and who keeps us in that salvation by His grace all the way to its completion. As the apostle Paul has told us in Ephesians 2:4-9;
But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast (Ephesians 2:4-9).
In the mystery of God’s grace, it is He who gave us the faith to believe unto salvation. And having saved us by grace through the faith He gives us, it is then He who preserves us and keeps us in that saved condition all the way to its completion in glory. As the apostle Peter has put it in 1 Peter 1:3-5;
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His abundant mercy has begotten us again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled and that does not fade away, reserved in heaven for you, who are kept by the power of God through faith for salvation ready to be revealed in the last time (1 Peter 1:3-5).
And let me tell you, dear brothers and sisters in Christ; this truth comes home to me—in a very personal and precious way—during those times when I most feel like a failure in the Christian life. I certainly don’t ever want to take the doctrine of my security in Christ and misuse it—as if it gives me permission to sin without fear of consequence. That’s what some people believe that embracing the doctrine of ‘security’ will eventually lead to. But with me, it’s the opposite! When I feel the pain of my sin the most—and at those times when I feel the most unworthy of my Father’s love—it’s then that this precious truth supports me; and I rejoice the most in the fact that God the Father loves me in Christ and will never let me go. And because I am assured that I am safe and secure in Christ, I am motivated to rise up from my failures, and increasingly leave my sins behind me, and go forward to follow Jesus more devotedly every day.
So; these two verses give us a great and glorious confidence. They remind us that the God who has saved us for Himself has also provided for our safekeeping in that salvation. We cannot ultimately fail to be glorified with Christ forever; because our destiny is in the safekeeping of the mighty God who Himself cannot fail.
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Now; let’s look closer at these two verses in a bit more detail. First, we see that …
1. THE SOURCE OF OUR SAFEKEEPING IS GOD HIMSELF.
Paul wrote; “Now He who establishes us with you in Christ and has anointed us is God, who also has sealed us and given us the Spirit in our hearts as a guarantee.” And if you pay careful attention to these two verses, you can see that God is identified as the one acting on our behalf throughout everything that is said in them.
Grammatically, this passage contains four ‘participles’. Participles, in this case, are verbs that are functioning as nouns. And each one of them has God as the object. He is the one who is “establishing” us in Christ, and who has “anointed” us, and who has “sealed” us, and who has “given” us the guarantee. So; throughout these two verses, we’re being told that it is God the Father who is doing the action. And He never fails in whatever He undertakes and maintains.
But another wonderful thing to notice from these two verses is that the whole triune Godhead is involved. The Father has established us in Christ His Son; and has anointed us, sealed us, and has given us the Holy Spirit as our guarantee. Every member of the Trinity—the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit—is involved in securing us in our salvation.
When I read this, it reminds me of the amazing thing that the apostle Paul wrote to us in Ephesians 1. In that passage, he described the wonders of our salvation—and he explained how every Person in the Trinity has a part to play in it. In Ephesians 1:3-6, he told us first of the Father’s role:
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love, having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, by which He made us accepted in the Beloved (Ephesians 1:3-6).
It’s the role of the Father to choose us and predestine us for salvation in the Son—and all to the praise of His glory. And so, Paul then went on in verses 7-12 to tell us about the part that Jesus the Son plays in our salvation;
In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace which He made to abound toward us in all wisdom and prudence, having made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His good pleasure which He purposed in Himself, that in the dispensation of the fullness of the times He might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on earth—in Him. In Him also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestined according to the purpose of Him who works all things according to the counsel of His will, that we who first trusted in Christ should be to the praise of His glory (vv. 7-12).
It’s the role of the Son of God to redeem us with His blood, and to be the one in whom the Father gives us an eternal inheritance—and all to the praise of His glory. And finally, in verses 13-14, we’re told about the role that the Holy Spirit plays in securing us in Christ;
In Him you also trusted, after you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation; in whom also, having believed, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, to the praise of His glory (vv. 13-14).
Again; it is all to the praise of God’s glory. So; all three Persons of the Trinity are involved in securing our salvation. Paul mentioned all three Persons in our two verses this morning. How can our salvation fail?
And I love how Paul affirmed that this security is the blessing of all who are in Christ. There is not one of us in Christ who is more secure than another. Paul was writing on behalf of himself and Silvanus and Timothy—the three missionaries that first brought the gospel to the Corinthians. But the Corinthian believers were as secure in this salvation as they were. As Paul puts it in verse 25, “ Now He who establishes us with you in Christ … is God …”
Now; all of this is to say that our salvation is as secure as the one upon whom that salvation is based. If our salvation is based—not on ourselves—but on God, then it cannot be anything but completely and eternally secure!
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But these two verses tell us more. They not only tell us that God Himself is the one who secures us in our salvation; but also that …
2. HE PROVIDES FOR THAT SAFEKEEPING IN A FOUR-FOLD WAY.
First, we’re told that it is God the Father who establishes us in it. The idea here is that we are put into this saved condition in Christ and are permanently grounded in it so that we cannot possibly be removed from it.
It is God who does this for us—not ourselves. We cannot establish ourselves into a saved condition before God. Only God Himself can do that. And He does it permanently. We no longer have to worry or fret over whether or not we are saved. We are ‘established’ in a saved condition; so that we are now free to rise up and confidently live as people who are completely fixed-in and settled into a destiny of full redemption and future glory. We are definitely going to be glorified forever in Christ! The apostle Paul put it this way in Colossians 2:6-7;
As you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him, rooted and built up in Him and established in the faith, as you have been taught, abounding in it with thanksgiving (Colossians 2:6-7).
The way that Paul used this word in the original language suggests that our ‘establishment’ in Christ was not just a thing that happened in the past. It’s something that is ongoing. He ongoingly ‘establishes’ us in Christ. This is how Paul put it in 1 Corinthians 1:6-8. He used this same Greek word (here translated ‘confirmed’); and wrote;
… even as the testimony of Christ was confirmed in you, so that you come short in no gift, eagerly waiting for the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ, who will also confirm you to the end, that you may be blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. God is faithful, by whom you were called into the fellowship of His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord (1 Corinthians 1:6-8).
So even when we fail and fall and stumble in our walk with Jesus—even when we have those times when we feel completely unworthy—our Father in heaven, who has established us in Christ, ongoingly maintains that confirmation. He assures us again and again that we have been destined for glory in Christ; and we will not fail to be there.
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Another provision God makes for our safekeeping in salvation is that He anoints us.
Think back to the Old Testament. When an anointing happened—when the sacred oil of anointing was poured out on someone or something—it was a way of setting that person or thing apart for God’s special purpose. The priests of the tabernacle were anointed. The articles of the tabernacle itself were anointed. Kings over Israel were anointed. It was not something that had to be done over and over. It only needed to be done once. And once it was done, that person or thing was forever set aside as sanctified and set-apart unto God. An anointing was not revoked.
One great picture we have of ‘anointing’ is that of Jesus Himself. The Holy Spirit came upon Him at His baptism; and that was God’s public act of setting His Son apart in such a way that the whole world could see. Later on, He quoted the Old Testament about Himself and said;
“The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me,
Because He has anointed Me
To preach the gospel to the poor;
He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted,
To proclaim liberty to the captives
And recovery of sight to the blind,
To set at liberty those who are oppressed;
To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord” (Luke 4:18-19).
And the same Holy Spirit has come upon you and me. We are told of the Holy Spirit’s anointing upon the gathered believers in Acts 2; when, at Pentecost, He came and empowered His people to be the witnesses of Jesus. And now, the Holy Spirit comes upon and abides in every one of us who belong to Jesus—so that we are forever set apart for Himself. In Romans 8:9-11, Paul put it this way;
But you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. Now if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not His. And if Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin, but the Spirit is life because of righteousness. But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you (Romans 8:9-11).
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ; we are permanently anointed unto God by the Holy Spirit—set apart forever by Him for eternal glory on the very day that we believed on Him. Whoever God the Father sets apart for heavenly glory unto Himself cannot possibly fail to be there!
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A third way that God secures our safekeeping is in that He seals us.
The idea of a ‘seal’, in this case, is that of a distinguishing mark or branding that establishes ownership. I used to have an ‘embossing seal’ for books. I would take the first page of a book that I wanted to ‘seal’ as belonging to me and ‘emboss’ it with this seal. It’s mine! Be sure to return it! (I’m that way with books, you know.) And similarly, God sets His ‘seal’ upon us that marks us forever as His.
What is our ‘seal’ from God? Once again, it’s the Person of the Holy Spirit who has taken up permanent residence in us. We received Him as God’s seal upon us the moment we placed our faith in Jesus. We’ve already seen this in Ephesians 1:13; where we’re told that, “having believed, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise.”
And do you know a wonderful thing about this? Even when we fail, God does not take away His seal. In Ephesians 4:29-30, we’re told;
Let no corrupt word proceed out of your mouth, but what is good for necessary edification, that it may impart grace to the hearers. And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption (Ephesians 4:29-30).
The Holy Spirit is a divine Person. And when we sin against Him, we grieve Him. But even when He is grieved, He does not depart from us. He remains upon us as the seal of God for the day of redemption. And He also helps us to rise up and live like what we are. Our bearing the seal of eternal redemption in Christ means that we cannot fail to be with Him in eternal glory.
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And finally, we see that another way that God secures us for safekeeping in His salvation is by the fact that He gives us the guarantee of it. Once again, this ‘guarantee’ is the Holy Spirit Himself.
A ‘guarantee’, in this case, is an idea that is taken from the world of the marketplace. When something wants to buy something, they might make a ‘down-payment’. It’s a portion of the total price that is meant to serve as a promise of the payment of the whole thing. And that’s what is being told to us in this verse. The Holy Spirit is given to us—taking up residence in our hearts—as a down-payment of the whole of salvation. He is a guarantee to us that we will be fully redeemed and will stand fully glorified before God the Father at the return of Jesus His Son.
There’s a sense in which the Holy Spirit does this in what we might call a ‘subjective’ way—that is, as a personal witness-bearer to us. He speaks to our hearts and assures us that we belong to the Father and will never be lost to Him. Paul wrote about this in Romans 8:15-17; when he said,
For you did not receive the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption by whom we cry out, “Abba, Father.” The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him, that we may also be glorified together (Romans 8:15-17).
But there’s also a sense in which the Holy Spirit does this in an ‘objective’ way—that is, by being something like a ‘promissory note’ upon us of our future glorification. Paul mentions this idea in 2 Corinthians 5:1-5;
For we know that if our earthly house, this tent, is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For in this we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed with our habitation which is from heaven, if indeed, having been clothed, we shall not be found naked. For we who are in this tent groan, being burdened, not because we want to be unclothed, but further clothed, that mortality may be swallowed up by life. Now He who has prepared us for this very thing is God, who also has given us the Spirit as a guarantee (2 Corinthians 5:1-5).
So; God has given us the Holy Spirit to dwell in our innermost being, and to serve as His guarantee that we will be fully glorified in Christ. How then can our salvation fail to be secure?
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Now; let me share with you how I have learned to apply these two verses to my own personal experience. At those times when I fail—when I stumble into sin, or fall short of God’s standards, or find myself dejected and sorrowful and feeling overwhelmingly unworthy of God’s love—I remember that it is God who has secured my salvation for me. I am not the basis of the security of my own salvation. He alone is.
And then, I take inventory. He has established me—and is ongoingly confirming me—in His saving grace through Jesus Christ. He has also anointed me and set me apart for salvation, and has sealed me and marked me as His own, and He has given me the guarantee of the presence of the Holy Spirit as a promise of future glorification.
And then, my heart is lifted up. My salvation cannot fail; because He Himself cannot fail. We who have placed our faith in Jesus can rest assured that
He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ (Philippians 1:6).
Click HERE for the live-stream archive of this sermon.
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EA
