Part 1 – Eternal Life and Eternal Security Defined

This Article is part of a multi-part Study Series called The Believers Eternal Security.

We believe that ‘All of the ‘saved’ are eternally secure in Christ’ (Col. 3:1-4; Phil. 1:6; Rom. 8:1; 8:29-34; Rom. 8:38, 39; John 10:27-29; Eph. 1:13-14). ‘To have eternal life is to have eternal security.’ A life or security which may end is a temporal life or temporal security.

It is a contradiction in terms to speak of eternal life coming to an end. Nobody who will finally be cast into the second death has ever had genuine “eternal life.” The word eternal doubtless refers to a quality of existence, but it is an existence which is everlasting, unending.

Why This Truth Is Opposed?

If the Bible plainly declares that God gives to those whom He saves the free “gift” of eternal life (Rom. 6:23, Eph 2:8), why is it then that many professing Christians do not believe this truth, and that some even call it a damnable heresy from the pit of hell?

Many reasons and explanations might be given, but we believe that the basic and underlying cause for this strange situation is the failure of the great majority of Christians to recognize the distinctive and unique revelation contained in the Pauline epistles. This is not to say that eternal life and eternal security are to be found only in Paul’s writings; for both the Gospel and the Epistles of John are also outstanding in this respect, but it is only as we come into “the dispensation of the grace of God,” (Eph. 3:2) as given to Paul to explain what God in Christ did at Calvary and what He by the Holy Spirit does when the sinner believes the gospel, that we can understand how God can give eternal life to a sinner who is personally undeserving of it both before and after he is saved. The truth of eternal life is not in any sense of the word a unique part of Paul’s “revelation of the mystery,” however it is in “the revelation of the mystery [the secret]” that we find the secret of the gospel given, apart from which… we could never fully understand how God could bestow eternal life wholly APART FROM the principle of man’s own good works and merits.

Two Ways of Approach to God

Paul himself explains the two distinct and opposite principles upon which man may approach God and by which eternal life might conceivably be granted.

  1. In Romans 2:6-7 he sets forth the “works” way: “[God] Who will render to every man according to his deeds: to them who by patient continuance in well doing seek for glory and honor and immortality, eternal life.” This is the “works” way of the justice of God.
  2. But Paul as “the Apostle to the Gentiles” (Romans 11:13) shows in the next chapter of Romans that as a matter of fact and experience ‘there is not one who is seeking after God or who is doing good.’ Therefore, this fact rules out any possibility of any man obtaining eternal life upon the basis of works. If any man ever gets eternal life, it must be upon an entirely different basis. It must come as a matter of free grace as a free gifttotally unearned. And that is exactly what Paul declares: the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” This “gift” way is the only way of obtaining eternal life: it is the grace way -- the faith alone way. These two ways are referred to again by Paul in Rom. 4:4-5:

“Now to him that worketh [for salvation] is the reward not reckoned of grace but of debt. But to him that worketh NOT, but BELIEVETH on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness.”

Thankfully Paul declared this fact for this age of “the grace of God.”

“And if by grace, then is it no more of works: otherwise grace is no more grace. But if it be of works, then is it no more grace: otherwise work is no more work. Romans 11:6 (KJV)

  1. In approaching God on the “works” principle, it is evident that one would have to come to the end of life and have all of his works finished before he could know the outcome, before he could know whether he merited eternal life. There could be no sense in which such a person could possess eternal life until his works were all judged. Thus, he has NO eternal security.
  2. But on the other principle, in the “grace” way, God can and does bestow eternal life upon the believer immediately, and that is exactly what the Scripture affirms. We have (present tense) eternal life. And since it has been given as a FREE GIFT OF GOD’S GRACE, neither its reception nor its continued possession depends in any sense upon man’s merit. If it depends in any degree whatsoever upon man’s merit, then God could not give it until man’s merit had been completely tested and approved; for we have already seen that it is eternal in character and that it would be a contradiction on God’s part to give something eternal which would later prove to be temporal.

“And if by grace, then is it no more of works: otherwise grace is no more grace. But if it be of works, then is it no more grace: otherwise work is no more work. Romans 11:6 (KJV)