Eternal Security

The Truth About Eternal Forgiveness

It is the teaching of Calvary Baptist Church of Pilot Point, Texas, and the teaching of all Southern Baptist Convention churches all over the world, that the forgiveness that Jesus gives is eternal forgiveness and the believer is eternally secure in Christ Jesus.

1. The Lord Jesus, through His Word the Bible, offers all persons His free gift of faith in His free gift of eternal forgiveness through His atoning death on the cross of Calvary. Jesus chose to die on the cross to pay the penalty in full for our eternal, complete forgiveness. If a person will trust Jesus to forgive them for all of their past, present and future sins, surrender to Jesus as Lord God, through faith, believe that he or she will be eternally forgiven and eternally accepted as a child of God, the person can then pray to receive God's gift of eternal forgiveness and eternal life in heaven. The Spirit of Jesus comes into the heart of the person and he or she is connected with God forever and knows Jesus as Savior, God and Friend in a personal relationship forever. The Lord promises that once we are born again with His Spirit in our heart, He will never leave us, He will love us forever as His child, we have received His free gift of eternal forgiveness and nothing can take away His forgiveness. Eternal life is eternal forgiveness from God which means that when we asked Jesus to forgive us, that forgiveness began and that forgiveness will never end. 

Look up these scriptures in your Bible and read them out loud:

The great evidence: John 3:16; John 6:29 & 37; John 10:28; Romans 8:33-39; Galatians 4:6; Ephesians 1:13-14; Ephesians 2:8-9; 2 Thessalonians 2:16; 2 Timothy 1:12; Hebrews 5:9; Hebrews 9:12; Hebrews 13:5.

Memorize the above scriptures, one at a time, in order that the Spirit of Jesus can use them to strengthen your faith and to strengthen the faith of others. 

2. The many false churches that teach that one can sin too much and lose forgiveness do not understand and/or believe the above scripture passages. These false churches mistranslate the Bible and are used by the evil one to lead many to believe a works salvation (i.e., forgiveness accomplished by being religious). The Bible is very plain that religion cannot save and good works cannot help you get to heaven (Ephesians 2:8-9; Matthew 7:21-23; John 6:29). People who believe one can lose salvation actually oppose God and His Word; they oppose the Words of Jesus (John 6:29); they oppose true Biblical grace salvation as clearly revealed in Ephesians 2:8-9; they influence many to miss knowing Jesus, miss receiving the eternal forgiveness of Jesus and miss going to heaven. If there was a chance God would take away our forgiveness, He would be fair and warn us about what sin or sins would forfeit forgiveness; God would warn us and explain how many sins would be grounds for taking away forgiveness.

The truth is...God does not tell us anywhere in the Bible that He will take away our forgivess; as a matter of fact, God tells us just the opposite! God tells us plainly that He will never take away our forgiveness for any reason! The above scripture passages 100% confirm these truths.  

3. It is important that you understand the true meaning of scripture. The scripture passages that people try to use to try to prove that a person can lose forgiveness actually refer to people who never received forgiveness, thus they were never truly born again. Baptists proclaim the truth once saved, always saved...if saved. If a person is truly born again, the person will show evidence that he or she belongs to Christ. 

On the other hand, a person can seem to be a Christian, act very religious, seem loving and kind, minister in the name of Jesus and even share much knowledge about the Bible, but Jesus said that many of them are "wolves in sheep clothing." Matthew 7:15-23.

How do we know who is a true Christian? Jesus said we will know them by their fruit. What is the fruit that proves they are born again? The true born again Christian will teach others the truth about eternal forgiveness and how to be saved! To read what a person must believe to be saved go to http://www.calvarypilotpoint.com/HowToBecomeAChristian

Many unbelievers have tasted the goodness of God and His blessings but finally fell away forever, never became born again, chose to reject Jesus and His gift of eternal forgiveness (Hebrews 6:4-6). Our Lord Jesus used the parable of the prodigal son (Luke 15:11-32) to show us that a true son is always a son, and even a true son of God can be a prodigal for a period of time. The prodigal son, while involved in sin, looked like a lost person but was still a true son of the father. This is why only God can judge if a person is truly saved or not.

The thief on the cross is excellent evidence that a person can be forgiven forever without ever doing even one good work (Luke 23:42-43). The thief did become a born again child of God, and if he had continued to live on earth, he would have shown fruit, the good works of God, because the Spirit of Jesus lived through him. We cannot help but do good works as Christians because Jesus lives through us each day. We choose to do good works because we love Jesus, we want to glorify Him, we want to love and bless others, we want to free the Spirit of Jesus to live through us to change lives and bring others closer to Him, we want to mentor others in the ways of God, teach truth so they can teach others, and, the great bonus is, that we receive reward in heaven for all we do for Jesus representing Him to others. We do not do good works so we can go to heaven because we know God's Word says good works cannot help you go to heaven. Ephesians 2:8-9.

4. Some persons have asked, "If we are forgiven forever, then why did Jesus say we need to ask God to forgive us every day?" Mark 6:12. The answer is, we do not ask Jesus to forgive us every day so we can go to heaven. We are already forgiven forever and going to heaven.

We ask Jesus to forgive us everyday:

a. to confess to Jesus that our sin is wrong;

b. to ask Jesus to empower us to overcome that specific sin;

c. to restore our close relationship with Jesus.

We received "positional forgiveness" when we first ask Jesus to forgive us forever and take control of our lives. We become positionally an eternal child of God, forgiven forever. We receive "relational forgiveness" when we ask Jesus to forgive us each day; we once again restore our close relationship with Jesus.

When we were kids and we disobeyed our Dad, we didn't go to Dad and say, "I am very sorry I disobeyed you. Will you please be my Dad again?" NO!!! We knew our Dad loved us unconditionally and would always be our Dad! We asked for "relational forgiveness." We were trying to say, "Dad, I'm so sorry I messed up again and disobeyed you. Will you forgive my mistake and not remain angry at me? Can we be close in our relationship again? Will you love me like I never did it?" Then soon afterward, the relationship was restored and Dad was having fun with you again like you had never sinned. I hope you had a loving Christian Dad that forgave you like that. Our earthly father was supposed to love us unconditionally, punish our sin justly (to show sin always has consequences), forgive us completely and then love us like we had never sinned. No earthly father can love us perfectly like our heavenly Father does.

Our heavenly Father loves us so much more than any earthly Dad could. Jesus desires that you include Him in your life, restore your relationship with Him daily, trust in His unconditional love for you and allow Him to have fun with you every day as He is freed to live through you to love and bless others and give you joy in life as you serve Him.

The Lord's forgiveness is like His Love: unconditional.

THIS IS THE GOOD NEWS: GOD'S LOVE AND HIS FORGIVENESS NEVER ENDS AND NEVER CHANGES!!! 

Pass on this good news so others can know Jesus, His eternal forgiveness, His joy in living, His abundant life, be saved from hell and go to heaven when they die!

To understand how you can know for sure you were born again, click on www.calvarypilotpoint.com/HowcanIbesureIamgoingtoheaven.dsp

To understand reasons people doubt their salvation go to www.calvarypilotpoint.com/WhydoIdoubtmysalvation.dsp  

Allow Jesus to speak His Words of Love to you. After you click on this website, click on the word "WATCH," make the picture on your computer full screen and you will be richly blessed as you watch and listen: www.fathersloveletter.com

To understand how to grow spiritually strong and mature click on

www.calvarypilotpoint.com/HowToGrow.dsp

If you need further counsel, please call the church office at 940-686-2274 or email the pastor at calvarypilotpoint@yahoo.com