I CANNOT receive your doctrine, sir, that all who are once saved can never be lost, I once felt happy myself, but it is all gone now.”
So said a farmer’s wife to me, when speaking of God’s salvation.
“What made you feel happy?” I asked.
“Some years since I was in deep distress of soul, seeking rest here and there, troubled about my lost condition, when one night, as distinctly as though someone was speaking to me, I heard the Lord say, ‘Daughter, thy sins are forgiven’; but I have lost everything now, it is all gone, my peace has fled.”
I immediately turned to two little girls, who were listening to their mother, and asked, “Are these your daughters?”
“Oh, yes, they are mine.”
“Were they always your daughters?”
“Of course they were.”
“Will they always be your daughters?”
“Certainly they will,” she replied, looking at me as though I were very stupid to ask such questions.
“Listen,” I said; “what did you hear the Lord say to you?”
“Daughter―”
“Did He say ‘Daughter’? If you were a daughter then you are a daughter now, for the relationship of a parent to a child can never be broken,”
Dear reader, are you in the difficulty in which I found the farmer’s wife? Will you look at a few plain scriptures, which prove, beyond a question, that a person once truly believing, can never be lost, but is a child of God forever?
“As many as received Him (Jesus), to them gave He power (or the right, title, or privilege) to become the sons (rather children) of God” (John 1:1212But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name: (John 1:12)).
The Word of God says, “The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God” (Rom. 8:1616The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God: (Romans 8:16)). Being children, the Spirit of God takes possession of our hearts, giving us the conscious relationship of children.
If a believer sins, he is dealt with as a child of God, by the Father, but he never ceases to be a child.
We read in Hebrews 12. how God the Father deals with His erring children for the sixth verse tells us that “whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom He receiveth”; and in the seventh,” if ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sans; for what son is he whom the father chasteneth not?”
Doubting Christian, will you not accredit the love of God? “Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons (children) of God. Beloved, now are we the sons (children) of God, and it (loth not yet appear― (is not yet fully manifested)―what we shall be; but we know that, when He shall appear, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is.” (1 John 3:1, 21Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God: therefore the world knoweth us not, because it knew him not. 2Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is. (1 John 3:1‑2).)
Nothing can be more distinct, emphatic, and clear, than that the gift of God is eternal life,” and to doubt or question this is to deny the recorded words of God, for” this is the record that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in His Son,” and the special purpose of the Spirit of God in writing thus is, that those who believe on the name of the Son of God should know that they have eternal life. (1 John 5:1313These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God; that ye may know that ye have eternal life, and that ye may believe on the name of the Son of God. (1 John 5:13).)
Mark, it is ours, not to doubt, or fear, or hope, but to know with assurance. H. N.