Can We Lose Our Salvation? Part Three..

Our Condition: Set Apart

Being set apart means essentially that you have been picked up from your original place and set in a new place. It has to do with being chosen, being selected and singled out from among others. In Scripture, being set apart is always for a purpose (Acts 13:2; Romans 1:1; Galatians 1:15; 2 Timothy 2:21). Being set apart is not just a vague concept about our position. It is an emphatic statement from God Himself. God is saying I have picked you up out of your former state; I have placed you for my purposes; I have chosen you for a task; I have formed you for a new existence. In being set apart, we are both declared holy and prepared for proving it. That is where the purpose comes in: we are set apart for good works and righteousness. God’s purpose in setting us apart will endure to the end.

Our Condition: Clothed in Righteousness

I will greatly rejoice in the Lord;

my soul shall exult in my God,

for he has clothed me with the garments of salvation;

he has covered me with the robe of righteousness,

as a bridegroom decks himself like a priest with a beautiful headdress,

and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels. (Isaiah 61:10)

Christ Jesus declares in Matthew 5:20 that our righteousness must exceed that of the scribes and Pharisees. We might ask ourselves how this is possible, and come to the swift conclusion that it is not. Or, perhaps you might be persuaded that you are indeed more righteous than Pharisees. Be aware of your pride in evaluating yourself as better than self-righteous sinners. We cannot be righteous by our own power. All our righteousness, as it says in Isaiah, is filthy in the worst way. Our righteousness is not righteousness at all. It is detestable and sinful.

We must in light of this entrust ourselves to the righteousness of Christ. We can see in the Scriptures that righteousness is tied to faith (Romans 4:5). If we have faith that Christ’s sacrifice covers us, and if we repent and believe in Christ as Saviour and Lord, and commit our lives to Him, our faith is counted as righteousness. We are clothed in the righteousness of Christ, and His blood covers us. We are made clean and righteous because of Christ (Zechariah 3). It is important to realize that what has been given is not our own doing. It is Christ’s righteousness that has been placed on us. We did not put it on ourselves, and we cannot take it off of our own accord. The robes of righteousness have been fixed upon us by Christ. We have His perfection. We are seen by God in the same light as our perfect Saviour.

For if, because of one man's trespass, death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ. (Romans 5:17 ESV)

Righteousness is a free gift given by God to those who receive the abundance of grace through faith in Christ (Ephesians 2:8-10). Righteousness depends on faith (Philippians 3:9).

Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness? But thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed, and, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness. (Romans 6:16-18 ESV)

What does it mean to be a slave? In essence it means your rights are not your own; you are owned, bought and purchased by someone else; you have no will outside the will of your Master; no say in your life. This knowledge of ourselves is, of course, tempered by the fact that we are children of God, but we must take into account the language of slavery. We are slaves of righteousness, the righteousness of Christ. We will go into more detail concerning slavery at a later time.

But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness. (Romans 8:10 ESV)

Listen to the one stipulation; if Christ is in you. If you truly have Christ, if you are truly indwelt by the Spirit, then you have life because of the righteousness of Christ. This is eternal life, because Christ’s righteousness is eternal. What great comfort can be taken from this passage! We have no need to worry about falling from grace, because God indwells us and clothes us with the righteousness which lasts forever in perfection! This is joyous news for dying sinners. 

And because of [God] you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption, so that, as it is written, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.” (1 Corinthians 1:30-31 ESV)

Let us take this to heart with all sincerity and devotion. It is in the Lord we boast, and not ourselves, because Christ is our righteousness, wisdom, sanctification and redemption. We boast in Him, for we have done nothing on our own; we boast in Him, because we are in Him.

He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed. For you were straying like sheep, but have now returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls. (1 Peter 2:24-25 ESV)

Listen to the fascinating before-and-after dialogue; we were straying like sheep, but now have returned to the Shepherd. There is a past standing and a present emphasis. We were something, now we are something else. We are healed by Christ’s wounds, dead to sin and alive to righteousness (Romans 6:11).

Saved, we have been given a righteousness that is not our own. Christ has clothed and cleansed us from our former sin. We are no longer filthy, but refreshed. We no longer wear robes full of human waste (Zechariah 3), but have been made clean through the sacrifice of Christ. In light of that, is it possible to lose the righteousness that we did not even place upon ourselves? The question leads to another, for I have mentioned briefly that righteousness is tied in to faith. If that is so, then can our faith be dissolved? Can our faith be lost? We will answer that next.

If you know that he is righteous, you may be sure that everyone who practices righteousness has been born of him. (1 John 2:29 ESV)

If we truly practice the righteousness that comes from God, then we have been born of God. As we have already seen, those born of God are adopted children of God, declared heirs by a legal, irrevocable arrangement. Now, we know that it is possible for evil to conceal itself as righteous (2 Corinthians 11:14-15). However, this does not mean that true righteousness by faith in Christ can be lost. It does not mean that those who are disguised were ever saved. In fact, by implication we can see that though they were disguised as servants of righteousness, they remained Satan’s slaves throughout. Satan twists truth and makes evil look appealing. This is a warning for us to heed: we must be faithful to devote ourselves to the Word of God and to prayer, to guard against false truth that looks beautiful and innocent.

Little children, let no one deceive you. Whoever practices righteousness is righteous, as he is righteous. Whoever makes a practice of sinning is of the devil, for the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil. No one born of God makes a practice of sinning, for God's seed abides in him, and he cannot keep on sinning because he has been born of God. By this it is evident who are the children of God, and who are the children of the devil: whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is the one who does not love his brother. (1 John 3:7-10 ESV)

Let us take a moment to comment on 2 Peter 2:20-22. It would seem to suggest that those false prophets once knew true righteousness, and fell away. However, a careful reading of the context would prove that they never knew righteousness. They only lived among the righteous and claimed it for themselves, without truly being partakers in Christ. They were always false, always slaves of corruption (2 Peter 2:19), the unchanged dog, the sow trusting in her own cleanliness. They were deceivers and deceived, never truly changed by true faith in Christ. They were apostates and bringers of destructive heresies. This passage is not a defense for a belief in the ability to lose one’s salvation. Rather, it is a warning for us to remember that there are false teachers who will seek to lead us astray. It is a call to faithfully study the Word of God for ourselves and not follow after every leader who claims to have the truth without testing his words against the True Word.