Michael Heiser — Understanding Works and Discipleship

Well, it’s not about works, the Gospel has nothing to do with human merit, zero. You must maintain your faith, in other words, you have to believe! Just like in the OT, you couldn’t have a believer claim election, claim a covenant relationship, and then go off and worship Ba’al (another god). You can’t just abandon your faith, choose another god, or have no god at all and still claim to be part of the family of God. Election in the OT is fundamentally misunderstood—the context of election in the OT isn’t about salvation, it can’t be by definition, because lots and lots of elect Israelites went off and became apostates, worshiped Ba’al and other gods, that’s why we have the exile. God does not have Ba’al worshipers in Heaven.

Election isn’t about salvation, it’s about a status—whereby you have received God, and you maintain belief. It put the individual in the unique position among all the nations to receive the truth about the true God, but you still had to believe it, and many Israelites did not. They had the elect status, the covenants, and yet many still went off and worshipped other gods. The OT is clear, exactly like the NT, you do not go off and worship other gods, or you will be rejected.

Here’s the problem, modern Christianity (predominantly the western-world) has turned the doctrine of salvation into some sort of incantation. You cannot lose it through any sin for a simple reason—that which cannot be gained by moral perfection cannot be lost by moral imperfection—the issue is belief, you must believe. We all know if professing believers turn out to abandon their faith, they forsake their faith in the God of Israel and Jesus, go off to worship something else, adopt another faith, or have no faith at all—they aren’t eternally secure. The fact that they prayed a prayer; they said certain words and believed at one point in their life doesn’t really mean a whole lot—it was merely a profession that they had made. So the real question is, do you believe or don’t you? If you believe you are eternally secure, if you don’t, you aren’t eternally secure.

Matthew 10:32–33—Jesus tells this to the twelve disciples, and I would say that they are believers, but He’s treating it seriously! That if they deny Him, if they leave the faith, the Father in heaven isn’t going to say, ’Hey! Good to see you, glad you prayed that prayer of salvation, you said the right words at some point in your life!’ No, the question is, do you believe or not?

Ephesians 4:30—now some people will bring up the same language that Paul uses, by the Holy Spirit of God we are sealed for the day of redemption. What this idea means is that the Spirit, the presence of the Holy Spirit indwelling believers, is the validation or evidence of salvation. It does not mean that you no longer have to believe! It doesn’t mean that continued faith is now optional. Sealing means that you were marked by the Spirit, you bear the name, you are aligning yourself with the Gospel, with Jesus.

The ’sealing of the Spirit’ language does not give you permission to “not believe” anymore. Thinking that once your sealed, you’re in, and it doesn’t really matter if you go off and worship something else—well, yes it does! It has nothing to do with works, or whether you sin or not, because we all do. John says, if you say you’re not a sinner, you’re a liar (1 John 1:10).

Think about what Paul says in other places. Paul is writing to Christians in Rome, he talks about Israel and the Church in Romans 9–11. Paul explains that if God forsook Israelites who went off and apostatized, you (Christians) are going to get the same treatment (Romans 11:20–23). You can look at Jews as outsiders all you want; that Christians are the people of God now, but it will never excuse your pride. Paul is saying, do not get proud—but fear—for if God did not spare the natural branches, neither will He spare you. This is why Paul and other NT writers constantly talk about remaining steadfast in the faith (Colossians 1:23). Paul expects believers to continue in the faith because the Spirit is there to help them, but also knows that if you don’t continue, what happened to the Israelites will happen to you. It’s all about continuing in your faith, salvation is never about performance—it’s about a believing loyalty, and that’s true across the testaments.

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