Conditional Promise
Does God’s word fail when a person falls away from the faith, as shown is possible for the non-elect? How are the non-elect, and even the elect, to interpret God’s promises and have Biblical assurance of salvation?
God never fails at His promises – they are immutable. God promising something in the future is absolutely assured in the present, though realized only in the future. This present assurance may lead to language that denotes the future realization as having already been received in effect – but the distinction must still be maintained.
Gen 12:3, Gen 15:14-15 etc. are examples of unconditional promises in that God alone fulfills them. There is no specific conditional criteria laid out to receive these promises. But the promise of salvation is conditioned upon the law of faith (Rom 3:27). The paradox of faith is that it is a work (John 6:28-29) in that man has to do the negative work of acknowledging that he cannot do any positive work himself and therein throw himself upon Christ to do in him what he himself ought to do but cannot. This is against the law/principle of works found in Lev 18:5, which prescribes the conditional of life upon the positive work of man.
The Law of Faith
So, the conditional promise of salvation is predicated upon man continuing to believe in Christ to save him till the end. This is a general conditional offer, made to all elect and non-elect. As per the Master Scientist’s demonstration, God works out salvation in His elect and since God can never fail, it is assured that these elect will be preserved in the faith to meet the above conditional. Eternal security of salvation best describes what the elect have.
The remaining non-elect are free in their regenerated cleaned states to continue self-determining to denying their fleshly desires and believing in Christ or to fall away. Note, when they fall away, it is accountable to their own self-determinism – for they have nothing else to blame, having been left free to exert their own desires. Whereas if at all they are saved, none of it is accountable to them-selves since they were saved by a supernatural work wholly initiated and completed in God’s regenerating them, making it possible for them to be convicted of sin and be led to faith in Christ.
Their self-determining to believe in Christ, if they do continue it, is not a virtuous act in itself, as the calvinists put it. It is a negative work acknowledging that they lack the virtue to do anything good and that they depend on Christ alone to work it out in them. There is no glory in negative works by definition – and it’s farcical to compare a negative work that leads to good with a positive work of evil as both works attributable to the same person. In denying self, the act of faith attributes all works of glory to Christ alone.
The Hope
Having established that the promise of salvation is conditioned on faith till the end, we know that we must hope to receive what is to be realized in the future (Rom 8:24). And this involves waiting patiently (Rom 8:25, Gal 5:5, Heb 10:36). And such waiting in hope is not baseless and without certainty or reason – the entire substance of hoping rests upon faith, the evidence of salvation in the future that is not yet seen is provided by faith in the here and now (Heb 11:1). For one trusts Christ to accomplish all that he hopes for on that future day – namely to cover all his sins and raise him up to eternal life with Him in a spotless nature and body.
For the non-elect to then fall away from such faith in Christ is to no longer hope for these things to be done – and as they self-determine, so it shall be done. They will have no atonement in Christ on that final day – which accordingly Christ has factored in when He died on the cross. All the promises of Christ are valid only as long as you are in Christ – if you are cut off from Christ, then He is of no effect to you. And if you are gripped by fear at the prospect of you not being able to endure in faith to the end – then run to Christ knowing it is not for you to keep yourself but to trust Him to do in you what you ought to do but cannot.
The elect, on the other hand, are assured God’s finishing His work that He’s started in them. David is thus confidently able to proclaim that he will be in the house of the Lord forever – all who make their election sure are in a similar position to do the same. But what of the elect who are unsure – your assurance is not derived in you or your state but in Christ alone. As long as you believe in Him, you have assurance of salvation.
Do not seek divination of whether you would be assured salvation 5 years in the future – Paul himself theologically entertained all possibilities (1Cor 9:27). Rather, you have assurance in the present always through faith in Christ. So, 5 years down the line, if you still believe in Christ you still have assurance of salvation then. And you make your election sure only by seeing evidence from Scriptures of Christ in your life.