Assurance of Salvation
RO51-01

Romans 5:1-8

Romans 1:9

Assurance of Salvation

Rationalism

Logic

Certainty

The principle is this: if one thing is true, it is much more certain that a second related thing is true. If one thing is true (this is the line of logic), then it is much more certain that a second related thing is true. If a father loves his children, and will do anything to benefit them, then it is also true that he will preserve them from taking a course of action in life which will be to their destruction. He will preserve his six-year-old from playing with a loaded gun. We don't have to say: "This father loves his children. He wants to preserve them for Christian adulthood. Would he let this six-year-old fool around with a loaded gun?" You would say, "Well, of course, I don't even have to ask that. Logic tells me that if it is true that this is how he feels about his children, and what he has in mind for them, then I know that he would not let them do this. That's the line that the apostle Paul is using here. If a greater benefit has been bestowed on a person, then a less benefit will not be withheld.

In logic, if you studied this in school someplace, it has a technical term: "afortiori." That's Latin. It's a principle or a technique of logic. And the Latin word here simply means "for a stronger reason" or "all the more." What it does is describe a conclusion arrived at with greater logical necessity than a principle which was previously accepted. In other words, Paul is saying, "I'm going to use an old principle of logic: the principle of thinking – an inevitable deduction relative to the security of salvation on the basis of a larger principle. Because the larger principle is true, I'm going to show you that there is no way you can ever be lost again once you're saved. We title it "afortiori." It's a well-known technique of reasoning.

The Bible is Always Logical

So, those who claim that the Bible is not a reasonable or a logical book are only saying that because they reject certain principles in the Bible, such as the fact of the supernatural. The reason the evolutionist says that the Bible is not logical on the origins of life is because he rejects the concept of a God who can speak and bring material things into existence; and, who can speak and bring life into existence.

Well, there's no problem with the logic of the Bible. The problem is with man's unbelief in the principles that God declares are His ways of working.

This term that begins in verse 9, "much more," is a term that is very important in the rest of this chapter. You will see that it is used four times altogether: here in verse 9; in verse 10; in verse 17; and, in verse 20. So, Paul is going to keep hammering away at this logical technique of proving his final points. And remember that when we finish chapter 5, Paul says, "Now that's it. I cannot tell you anything more about how God saves a person and keeps a person saved. I've said it all. Now I'm going to tell you the implications of this in the Christian life." And he begins chapter 6 with applying all this to Christian living. And that is an oasis in a world that is a desert island if there ever was one.

Paul logic, there is going to be this: He's going to point out that if Christ died to save His enemies, He will surely preserve in salvation those who by new birth are His friends. There's the whole summary. If Jesus Christ died for those who, at the time, were His enemies and who are ungodly, which is what Paul just told us, then he will certainly preserve those who are now His friends. Having been born into the family of God through the new birth, He will certainly preserve them for salvation. If He would do that much for people that he could have righteously permitted to enter hell, what do you think he will do for those who are members of His Own family, and who have come under his preserving death?

So, the "afortiori" logic here runs something like this. I think you can see it clearly displayed if you will read Romans 5:1, and immediately follow it by verse 9, so that it reads like this: "Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Much more then, being now justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him." Isn't that great? You put those two verses together, and you have the greater principle. The greater principle is in verse 1: "We have been justified by our acceptance of (our trusting in) Christ and His provision. Our faith act has brought us peace relative to God and to our destiny." Then verse 9 says, "That being true, here is something that is a logical, inevitable conclusion that we must reach: 'much more' – a logical conclusion. This being true of us relative to justification, we're going to be saved from wrath through Him." And in a moment we're going to see specifically what that wrath is.

Justification – Not Guilty

There are a lot of people who go around talking about justification by faith who don't know beans about it. They couldn't even define the word "justification." They'll come up, and they'll say something like, "Well, that means all of your sins are forgiven." "All of your sins are forgiven" only means that God has taken away something away that was very bad. Indeed, through regeneration, he takes away the sin. He has redeemed you through redemption. He has removed your sin problem. But that's only negative. That still won't take you to heaven. What you have to have is the absolute righteousness of Jesus Christ, and that's what justification means. So, justification is a pronouncement by God the Father, based on the fact that the absolute righteousness of Jesus Christ has been imputed to the believer.

In the grammar, this is in what is known as the aorist tense. Aorist tense talks about some point action on the part of God. This is the point when a sinner trusts in Jesus Christ as His Savior. At that point you become justified.

The Protestant Reformation

The Roman Catholic Church had been teaching them: "No, no, no, Luther. Here is justification. You start down here as a sinner, and then gradually you move along through the various performances of human good works and penance, and the rituals of the church, and looking to the church, and hoping, and trusting, and saying your Hail Marys and Our Fathers. And finally you will come to the place of justification." So, where Luther said, "It's aorist – point action," the Roman Catholic said, "Oh, it's a process, and you gradually develop into justification."

Well, the Council of Trent, which the Roman Catholic Church held following the explosion of the Reformation, reiterated this position. And they said, "This is why the Protestants are wrong. Salvation is not a thing that God gives in a moment of time upon faith. It is a process that a person develops through." That is because the Roman Catholic Church had incorporated all of those ancient Babylonian, mystery-cult, religious procedures that we're talking about in our night series on Revelation. And if they had agreed with Luther, the whole Roman Catholic Church would have collapsed. They would have all had to join the Protestants immediately.

So, I want you to be very appreciative of the fact that the people who read the Greek Bible originally (who spoke the Greek language) – when they read this verse, they wouldn't, under any conceivable fashion, get the idea of justification as some process you grow into. Immediately, they would have known that it's something that God gives me at a point in time – that point being when I receive Christ as Savior.

Receiving Christ as Savior

Another important point is that this word "justified" is passive voice. Passive always means that you receive the benefit. Anybody who read the Greek originally right away saw that, and said, "Hey, look at that. That means that I don't do anything. That means that somebody else has to do it for me. I'm not actively involved in this. And that fits. It's what God, the supreme judge of the universe, declares about me. He tells me that I am justified, and He tells me that on the basis of the fact that His own justice has been satisfied."

Some people never seem to learn that God does not really particularly care about what you think. That may come as a blow to you, particularly if you're kind of a vocal type person who knows how to verbalize, and you impress people with your words. It is kind of hard for you to realize that God is not particularly interested in what you think or anything you have to say. Therefore, He does not permit you to pass judgments on justification on yourself or other people. God says, "I am the one who declares and pronounces you justified – nobody else. And what you think about it doesn't make any difference." And there are a lot of people running around who are telling folks that they need to do certain works in order to be justified, and there are a lot of folks who are running around saying, "Boy, do you ever live like the devil. You're not justified." Did you know that God wasn't interested in that?

Did you know that next to you in heaven are going to be some of the biggest devil-makers you ever saw? They will probably be some of the most interesting people in our day, as a matter of fact. Now, they're going to pay certain prices, and certain lots of reward, and certain consequences for their devil-making. But God doesn't care what you think about them. He is the one who declares justified or not – not you.

God's Justice

The Sign of the Cross

Why do they do that? How many people have you seen in a crisis situation? What do they do? They make the sign of the cross across themselves. What is that for? I used to think that they had an itch, and they were scratching. I've seen ballplayers do that. Have you ever seen that? Ballplayers are really nervous, and I've seen them do that all the time out there. I thought their uniforms scratched or something. No, that's a magical sign to preserve you. They think that it's something that's going to count with God. And can you imagine what God thinks as He looks down upon a loathsome practice like that. And people think it is so commendable. God doesn't care what you think.

God only cares about what? He only cares about what Ge thinks. Where do we have what God thinks? Right here is the Word of God. That's why we tell you that doctrine in your soul is going to make you a winner as a human being, because that's the only way you get God's thoughts into your thoughts. And that's what God appreciates, and that's how God works. And when you have God's thinking, then you're compatible to His workings.

So the center can never justify himself. All that human effort and ritual is a satanic delusion. This non-active participation by the sinner in paying for his sins is the reason that our salvation is permanent.

This word "dikaioo" (justified) is also a participle, which is a way of stating a spiritual principle in Scripture. God gives the believing sinner the absolute righteousness of Jesus Christ. God gives this from His Own justice in such a way that God's holiness is perfectly preserved. God doesn't give you absolute righteousness in a way that violates His own holiness. Then God Himself would be a sinner. So, God declares what a believing sinner is, is the result of what God Himself has provided. And that's the meaning ... And the reception of that principle is declared in that participle.

So verse 9 says, "Much more then, being now justified." And the word "now" is the Greek word "nun." It's an adverb, and it stresses present time as opposed to past time. This is a significant word because it stresses the fact that the believer is at present justified, in contrast to his position in the past when he was under the wrath of God. Justification is a position. That's why we know that it is not a process, because the word "now," at this point in time, right now, you are justified. Now if anybody knew the Greek language, they should have seen that word "nun" and said, "Hey, look there." The Roman Catholics, and all the rest of you, think it's a process – something that you develop into. You're wrong. He would never have used the word "now," because the word "now" stresses right here, where you are in time, in contrast to what you were back here in the past. That's very important. Right now you are justified. It is not something you are developing into, or something that you're going to be in the future. You are now justified. Justification is the status that a human being has at present who has trusted in Christ, and it's the one he has to have in order to come under the blessings of God.

His Blood

However, you notice that he did not say "death." Look down in verse 10: "For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son." There we have the Greek word "thanatos," ("death"). But you notice that in verse 9 he did not say "death." Therefore, we cannot just say, "Oh, well, every time you see the word "blood," that just means "death," and you can just put the word "death" in there. No, because he wants to tell us something about the kind of death Jesus Christ died. Therefore, he says, "By His 'haima' (by His 'blood')."

In other words, Jesus Christ could not pay for the penalty of sins by simply any kind of death. He had to die a death which shed His blood. And we call that a sacrificial death. As the Lamb of God, given for the sins of the world, the only kind of death He could have died for the sins of the world was a sacrificial death. And if it's a sacrificial death, blood is going to be present. He could not have died by strangling, and paid for the sins of the world. He could not have died by taking poison, and died for the sins of the world (or being given poison). He could not have died by drowning, and paid for the sins of the world. He had to die by a sacrificial technique, and that meant bloodletting.

So, the blood of Christ had to be shed in the process of providing us with a ground of justification. Now, I'm not going to go into this. We've already done this extensively. I'm only going to remind you that in the process of the atonement, Jesus Christ shed considerable blood. And you can go back and get the tapes in the series earlier on Romans.

So, what am I saying? I'm saying that the literal blood of Jesus Christ was required for our justification, as was His literal physical death. This is the true ground of salvation. Romans 3:25 said, "Whom God had set forth to be a propitiation (that is, a satisfaction) to the justice of God, through faith in His blood, to declare His righteousness for the remission of sins that are passed through the forbearance of God." There again, His death, which dealt with our justification, had to be via a sacrificial death.

Notice Ephesians 2:13: "But now in Christ Jesus, you who once were far off (that is, in a lost condition) are made near by the blood of Christ." What is he talking about? He's talking about a certain kind of death – a sacrificial death where blood has to be shed.

We have one more in Hebrews 9:12: "Neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by His own blood, He entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us." Now, why do we have this stress upon the word "blood?" The Holy Spirit could just as well have used the word "death," if that's all that was implied – just dying; that is, spiritual death alone. Well, obviously, that was not enough. The physical death was involved, and it had to be a physical death that shed blood.

"We Shall be Saved"

All the people who are deceased by the old sin nature in the world today are terminal. They're headed for an experience of terminal death – eternal death. They are terminal cases for death. Everybody who has the contamination of the old sin nature is headed for terminal death, except those who are saved from that. And that is those who have been justified, because they've been made healthy. Again, you and I are no longer diseased. This particular word is in the future tense, meaning that in the future, when a sinner faces God, there is no doubt that he will be preserved from the consequences of his sin nature and the eternity in the lake of fire.

Salvation is Passive

What this is telling us is that God's justice is fully satisfied. So, those who receive Jesus Christ are inevitably going to be saved. The whole grammatical form of this word is just screaming out at us the certainty and the permanence of salvation once accepted.

Salvation vs. Justification

Vengeance

Thus, in 1 Thessalonians 1:10, we read, "And to wait for His Son from heaven Whom He raised from the dead, even Jesus, who delivered us from the wrath to come. What is the future wrath of God? The lake of fire. People are going to stand at the great white throne and hear their names read as having been condemned to the lake of fire forever.

Way back in 1:18, we read, "For the Wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all and godliness and unrighteousness of men who hold the truth in unrighteousness." What is God revealing? God is trying to make it very clear to people that if you die in a state of spiritual death, I am going to send you to the lake of fire. God is making that very, very clear.

Like all discussions, whether you want to talk about abortion, or whether you want to talk about morality, or any number of other subjects, ultimately you have to have a base of authority. You have to say, "Who knows about this? Who doesn't know about this? What is the ground in this matter on which you decide these things?" And the discussion today, in our generation, is: "Forget the Bible." Or, "The Bible says that, but I don't really know if that's true. I reject what the Bible says."

I listened to a radio program where they had a man who was the president of one of the local homosexual organization. And they were smarter this time. Usually they get somebody on there such that when he opens his mouth, he kind of proves what he is, unfortunately. But this sounded like a more commendable, intelligent person, and his whole line of discussion was, "Well, we don't really know what the Bible says about the subject. We don't know really what the Bible means." And the whole defense of his gay organization was that: "It cannot be condemned on the basis of the Bible, because that's just your religious viewpoint. And if you want to hold that, that's all right, but why do you try to impose that viewpoint upon someone who doesn't want to hold it?"

The point was that, therefore, the government should not make laws relative to morality. Well, somebody wisely called in and pointed out, "Well, what if I don't object to murder? Do you think the government should go poking its nose into my private life, and keep me from bumping off all the people I want to knock off? Who's to say that murder is wrong?" Well, that's because it's for the good of society. And who's to say that the restraint upon the perversion of homosexuality is not for the good of society? God seemed to think so. He rubbed Sodom and Gomorrah off the map for it. God seemed to think it was a perversion of society. Do you think it was without reason that poor Lot (who had all the influence and all the information about God from Abraham) should have degenerated to the point where he offered his unmarried virgin daughters to the homosexuals so they could exercise their pleasures upon them rather than to disturb the men who had come as guests into Lot's home? Obviously, Lot lived in a society where perversion was accepted as a way of life, and the result was that it rubbed off on Lott, and he (who should have been a prince among perverts) became one like them.

So, when we talk about the wrath of God and what God is going to do, we have to go to the Bible and find out what He's going to do. We can't go along and say, "Oh, my! Did you ever stop and think about the fact that the Bible says that hell is a place that's actual fire? It's just like putting your hand in fire. You'll feel it!" Except if you put your hand in fire now, your hand will burn off, and that'll be the end of it. You'll die. But here you won't. You will die. You'll just experience it. It just burns. The pain and the suffering is there. Not just for six weeks or for six months. At least back in the old Babylonian mystery days, they used to give us purgatory. That's where that idea came up, incidentally. They at least said, "Well, we'll give you six months of it, and then you're out. That's why we liked the Babylonian system. We don't like this Bible system. It's just horrible to contemplate."

God's Wrath

This is not an Outburst of Temper

One of the things I'm happy to tell you is that, for those of us who are saved as a result of that justification, remember that the word "saved" has an end consequent at the ultimate extreme connotations – for us who are saved, there is no wrath. 1 Thessalonians 5:9, therefore, says, "For God has not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ. God has not appointed you to hell, but to the salvation that ends up in heaven.

Paul says that this is, "Through Him." Who is that? Through the Lord Jesus Christ. The same Lord Jesus Christ who paid for our sins will also carry us safely through to heaven. The Lord Jesus Christ does not leave His work unfinished. When we get to Romans 8, we're going to study verse 30, which says, "Moreover, whom He did predestinate, them He also called; and whom He called, He also justified; and, whom He justified, them He also glorified." He carried them right up to glory – right up to heaven. The Lord Jesus Christ does not leave His work unfinished. He came to bring you salvation, and that's what He's going to provide.

So, here's the "afortiori" summary of this argument (this logical procedure). Paul says, "All believers are now justified, and therefore, at peace with God." This was made possible by the sacrificial death of Jesus Christ, which shed His sinless blood in place of the sinner to pay for the sins of the world. Such a payment was provided for the ungodly out of God's love for them. That's the big overall principle. Everybody, when he was in a state of godless rebellion against God, had this provided for him.

So, the consequence (the logical deduction) is this: Since Christ provided justification for those who were at the time ungodly sinners, He will preserve in that justification those who are believers. It is unthinkable that He who provided so much for those who hated Him, would be willing to provide so little for those who love Him, as to permit them to fall off into hell again. It is unthinkable that He who exercised such love toward the ungodly should not love His own children enough to preserve them from ever suffering the consequences of hell.

Since the greater benefit of justification has been given, the less benefit of carrying the saved to heaven will not be withheld. Salvation, thus, is a certainty, and it's irreversible once it is secured through Christ. In view of what God did for the ungodly, there can be no doubt as to what He will do for the Godly.

So, one of the grand features of our hope of glory is the preservation forever from the terror of the divine wrath in the final judgment of hell.

Let's look at one more thing. If God can provide so securely for your preservation from the terrors of hell in eternity, don't you think He can easily meet your needs in time, and bless you very freely? So, what problem do you have today that's so terrible, that God cannot solve for you? What crises do you face that seem unbearable and impossible to deal with? You don't have any troubles. You don't have any problems. I don't expect to see anything but the corners of your mouth hung over your ears as you go out today, because you don't have any problems. The big problem you had, God is already resolved. So, anything below that is less. All you have to do is go to Him and say, "Now, I have this little problem, Lord. Thanks for taking care of that big one about my justification. I have this little problem here. I owe $3 million, and they're coming to collect it tomorrow. What do you think we ought to do about it?" You have nothing but little problems. The big one has been taken care of. Don't ever forget that. God does not care to let you down after He went through the sacrifice of His own son to make it possible for you to be justified in order to start a salvation that He has destined to end up in glory. You have a hope of glory. It is a certainty.

Dr. John E. Danish, 1977

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