I believe we are right with God on our profession of faith in Jesus Christ. If we believe in Christ, we are made righteous, but if we do not believe in him, then we aren’t. Recently, I’ve encountered people saying that we ask for forgiveness and run our race in order to remain righteous. Also, they believe one can fall away from God completely with no possibility of return if they renounce Christ. I’m having a hard time understanding this myself because I’ve been having demonic attacks lately trying to pull me away from God and I do not want to go there. I know the Bible says once we are saved, it’s forever, but I have a hard time understanding this since, in our human nature, we feel like we can just get out of Gods hand and choose Hell. Can you help me understand this?
In the first place, I don’t know of any believer who would want to get out of God’s hand and choose Hell.
The easiest way to refute these claims is to look at the clearest statements the Bible offers. Where it comes to walking away there are several. In John 6:39 Jesus said it’s the Father’s will that He will lose none of all that the Father has given Him, and in John 10:27-30 He said no one can take us out of either His Father’s or His hands. Jesus called Himself the Good Shepherd and we are the sheep of His pasture. Sheep try to wander away all the time, and when they do it’s the shepherd’s job to bring them back. Our Good Shepherd promised never to lose even one of us.
But to me, the clearest one combines two statements made by Paul. In 1 Cor. 6:19-20 He said we are not our own, we were bought at a price. And in 2 Cor. 1:21-22 he said it is God who makes us stand firm in Christ. He anointed us, set His seal of ownership on us and put His Spirit in our hearts as a deposit guaranteeing what is to come.
What this means is, using the blood of Christ, God has purchased us for Himself. We agreed to let Him do this, so we belong to Him now. The phrase “we are not our own” means we don’t have the freedom to walk away because we don’t belong to ourselves.
Lets put both these ideas together. God purchased, put His seal of ownership on us, and gave us to His Son to watch over us. The Son promised never to lose us. We belong to the Father and are under the care of the Son. No one can get us away from either one of them. There’s no one in Heaven or on Earth who can change this, not even we ourselves.
Satan knows he can’t get you away from the Lord. But as long as you believe you can be pulled away, he will make you miserable with uncertainty. Once you become convinced that you belong to the Lord forever, Satan will stop tormenting you about this.