I suppose that books often have a series of points that are presented in the most compelling way in order to compel the reader to accept a certain view on a given subject. In a way, this book will do that too, but slightly differently. As I’ve dealt with the issue of blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, it has not been a neat, clean, and tidy journey. It’s been more of a series of theological bunnytrails zig-zagging this way and that as one answered question leads to another. And so, for the remainder of this book, I’d like to lead you down the trails of thought, the questions, the doubts - and the Scriptures that have eventually cleared them all up.
We’re going to ask some common questions, acknowledge some disputes, and not push any inquiry aside as foolish, semantical, or foolhardy. If the mind can ask, God can answer. Mind you, sometimes His answer is, “Just be still and trust Me”. And we’re not God, having the answer to every question. But that much being said, God’s Word holds so many answers for us and He’s not offended by our questions. So let's dive in…
Question 1: What If I Lose My Salvation?
The earliest comfort God gave me in regards to my fear came back when I was ten. I was once again trying to explain to my loving dad why I didn’t think I could be saved. And we were having yet another one of our theological debates. Dad was in the habit of taking us girls out for dates, one at a time, just us and dad.
I kind of felt like I was ruining the moment by bringing up my fears, but they were weighing on me heavily, and I just couldn't keep them from my dad.
That’s when he brought up John 10:27-30, a passage that would be foundational for me: “ My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of My hand. My Father, who has given them to Me is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father's hand. I and the Father are one.”
Dad tried to explain that, once I belonged to Jesus, nothing could snatch me from His hand. My question: What if I lose my salvation? Well, I began to argue with dad that Revelation 3:16 talked about God spitting lukewarm Christians out of His mouth. Looking back, I don’t think a ten year old who desperately longed for salvation qualified as being a lukewarm Christian.
I’d heard people talk about “once saved, always saved”, and how people used the phrase as an excuse to live however they wanted to and just get into Heaven at the end. Well, that just didn’t sound right - and that’s because it’s not.
I thought it was one or the other. Like, either: I’m safe in Jesus because “once saved always saved”, or I'm doomed because I’ve blasphemed the Holy Spirit, and if at any moment, I think a bad thought towards God, He will kick me out. I’m saved today, but I could be lost tomorrow. And if I die on a lost kind of day, I will not be welcomed into Heaven.”
It was terrifying, but I think it all could be a lot more simple and secure, truly coming down to, “Am I actually saved? Does my life actually reflect the heart of Christ? Do I live like He is real? Is the fruit of His Holy Spirit in my life?”
Rather than viewing my salvation as a status that can ebb and flow, I need to remember that the seal of the Holy Spirit is the guarantee of my salvation.
“In Him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in Him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of His glory” (Ephesians 1:13-14).
I remember wondering about the passage that my dad read to me from John 10: “No one is able to snatch them out of My hand”.
How could that verse really be true? The next day was Sunday. I stepped into church and planted my eyes onto the screen at the front which displayed the lyrics.
It was a melody I’d heard before, but I didn’t know what the words were. How was I to know just how instrumental that song and its authors were going to be in my life someday? But it was almost as if my dad had picked the song for me! I now see that my heavenly Father had chosen it. That verse from dad about nothing snatching me from God’s hand was still fresh in my mind.
I was absolutely amazed as I heard myself singing: “No guilt in life, no fear in death: this is the power of Christ in me. From life’s first cry to final breath, Jesus commands my destiny. No power of hell, no scheme of man can ever pluck me from His hand. ‘Till He returns or calls me home, here in the power of Christ, I’ll stand” (Getty).
I recall, years later, still struggling with that nagging feeling that I somehow lacked assurance of salvation. I had a dream that the moon had turned blood-red, the foreboding atmosphere oozing with the overarching feeling was Jesus coming back and judging the earth. The next night, there was a lunar eclipse, literally a real “Blood Moon” as they’re sometimes called. I was freaking out inside. I knew on the one hand that my dream was kind of confirmation that God was speaking to me - about what, I’m not too sure, but I couldn’t chalk the whole episode up to some uncanny coincidence. But on the other hand, that old fear that maybe I had done something unforgivable nagged at me - like, ‘what if Jesus comes back, but I’m not actually saved?’
I was riding in the backseat of my family’s minivan, staring at the sky. But from my angle, I couldn’t see the blood moon, only thousands of twinkling stars. Music was playing in the vehicle, the lyrics singing: “Consider the stars in the sky, when it is darkest, they shine out the brightest. Consider the stars in the sky, in every anguish, oh child, take courage. Do not be afraid. Do not be afraid. He who made all of this and who holds all of this, holds you in His hand” (Getty).
Oh how that encouraged me! Yes, the moon has turned to blood, we are in the last days, and wrath is eminent, but don't forget to stare at the stars and remember that if you belong to Christ, you are Abraham’s seed, and an heir according to God’s promise - which is eternal life. (Galatians 3:29) Even natural phenomena remind us of the Creator who holds His children securely - even the stars, even the red moon can actually remind us! It was the same idea really: “No one is able to snatch them out of My hand”.
One other time, I remember flat out asking the Lord, “I pray that today, You would help me to know for certain that I actually do belong to You.” I was scared, and I was crying out for relief.
That was the day I first heard a song that has stuck with me as a bedrock of assurance. At the time, my family did not have internet access at home. We had a large CD collection that we had burned onto a laptop, but that was it for music. I was riding in a lady’s car on the way home from a worship practice at our church, and she had Spotify. Now, the fact that one could play virtually any song on a whim completely blew my mind. And of course, any chance I got, I’d ask to listen to Getty Music (songs produced by Kieth and Kristyn Getty and their music partners).
This new-to-me song completely floored me. And as soon as I heard it, I felt my childish prayer answered. I had asked that very day that God would flat out tell me that I was His and that He had not cast me away. And He sent me this:
“When I fear my faith will fail; Christ will hold me fast
When the tempter would prevail; He will hold me fast
I could never keep my hold; Through life's fearful path
For my love is often cold; He must hold me fast
Those He saves are His delight; Christ will hold me fast
Precious in His holy sight; He will hold me fast
He'll not let my soul be lost; His promises shall last
Bought by Him at such a cost; He will hold me fast
For my life He bled and died; Christ will hold me fast
Justice has been satisfied; He will hold me fast
Raised with Him to endless life; He will hold me fast
'Til our faith is turned to sight; When He comes at last!
He will hold me fast, He will hold me fast
For my Saviour loves me so; He will hold me fast”
These are just a few of the stories of how the Lord reminded me of the truth that He wasn’t going to let me go. But there was still a qualm in my mind. I had some friends who were more Armenian than Calvinist, and sometimes, they did have some exceptional points about things. I really thought that if someone has an emphasis on free will, then that person cannot believe in the preservation of the saints.
(If you’re not familiar with those terms, free will is basically the ability God gives people to choose whether or not they will accept His salvation, and perseverance of the saints is the sovereign power of God to keep His children in a right relationship with Him so that they stay saved.)
I had very close friends whom I trusted and respected who leaned more towards free will and so I assumed that they believed that you could basically lose your salvation at the drop of a hat.
I bought it up at a family gathering (these friends were more like family). Was that a great thing to bring up? Perhaps I was not Miss Sensitive. But the discussion was alive and well, and that’s when I first heard the idea that someone who believes in free will might also believe in the preservation of the saints, for my friend certainly did. I was shocked. You could believe in free will and in the perseverance of the saints at the same time?!
I asked another dear friend the same question. I had co-led a girls’ Bible study with her and I knew that she was really into free will. I told her how afraid I was of losing my salvation.
She told me that she had actually intentionally tried to leave her faith, but that God hadn’t let her. He had chased her down. He had pursued her. She had wanted to forsake Him, but she couldn’t. She thought it slightly odd that someone who so desperately wanted God would ever fear losing her salvation. She not only believed in the preservation of the saints - she had experienced it!
I think 1 and 2 Thessalonians really lays out what perseverance of the saints truly means. You’ll find it throughout Scripture, but those books in particular are so loaded with it!
1 T 1:4 - God has loved us and chosen us
1 T 3:13 - God causes our love to increase so He may establish our heart blameless at His coming
1 T 5:9 - God destines us to obtain salvation through Jesus
2 T 2:13-15 - God tells us to stand firm because we have been chosen and called
2 T 2:17 - God establishes us in every good word and work
2 T 3:3 - God is faithful and He will guard and establish us
2 T 3:4 - We can have confidence in the Lord about other believers
2 T 5:23-24 - God is faithful and will surely sanctify us and keep us blameless at Jesus’ coming
The perseverance of the saints, the belief that God is able to keep us saved, is a tremendous help to one who fears, not only having committed blasphemy against the Holy Spirit in the past, but who also fears someday committing it in the future. I had that fear one day, and I shared it with my mom and one of her friends who was like an aunt to me.
The kind woman’s eyes brimmed with tears, “God’s not going to let you go,” she told me, sadness washing over her face by the very idea that the thought had even crossed my mind.
If you live in fear that you’re going to fall away from the Lord, or if you think that you used to be saved, but now you can’t be, you will find yourself facing really dark thoughts.
I remember looking back on the near-fatal bike accident I had when I was thirteen. It was a miracle that I had survived. God spared my life, by just three millimeters. If the gash had gone just a touch further, I would have bled out in about two minutes. I had often been in awe that God had spared my life. “He must have something more He wants me to do before I die,” I used to think.
But when I began to again struggle with the fear of having blasphemed the Holy Spirit, my thinking grew dark. “I was saved back then,” I recall thinking. “Why didn’t Jesus just take me home? Then I could have gone to Heaven. I wish I hadn’t been able to walk home. I wish I had died.”
It hurts my heart that I had been disappointed by God’s miraculous preservation of my life, but that’s the kind of despair I felt.
I think that’s why preservation of the saints is so important. And it’s not a free pass to do whatever you want. It is however, the freedom to know that if you truly desire God, He is going to empower you to follow Him. And if you’re afraid of having blasphemed the Holy Spirit, then that’s a sign that your heart is not hardened. And why wouldn't your heart be hard toward the Lord?... That's the practical outworking of the perseverance of the saints!
A few years ago, I wrote a song to try to reconcile some of the apparent disparities between free will and God’s sovereign choice of His children. I see great merit to both views within Scripture - and that causes me to believe that the two are not at odds with each other. The Bible never had the words Armenian or Calvinist written down. These are interpretations - and we need theology and interpretation and hermeneutics. They’re great! They’re beautiful! But they do not mean that free will and God’s sovereignty are at odds or that we must choose one or the other. Just choose the Bible.
So writing this song, I was working through the idea of reconciling between the cost of discipleship and the perseverance of the saints: that we have our part to play, but that the final emphasis is on God’s power.
It all started when I heard a local pastor, Joshua Green quote, “It’s not the consistency. It’s not the intensity. It’s the object of our faith that counts.”
And that Sunday afternoon, I felt so inspired by his words as I penned a poem and melody.
Here are the lyrics:
Grace Through Faith
(Ephesians 2:4-10)
It’s not the consistency; it’s not the intensity
It’s the object of my faith
It’s not in my history, or even my legacy
Lord, it’s only by Your grace
And it doesn’t mean that I’m not called
To serve and do my part
It’s just that Jesus, You’re the source
And truly You’re the start
It’s not in the things I do, or in my good attitude
It’s a gift and it’s so free
It’s not something I can earn; it’s not something I deserve
It’s not I; it’s Christ in me
And it doesn’t mean that I’m not called
To live in holiness
It’s just that holiness itself
Is truly such a gift
It’s not something that I planned
Or something I understand
It’s Your kindness; it’s Your will
It’s not something I pursued
It’s not something I can lose
It’s Your purposes fulfilled
And it doesn’t mean that I’m not called
To follow where You lead
It’s just that now You’ve opened up
My eyes so I can see
Grace through faith in Jesus’ name, in Jesus’ name
For it’s by Your name I’m saved
Grace through faith in Jesus’ name, in Jesus’ name
For it’s only by Your grace; grace through faith”
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