Per Hebrews 6, I'm already screwed. Unless you hold to the unbiblical notion of "once saved always saved".
When you make a profession of faith in His efficacy as Soter/Deliverer, it is recorded in time and transcends all time (thus transcends past as easily as future). The Bible actually backs me up on this, if one looks for it ... some will be saved as their 'deeds judged for rewards' are burned up but they themselves saved as if by fire.
He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins each time we earnestly with broken and contrite spirit ask Him to forgive and cleanse us from our unrighteousness. And that's the key--we are not able to force His LIFE into our spirit and we cannot force it out either, nor can an evil intention.
We have within our human spirit His righteousness deposited as if the earnest of an inheritance, so when we do that which is unrighteous we are 'adding a crust' to our spirit, but we are not reaching the heart of the Life He has deposited within us, so the crust can be burnt away to reveal the 'pure' within during some where/when of our rewards being judged.
If--following being born again--it were possible for my failures to defeat His righteousness, then nearly no one would be Delivered by His Grace of God in Christ because we are just as human after being born again as we were the day before. BUT, the glorious gospel of the Grace of God in Christ is that He deposits in the sincere professing spirit His LIFE, bringing that dead spirit alive forever more. Satan cannot defeat that and God proved it for us by raising Jesus from the dead.
Now, if you haven't moved on from boredom, let's take a quick look what Paul offered in Hebrews 6:
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Therefore leaving the principles of the doctrine of Christ, let us go on unto perfection; not laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works, and of faith toward God, |
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Of the doctrine of baptisms, and of laying on of hands, and of resurrection of the dead, and of eternal judgment. |
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And this will we do, if God permit. |
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For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost, |
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And have tasted the good word of God, and the powers of the world to come, |
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If they shall fall away, to renew them again unto repentance; seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put him to an open shame. |
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Perhaps, like many who read those words, we are privately wondering if we've gone too far, sinned too greviously, fallen too far from His Grace to be renewed unto righteousness? ... The very question in your mind is proof that He still whispers in your spirit to return to end the build up of that crust of unrighteousness. And the important thing to realize is, it is not the actual deeds we commit that make up that spiritual crustiness, it is the failure to listen when He lets us know it causes Him pain that we act unrighteously. That is why David prayed that against God and God alone had he sinned ... and David had committed adultery and murder! I used to wonder how Uriah might have objected to David's prayer profession. But once on the other side, as Uriah was, the truth of Whom we sin against is never in doubt. Scripture tells us that the broken and contrite spirit God will in no way cast out. The brokenness derives from our hearing Him telling us when we are out of His Grace and rejecting His offer to usher us back under His Grace while we live and commit deeds. Our membership in His family was settled when we were born again by His spirit not by our efforts. That membership means we have His LIFE in our human spirit, BY HIS ACTION TOWARD US, thus it is by Grace not of works least any man should boast and the weakness of man lose such a precious thing as God's Life in us. He is able and has made the promise to never leave or foresake ... if you can't trust a promise from God, you cannot receive His LIFE in your human spirit. Strange don'tchaknow! It is the secret hidden from the foundation fo the world, my FRiend.
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