Dr. Joseph A. Pipa, Jr.

President and Professor of Historical & Systematic Theology,

Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary 

 

       

        We all, to some degree, are concerned about security.  Children often experience insecurity. Perhaps they are in the middle of a crowd and suddenly realize they are surrounded by strangers. They immediately are looking around for their daddy’s pant leg or their momma’s skirt.  Just being with a parent, just touching them, brings a sense of security.  Adults, also, are concerned about security.  We do not like being in those circumstances that stretch our comfort zone.  We are uncomfortable with the uncertainties of the future and the problems and difficulties of the present. People’s desire for security lay behind Prudential’s famous advertising slogan, “Get a piece of the rock.”  The Christian has a great security in the Rock of the Lord Jesus Christ – a security that is ours in this life and for the life to come.  God gives us security through Christ with respect to our salvation as well as in our present trials.  Paul deals with that security in Romans 5:1-11.

 

        There has been much polemical discussion lately about justification, and it is necessary that we carefully define and understand justification.  But sometimes, in the midst of necessary polemics, we forget about the beautiful benefits of justification.  In this chapter I will deal with some of the benefits of justification, particularly as they relate to our eternal security.

        In Romans 5 Paul begins a discussion of the benefits of Justification. In 1:18-3:20 he demonstrates the need for justification by expounding the depravity of all men and the impossibility of the law to make anyone right with God. In 3:21-4:25 he explains and proves that in justification God pardons our sins and declares us righteous on the basis of the perfect sacrifice and imputed righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ. In 5:1-8:39 he discusses the benefits and results of justification. At the top of his list of benefits he places security, 5:1-11.

        We will consider three things: based on the perfect work of the Lord Jesus Christ we have present security, future security, and a security in the midst of our trials.   These things are the great declaration of the hope of the gospel.

Present Security

        First, in 5:1, 2a, Paul describes the security of our present relationship with God.  Notice how he relates our present security to the doctrine of justification, “Therefore having been justified by faith.”[1] He makes a logical connection. He concluded chapter four: “He who was delivered up because of our transgressions and was raised because of our justification” (4:25).  The term “therefore” relates what Paul is about to say to Christ’s perfect work on our behalf. Paul is beginning to draw out the benefits of the doctrine of justification. Just as you would take a thread and begin to pull it out of a blanket, Paul begins pulling this thread out of the doctrine of justification.

        Because of our pardon from sin and the gift righteousness, received by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.  What is this peace? It is reconciliation.  I remind you that justification by faith consists of two great things God does for us in Christ Jesus: He pardons all our sins, past, present, and future; and he declares us righteous for the sake of Christ’s imputed righteousness.  Judicially, I am no longer answerable for my sins – they’re covered.  Our justification moves us from the courtroom into the family room.  Confession of sin is part of the family relationship.  It is not maintaining a judicial relationship with God.  But even more important than the pardon of sins in justification is the imputation of righteousness.  Not only does God say I forgive you, but God also says I have clothed you in Christ’s perfect righteousness. Thus judicially, when God looks at us, He sees us as innocent and not guilty, as righteous men, women, and children.  This matter of imputed righteousness is very important to keep in mind. As a Father, God can be displeased with us when we sin. He will chasten us.  But as a judge, He never again looks upon us in any position, but that of a justified sinner – one delivered from the condemnation of the law of God.  This justification is received by faith.  We contribute nothing to this.  And it is because of this reality, he says, we have peace with God, reconciliation.

        Moreover, our justification is an act that God has completed, “Therefore, having been justified” – a once-and-for-all event God has accomplished in Christ Jesus. Apart from Christ, God is our enemy.  He hates us. He has a settled disposition of animosity, of judicial hatred toward us.

        The enmity of God gives rise to a guilty conscience.  God has placed conscience into us to bear witness to us of our alienation from Him, of our just deserts, and thus the terror and dread of death.  Having to stand before God in judgment is our ultimate problem.  But because we’re justified, we’re at peace with God.  This peace is objective; it means that we have been reconciled to God. As Paul writes in 5:9, 10, “Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from the wrath of God through Him. For if while we were enemies, we were reoconciled to God through the death of His son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His Life.” God has laid down His weapons against us, having satisfied His judicial case against us.  He says, “You are now innocent, reconciled to Me, no longer the object of My wrath and My condemnation.  Now you are the object of My favor.”  This declaration is glorious.  You know when you have been at odds with somebody and you go through the awkward and sometimes tense process of reconciliation, how wonderful it is when you are reconciled to that person.  How much more wonderful to be reconciled to God, from whom we were estranged, rightly so, by our own sin. 

        Our justification means that we are at peace with God, not on the basis of what we have done, but on the basis of Christ.  He says we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.  Paul never discusses justification divorced from the grounds.  The work of the Lord Jesus Christ is the grounds of our justification.  He uses the three primary names and titles of Christ.  It is on the basis of the fullness of the work of Jesus Christ that we have this peace—“through our Lord Jesus Christ.”  Notice the pronoun, “our.”  Paul establishes the personal link between the believer and Jesus Christ. It is a personal relation with the savior that secures reconciliation.

        Paul calls him “Lord,” because He is Jehovah who became man; He is the God-man. He calls Him “Jesus” because He came to save His people from their sins (Matt. 1:21). He calls Him “Christ,” because God has anointed him as our prophet, priest, and king, who, in the fullness of His three offices has done and continues doing everything necessary to deliver us from our sins.  He is the One through whom, by whom, on the basis of His work that we receive justification.  Thus this peace is built upon the Rock, the Rock of the Lord Jesus Christ.  And with it comes this glorious peace of conscience.

        This peace is also subjective—peace of conscience. Even the Christian’s conscience flares up at times and indicts him.  Perhaps you have fallen into some serious sin.  Perhaps for some time you have backslidden.  Maybe you are even in that condition right now and your conscience begins to hammer away, distressing and condemning. Your guilty conscience is God’s means of convicting you so that you will confess and forsake your sin. Your confession brings you back as a child of God to the reality of your peace.

        But sometimes the conscience is accusing you because of the past. It is not that you are now living in sin, but you think about what you have done – before you were converted; what you did do when you backslid for some period of time – and you are consumed with guilt.  Paul says to you, “My friend, you have peace with God in our Lord Jesus Christ.” Just as the Savior settled the sea and made it calm, let Him speak to your conscience on the basis of His perfect work, and say, “Peace, be still.”  Because you have confessed those sins and they have been covered by the perfect work of the Lord Jesus Christ.

        Paul develops the concept of peace more fully in verse 2.  In order for us to enjoy the security of justification, he uses two concepts.  He says, of Christ, “through whom also we have obtained our introduction by faith into this grace in which we stand.”  Again he reminds us it is through Christ that we have received justification.  It is our faith in Christ, nothing else. By faith in Christ we enter into this glorious reconciliation and receive this peace.

        Notice the second thing, and Christ makes us stand.  The grace in which we stand is the position of justification. He points out that we have been brought to stand in a sure place. We stand justified in God’s presence. Here he lays out the idea of the once-and-for-all nature of justification.  It is a grace that we enter into and it is a position in which we stand.  And who has caused us to stand in this position?  God, in Christ Jesus.  This is why we call it an act and not a process: “Justification is an act of God’s free grace, wherein he pardoneth all our sins, and accepted us as righteous in his sight, only for the righteousness of Christ imputed to us, and received by faith alone” (Westminster Shorter Catechism, 33).  Justification is not a process.  It’s not something to be maintained by faithfulness on our part.  We do not maintain justification by perseverance.  We persevere out of our justification.  A lack of perseverance simply means we have not been justified, it does not mean that we have lost our justification.  If you are justified, you are standing in Christ Jesus in this glorious, absolute, judicial relationship of peace with God.  And you cannot be moved from it.  Satan himself cannot budge you from this glorious position of God.  

        John pictures this reality in Revelation 7:9, “After these things I looked, and behold, a great multitude, which no one could count, from every nation and all tribes and peoples and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, and palm branches were in their hands.” This multitude consists of the Church in heaven and on earth. All who are in Christ Jesus have been clothed in the white robes of His righteousness and are victors (palm branches). We can be no more justified on the Day of Judgment than we are now. And that is why I write about it as the security of our present relationship with God.  Justification cannot be lost.  Thus your confidence that comes out of justification cannot be lost. 

        Meditate on the reality of the foundation.  The strength of a building is very dependent upon the strength of its foundation.  And our foundation is none less than our Lord Jesus Christ.  His perfect obedience, His propitiatory atoning work on Calvary’s cross, His death , and His glorious resurrection and ascension – He is the one who has introduced us into this grace.  He is the one that causes us to stand, because we are in union Him and we’re clothed with His righteousness.  All who are in Christ by faith have this present security.

FUTURE SECURITY

        Paul also writes about our future security; the security of our future relationship with God, “and we exult in hope of the glory of God” (5:2b).  It is a very simple statement.  And we exult in hope of the glory of God.  The term “exult” means to boast, to glory in something. There are many things that we are not to boast about. We are not to glory in ourselves, our works, our obedience, or our success.  We are to be abased and humble before God and one another. Paul concludes his discussion of our saving union with Christ, “That, just as it is written, ‘LET HIM WHO BOASTS, BOAST IN THE LORD” (1 Cor. 1:31). In 1 Cor. 4:7 he writes, “For who regards you as superior? And what do you have that you did not receive? But if you did receive it, why do you boast as if you had not received it?”  But we are to exult in the grace of God.  We are to boast in God.  And Paul says here, we are to boast, or to exult and joy, in our hope of God’s glory. 

        Now what is this glory that Paul sets before us?  The glory of God is the glorification of the Lord Jesus Christ, who, in our nature, has ascended into heaven and entered into a perfection of glory.  Therefore the body and soul of Jesus Christ – His human nature, in its union with the divine – is crowned with divine glory.  His sinless human nature is exalted to a level of divine glory; He is the glorified God-man.  And because His human nature has been exalted to that position of preeminence, He is worshipped as the God-man.  But He has gone there on our behalf and in our nature to show us that we too shall, first in our souls and then at the resurrection both in body and soul, be perfect just like Him. 

        Immediately at the point of death, the soul is carried by angels into the presence of God and perfected.  We will no longer feel the drags of this body that carries about in it the weight of sin and its corruptions, its passions, which the soul works through. The soul shall be perfected, able to love, enjoy, praise, and serve God without sin or error.

        And then at the resurrection, the body that has been kept in union with the Lord Jesus Christ, regardless of its physical state –burned up in a fire, lost at sea, it matters not—will be raised.  Our Savior, who is omniscient and omnipotent, keeps that body in union to Himself and will raise it from the dead. Although it is mystery we shall receive our own bodies at that resurrection, “Behold, I tell you a mystery; we shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet; for the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed” (! Cor. 15:51, 52). You will receive your body.  It’s not just some new body made up for you.  There will be continuity between the dead body and the resurrection body.  And the body will be perfect.  Then, as glorified men and women, we will love, serve, praise, and enjoy God as well as enjoy one another for all eternity.

        Paul reminds us that Christ has purchased this glory for us as well.  That it is through Him that we exult.  But notice he says, “in the hope of the glory of God.”  Now what is this hope?  This is the hope that comes from being at peace with God.  It is the hope that comes out of justification.  Because of our present security, we have this future security. This hope is not simply an expectation; it is not a strong longing or vehement desire; it is the confident expression of faith, that what God says to me is mine, because I am in Christ Jesus.  I have been justified by faith.  I stand in this relationship to God, thus I have a sure and certain fixed confidence that I shall share in the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ.  That’s the hope of glory.  Christ in you is the hope of glory, and this hope is ours because of our union with Christ in justification. 

        Now, the fact that we stand in the grace justification ought to be enough to assure us that we cannot lose our salvation and that we shall be kept unto eternity.  But Paul drives it home all the more firmly, because God wants us to have assurance of our salvation.  Because you are in Christ, you have a piece of the Rock. 

        Now take this truth to its next step and understand that you can never lose your eternal life.  You will never lose this glory that God has for you – this inheritance that He has put in reserve for you, this trust account.  Christ is in heaven for you, and the Spirit of Christ is in you as the guarantor and the pledge of the reality of this inheritance.  And no one can take it from you.  This is the security of that future and eternal relationship with God.  It all flows out of justification.  We can see why Luther would say that justification is the doctrine of the standing or falling of the Church. It is the basis of all other relationships with God.  God cannot adopt a guilty son. God, as judge, justifies us and leaves the courtroom and says, “Now I’m going to adopt this sinner that I have justified and bring him into the full family inheritance.” The ultimate part of this inheritance is glorification.  But the final inheritance cannot be divorced from justification.  Justification is the foundation of all Christian experience.  The very nature of Christian hope is built upon this foundation.  Your present security and your eternal security are founded in your justification.

SECURITY AND TRIALS

        We all have experienced the dashed hopes of expectations.  Your child wanted a special doll or a tricycle for his birthday. He asked you for this doll or tricycle, but for whatever reason you did not give him what he wanted.  As he opens his presents, although they are very nice presents, he will be disappointed, because he did not get what he expected.  We all know how we feel when we really want something and we do not get it; our hopes are dashed and crushed.  All of us will experience dashed expectations and crushed hopes; they are part of life.  Because of justification, we have great hope and a great security.  But what does that security have to do with the crushed hopes and expectations of life?  Is our faith merely about our relationship with God for eternity?   I do not mean to imply that there is any greater inheritance than our eternal inheritance, but does that eternal inheritance help us now in the midst of heartache, trial, frustration, grief, pain, disappointment, or despondency?  Is there a relationship between eternal security and present struggles?  Paul teaches that there is a most profound relationship between our present and eternal security and our present struggles. And he spells out that relationship in the next section, “And not only this, but we also exult in our tribulations, knowing that tribulation brings about perseverance; and perseverance, proven character; and proven character, hope; and hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us” (Rom. 5:3-5). In this section Paul teaches us the third aspect of the security that comes out of our justification--we may be secure in the midst of life’s trials.  We’ll consider two things.  That God uses trials to strengthen our hope and God’s love establishes our hope.

Trials Strengthen Hope

        We first see trials strengthen our hope.  Notice the transition in verse three, “and not only this.”  What a contrast!  He has spoken about this relationship we have with God in our justification, and particularly about our hope of glory in which we boast.  We have this settled conviction, this infallible assurance that we’re going to live with God forevermore.  Then he says, but not only this, we also boast in life’s trials.  The term “exult” is the same word Paul uses in verse 2. As we exult in the hope of glory, we exult in our tribulations. James states it similarly, “Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials” (James 1:2). This is a profound statement; it stretches the imagination.  We may have the same glorying and boasting and exultation, which we have in our eternal security, in our present trials. 

        Paul proves his point in a tightly reasoned argument. Why is it that we can exult in tribulations?  How is our hope strengthened through the midst of these trials?  We will look at the logic of it.  He says we can exult in our tribulations, because tribulations bring perseverance, “knowing that tribulation brings about perseverance (endurance).”  God has designed tribulation to produce endurance. He brings us into the crucible, the furnace, of testing, of affliction, of persecution, of heartbreak, of pain, or of terminal illness in order to test and refine our faith.  Because Christ has died for us and God has justified us, these trials become the occasion and the circumstance for endurance.   

        That is what perseverance means. The trial presents us with the occasion for obeying God, living through the midst of the trial and the circumstance, clinging to Christ, doing our duty as God calls us to it, regardless the circumstances, regardless the perceived outcome, regardless the bleakness that surrounds us, our calling is to walk in the way that God has set before us, to endure the cross and to do our duty by the grace of Christ in the midst of our trial.  And so we see that the trials, the temptations, and afflictions actually strengthen us in our race. 

        We may compare them to the pain of physical exercise.  It is like training for a marathon.  If you enter a marathon without training, you will never complete the twenty-six mile run.  You must subject yourself to all the pain of running ten, fifteen, and twenty miles – of running until your body collapses in fatigue.  Only after a period of time of such strenuous exercise will you be able to endure the twenty-six miles.  God designs our trials to train us.  He never gives us more than we can bear; He apportions each trial to what we need and can do (1 Cor. 10:13).  Even our Savior trained in this manner.  He was trained by His trials for suffering and obedience (Heb. 5:8).  He was not ready to die on the cross at twelve years old, not even at twenty-nine.  Through sufferings, the Father was training Him for that final offering of Himself. 

        And thus God has designed for you and me every trial. Each affliction, each disappointment produces in us endurance.  As we walk according to the light and grace we have, clinging to Christ, walking in the way of obedience, He is teaching us endurance.  We are enabled to respond like Job, “The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away, Blessed by the name of the Lord” (Job 1:21). Or like Eli, “It is the Lord; let Him do what seems good to Him” (1 Sam. 3:18).

        The next link in Paul’s argument is “proven character,” “and perseverance, proven character.”  Your character is really what you are all about. It is the substance of your being, of your person.  It’s your moral nature.  And proven character, character proved by God, is the character that has gone through the furnace, the refining fires of God, and has come out glowing, refined and more beautiful--character that reflects the glory of God with certain permanence about it.  And that is what our trials work in us through perseverance. God tests our character so that our faith is obvious.

        He says of Job after his loss of all his possessions and children, “Have you considered My servant Job? For there is no one like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, fearing God and turning away from evil. And he still holds fast his integrity, although you incited Me against him, to ruin him without cause” (Job 2:3). God responds to Abraham, “For now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only son, from Me” (Gen. 22:12). Although God speaks of what He knows, ultimately He tests us that we might know and that those around us might see that we are the products of God’s grace.  Thus, our trials are absolutely necessary.  If you have a hope of salvation that is yet untried and untested in the furnace of God, it can be a hope that disappoints.  Is this not what the Savior teaches in Matthew chapter 13 in the parable of the soils when He talks about the stony-ground-hearer, and says of that one, “And the one on whom the seed was sown on the rocky places, this is the man who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy, yet he has no firm root in himself” (verses 20, 21).  His faith was not genuine; it was only temporary.  And when affliction or persecution arises because of the word, he immediately falls away.  This parable teaches how trials prove faith. The rocky or stony ground is a layer of rock under a layer of top soil.  The rock creates an incubator effect and that is why the plant sprouts early with great promise. Because of the warmth created by the rock, the seed that is in the soil immediately sprouts. But then the hot sun begins to beat down on the plant and it does what it is supposed to do.  It begins to sink its roots down deeper into the soil.  What happens?  The roots hit rock.  The plant withers and dies.  Christ says this person was a temporary hearer; he did not have a heart prepared.  He was presumptuous and careless, and thus he did not have the root of the matter in him.  But what was it that exposed this person?  How does Christ interpret the sun?  He says that the sun is the trials and persecutions that come into our lives. Just as God uses the hot sun to cause a plant to prosper and grow, to show its true root system, He has designed every one of our trials, temptations, afflictions, and persecutions to beat down upon us, sometimes with a searing heat, so that our roots sink deeply into the Lord Jesus Christ, where alone we have hope. 

        But when that happens, and you go through the furnace of affliction, you have weathered the sunshine of trial and persecution, and your life is thriving in the Lord Jesus Christ, you see what that has done for you?  What does Paul say is the result?  He says, “and proven character, hope” (Rom. 5:4). Proven character produces hope.  Ultimately he says our hope is being tested through our trials. There is always the danger of a presumptuous, superficial hope. Thus our hope is being tested through our trials, so that it will not be a deceived hope, a hypocritical confidence, but rather it is a tested and tried hope.  It has come out of the furnace designed by God and thus hope itself is strengthened.  And that’s why you and I need our trials.  Trials do not work against a sense of eternal security, but actually strengthen it. They are blessings from God.

        For this reason you may exult in them.  Do you think about exulting in trials?  Not that you enjoy the pain.  God never tells us to rejoice in pain.  But we are to rejoice in the reality that our Father has acted wisely, and with all power, governing the circumstances of our lives. He has given you your particular set of trials and afflictions that He might give you endurance, that you might have proven character, that your hope might be steadfast and unmistakable.  And this is why our Father sends trials.  “We know that God causes all thins to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose” (Rom. 8:28).    And thus I can exult in tribulation, because tribulation is used of God to strengthen hope. 

Love Establishes Hope

        But what is the basis of this work in us?  Paul goes on to show us that the love of God establishes this hope, “And hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us” (Rom. 5:5).  Notice how he relates the love of God to the hope.  The hope Paul writes of here will not disappoint. He is talking about the same hope, the hope of eternal life, based on the confidence of our settled relation with God in justification and in adoption.  This hope matures and is strengthened in the midst of our trials and will not disappoint.  A tested hope does not disappoint.  A tested hope is not going to be deceitful and it will not betray.  Why?  Because it is a product of God’s love, “because, the love of God has been poured out within our heats through the Holy Spirit who is given to us.”  Here we begin to see how that testing through trials that strengthens hope relates to justification. 

        What is it that establishes hope?  It is God’s justifying love.  For he describes this love of God that is poured out into us, not as the love that we have for God, but is the objective love God has for us in Christ Jesus.  He writes, “For while we were still helpless, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will hardly die for a righteous man; though perhaps for the good man someone would dare even to die. But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (Rom. 5:6-8). By this love God gave Christ to die for us. In verses 9-11 he relates this love to the reality of justification and reconciliation on the basis of Christ’s atoning work and indestructible life. There we see the relationship between the love and justification. It is God’s love that gave us Christ; a love that did not spare anything necessary for our justification.  This is the love that then sends you tribulation. The fountain of justifying love is the fountain of sanctifying love, the fountain of all tribulation, persecution, and affliction. Ultimately, we glorify God, “And not only this, but we also exult in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received the reconciliation” (Rom. 5:11).

        For this reason hope will not disappoint.  You may reason:  “This God who has loved me so much to give me His own Son, will He not also freely grant me all things in Him?  Having given me His Son, will He deprived me of any blessing that is for my good in this life?  He gave me the greatest blessing.  Is he going to withhold anything from that is a blessing?”

        Your first response might be, “Well, yes, He has.” You say this because He sent you trials or has not given you all you desire. Remember what the savior said, “Now suppose one of you fathers is asked by his son for a fish; he will not give him a snake instead of a fish, will he? Of if he is asked for an egg, he will not give him a scorpion, will he? If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him” (Luke. 11:11-13)? Because God loves us He will not give us those things that will harm you, but His gift of the Holy Spirit reminds us that He always gives what is for our good. 

        Neither has He pampered you.  Because He loves you, he will discipline you (Heb. 12:5-7). Our Father disciplines those whom He loves.  So the very love of God that gave Christ for us, the love of God that has justified us, withholds nothing from us that is for our good.  So the love of God that justifies is the love of God that strengthens our hope. 

        God seals His love to us by the ministry of the Holy Spirit.  Paul writes that this love is “poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who is given to us” (Rom. 5:5).  As we repent and believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, God brings us into union with Christ, by the Holy Spirit’s indwelling us. It is by the Spirit of Christ that we are in union with Christ.  And the Sprit is in us as the hope of glory.  He is the pledge of our eternal inheritance.  He is the pledge to us of God’s love, that God has chosen us, redeemed us, justified us, adopted us, and will keep us.  And the Spirit’s presence in us, as the Spirit of Christ, is the Spirit of adoption bearing witness to us that we are sons of God.  And that God loves us.  The Spirit assures us that our trials shall sanctify us.  And how wonderful it is that our Father would give us His Spirit that we might have this guarantor, this pledge, this down-payment.  If you will listen to the Spirit speaking to your conscience by the promises of Scripture, He will testify to you in every trial that your Father loves you. 

        You see how foolish it is to divorce all the stated benefits of the gospel from the benefit of persevering grace.  The one who is justified will be kept; he will persevere. He is the one who is tried and shall never fail in those trials because the Spirit of Christ has been given to him to keep him.  And so justification is a beautiful doctrine describing a beautiful relationship.   We learn that the justified one cannot lose his justification. He is reconciled to God, and God is sovereignly working in his life to keep him.

        Remember it is by Jesus Christ that you have been made to stand, here.  Do not detract from His work.  Do not rob Him of His glory.  He alone has caused us to stand in our justification.  He alone, God through Him, keeps us in our standing.  We do not maintain it.  May God give to you the glorious peace of conscience and the hope of eternity that come from the realization that Christ, on the basis of what He has done, has brought you into this grace, and causes you to stand in it.  Amen.