Debate Review IV

“And I will make an everlasting covenant with them, that I will not turn away from them, to do them good; but I will put my fear in their hearts, that they shall not depart from me.”  (Jeremiah 32:40)

“And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and you shall keep my judgments, and do them.”  (Ezekiel 36:27)

The above verses, along with others of similar import, were introduced by me as a proof that God's work of regeneration guarantees perseverance.  God says he will do something in his chosen people which will cause them to do something.  He says the effect of his work in them will ensure "that they shall not depart from me." 

"His seed also will I make to endure for ever, and his throne as the days of heaven. If his children forsake my law, and walk not in my judgments; If they break my statutes, and keep not my commandments; Then will I visit their transgression with the rod, and their iniquity with stripes. Nevertheless my lovingkindness will I not utterly take from him, nor suffer my faithfulness to fail. My covenant will I not break, nor alter the thing that is gone out of my lips."  (Psalm 89: 29-34)

"The steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord: and he delighteth in his way. Though he fall, he shall not be utterly cast down: for the Lord upholdeth him with his hand."  (Psa. 37: 23-24)

I introduced these verses to show that the Lord has promised not to eternally condemn his people when they sin but promises to correct them and bring them to repentance.  The Lord's people do fall, but they shall not be utterly cast down.  I also cited these verses along the same line.

"But when we are judged, we are chastened of the Lord, that we should not be condemned with the world."  (I Cor. 11: 32) 

"And ye have forgotten the exhortation which speaketh unto you as unto children, My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of him: For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth. If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons; for what son is he whom the father chasteneth not? But if ye be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then are ye bastards, and not sons. Furthermore we have had fathers of our flesh which corrected us, and we gave them reverence: shall we not much rather be in subjection unto the Father of spirits, and live? For they verily for a few days chastened us after their own pleasure; but he for our profit, that we might be partakers of his holiness. Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby."  (Heb. 12: 5-11)

I argued that these verses also show what the response of the Lord is to the disobedience of his people.  He chastises them and his chastisement does not fail to produce what he intends.  To say that such discipline by the Father often fails is to say that God is not a successful Father.  God does not fail to correct his erring children, just as Jesus does not fail to keep his sheep from going astray so as to be destroyed.

Again, none of the sins of God's children are "unto death" but are rather "not unto death."  They are unto discipline and correction, which is itself unto salvation.