I should be pleased to receive some help on the doctrine of "final perseverance," or "once in grace always in grace," also concerning predestination.
We will consider predestination first. The Scriptures are clear on this subject, and there is great comfort to be gleaned from them for everyone. "[God has] chosen us in Christ before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love: Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself. ... In whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of Him who works all things after the counsel of His own will." (Ephesians 1:4-5,11)
So you see, if you have given your heart to Jesus Christ, you have connected yourself with something that goes back to a time before Adam fell, or the earth was created. You must not look at yourself, and think, "Now I have just given myself to the Lord, I wonder if I can stand the trial of my faith, and whether I shall be holding on still six months from now?"
When you fall on the Rock, (Matthew 21:44) coming to Him as unto a living stone, you are built into the living foundation, which is Christ Jesus, and partake of its solidity and strength. (1 Peter 2:4-5) That foundation has stood the fiercest storms that can come, and for thousands of years it has been steadfast and unmovable. (Matthew 7:24-25) In Christ you have the same standing, you have a life that has not wavered since the days of eternity.
It was not you that chose Christ, He chose you. (John 15:16) It was not because of your will that you were born again. It was because of God's will. (John 1:13, James 1:18) When you knew that God had chosen you, you were willing to be His. You surrendered to His will, that He might "work in you to will and to do of His good pleasure." (Philippians 2:13)
When you are tempted to think that you are too frail and vacillating to endure to the end, remember that what has made you a Christian has not wavered once, in all the past, that the life you receive by faith is an everlasting life, and that He who has begun the good work is able to carry it forward to the glorious end. (Philippians 1:6)
Although God has willed our salvation and predestinated us to eternal life, there is perfect freedom with Him, and no one is compelled to take what God provides. We have a will of our own, but the best use we can make of it is to will that we will accept God's will. Our little will, like the little switch, has power to connect us with God or break the connection. We may have very little will power, but it only takes a very small switch to make the connection. When our life is thus willingly connected with God, the current flows through us, and we have the everlasting life, and learn that the Gospel is the power of God.
God has made known our predestination to us, because: "[He is] willing...to show unto the heirs of promise the immutability of His counsel." (Hebrews 6:17)
We partake of the root as well as of the fatness of the olive tree. (Romans 11:17) But this assurance is not for a few only. Those of whom Paul speaks in the Epistle to the Ephesians were not specially deserving of being predestinated to sonship and inheritance. It was when they were "dead in sins" that they were quickened together with Christ. (Ephesians 2:1,5) Who then can be counted out of God's predestination? Not one. "For whom He did foreknow, He also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of His Son." (Romans 8:30)
Some hold an entirely erroneous view of predestination, which is opposed to the Scripture. They believe that God foreordained some to be lost, and some to be saved. Now God could not predestinate some to be lost without knowing which they were, but the text we have just read states emphatically that everyone whom God knew of beforehand was predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son. This proves that God had no thought whatever of condemning any to be lost. Such a thing did not enter His mind.
If you will look through the passages that speak of election, you will find that everyone of them speaks of election to salvation. "He said to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion." (Romans 9:15)
Notice that it is mercy and compassion that God is determined on, not mercy on some and wrath on others.
Even Pharaoh is quoted as an instance of this. God raised him up to make him a witness, and that the name of God might be declared through him in all the earth. Pharaoh resisted God's gracious purpose, but it was carried out nevertheless. It might have been done through Pharaoh as a willing instrument, but since he would not yield, it was done through him against his will. His very effort to defeat God's plan was the means by which the plan was carried out.
In Pharaoh's case, we see how it is that some will be lost, although God has predestined them to life. They resist the gracious purpose of God, and in so doing they harden themselves. They will not be pliable in God's hands, as the clay is in the hands of the potter. They become stiff, so that while God in mercy is dealing with them, seeking to mold them aright, they break in His hands, as Pharaoh did. Their lives are spoiled and wasted, and they fail of the design that God planned for them.
If they had been passive in God's hands, His eternal purpose would have been fulfilled in them. God does all that He can do to make His predestination effective. "Whom He did predestinate, them He also called: and whom He called, them He also justified: and whom He justified, them He also glorified." (Romans 8:30)
God does all that He can for every man. "O house of Israel, are not my ways equal?" (Ezekiel 18:29)
The question may be asked, "Why are not all saved?"
God asks that question, too. There is no reason that any man will dare to offer when he stands before the great white throne. No deficiency will be alleged there so far as God is concerned. Once in grace, always in grace.
On this point, little needs to be said. There is no reason why men should not always be in grace. "Where sin abounded, grace did much more abound." (Romans 5:20)
The great difficulty usually is to get men to believe at all in the grace of God, and we would not say a word to lessen anyone's courage in the Lord's power to take care of their past, present, and future. Here is the best by which we may know if we are in grace or not. "Sin shall not have dominion over you: for you are not under the law, but under grace." (Romans 6:14)
This is the work that grace does. I have met men who have perverted this truth, and say, "I have once been in grace, therefore I cannot be lost."
That is wrong. As long as sin does not have dominion over them they will not be lost.
Sometimes a man will learn that the seventh day is the Sabbath, and he sees that he ought to keep it, but he is afraid to face the consequences. He will say, "It does not make any difference to my salvation whether I obey God in this matter or not. I have been in grace once, and so I am sure of being saved at last, even if I do not keep the Sabbath."
Such a man shows that he does not know what grace is. He is no Christian at all. Jesus saves His people from their sins, and the man who makes Christ's work a reason for his remaining in sin, is putting a cruel dishonor upon the Saviour.
As long as a man abides in Christ he is saved from sin and is under grace. When he walks in sin he is not abiding in Christ, "For he that says he abides in Him, ought himself also so to walk, even as He walked." (1 John 2:6)--Present Truth, September 10, 1903.