2 Peter 1:4 speaks of those with authentic faith in Christ as “having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.” This can truly be said of anyone who is justified through Christ and thus in God’s grace at the present moment.  Sometimes that is what those who say that they are saved mean.  Yet often those who claim to be saved think that they are unconditionally guaranteed to ultimately be saved in the end.  

The belief of possessing an already guaranteed ultimate salvation is often what people mean when they use the word “saved.”  And in the minds of many, faith in Christ can be separated from escaping the corruption that is in the world through lust and Christian discipleship altogether.  

Escaping the corruption that is in the world through lust in order to be Christ’s disciple always is involved in authentic faith in Christ.  Yet this is not even the end of the Christian life; it is the very beginning.  It is the entrance into the school of Christ where the narrow gate has been passed through and the narrow way to life has been entered.  Those whom this is true of have entered the school of Christian discipleship where all diligence is required going forward.  

Peter would eventually warn the presently saved people of their very real danger of being ensnared in corruption again so that they would not ultimately be saved in the end.  Peter would make it clear to those on Christ’s narrow way that they must endure in that way until the end in order to be saved in the end.  

The things which Peter wrote in 2 Peter are practically one continual warning to the Christians that their ultimate salvation in Christ is not unconditionally guaranteed.  They rather need to be steadfast in doing right before God and abstaining from sin while not heeding those who deny the necessity of that.  Jude would essentially devote his epistle to the same theme.  Like Peter, Jude very much connected his warnings with those who taught unconditional eternal security while disconnecting faith in Christ and salvation in Him from a person’s actual deeds (since a person’s deeds demonstrate their faith or unbelief in Christ). 

2 Peter 2:1: “But there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction.”

And where does this leave those who blatantly deny Lordship salvation, those who say that sinning can’t affect a Christian’s salvation, and those who just blatantly say that we don’t need to actually do what the Bible commands in order to be saved?  It exposes these as condemned liars.

We see it emphasized in 2 Peter that those who see themselves as beyond the need to seek the grace of God in the present to be consistent with, and fitting for, the everlasting kingdom of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ are deluded- since those not consistent with and fitting for that kingdom will not enter there.  

Aaron’s email is: [email protected]

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