UGOCHUKWU UGWUANYI
Since salvation isn’t earned by works, deeds, or actions, it follows that it can’t be lost by what people do. What obtains at one end should hold up at the other. Eternal life and eternal salvation must go pari passu. We shall return to this presently. Erstwhile president of the Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria (PFN) and Presiding Bishop of The Redeemed Evangelical Mission (TREM), Dr Mike Okonkwo has been accused of “returning to his vomit”.
In his autobiography entitled: ‘The Last, but definitely not the least’, Pastor Tunde Bakare wrote: “When someone came to tell me that Bishop Mike had delved into error and had started to preach hyper-grace (grace without truth) and was downplaying the need for sanctification, I went to him and said, ‘Sir, this is what I was told.’ ‘No, no, no, no, no,’ he said. ‘They’re misconstruing what I said.”
The hyper-grace principle simply means guaranteed eternal salvation or the doctrine that once saved, is forever saved. It is like some men, who, for love, offer their wives advance forgiveness for wrongdoings and staying true to it as they go along in marriage. If human beings can be this gracious, how much more God, who is the embodiment of mercy and love?
The once-saved-always-saved principle was exactly what the Bishop embraced when he recently declared the following without equivocation: “I am saved, eternally saved. Eternally forgiven. Eternally redeemed. All my sins are forgiven: past, present, and future. I am already in heaven.” By so saying, critics have accused him of a volte-face. While some Christians have no qualms with the 80-year-old Okonkwo saying that his past and present sins are forgiven, what they can’t stomach is his future sins being forgiven as well.
It is heartwarming to have a Kingdom General of Bishop Okonkwo’s status swell the ranks of those who see salvation for what it is. The creed in question should be unquestionable, having survived thousands of years. Ages before the 1900s, when some American revivalists began teaching that “your future sins are already forgiven,” Augustine (AD 354–430) had propounded that if God chooses you, you cannot be lost. More than 1,000 years later, John Calvin (1509–1564) expanded the revelation, terming it “the perseverance of the saints”. This is what has morphed into the present-day ‘eternal security’ doctrine.
The hyper-grace principle has remained contentious because it is too good to be true. That is the Gospel for you. So long as a person has the Holy Spirit, they are eternally saved. This is why Ephesians 1:14 describes him as “the guarantee of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, to the praise of His glory.” Notice the use of “until” the rapture of the saints. If there were no Biblical basis for eternal security in Christ, then it could be dismissed as heretical. The Good Book is replete with texts affirming that once saved, is forever saved. Even the teachings of the Lord Jesus make the point with the parable of the prodigal son (Luke 15:11-32) being a case in point.
How much more vile can an offender be than a son who treated his father for dead? This is by asking for his inheritance while the man is still alive. Getting his ask followed by a riotous living that eventually saw him surviving on swine’s feed, the father still ran to warmly welcome the prodigal when the latter came to his senses and was headed home. Observe that Daddy didn’t wait for the son’s confession of his contrition (vs 21) before enthusiastically reaching out to the deviant home (vs 20). This should answer those who reject hyper-grace on the basis of 1 John 1:9. You’d also see in the passage that although the prodigal asked to be no longer considered a son but one of the servants, the father yet referred to him as “this son of mine”. There goes God’s unfathomable love – so disarming that it can elicit remorse and make the sinner not want to continue in his ways.
This parable is similar to the sheep that strayed from the fold, with the good shepherd leaving the 99 to search for it. “And if he finds it, truly I tell you, he is happier about that one sheep than about the ninety-nine that did not wander off.” (Matthew 18:13). For sanctification/works stalwarts, when a believer wanders off the way, that’s it for their salvation but Jesus’s teaching in Matthew 18:10-14 confirms that they still have their place in the fold. This explains John 10:28, where the Lord declared, “I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand.” Eternally guaranteed salvation is also reflected in the account of Noah’s Ark. It was God who shut the door after they had entered (Genesis 7:16), so that no one could exit the Ark (which symbolises Jesus) until the Lord’s agenda is done. This indicates that once you are in Christ, you are locked in until the Day of Redemption!
Eternal salvation is a hard teaching because critics imagine that supposed saints can willfully delve into sin. The functional word is willfully. There is no willful sinning for those who have been truly saved because they are no longer in control of their will. The Holy Spirit, which inhabits us from the point of salvation, makes sin unappealing and anathema. “He saved us, not because of the righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He washed away our sins, giving us a new birth and new life through the Holy Spirit.” (Titus 3:5).
Another major reason why salvation is eternally guaranteed is that God takes responsibility for the believers’ righteousness. In Isaiah 54:17, God categorically stated that “their righteousness is of me”. This was reiterated in Philippians 1:11, 2 Samuel 22:33, Romans 3:22, Ezekiel 36:26-27, etc. God is like the saint’s guarantor. When someone with such a sponsor defaults, the guarantor bears the liability. For this reason, the latter would ensure that the former abides by the contract. Even when it seems the believer backslides, their salvation can still coincide with their final breath moment, like that dying thief on the Cross that Jesus told, according to Luke 23:43, “Verily I say unto thee, To day shalt thou be with me in paradise.”
VIS Ugochukwu is a Sage, Narrative Architect and Branding Strategist who can be reached via nmiringwu@gmail.com