And I give eternal life to them and they shall never perish; and no one will snatch them out of My hand. John 10:28
As a young believer in the faith I had tremendous fears of whether I was eternally secure in the salvation Jesus Christ had provided for me. I believed in Christ’s atoning work on the cross of Calvary. I believed that faith in Him alone was the prerequisite for eternal salvation and to have my sin forever forgiven, so to escape His wrath due me.
So why did I struggle with a security that God Himself had signed and sealed with the death and resurrection of His Son as recorded in the Scriptures?
The problem was I was looking at myself instead of focusing my attention on the work of God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit! I became consumed with my own failures at the expense of gaining sight of the transaction that took place between the Godhead in eternity past, on my behalf.
In other words, I had a puny man centred view of my salvation that would always fail to see the magnificent, awesome, transcendent view of God’s grace in action toward me. I failed to see that my personal salvation was a transaction planned and worked out in the Godhead. I failed to see my eternal salvation was settled even before I came to faith myself!
I like how Don Kistler [grace quotes] puts it: The elect person is a gift from God to Christ based on Christ’s satisfactory work, not on my satisfactory work. If a person could lose his salvation, it could only be on the basis of God’s dissatisfaction with the finished work of Christ. But He has declared once and for all, and it is written infallibly in the pages of Scripture, that He is satisfied. And if God is satisfied with what Christ has done, the issue is settled.