I Believe Revelation 3:5 is Proof of Eternal Security
The opponents of eternal security are indeed a problem. Many of them have been citing verses after verses without knowing the context. This is not about calling a license to sin. I believe that anyone who claims to have eternal security or is once saved and always saved without any visible change in lifestyle deserves to be questioned. Meanwhile, Revelation 3:5 is a verse that is frequently used by eternal security opponents to say, "See, names are taken out of the Lamb's Book of Life!"
I would like to provide my defense for the matter. Here's a bit of Bible reading from
I would like to provide my defense for the matter. Here's a bit of Bible reading from
He that overcometh, the same shall be clothed in white raiment; and I will not blot out his name out of the book of life, but I will confess his name before My Father, and before His angels.
What does it mean to be an overcomer? If you're born again of God then you are an overcomer. Who are those who overcome?
1 John 5:3-5
For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments: and His commandments are not grievous. 4 For whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world: and this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith. 5 Who is he that overcometh the world, but he that believeth that Jesus is the Son of God?
This is not merely believing that Jesus is the Son of God. This is all about pisteon or trusting in Jesus as the Son of God and the Savior from sin. This is not the standard, easy-believism nonsense where we say, "I can be saved and live the way I want." If you believe that then I've got bad news for you - chances are you aren't saved. Any true salvation results in a change of lifestyle. A Christian is not sinless but they are bound to sinning less. The very idea of a Christian who is perpetually carnal is not biblical. Romans 7:14-25 has Paul struggling with sin but in woe - not delighting in the sin he struggled horribly against but hating it. Unfortunately, you've got Antinomians today who have so horribly misrepresented the wonderful truth of eternal security!
What we consider in being the overcomer is that whoever is born of God, whoever believes that Jesus is the eternal Son of God and receives Him as Lord and Savior is an overcomer. You can't be an overcomer by yourself. Rather, this is overcoming by Jesus. When one receives Jesus as Lord and Savior then consider the clothing in white raiment. It's the only way to overcome sin and its dreadful hold. The Book of Acts gives us incidents where immorality was flushed down the toilet wherever the Gospel is preached. Those incidents are more than enough to refute Antinomianism where people can be saved but never change. The lordship salvation distinctive is that a Christian may fall away but never completely but is destined by God's grace to endure to the end. Lordship salvation draws a line between false Christians and those who are truly eternally secure in Christ. The promise of Christ is that every person who believes in Him is an overcomer. Overcoming means living a different life as a result of it and not as a prerequisite of salvation. This promise is that whoever has their name written down in the Lamb's Book of Life can't be blotted out.
We can also consider Revelation 13:8 says that names not written in the Lamb's Book of Life will eventually worship the Antichrist. I'm convinced that anybody saved during the Tribulation will never worship the Beast or receive the mark as proof of that salvation. Somebody can say it's possible that somebody can "get saved" during the Tribulation and then eventually renounce it. If that were so then that conversion was false. If your name was written in the Lamb's Book of Life during the Tribulation Period then you can only expect to resist the Antichrist. I myself had a struggle with eternal security too thinking it was possible to renounce my faith. That's what I feared that I would renounce it. I still remembered the pamphlet titled as "Safe and Secure: The Permanence of Salvation" which talked about that we can only assume someone who renounces Christ repeatedly was never saved. Then I ended up struggling with that stance from reading from other anti-Catholic sources like the late Tony Alamo and Arthur Bruce Hallman's FMH-Child. Again, I do still have that guarantee that anybody who truly trusted Christ, by God's grace, will endure to the end as a result of salvation.
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