Message 54: The OSAS False Doctrine, God's Wrath And Condemnation, The Bema Seat of Christ And The Judgment Of The Saints.
– Mark Chen 1-28-2014
Dear brothers and sisters, The Lord is prompting me to post this message, based on a recent comment I made on Facebook, in response to a brother's question regarding the 'once saved, always saved', OSAS false teaching that is so popular among many churches today. This is specifically focusing on the context of how OSAS believers may use Scriptures such as Romans 8:1 and 1 Corinthians 3:12-15 to justify their belief that no professing Christian can possibly lose their salvation in Christ.
As this is now the third teaching message I am presenting here on understanding the false doctrine of the OSAS belief, I would encourage those who have missed the previous 2 messages, to read them first. Here are the links:
1) https://m.facebook.com/story.php…
2) https://m.facebook.com/story.php…
An important part of this third teaching message discusses the Bema Seat of Christ, and the Judgment of the Saints, so please prayerfully reflect on it, as The Lord wants us to pay particular attention to our preparation for the coming Rapture of the Bride, and His Judgment of the Saints before His throne in Heaven.
RELEVANT SCRIPTURES:
Romans 8:1 (ESV)
There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
1 Corinthians 3:10-15 (ESV)
10 According to the grace of God given to me, like a skilled master builder I laid a foundation, andsomeone else is building upon it. Let each one take care how he builds upon it. 11 For no one can lay a foundation other than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. 12 Now if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw— 13 each one's work will become manifest, for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed by fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done. 14 If the work that anyone has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward. 15 If anyone's work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire.
MESSAGE:
Concerning Romans 8:1, there is indeed no condemnation for those who are IN CHRIST JESUS. This refers to believers who have been justified by their faith in Christ's atonement for their sins, and who have peace with God through His Son (Romans 5:1-2). I have emphasised the key phrase in capital letters: IN CHRIST JESUS. What does it mean to be in Christ? It refers not only to the justification of our sins through our confession of Christ as our Lord and Saviour (Romans 10:9-10), it also refers to the continuing process of remaining IN CHRIST JESUS through ongoing faith and obedience (Matt 7:21).
This process of sanctification happens when believers choose to continually forsake self and worldly pleasures (Matt10:38-39), in order to stay on the narrow path that leads to life in Christ (Matt 7:14, John 14:6). These believers are the fruitful branches that REMAIN IN CHRIST, the living Vine, and whom the Father prunes in order to make them more fruitful (John 15:1-4). This is what it means to be, and remain, IN CHRIST JESUS, and thus, to remain outside of God's condemnation and within God's peace, according to my understanding of Romans 8:1.
A follower of the OSAS teaching may point to Romans 8:1 as 'evidence' in the Bible that once we are saved by grace through faith in Christ, we will always be saved and free from condemnation. However, they fail to realise the importance of the key qualifier here: we must remain IN CHRIST JESUS in order to remain in His salvation. However, many who practise the OSAS belief do not see the need to follow the Lord's commands and prove themselves to be truly saved by their obedience to Christ in every area of their lives (Matt 7:21-23).
Sadly, too many OSAS Christians believe that they can love the things of the world and still remain in God's grace and salvation, when God's Word clearly tell us that anyone who loves the things of the world does not have the love of the Father in him (1 John 2:15). Having started their journey of salvation in Christ Jesus, they did not remain in Him through continuing faith and obedience to His Word.
By persistently taking God's grace as an excuse to indulge in the carnal desires of the sinful flesh, the OSAS believer is no longer IN CHRIST JESUS, but he has veered off the narrow path of life onto the wide road that leads to destruction (Matt 7:13-14). Such a Christian is no longer under God's peace, but he has come under His wrath and condemnation instead. The only solution is to recognise this and to repent through the confession of one's disobedience to God (1 John 1:9).
All believers who remain IN CHRIST JESUS to the end of their journey on earth will ultimately receive the goal of their faith and obedience in Christ, ie. the salvation of their souls and bodies, through the perfection of their salvation in Christ (1 John 3:2-3, 1 Cor 15:51-55). Their names remain in the Lamb's Book of Life (Rev 3:5). They do not suffer God's wrath and condemnation upon them for their sins, which are washed away by the precious Blood of the Lamb, and they therefore enter into His eternal life and peace (John 3:36).
However, we must note that among these believers, there are varying degrees of obedience and good works done by faith whilst they were alive on earth. Those who have obeyed The Lord in many ways during their personal journey of salvation on earth, can expect to receive great rewards in Heaven (Matt 6:19-20), when the saints are judged before the Bema Seat of Christ (1 Cor 3:12-15, 2 Cor 5:10).
At the same time, those who have continued on the narrow path of life in Christ to the end, but who have not actively sought to produce more fruit through their faith and obedience in Christ, can expect to still receive eternal life, as God has promised (John 3:16), but they should not expect to receive great rewards in Heaven, at the Lord's judgment of the saints.
Hence, Paul was describing the future scene at the Judgment of the saints in 1 Cor 3:12-15, and all who face this judgment are promised and given eternal life, because they had remained by faith on the one true foundation of salvation, the Rock, our Saviour. The big difference is in their heavenly rewards. Those who had invested their God-given earthly resources towards the advancement of the Gospel and God's Kingdom will reap what they had sown through faith and obedience whilst on earth. These are the ones who had built upon the foundation of salvation with precious stones and metals, by giving their all to Christ Jesus.
Those who did not do so, had built upon the foundation of Christ's Gospel with inferior materials such as wood, hay and straw. They had remained IN CHRIST JESUS, but they did not sow generously into the Gospel and Kingdom of God. Their shoddy works of faith will not stand up to the test of fire, but they will still keep their reward of eternal life through faith and a minimum requirement of obedience in Christ Jesus, ie. these believers have obeyed the Lord's command to stay on the narrow path that leads to life in Him (Matt 7:14), though they have not produced as much spiritual fruit in their lives.
An OSAS believer may misinterpret 1 Cor 3:12-15 to mean that all believers who profess faith in Christ Jesus will automatically have the assurance of eternal life in Heaven, when the reality is that only those who have kept to the one true foundation of their salvation (ie. the Gospel of Christ) will find themselves at the Judgment of the saints described in that Bible text. Again, too many OSAS followers believe that they can practise a form of licentious grace and get away with it (cf Romans 3:5-8), because they wrongly understand what it means when the Bible says that there is no longer any condemnation for those who are IN CHRIST JESUS (Romams 8:1).
When such Christians choose to live for themselves and their own worldly pleasures, they have become their own gods and idols, which is sin in God's eyes. They have unknowingly cast aside the foundation of their salvation, the solid Rock our Saviour, and have begun to build foolishly on shifting sand instead (Matt 7:24-27). Through their actions, they are actually mocking God's Word in Galatians 6:7-8, because by their wrong understanding of salvation, they believe that they can sow to please their flesh, and still reap eternal life in Christ!
As I have explained already, these believers have gone off the path of life and they have veered onto the broad road that leads to their destruction (Matt 7:13-14), because they have exchanged the truth of the one Gospel of Jesus Christ for a lie from the enemy, and they are serving themselves, the creation, rather than God, the Creator (Romans 1:25). Therefore, they will not make it to the Judgment of the saints, nor will they inherit eternal life, for God's wrath and condemnation remains on them.
Shalom!
Mark Chen