Lessons #279 and 280
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+ 1. It is best to use this note after you have listened to the lessons because there are +
+ comments given in the actual exposition not in the note. +
+ 2. The Bible abbreviations are as follows: CEV =Contemporary English version, +
+ CEB = Common English Bible, ESV= English Standard Version, +
+ GWT = God’s Word Translation, ISV = International Standard Version, +
+ NAB=New English Bible, NASB= New American Standard Bible, +
+ NEB= New English Bible, NET = New English Translation, +
+ NLT = New Living Translations NJB = New Jerusalem Bible, +
+ NJV = New Jewish Bible, TEV = Today’s English Version. +
+ 3. Notes have not been edited for grammatical errors. +
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Helmet of Salvation (Eph 6:17a)
17 Take the helmet of salvation …
We have come to the fifth and last defensive weapon of the spiritual warfare the apostle has been discussing since verse 14. The last defensive weapon is described as “helmet of salvation” in verse 17. Our approach so far in considering these defensive weapons is to view them in terms of actions believers should take to hold their ground in the spiritual warfare. The first is equipping oneself with the certainty that Christianity contains the ultimate truth of God. In other words, a believer must have the assurance of the Christian faith as expressed in its doctrines is indeed true without any equivocation. The second is equipping oneself with righteousness (faith and works) as a protective covering. The third is equipping oneself with good news of peace (gospel and peace as a concept). The fourth is equipping oneself with sound doctrine of the Christian faith joined by confidence/trust in the Lord. Therefore, in keeping with this approach, we consider the fifth action.
A fifth action that is necessary for a believer to hold his/her ground in the spiritual warfare is equipping oneself with confident expectation with respect to the believer’s salvation or spiritual deliverance. This, of course, means that the believer should have a good understanding of salvation. This action is derived from the command Take the helmet of salvation of Ephesians 6:17. Our first task will be to explain the phrase the helmet of salvation before we examine the action required by the command.
The word “helmet” is translated from a Greek word (perikephalaia) that means “head covering” that is used militarily in the sense of “helmet.” The helmet that was used in battle was made of bronze, as reflected in the description of the helmet of Goliath in 1 Samuel 17:5:
He had a bronze helmet on his head and wore a coat of scale armor of bronze weighing five thousand shekels;
However, the apostle had in mind the helmet of a Roman soldier that was also made of bronze. The helmet of the Roman soldier provided protection for the forehead, neck, cheeks and chin. Blow to the head in battle even if it is not immediately deadly, could render a soldier unconscious so it was necessary to protect the head in the battlefield. When a soldier matched to war, the helmet was not worn on the head but was slung on a strap of the uniform of the soldier. Thus, when a helmet was put on, it marked the beginning of a battle. The apostle’s use of the word is in a figurative manner since he was not advocating that believers should put on physical helmets since the battle is not physical but spiritual. To ensure we understand the apostle meant for it to be understood in figurative manner, he defined what he meant with the phrase of salvation. The Greek syntax permits the phrase to be read as “consisting of salvation” or “that is salvation.” While it is permissible to read the phrase as consisting of salvation but the meaning here is that of explanation so that the phrase of salvation should be read as “that is salvation.” In effect, salvation defines the helmet believers are expected to take. This interpretation is supported by the fact that the apostle described the spiritual helmet as hope of salvation in the other passage in his epistle that he used the word “helmet,” that is, in 1 Thessalonians 5:8:
But since we belong to the day, let us be self-controlled, putting on faith and love as a breastplate, and the hope of salvation as a helmet.
In this passage “hope” (Greek elpis) refers to a reasonable and confident expectation of a future event. So, the apostle equates helmet to the confident expectation of salvation or deliverance. Both in this passage and in Ephesians 6:17 that we are considering, the apostle had in mind the description of the Messiah or God given in Isaiah 59:17:
He put on righteousness as his breastplate, and the helmet of salvation on his head; he put on the garments of vengeance and wrapped himself in zeal as in a cloak.
Nonetheless, it is our interpretation that helmet as used in Ephesians 6:17 refers to salvation mentioned in the phrase the helmet of salvation.
In any case, the action expected of the spiritual warfare is given in the command Take the helmet of salvation of Ephesians 6:17. To understand what the apostle expected of believers to do, we should consider the word “salvation” so we understand how that will apply in our passage. The word “salvation” is translated from a Greek word (sōtērion) that originally meant “means of deliverance” and then also “the deliverance itself.” In our Scripture, the word refers to Messianic salvation and the one who mediates it. Thus, the word may refer to the one who brings salvation, that is, Christ, as it is used in Simeon’s praise of God during the dedication ceremony of the baby Jesus, as we read in Luke 2:30:
For my eyes have seen your salvation.
Salvation in this passage refers to the person that embodies this salvation or through whom God brings about salvation. We would have expected Simeon to use either the phrase the Lord’s Christ that he used in verse 26 or the word “Messiah”; instead, he used a word that means “salvation” or “the one that brings about salvation.” It is not a trivial matter that Simeon used this word in his request. You see, he was under the filling of the Spirit and the Spirit enabled him not only to perceive and understand that the baby he held in his hand was the Messiah, the Savior, but also that He would bring about true salvation to Israel and the world. It must have been certainly difficult to find just one word to describe what Simeon perceived; nevertheless, the Greek word (sōtērion) that he used comes closest in that it captured the sense that he saw the Messiah and understood his function to the world.
The Greek word may also refer to the message of salvation, as that is the sense in which the word is used in Acts 28:28:
“Therefore I want you to know that God’s salvation has been sent to the Gentiles, and they will listen!”
The context indicates the Apostle Paul’s emphasis of the phrase God’s salvation is on the message of salvation rather than on salvation itself, though in the final analysis these two ideas cannot be separated from one another. It is probably because the emphasis is on the message of salvation that the translators of the TEV rendered the Greek phrase as God’s message of salvation. In our context of Ephesians 6:17, the word is used in the sense of spiritual deliverance or eternal salvation.
Salvation is God’s complete work of deliverance that involves a person’s deliverance from sin through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and the individual’s final glorification. Salvation as God’s work can be viewed from at least three perspectives. The first is with respect to time. There are three stand points with respect to time that enable us to explain the various passages of the Scripture with respect to this subject that otherwise may appear conflicting. Salvation can be viewed from the standpoint of a past event. Thus, the Holy Spirit through the Apostle Paul spoke of salvation as that which is completed in several passages of the Scripture. Take for example, the declaration of the Apostle Paul in his epistle to Timothy in 2 Timothy 1:9:
who has saved us and called us to a holy life—not because of anything we have done but because of his own purpose and grace. This grace was given us in Christ Jesus before the beginning of time,
This declaration of salvation as something in the past is also stated in Titus 3:5:
he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit,
Salvation is presented as work in progress. Thus, believers are described as being saved in 2 Corinthians 2:15:
For we are to God the aroma of Christ among those who are being saved and those who are perishing.
The verbal phrase being saved is from a present tense in the Greek implying that salvation work is in progress. This progressive work of salvation should be understood as primarily concerned with deliverance from the power and effect of sins. The concept here is similar to the instruction of the Holy Spirit through the Apostle Paul with respect to the believer working out his deliverance from sin in his daily life and everything that will hamper him from enjoying fully his salvation in this life in Philippians 2:12:
Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed—not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence—continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling,
Anyway, salvation is also presented as a future event. Several passages of the Scripture convey this sense. The Apostle Paul speaks of our salvation being nearer than when we first believed; that, is an indication of a future occurrence, as we read in Romans 13:11:
And do this, understanding the present time. The hour has come for you to wake up from your slumber, because our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed.
The human author of Hebrews described salvation in terms of future in Hebrews 9:28
so Christ was sacrificed once to take away the sins of many people; and he will appear a second time, not to bear sin, but to bring salvation to those who are waiting for him
When the author of Hebrews speaks of bringing salvation to those who are waiting for the Second Coming of Christ, he meant that the believer will finally be delivered from the presence of sin and its effects. It is true that we are saved as a matter of fact but we still suffer because of initial sin of Adam. We are not totally free from its effect both in our bodies and in our minds. Our future salvation will include total freedom from the effect of sin in any way we can describe it. Without understanding these three points of view with respect to salvation, someone may think that the Scripture contradicts itself, as some take it. For on the one hand, it speaks of salvation in terms of past and on the other hand, speaks of it as present and future. But understanding salvation in the three stand points of time we have given removes this difficulty.
Salvation can be viewed from the perspective of what it involves. The first thing that salvation involves is deliverance from sin and its penalty. This fact is conveyed in the announcement of the birth of Jesus Christ in Matthew 1:21:
She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.”
The apostles described this deliverance from sin in different passages. Apostle Paul, in his epistle to the Galatians, described salvation to mean being rescued from sin and evil age in Galatians 1:3–4:
3 Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, 4 who gave himself for our sins to rescue us from the present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father,
Apostle John described the same concept in terms of being freed from sin in Revelation 1:5:
and from Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness, the firstborn from the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth. To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood,
A second thing salvation involves is deliverance from God’s wrath or righteous condemnation. The Apostle Paul speaks of this deliverance from the wrath of God in his epistle to the Romans, as recorded in Romans 5:9:
Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God's wrath through him!
The same truth is conveyed in his epistle to the Thessalonians in 1Thessalonians 5:9:
For God did not appoint us to suffer wrath but to receive salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ.
Another perspective of salvation is with respect to its benefits. There are several benefits with respect to salvation but let me mention three. There is the benefit of peace with God that also results in the believer having access to God, as stated in Romans 5:1–2:
1Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, 2 through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God.
Prior to salvation, no human had peace with God. In other words, anyone that has not experienced salvation through faith in Jesus Christ does not have peace with God and certainly does not have the right standing with Him. So, an individual that does not have peace with God does not have access to Him. The implication is that unbelievers that claim to pray to God have no access to Him. A second benefit of salvation is adoption into the family of God. Jesus Christ first introduced this concept in John 1:12:
Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God—
Contrary to some of the opinions expressed in certain quarters, all humans are not God’s children. He created everyone but not everyone is in His family. Those who are members of His family are those who have believed in Christ. A person becomes a member of the family of God by adoption as the Apostle Paul implies in Romans 8:22–24:
22 We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. 23 Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. 24 For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what he already has?
The clause as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies reminds us of the present and future aspects of salvation. We are now God’s children by adoption since we have the Holy Spirit that enables us to call God our Father, as the apostle mentioned in Romans 8:15:
For you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received the Spirit of sonship. And by him we cry, “Abba, Father.”
Nonetheless, there is a future adoption that should be understood as the final acceptance of believers into God’s family. A third benefit of salvation that goes along with being adopted into the family of God, is that of heavenly citizenship that the Apostle Paul mentioned in Philippians 3:20–21:
20 But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, 21 who, by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body.
In any event, our brief consideration of the subject of salvation will enable us to deal with how we should understand the command Take the helmet of salvation of Ephesians 6:17. But to do so we still need to examine the word “take.”
The word “take” is translated from a Greek word (dechomai) that has a range of meaning. It may mean to take something in hand, that is, “to grasp, to take” as it is used in the instruction of the shrewd manager to those who owed money to his master in the Parable of the Shrewd Manager in Luke 16:6:
“‘Eight hundred gallons of olive oil,’ he replied. “The manager told him, ‘Take your bill, sit down quickly, and make it four hundred.’
The word means “to welcome or receive someone” so the apostle used it to describe how receptive the Galatians were to him, that is, they welcomed him when he came to them with the gospel message, as recorded in Galatians 4:14:
Even though my illness was a trial to you, you did not treat me with contempt or scorn. Instead, you welcomed me as if I were an angel of God, as if I were Christ Jesus himself.
The word means “to put up with or tolerate”, as it is in this sense that it is used by Apostle Paul in ironic statement he made to the Corinthians in 2 Corinthians 11:16:
I repeat: Let no one take me for a fool. But if you do, then receive me just as you would a fool, so that I may do a little boasting.
The word “receive” has the sense here of putting up with or tolerating. The word may mean to receive something offered or transmitted by another. Thus, Apostle Paul used it in his acknowledgement of the gift he received from the Philippians in Philippians 4:18:
I have received full payment and even more; I am amply supplied, now that I have received from Epaphroditus the gifts you sent. They are a fragrant offering, an acceptable sacrifice, pleasing to God.
The word may mean “to believe” in the sense of receiving information and accepting it to be true. It is in this sense that the apostle used it in reference to the word of God he declared to the Thessalonians that they accepted as true, according to 1 Thessalonians 2:13:
And we also thank God continually because, when you received the word of God, which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of men, but as it actually is, the word of God, which is at work in you who believe.
The sentence you accepted it means the Thessalonians believed the word of God Paul taught to them. The range of meanings of our Greek word has led to understanding it in Ephesians 6:17 in two major ways. A first is to take the meaning “to accept” as reflected in two English versions, the REB and TEV that reads accept salvation as helmet. A second is “to take” which is the meaning reflected in all the other major modern English versions. It is probably this second meaning the apostle intended. In effect, we are saying in our passage, of Ephesians 6:17, it means to grasp in a literal sense of grasping or taking a helmet as a soldier would have reached to the ground to pick up his helmet before he can put it on. Anyway, although the command in keeping with the metaphor the apostle is using is to be taken literally but it is to be understood in a figurative sense as it applies to getting dressed for spiritual warfare. The command “take” is given in the aorist tense in the Greek. The sense of the command is that of urgency. In effect, it is urgent for the believer to put on his helmet for spiritual warfare. As the helmet is used for protecting the head, the helmet of salvation is to be used to protect the mind and the thought of the believer in course of the spiritual warfare. We have already noted that satanic forces attack the thoughts of believers, so it is important that before believers going into battle, they should have something to protect their mind and thoughts so they would not become victims in the spiritual warfare.
It is interesting that in the four previous defensive weapons, the actions that a believer should take are given by Greek participle but not so in this last defensive weapon. One would have to wonder the reason the apostle switched from using a participle to a finite verb that indicates command. The reason for this change is not clearly stated but we could deduce two possible reasons for this change. A first reason is that this defensive weapon is the last thing that a Roman soldier puts on before going into battle. As we mentioned previously, once a soldier puts on a helmet then he was ready for battle. Therefore, it is probably that the apostle wants to get the careful reader’s attention to recognize that this is the final defensive weapon that needed to be taken before one gets involved in the spiritual warfare. A second reason related to the first is that the apostle moves from defensive weapon to offensive weapon. Hence, in order to use the same word to describe both the last defensive weapon and the offensive weapon that followed, the apostle felt that the use of a command would serve both actions. Anyway, the fact the apostle wants to get our attention so we recognize that he has ended his description of defensive weapon, implies that every believer should ensure and with a sense of urgency that the command Take the helmet of salvation of Ephesians 6:17 is obeyed.
To obey the command, Take the helmet of salvation, we need to understand what it means so we can realize how to obey it. Our understanding of this command is hinged on the apostle’s instruction to the Thessalonians in 1 Thessalonians 5:8 we considered previously, where he equates helmet to the confident expectation of salvation or deliverance. Based on this explanation, the command is a metaphor that means a believer should be certain of his/her salvation and should have confident expectation of salvation in all three perspectives of salvation with respect to time, that is, with respect to past, present, and future. This means that a believer who is prepared for spiritual warfare should first have confidence with respect to the past aspect of his/her salvation. Second, such a believer should have confident expectation of present aspect of his/her salvation. Third, such a believer should have confident expectation of his/her ultimate salvation. This interpretation makes sense in the light of the apostle’s metaphor that involves a soldier ready for battle. Normally, a soldier who is equipped for battle has the expectation of victory although such a person recognizes the possibility of death in the battlefield. Nonetheless, because such a person expects victory and being able to survive, the individual matches into battle. You see, if a soldier is paralyzed with fear about death or failure such a person will not go into the battlefield. The point is that every soldier in battlefield has the expectation of being alive although that may not happen. Based on this analogy, we can understand that the Holy Spirit expects the believer to be equipped with confident expectation of being victorious in the spiritual warfare since such a believer already has put on the defensive weapon of faith or confidence in the Lord. The believer that has put on the defensive weapon of faith is already a victor since that is the promise of the Holy Spirit through the Apostle John in 1 John 5:4:
for everyone born of God overcomes the world. This is the victory that has overcome the world, even our faith.
We will return to this passage later when we consider how the believer goes about having confident expectation with respect to his/her salvation in its three perspectives of time. But for now, we should note that the means of victory is “faith.” This makes sense because the Holy Spirit through the Apostle Paul had indicated that the believer should have already put on the shield of faith. With that, it is then assured that when the believer puts on the helmet of salvation that such a person will be victorious in the spiritual battle.
At any rate, it is our interpretation that the command Take the helmet of salvation is a metaphor that means a believer should have confident expectation of salvation in all three perspectives of salvation with respect to time, that is, with respect to past, present, and future. So, our concern is to expound on how a believer goes about obeying this command. The first thing a believer does to obey this command is to have confidence in the truthfulness of God’s word with respect to salvation. This exercise of faith helps the believer with being confident with respect to past, present, and future aspects of salvation.
We begin with the past aspect of salvation. Expectation involves something in the future so when we deal with the past aspect of salvation, the believer should be confident regarding what happened in the past as it involves his/her salvation. This means that the believer should believe what the Scripture said about salvation as having been completed in the past. To do this, the believer should begin with knowing and believing those Scriptures that indicate salvation is something that has taken place. Several passages of Scripture, as we have indicated, state that salvation is something that has taken place in the past. Thus, the believer should be acquainted with the class of Scripture that states salvation as something that has already occurred. In addition to the passages we have cited previously, the believer should derive confidence in the declaration that he/she is already saved, as per Ephesians 2:5:
made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved.
When the apostle wrote you have been saved, he intends to convey that salvation is something that occurred sometime in the past but its result is continuing since he used a perfect tense in the Greek. The use of the perfect tense should give the believer the assurance that his/her salvation is something that is indeed certain since it is a complete action of God. A believer needs this assurance before he/she engages in the spiritual warfare. Another class of Scripture that the believer should know and believe is that which conveys the past aspect of forgiveness of sins. The place to begin is with the fact that Christ died for sins. Of course, no one is a believer without accepting this fact. Nonetheless, it is with this fact that the believer who must have confidence in the reality of his/her forgiveness should begin. A good passage to remember with respect to the fact of Christ dying for our sins is the summary of gospel message in 1 Corinthians 15:3:
For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures,
Once a believer remembers the fact stated in this passage that he/she believed at the point of salvation then the believer should know and believe the passages that speak to the fact that forgiveness of sins of the believer has taken place. A good passage to remember is Ephesians 4:32:
Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.
In addition, to this passage, the believer should know and believe the declaration of the Holy Spirit about the past aspect of forgiveness of sins, as given in 1 John 2:12:
I write to you, dear children, because your sins have been forgiven on account of his name.
The clause because your sins have been forgiven on account of his name is one that states a fact that has taken place in the past with its result continuing. In effect, forgiveness of sins is a fact that has taken place in the past and the believer stands at a position that that forgiveness continues to be true. Another class of Scripture the believer should know and believe is that which indicates that he/she has been delivered from the wrath of God. When we considered what salvation entails, we indicated that it involves deliverance from God’s wrath but that is presented in a form that one may think of it merely as something that will take place in the future, as for example, in Romans 5:9:
Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God’s wrath through him!
However, the believer is no longer under God’s wrath. He/she has escaped it. Therefore, to convey this truth, the believer needs to know and believe those passages that indicate he/she is in good standing with God. A good passage that conveys this in terms of justification is Romans 5:1:
Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,
To say that believers have been justified, is simply to state that they have been put right with God or that they are in good standing with Him. Anyone that is in good standing or who has been put right with God certainly has escaped His wrath; so, being justified is another way to indicate that a believer has escaped God’s wrath. This being put right with God is something that has taken place in the past with its result of being permanently in good standing with God continuing. This implies that the believer’s salvation is something that has already occurred. In addition to being justified, the believer should know that deliverance from the wrath of God is also a fact of the past in the sense that the believer would never again be condemned by God, as indicated in Romans 8:1:
Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus,
The believer is already in Christ, implying that he/she will never face God’s wrath in eternity and so that aspect of salvation is indeed true and a past event. Believers who know and believe these truths about their salvation would be obeying the command of taking up the helmet of salvation once they act on their conviction. We are saying that if you want to be protected during spiritual warfare, you should learn and believe these passages we have given that address the past aspect of your salvation. You will not be well equipped for spiritual warfare if you do not know these general passages of Scripture or others related to them. In any event, we have considered how a believer should obey the command Take the helmet of salvation with respect to the past aspect of salvation so we proceed to consider the present aspect.
The present aspect of salvation, as we indicated previously, involves deliverances from power and effects of sin, that is, to say that it has to do with progressive deliverances from sin or even daily victories over sin. Therefore, the way a believer obeys the command Take the helmet of salvation with respect to the present aspect of salvation is to know and believe that daily deliverances from sin are assured by the word of God. You see, there are believers who have defeatist attitude with respect to sin that they are guaranteed to be casualties in the spiritual warfare because they enter with the attitude that because they are human they have no chance of resisting sin. That is wrong! Sure, the believer is still a human being but one with the Holy Spirit living inside of the individual, implying that the believer is not an ordinary human being who is without the empowerment of the Holy Spirit. Therefore, the believer should equip himself/herself with confident expectation of victories over sin and or against satanic forces. The believer who is to be equipped in this manner should know and believe the truth about the victory believer has over sin as conveyed in the passage we cited previously, that is, in 1 John 5:4:
for everyone born of God overcomes the world. This is the victory that has overcome the world, even our faith.
The verbal phrase everyone born of God refers to the believer in Christ, that is, one who through faith in Christ has become regenerated. It is this individual that is said to overcome the world. The word “overcome” is translated from a Greek word (nikaō) that here has the sense of to win a victory or to be victorious in a military conflict or contest. The Greek used a present tense to indicate something that is continuous or habitual. Although the spiritual warfare is continuing, the verbal phrase overcomes the world is one that assures the believer of victory over satanic forces. It is true that the victory here is over the world but the world is not a reference to the world of mankind as such but satanic forces with all schemes intended to defeat the believer in the spiritual warfare. This aside, the passage in 1 John 5:4 is a promise that a believer should claim and believe that his/her present deliverances over sin and satanic forces is true. Therefore, the believer should have confident expectation of daily victories over the world. Of course, the believer is not left on his/her own to duke it out with satanic forces. No! Such an individual has the power of the Holy Spirit to enable the individual in the battlefield. Anyway, a believer who knows, believes, and applies this promise is one that would be obeying the command Take the helmet of salvation from the perspective of present with respect to salvation. This brings us to the last thing a believer does to obey the command as it pertains to the future.
The future aspect of salvation involves ultimate glorification of the believer in the eternal state. To obey the command, Take the helmet of salvation with respect to this aspect of salvation, the believer should begin with knowing and believing a fundamental truth that God will never fail to finish the work of salvation that He began. This is implied in the confident expression given by the Holy Spirit to the Apostle Paul in Philippians 1:6:
being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.
In addition to this passage, the believer should recognize that Jesus Christ works to ensure that the final salvation of the believer is attained, as that is implied in His ability described in Hebrews 7:25:
Therefore he is able to save completely those who come to God through him, because he always lives to intercede for them.
This assurance is further stated in Jude 24:
To him who is able to keep you from falling and to present you before his glorious presence without fault and with great joy—
Anyway, the reality is that there is no way to have confident expectation of future salvation without faith in God’s word. Therefore, in order for the believer to have this confident expectation regarding future aspect of salvation, the believer should believe the doctrine of the word of God that guarantees safe arrival in heaven. The believer should in particularl go into the spiritual warfare with understanding of the doctrine of the Scripture that indicates his or her salvation is secured. It is not our intention to go into detail of this doctrine at this point, but we should present two facts the believer should know and believe with respect to the doctrine of the security of the believer’s salvation. Understanding and believing these facts are the way of obeying the command Take the helmet of salvation.
A first fact is Jesus’ promises guarantee that those who are saved are eternally secured and so will not lose their salvation. The first guarantee of Jesus that assures the security of those saved is given John 5:24:
“I tell you the truth, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be condemned; he has crossed over from death to life.
The expression he has crossed is translated from a perfect tense in the Greek. The perfect tense in the Greek portrays an action that occurred in the past that produces a result that continues to the present. This means that the emphasis of the perfect is not the past action so much as it is as such but the present “state of affairs” resulting from the past action. The implication is that the person who has crossed over from death to life because of faith in Christ continues in the state of life. His state at all times is that of being alive so that it is difficult to conceive of how that person will ever not have life or return to death from which he crossed over to life. Not to mention, the fact that Jesus assured that such a person will not be condemned. Another promise of Jesus that guarantees that the believer is eternally secured is given in John 6:37–40:
37 All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never drive away. 38 For I have come down from heaven not to do my will but to do the will of him who sent me. 39 And this is the will of him who sent me, that I shall lose none of all that he has given me, but raise them up at the last day. 40 For my Father’s will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day.”
Several observations need to be made about this passage. No one gets saved unless the Father brings that person to the Son. This is what is meant in the sentence all that the Father gives me will come to me. Another observation is that those who come to Jesus were given to Him in time past and before they believed because the expression has given is translated from a Greek perfect participle that implies that not only were those to be saved given to Jesus in a time unknown to us but also that they continue to be His. There will never be a time when they will cease to be His. Another observation is that it is God’s will that no one who is saved will ever be lost, as in the clause of verse 39 that I shall lose none of all that he has given me. If it is the will of the Father for the Son not to lose anyone that has already be given to Him then it is inconceivable how a person who is saved could ever be lost. Still another promise of Jesus that makes it clear that no one who is saved could ever be lost at a future time is given in John 10:27–29:
27 My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. 28 I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one can snatch them out of my hand. 29 My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; no one can snatch them out of my Father’s hand.
The phrase never perish in verse 28 is a strong way of stating that which is impossible since we have double negative in the Greek. To assert how secured believers are regarding their salvation, the Lord says no one can snatch them out of my hand. The phrase no one is a jab to Satan and all fallen angelic beings. It is not only that no angelic being can remove the believer from the care of the Lord, but also no human being, including the believer himself, could remove self from the hand of the Lord. Therefore, this is very strong promise that in and of itself says that the believer is secured in his/her salvation. It is therefore inconceivable that anyone who is saved can be lost.
A second fact that ensures the security of believer’s salvation is that eternal life is a gift from God as the Scripture states in Romans 6:23:
For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
But the Scripture is clear that God is not in the habit of rescinding His gift once given, as we read in Romans 11:29:
for God’s gifts and his call are irrevocable.
Thus, there is no way that God will ever recall the gift of eternal life, something that should happen for a person to be eternally lost. This passage also implies that the believer given to Jesus Christ cannot be lost. By the way, the very phrase eternal life in and of itself tells us that the life that God gives lasts forever. Our standard Greek English lexicons indicate that the Greek adjective (aiōnios) rendered “eternal” pertains to an unlimited duration of time, hence means “without end, eternal”. The point is that since God’s gift of life to those who believe in Christ is without end then it is inconceivable as to how a person with eternal life will then lose or end it. We are saying that spiritual suicide in terms of ending eternal life is impossible. A person can end the human life in the sense of causing the soul to be separated from the body but even then, that person will continue to exist either with God or in the lake of fire. In any event, if you are going to have confident expectation of your future salvation, you must know at least these two facts that we have presented. Equip yourself with the truths in the Scripture that we have cited. If you do, then you will have put on the last defensive weapon described as the helmet of salvation.