Foundation of Reckoning –Miles Stanford

Reckoning on our life-union with the Lord Jesus Christ establishes us in the full assurance of salvation. On this foundation we are able to reckon on our eternal, unconditional security in Him. Until we are grounded in the truths of substitution and union, we are not prepared for the more demanding reckoning of our identification with Him in His death and resurrection—and on to ascension.

The believer who does not realize that he is eternally secure in Christ—a birth truth for babes—is certainly not going to be able to trust Him for emancipation from sin and maturity of growth. Those who begin weakly, and are not instructed concerning their position in the Lord Jesus, are apt to remain weaklings. They move mainly up, down, and backward, with rarely any forward spiritual progress and abiding growth. For the most part, they subsist on experiences and so-called blessings; they seem to go from one crisis to another, never really settling down to reckon on Christ risen as the source of their life here and now.

It has been felt necessary to share the following selected material on Eternal Security (author unknown). These truths may be of help to any believers who are attempting to enter on the reckoning of identification before they are settled in that of justification.

“If you recognize in the Word of Truth: that the Lord Jesus Christ is the Savior because He is God the Son who became the Son of Man, and as such bore in His body the sins of the world;
“And if you rest in Him: in self-surrender for fellowship, relying with confidence on Him alone for deliverance from the guilt and penalty of your sins and from the power of indwelling sin;

“Then there are twelve proofs that you can never be lost:
1. Because in the eternal, sure purpose of God, you are a ‘vessel of mercy’ and will finally be ‘conformed to the image of His Son.’ ‘That He might make known the riches of His glory on the vessels of mercy, which He had afore prepared into glory.’ ‘For whom He did foreknow, He also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of His Son’ (Rom. 9:23; 8:29).

2. Because God’s infinite power is no longer hindered by your sins, but can wholly keep you safe, for the Blood of Christ still removes you guilt. ‘He is the propitiation for our sins’ (1 John 2:2).

3. Because God’s love for you, supremely expressed at Calvary, can now be manifested ‘much more’ and so accomplish His every desire for you. ‘God commended His love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, being justified by His Blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him. For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by His life’ (Rom. 5:8-10).

4. Because of His delight in the Son, God can never reject the prayer of the Son asking Him to keep ‘them which Thou hast given Me.’ ‘I pray for them . . . for they are Thine.’ ‘Holy Father, keep through Thine own Name those whom Thou hast given Me’ (John 17:9, 11).

5. Because the death of the Son, having a value equivalent to the punishment demanded for all your sins, has paid also for sins you now commit. ‘There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus.’ ‘Who is he that condemns? It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us’ (Rom. 8:1, 34).

6. Because by the resurrection of Christ God has broken your connection with Adam and joined you to Christ for acceptance and life. ‘You, being dead in you sins . . . has He quickened [enlivened] together with Him, having forgiven you all trespasses.’ ‘Yield yourselves as those that are alive from the dead’ (Col. 2:13; Rom. 6:13).

7. Because, although your sin could hurl you into hell, Christ as your Advocate defends you. ‘Christ is . . . entered . . . into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us.’ ‘Now once in the end of the world hath He appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself’ (Heb. 9:24, 26).

8. Because Christ ‘ever lives to make intercession’ for you, Satan has no power to unsave you. ‘He is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by Him, seeing He ever lives to make intersession for them’ (Heb. 7:25).

9. Because the Holy Spirit has taken over your body as His personal, permanent home. ‘I will pray the Father, and He shall give you another Comforter, that He may abide with you forever’ (John 14:16).

10. Because the Holy Spirit has planted in you the very life of God, making God your real Father. ‘Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God’ (John 1:13).

11. Because the Holy Spirit has now united you with Christ and you are a very part of Himself. ‘For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one Body’ (1 Cor. 12:13).

12. Because the Holy Spirit in you is the seal that your salvation is a finished transaction. ‘Grieve not the Holy Spirit of God, whereby you are sealed unto the day of redemption’ (Eph. 4:30).

“Though your present sins cannot unsave you, remember there are other penalties you can bring upon yourself, the least of which is chastisement at your Father’s hand.” “Do not faint when He corrects you; for those whom the Lord loves He disciplines” (Heb. 12:6).

Further, “to accept and teach that a Blood-bought child of God can fall from grace is to conflict with the very nature, character, and sovereign purpose of God, as well as His justice and His love.

“Such teaching conflicts with the nature of God in that the believer is declared to be ‘partaker of the divine nature’ (2 Peter 1:4); ‘born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God’ (John 1: 13); and indwelt by the Holy Spirit God (John 14:16, 17).

“It conflicts with the character of God—His faithfulness and truthfulness, in that the life He imparts He gives His pledge to maintain. His promise is, ‘I give into them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man (self is also “any man”) pluck them out of My hand’ (John 10:28): ‘and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life’ (John 5:24).

“Also, the doctrine of ‘falling from grace’ conflicts with the sovereign purpose of God as set forth in Romans 8:28-30, where the believer is seen in the purpose of God in the eternity of the past, in His foreknowledge and predestination, and in the eternity of the future sharing the very glory of Christ (John 17:22-26).

“Then, it conflicts with the justice of God, in that God declares concerning the believer, ‘Your life is hid with Christ in God’ (Col. 3:3), and that there is now ‘no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus,’ and no separation ‘from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord’ (Rom. 8:1, 37-39). Thus, we can thank our Heavenly Father for His justice because it is this which preserves the child of God form a second charge:
‘Payment, God cannot twice demand,
First at my bleeding Surety’s hand,
And then again at mine.’

Lastly, it conflicts with the love of God, in that God declares His love ‘an everlasting love’ from which nothing ‘shall be able to separate,’ for He is ‘able to keep you from falling, and to present you faultless before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy’ (Jer. 31:3; Rom. 8:39; Jude 24).”