As the believers in Christ we may have the concept, consciously or not, that in eternity we will be forgiven sinners, thanking God for having mercy upon us and forgiving us even though we are so fallen. Such a thought, however, is not in the New Testament. In fact, just the opposite; to hold to such a belief is to answer Paul’s question in the affirmative:

What then shall we say? Should we continue in sin that grace may abound?
— Romans 6:1, Darby

Surely we will never forget, even in eternity, that Christ died for our sins; He will still be “the Lamb upon the throne” (Rev. 7:17). However, our position then will no longer be that of forgiven sinners, for at that time our redemption will have been fully accomplished; instead, we will enter into our position as the many sons of God (Rom. 8:23; cf. 8:29-30).

Understanding this should give us a much more accurate, and fuller, view of God’s grace. Yes, according to His grace He loves us unconditionally, but He loves us too much to leave us in our unchanged condition. As J.N. Darby wrote in a classic hymn:

And is it so! I shall be like Thy Son?
Is this the grace which
He for me has won?
Father of glory—
thought beyond all thought!
In glory, to His own
blessed likeness brought….

Yet it must be: Thy love
had not its rest
Were Thy redeemed not
with Thee fully blessed;
That love that gives not
as the world, but shares
All it possesses
with its loved co-heirs.

Jesus was indeed the “friend of tax collectors and sinners” (Matt. 11:19), but after He called Matthew away from his tax booth He did not leave him as he had been before. Rather, He made him an apostle, and so worked in him that he was eventually able to write one of the great books of the New Testament. He seeks to do, and eventually will do, a similar work in every single one who believes in Him (cf. Rev. 21:7).

Hebrews 7:22 speaks of Christ as the “surety of a better covenant.” Many Christians assume this means He is the guarantee our sins are forgiven. but actually it is much more than that. The context clearly indicates that, as the man who has already passed through death and resurrection to enter into glory as our “forerunner” (Heb. 6:20), Christ is the guarantee that we will be saved to the “uttermost,” eventually following Him into that same glory (7:22, 2:10).

What an assurance is this! So many Christians wonder whether they can have the assurance they are saved, in the sense that their sins are forgiven. In fact, the assurance we should have is much greater than that! Regardless of how discouraged we are today, perhaps viewing our entire Christian life as a complete failure, we can and should have the assurance that in eternity we will no longer have any relation to sin whatsoever. For Christ will eventually bring us through the same process of death and resurrection He went through, leading us into glory as the many fully glorified sons of God.

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— 28 September 2022 —