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Avoid To Shipwreck Our Faith

(Midweek Devotion - 1 Timothy, 10 May 2023)

1 Timothy 1:18-20

     18 This charge I entrust to you, Timothy, my child, in accordance with the prophecies previously made about you, that by them you may wage the good warfare, 19 holding faith and a good conscience. By rejecting this, some have made shipwreck of their faith, 20 among whom are Hymenaeus and Alexander, whom I have handed over to Satan that they may learn not to blaspheme.

Everyone who found faith in Jesus Christ afresh and committed their lives to serve God and abide in Him and in His precepts, decrees, and commands; is not exempted to temptations to sins, much more to former sins that we are used to before we have known God.

How can we stand to our faith through the end if sins are flagging and appearing, here and there, every time we want to walk straight in the path of righteousness led by the God, the Holy Spirit?

Our worries may come and starting to ask ourselves, what if I fall into sin again? Do I have to ask God to save me again and again? How can I reach the end if I am always in the starting line?

I remember in our Colossians 2:7 Series Bible Study book, we have studied six assurances. Two of them includes the assurance of salvation and the assurance of forgiveness. A question arise about the differences of the two?

For us to investigate again these assurances, let us pull out the biblical references taken from this book.

1. Assurance of Salvation

1 John 5:11-12 - And this is the testimony, that God gave us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life.

John 5:24 - Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life.

2. Assurance of Forgiveness

1 John 1:9 - If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

In order to help us to discern their differences, we need to look into two salvific aspects of it. One in its intended purpose, the other in its intended recipients. Both of these aspects are directly proportional to each other, which is mutually related.


A. Intended Purposes

The assurance of salvation is designed for justification of human soul, while the assurance of forgiveness is designed for sanctification.

The primary intention of justification is to remove the punishment of sins to human soul, which by nature will receive the judgement, which is the wrath, of God if no mercy falls into a person.

When the mercy and love of God falls into man, through God’s sovereign call according to His purpose and glory, His justice has to be satisfied. Therefore, one must carry the wrath of God in exchange to God’s mercy. This is done by our Lord Jesus Christ, who takes the form of flesh and become a perfect sacrificial lamb to atone the sins of men, thus, He received the wrath of God in the cross in exchange of sinners.

In exchange, Jesus’s righteousness were given by God to whom faith is given as He revealed himself to us, the need for a saviour and mediator in the throne of God's justice. By the work of regeneration with the help of the Holy Spirit, faith manifest which commit ourselves to believing in Christ as our Redeemer from the wrath of God.

Therefore, the assurance of salvation reference above only shows our confidence in the simple measurement used in God's justice weighing scale that IF YOU BEAR the testimony that God gave us eternal life through His Son, the God Incarnate - Our Lord Jesus CHrist. God will look in the mark of Christ in our lives, whoever has the Son, has the eternal life; and if cannot be found will not have eternal life.

Hearing and hearing the Gospel of Salvation, the call of God for His people, comes faith in Christ Jesus. By hearing and believing in His word, in His testimony that He was sent to redeem us, He brought them salvation by passing from death to life. All these things are works of the Triune God of whom (1) The Father love and mercy bring us to Christ, (2) that Christ's finished work of the cross redeem us from the wrath of God in exchange to give us righteousness that is alien to us, (3) that the Holy Spirit regenerates our hearts and our minds to come to faith in the Christ, (4) and ultimately for God to be truly glorified in this mysterious works of Triune God apart from any contributions of man.

On the other hand, the primary intention of sanctification is to remove the power of sins to human soul. This is immediately starts on the day of our justification, which we call as positional sanctification which is the beginning of our purification process. It is immediate in the sense that God removes (im - means no) any form of mediation (mediate - means to intervene) between God and man to inherit righteousness because God directly reveal himself and intervene with his gracious will by saving us through the God Incarnate, Jesus Christ our Lord.

The start is not the end, therefore, the progression must take place to remove the power of sins in human soul. This is what we call progressive sanctification, where forgiveness is assured by God in the given reference in 1 John 1:9. This assurance is in relation to the faithfulness of God, which is one of natural attributes, to be both true to His promise.

We have to be careful in perceiving this sanctification process, where Carnal Christians, do not abide in the works of sanctification because they only believe that "their sins were forgiven once and for all". This theology is dangerous if it is tied to a wrong relationship in our salvation process. Such statement is true in its relationship to the finish works of Christ on the cross, His Sacrifice for the forgiveness of sins of men.

Apostle Paul explained in Hebrews 7:27 says: ”Unlike the other high priests, he does not need to offer sacrifices day after day, first for his own sins, and then for the sins of the people. He sacrificed for their sins ONCE FOR ALL when he offered himself.”

What He did on the cross gives way for sins to be forgiven ONCE FOR ALL. The ONCE is the one-time-work of Christ when he take the form of man and died for our sins in the cross and He will not going to do it again. The FOR ALL is the inclusion of all generations to come and will not do it again for all other generation other than his appointed time 2000 years ago.

That statement is a necessary condition for our justification, however, it takes effect as we trust in the finish work of Christ through faith in Him when we appear before the throne of God's grace. This state is erroneous IF to apply to our progressive sanctification because if does not pertains to the cooperation of men in this process of salvation. Justification is the work of Triune God in His Glory, while Sanctification is the synergistic work of the Holy Spirit and of men.


B. Intended Recipients

Both of the assurances were given to generally sinners, which means all men who fall short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23) and destined to eternal death. Indeed, God's intended recipients for both is to those who humble enough to believe that they are indeed hopeless, worthless, shipwrecked in their corrupted nature.

But what differentiate between these assurrances in relation to its intended recipients is to the conditions of their relationship to CHrist. Salvation is to one who received justification by grace through faith in Jesus Christ. That salvation is secured, not outwardly alone but inwardly, as he promised eternal life. Ephesians 1:13-14 said - 13 And you also were included in Christ when you heard the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation. When you believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, 14 who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession—to the praise of his glory.

The mark of Christ's justification is the man we call them SAVED, SAINTS, ELECT and JUSTIFIED; not just outwardly but inwardly manifesting such calling.

On the other hand, these justified men are assured with faithfulness of God. In this faithfulness, by His sovereign power and authority, to guide and to lead His People (Saved, Saints, Elect, Justified) to overcome the power of sins while in their human flesh. By the power of the Holy Spirit, men is necessary to cooperate by the manifestation of the work of the Holy Spirit in its sanctification. Thus, John in his text for the assurance of forgiveness is not to unrepentant or unbelievers BUT to the disciples of Christ who were snatched away by God from the hands of and future condemnation along with the devil.

Assurance of forgiveness is concerned on the humility of saved souls to confess their sins to God, in return (and because of God's faithfulness) God will forgive his sins. But it did not stop on that. John explicitly mentioned that God will PURIFY US from ALL UNRIGHTEOUSNESS.

When we mentioned earlier that our righteousness is alien to us, it refers to the satisfcation of the Justice of God, which is given by Christ. The unrighteousness in John's epistle refers to the state of human fallen condition which still in present but God is helping out to remove its power of the soul in that human flesh. This is for men who were saved by God to comply in his purification. Man, though saved, and no longer confess a sin nor recognise sin, is dangerous in its claim for salvation.


Good Warfare, Holding Faith and a Good Conscience

This is what exactly Paul is addressing in his conlusion to his first epistle to Timothy in Chapter 1 where he gave him the charge or instructions in prior verses that he (Timothy) may wage the good warfare, holding faith and a good conscience in his walk of faith. These are aspects of the progressive sanctifications by which every genuine and true believing, professing and possesing Christians has to deal every day until the day of redemption.

And that through these, we can avoid ourselves to shipwreck our faith. Because it is important that our sanctification is not just the outwardly profession of faith but also the inwardly possion of faith in Christ Jesus with the synergistic help of the Holy Spirit as part of God's preservation of His people on the day of His glorification. In the first place, those who found faith in Christ Jesus - who have been marked to be recipient of God's promise of eternal life.

As Salvation is at stake, we must not neglect to understand the assurances given to us by the Word of God, in our justification, sanctification, and glorification. It was decreed and will come to pass. This is the good news we've heard and the blessed hope we are longing for. If we doubt God in His promises, follow the faith in Him no matter what. As Paul also confirms in 2 Timothy 2:13 - if we are faithless, He remains faithful, for He cannot disown himself.

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