The question presumes that the Bible should
be void of commands for the believers to live lives of holiness and obedience to the Lord. It also assumes that since warnings for the believers to depart from iniquity abound in scriptures, the consequence for falling into sin should be a loss of one’s salvation.
But nothing could be further from the truth. All these warnings are not there to so that if we don’t heed to them we would lose our salvation. Salvation is not ours to gain or lose in the first place. Salvation belongs to God. (Revelation 7:10) It is his to give and to take as the case may be. It is a gift of God. (Ephesians 2: It is not a salary. You work for a pay. You don’t work for a gift. If salvation is a gift, then it can’t be dependent on what we do. If it depended on what we do, it wouldn’t be a gift.

God doesn’t want the believers to live a careless or carefree life. He doesn’t want them to be conformed to the present age. He wants them to flee the corruption that exists in the world through lust. He desires that we watch over ourselves lest we fall. God warns, exhorts and admonishes the believers not because we would loose our salvation if we fall into sin. His admonitions are so that we don’t fall into sin. God doesn’t want his people to live like the people of the world. God made the believers a kingdom of priests and kings so that we could show forth his praise. God wants his light to shine so that the world would see our good works and glorify our father in heaven.

The believers obey Gods commands, warnings and admonitions because they are his sons. They have been given the Holy Spirit that convinces them of sin, righteousness and judgment. The Spirit leads them on the paths of righteousness for his name sake. The believers are dead to sin and can no longer live in it. The believers obey God’s commands because they are afraid of losing their salvation. They obey because they are his holiness. We take heed to God’s word not because God will take our salvation if we don’t. Christians don’t condone the works of darkness. They oppose and expose them. The sin nature has been taken away from them so that they do not delight in evil.

One becomes a believer by faith and not by works. Hence to suggest that being saved rests on one being able to behave in a certain way and not the other simply means that salvation in the end is not dependent on the work of Christ but on our own deeds. Such a theory means that Christ is the beginner of the faith with the believer as the finisher. But we know that this is not what scriptures teach. The scriptures tell us that Jesus is the author and the finisher of our faith. He doesn’t begin and leaves it for us to complete.


A lot of people assume that salvation is like someone drowning and you throw him a life buoy and he does the rest. Salvation is not man drowning and God throws him a life vest and leaves the rest to him. No way! Salvation is resurrection from the dead. We were dead in trespasses and sin. God, in Christ, raises us up and sits us in him in heavenly places.

Legacyforever18:
A lot of people assume that salvation is like someone drowning and you throw him a life buoy and he does the rest. Salvation is not man drowning and God throws him a life vest and leaves the rest to him. No way! Salvation is resurrection from the dead. We were dead in trespasses and sin. God, in Christ, raises us up and sits us in him in heavenly places.

Salvation simply means a release from the condemnation of sin that is death....It does not come with any guarantee of Heaven.

John 3 vs 16-21 (ERV)
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16. “For God so loved the world,[i] that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.
17. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. 18. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.
19. And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil.
20. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed.
21. But whoever does what is true comes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God.”

Nowhere in the passage above are you told that Heaven is part and parcel of the package called Salvation. What is, however, is eternal life.

Since God does not run a system of favouritism, everyone who is saved will have to earn his/her way into Heaven, exactly as Jesus Christ commanded it. God does not do favours for anyone. If you want to enter into Heaven, just as He explained in His numerous parables, you have to earn your place as a servant earns His place with His master.

Servants(those who believe) are called to serve the Will of their Master, and only those servants who obey the commandments of the Master, are the ones who enter into the Kingdom that the Master has prepared for those who obey Him. So what happens to those servants who do not do the Will of the Master? Well, read on to find out what Jesus Christ said will happen to them.

Luke 12 vs 35-48 (ERV)
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35. “Stay dressed for action[f] and keep your lamps burning,
36. and be like men who are waiting for their master to come home from the wedding feast, so that they may open the door to him at once when he comes and knocks.
37. Blessed are those servants[g] whom the master finds awake when he comes. Truly, I say to you, he will dress himself for service and have them recline at table, and he will come and serve them.
38. If he comes in the second watch, or in the third, and finds them awake, blessed are those servants!
39. But know this, that if the master of the house had known at what hour the thief was coming, he[h] would not have left his house to be broken into.
40. You also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect.”

41. Peter said, “Lord, are you telling this parable for us or for all?”
42. And the Lord said, “Who then is the faithful and wise manager, whom his master will set over his household, to give them their portion of food at the proper time?
43. Blessed is that servant[i] whom his master will find so doing when he comes.
44. Truly, I say to you, he will set him over all his possessions.
45. But if that servant says to himself, ‘My master is delayed in coming,’ and begins to beat the male and female servants, and to eat and drink and get drunk,
46. the master of that servant will come on a day when he does not expect him and at an hour he does not know, and will cut him in pieces and put him with the unfaithful.
47. And that servant who knew his master's will but did not get ready or act according to his will, will receive a severe beating.
48. But the one who did not know, and did what deserved a beating, will receive a light beating. Everyone to whom much was given, of him much will be required, and from him to whom they entrusted much, they will demand the more.

Eternal security means different things to different schools of thought

Legacyforever18:
God doesn’t want the believers to live a careless or carefree life. He doesn’t want them to be conformed to the present age. He wants them to flee the corruption that exists in the world through lust. He desires that we watch over ourselves lest we fall. God warns, exhorts and admonishes the believers not because we would loose our salvation if we fall into sin. His admonitions are so that we don’t fall into sin. God doesn’t want his people to live like the people of the world. God made the believers a kingdom of priests and kings so that we could show forth his praise. God wants his light to shine so that the world would see our good works and glorify our father in heaven.

The believers obey Gods commands, warnings and admonitions because they are his sons. They have been given the Holy Spirit that convinces them of sin, righteousness and judgment. The Spirit leads them on the paths of righteousness for his name sake. The believers are dead to sin and can no longer live in it. The believers obey God’s commands because they are afraid of losing their salvation. They obey because they are his holiness. We take heed to God’s word not because God will take our salvation if we don’t. Christians don’t condone the works of darkness. They oppose and expose them. The sin nature has been taken away from them so that they do not delight in evil.

One becomes a believer by faith and not by works. Hence to suggest that being saved rests on one being able to behave in a certain way and not the other simply means that salvation in the end is not dependent on the work of Christ but on our own deeds. Such a theory means that Christ is the beginner of the faith with the believer as the finisher. But we know that this is not what scriptures teach. The scriptures tell us that Jesus is the author and the finisher of our faith. He doesn’t begin and leaves it for us to complete.

From the time of Adam, God has demanded one thing and one thing only from man, and that is obedience(comes with Trust). The first sin was a sin of what? Disobedience! When God made a covenant with the Children of Israel, He demanded one thing again from them, their obedience(and trust) and what was the one thing that the people refused, numerous times to give God? Obedience! They went as far as insulting God by giving their obedience to idols and men instead.
God punished them each time of course, and they sometimes would repent for a minute, before quickly going back to there same old ways. God did say they were a stiff-necked people, from the very start, and they lived, and continue to this day to live up to that name.

When God decided to come down in the person of Jesus Christ to give man a new Covenant, a lighter and more flexible covenant, did God change His mind as far as what He wanted? No, God still demands obedience(complete trust as well), through Jesus Christ, His new Covenant. And what do those who obey do? They do the works they are commanded. As servants, God, our Master, calls us to carry out His Will.

Anyone who is a servant is employed in the service of a master i.e. to do the work that his master commands. Any servant who does not do the work that his master commands is a useless servant and hence not worthy of retaining in service.

So, anyone who wants to have a share in what Jesus Christ, the New Covenant, has promised without wanting to do the works that are required, for one reason or another, is a useless servant, and not worthy of Jesus Christ - this according to Jesus Christ. Obedience is the key to the heart of God. God has not changed His mind. Instead, He came down to show us exactly what He expects of us through Jesus Christ. Anyone who claims to have "faith" in Jesus Christ but does not do the works that Jesus Christ has commanded is nothing but a useless servant, and for such a servant, Hell has sadly been prepared for them to spend the eternal gift of Life that was received when they first believed in Jesus Christ.