61 Not An Eternal Salvation Text
Third. That this is not an eternal salvation text is further evident, (1) Because it is not individual as eternal salvation is; but collective, as of the whole city and nation at once. (2) Because if this text, and such like to the Jews, were eternal salvation texts, then ‘their unbelief would make the faith of God to them of none effect;’ but to which conclusion the apostle exclaims, ‘God forbid;, and therefore this text and such like, most certainly can have no such meaning, unless the apostle’s judgment and conclusion were wrong, Rom 3:3,4. (3) Because, if our text, and such like to the Jews, were eternal salvation texts, their marked unbelief and non-repentance as a body, must be of a nature correspondent thereto, and then their stumbling by their unbelief, must be to their eternal fall: but to which conclusion, also, the apostle exclaims, ‘God forbid,’ Rom 11:11. And no such meaning can be intended in our text and the like; for the Jews have yet the time of their fullness to come, and to be received as life from the dead, verse 12,15; and which can never be true of the once lost and cast away from God’s eternal salvation. (4) Because, as eternal salvation is by the Lord’s gift of eternal life, and is above all damage, as ‘they shall never perish;’ so the awful sentence of a once cast away state of soul from the Lord and his eternal salvation, has no remedy for ever; but the sentence of rejection here passed, is from the mouth of the Lord but periodical only, ‘until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled,’ Luke 21:24; and then to be graciously superseded by the everlasting life blessings of eternal salvation, but in another form, and by another covenant, Rom 11:15,25-27; as our Lord plainly declares at the end of our chapter, and following our text, saying, ‘Ye shall not see me henceforth, till ye shall say, Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord.’ And will the finally lost hereafter so see him, so delight him, so love his appearing, and so worshipfully bless him? We know they will not. And as the rejection is therefore but temporal as a nation, the gathering under the protection named would have been no more; the lines of these two points being perfectly parallel, according to the nature of both, and the above scriptures.
John Foreman (1792-1872) was a Strict and Particular Baptist preacher. He was appointed the Pastor of Hill Street Chapel, Marylebone, serving this position for close to forty years.
JOHN FOREMAN'S LIFE AND MINISTRY
JOHN FOREMAN ON DUTY FAITH (COMPLETE)
JOHN FOREMAN'S BAPTISM AND COMMUNION CONSIDERED (COMPLETE)
