This is
the third and final part of this series on the topic of “Once Saved, Always
Saved,” also known as “Unconditional Eternal Security.” Parts 1 and 2 can be found here:
Old Testament
We’ve
covered some New Testament verses in Part 1 and Part 2, demonstrating that OSAS
is not biblical, so now let’s address a few Old Testament passages on this
topic, as well. Throughout Scripture, the
responsibility of the individual to maintain his relationship with God is a
common theme when God is dealing with His people:
Ezekiel 18:
21 - “But if the wicked
man turns from all his sins which he has committed and observes all My statutes
and practices justice and righteousness, he shall surely live; he shall not
die.
22 – All his
transgressions which he has committed will not be remembered against him;
because of his righteousness which he has practiced, he will live.
23 – Do I have any
pleasure in the death of the wicked, declares the Lord, rather than that he
should turn from his ways and live?
24 – But when a
righteous man turns away from his righteousness, commits iniquity and does
according to all the abominations that a wicked man does, will he live? All his righteous deeds which he has done
will not be remembered for his treachery which he has committed and his sin
which he has committed; for them he will die.” [NASV]
Ezekiel 33:13:
“When I say to the
righteous he will surely live, and he so trusts in his righteousness that he
commits iniquity, none of his righteous deeds will be remembered; but in that
same iniquity of his which he has committed he will die.” [NASV]
Both of these
passages remind me of the parable of the unrighteous servant (Matthew
18:21-35) who was forgiven an impossible debt, yet, when he forgot how
his master had forgiven him and sinned against his fellow slave, his former
debt was re-instated against him.
So we find
this same principle in both the Old Testament and New Testament: It is possible for a man who is righteous to
turn away from God.
What
about the example of King Saul? Was he
not saved and then fell away? In 1 Samuel
10:6, the prophet Samuel tells Saul that God’s Spirit would come upon
him and that he will become “another man,” i.e., a different person. Also, 1 Samuel 10:9 says that God changed
Saul’s heart. In other words, he was saved, he became a godly man. And for a short time, he had the fruit of
humility and obedience in his life to confirm his salvation.
But
later on, Saul disobeys God (1 Samuel 13:1-13; 15:1-11), he
became extremely jealous of David (1 Samuel 18:8-9) and chased him with
hatred, murder, and rebellion in his heart (1 Samuel 23:7-27), was
demon-possessed at times (1 Samuel 16:14, 23; 19:9-10), he
consulted a witch (1 Samuel 28:7-24), and finally committed suicide (1
Samuel 31:1-4). It was a
gradual, but complete loss of salvation.
One would
have to be blind to miss the fact that Saul was saved at one point in his life,
but later fell away and defected from the faith. We see that OSAS was not a fact in the Old
Testament, and that Saul was a perfect example of that.
New Testament Examples
Ok, so what
about examples in the New Testament of some, actually called by name, who had
fallen away from grace and lost their salvation?
The apostle
Paul mentions Hymenaeas and Alexander, whom he had turned over to Satan,
because they had “made shipwreck” of their faith. (1 Timothy 1:20)
He also
mentions Hymenaeas and Philetus, who were teaching false doctrine and had “strayed
concerning the truth,” and were “overthrowing the faith of some.” (2
Timothy 2:16-18)
Paul also
said that Demas “has forsaken me” and has “loved this present world.” (2 Timothy
4:9-10)
Things were
not looking well for these former Christians.
What About Judas?
Ok, now what
about the most famous (or infamous) of all traitors? Judas Iscariot, though he was an apostle, was
called a devil (John 6:70-71) and the son of perdition (John
17:12). Jesus, from the
beginning, knew what Judas would do, but according to John 6:71, Judas “was later
to betray Jesus.” [BSB]
But was
Judas ever saved?
Matthew 28:18-19 – According to over 20 Bible versions, in the Great Commission, Jesus said to
go out and make disciples of all nations.
Therefore, a disciple is not just someone who professes, or is a
wanna-be Christian, he is a true follower.
Our OSAS and
Calvinist friends would agree that Jesus said to make disciples of all nations. I
think we all would admit that disciples are saved.
Luke 14:26-27 – Jesus helped to define what a
disciple is. The disciple must put Jesus
above his mother, father, wife, children, etc., and he must bear his cross and
follow Jesus. No wanna-be followers
here! If Judas was a disciple at any point in his life, he was a true
believer at that point.
According to
Scripture, one would have to admit that Judas Iscariot was called a disciple (as well as an apostle),
therefore saved (Matthew 10:1-4; Luke 6:13-15).
Luke 6:16 says he BECAME a traitor. He was not one at first. Jesus knew from the beginning what would
happen, but it does not say that Judas
WAS a traitor from the beginning. He
operated under the same Spirit as the other apostles when doing miracles. But sadly, he eventually went from disciple, to
apostle, to traitor and apostate.
John also
mentions other (unnamed) disciples – “Many of Jesus’ disciples turned away from
Him and no longer followed Him.” (John 6:59-61, 66) They were disciples who apostatized just as
Judas did.
This
certainly disproves “Once Saved, Always Saved.”
Verb Tenses
An important
consideration that we haven’t looked at yet is to note that the grammar,
itself, in these New Testament eternal security passages points away from the interpretations of our
OSAS friends. The verb tenses in the
very contexts of some of these verses we studied indicate continual action, or continual
faith. This is an important truth that
is missed by many of our English Bible translations. For example:
John 5:24 – “Verily,
verily, I say unto you, He that heareth [present tense, is hearing] My word, and believeth [is
believing] on Him that sent Me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into
condemnation; but is passed from death unto life.”
The Greek is
actually saying that he that continually
hears and continually believes in
Jesus has everlasting life.
John 6:35 – “He that
believeth
[present tense, is believing] on Me shall never thirst.”
Again, it is
a continual believing.
John 6:40 – “For My
Father’s will is that everyone who looks [present participle, is looking] to the Son and believes
[is believing] in Him shall have eternal life.”
Our life in
Jesus is an ongoing belief. If we stay
with Him and continue with Him,
THEN we will be saved.
I am
providing a link to an article written by Steve Witzki of the Society of
Evangelical Arminians, quoting literally dozens of scholars who acknowledge the
use of these present tense verbs, including men like A. T. Robertson, Daniel
Wallace, Gerald Hawthorne, Richard Lenski, B. F. Westcott, Robert Mounce,
Julius Mantey, Kenneth Wuest, Dale Moody, and well-respected and highly
influential Calvinist scholar James White, to name just a few.
All of these
men acknowledge that, even in the eternal security verses, many of these verbs
are in the present tense, indicating continual
action. Therefore, verifying what I’ve
been saying in this series all along, i.e., that a believer must stay in Christ, lest he lose his right standing with God.
Here is the
link:
“It Can’t Be Eternal”
Another
argument from our OSAS friends goes like this:
“It can’t be eternal life if
we can lose it – if we are able to lose it, it would be called ‘temporary
life.’”
Those who
say this are simply playing word games.
I have a question for them – was this gift of eternal life “eternal”
before you received it? Of course it
was. The “eternal-ness” of eternal life
is not dependent on who has it or what we do with it. Those who fall away are not changing eternal life into temporary
life – they are actually swapping eternal life for eternal death! So this gift of life itself is eternal, but not necessarily our possession of it. Our
possession of it can never change its nature.
It is eternal whether we get it or
reject it. So there is no substance
to this “it can’t be eternal” argument.
Personally,
concerning salvation and one’s destiny, I believe that there are four basic
types of people:
1) The person who, though he heard the
gospel, is not interested in it and never will accept Jesus Christ. He is self-centered and never concerned about
spiritual things. He ends up lost in
Hell.
2) The person who comes to the edge of Christianity and may actually be
interested in this lifestyle and its blessings.
He joins a church, calls himself a “Christian,” he seems to “fit in”
with true believers for a time and may even be excited about this new life.
But what he experiences is a false conversion. He’s not in it for the long haul. Difficulties arise, maybe even a little
persecution and he leaves it all behind.
It may have looked like it, but he was never truly saved. This
accounts for a large number of “Christians” today. He, also, ends up in Hell.
3) The person who gets saved and is a
genuine believer. He serves God
faithfully, witnesses to others about Christ and even bears some fruit. But eventually, something happens. Perhaps a death in the family or some other
tragic circumstance. He blames God and
maintains a certain amount of resentment.
After all, he’s thinking, “God could
have prevented this tragedy.” The
resentment grows and grows until it is unmanageable… Or maybe a divorce, loss of a high-paying
job, or some other highly stressful situation comes about… Perhaps it’s just a particular sin that he
just can’t seem to let go… It could be
that he gets caught up in worldly pleasures that seem to overtake him, but he
likes them too much to let go of them…
Or maybe he has nagging questions over something in the Bible that he
just can’t understand. He believes the
Bible, but there seem to be some contradictions. He starts to wonder if it really is the Word
of God, after all. He thinks, “Can I
really trust God?” Over time, his heart
is gradually hardened and his love for God gets colder and colder. It gets to the point where he doesn’t even
care about the things of God anymore. And it doesn’t even bother him that he
doesn’t care. He is so far from
God. Dangerously far. He is now an apostate. He had tasted of the heavenly gift and he had
been a partaker of the Holy Spirit. He
is now a traitor to the God who was
so gracious to him, and a deserter of
Him who was his only hope. He would have
been better off if he’d never been saved at all. In essence, he is saying that Jesus Christ is
not sufficient to help him and that He is not worthy to be served. That man is now subjecting Jesus Christ to an
open shame (Hebrews 6:4-6). This one
too, ends up in Hell.
4) And finally, there is the person who
gets saved, consistently produces the fruit of the Spirit, and serves God with
all his heart, never looking back.
Although he is imperfect, this man heeds the warnings in Scripture about
falling away and he maintains his
faith, he continues in the faith. His life is a surrendering to God and he
continues trusting in the work and suffering of Jesus Christ on the cross. He knows that the penalty for his (and
everyone else’s) sins was paid there in full.
He is not trusting in his good works to be saved. This is the one who makes it to Heaven. He will enjoy the gift of eternal life. And by the way, this is the only one for whom
“Once Saved, Always Saved” is actually true.
You may have
noticed that this list is roughly parallel to the parable of the sower (Matthew
13:3-8). Now, I am not being
dogmatic about the parallel between the two, but the list above does line up with
real life and with the Scriptures.
People only
get saved once. You don’t get saved, lose your salvation, get
saved again, lose it, etc., etc. Losing
your salvation (or rather, walking away from God) is not an overnight thing. It is something that happens gradually,
sometimes almost unnoticed.
Who Is a True Christian?
OSAS says
that if a person falls away, he was never truly saved to begin with. If that’s true, then how could anyone ever
really know who is saved or not? How do
you know that your favorite teacher or pastor will not apostatize right before
his death, “proving” that he was lost all along? If OSAS is true, then on what basis can a
pastor choose a faithful elder or deacon for his church (1 Timothy 3)? Or how can a man choose a Christian wife to
avoid being unequally yoked (2 Corinthians 6:14) if he can’t really
tell if she is saved?
Nobody but God
knows the heart of anyone with absolute certainty, but we can have sufficient confidence about someone’s spiritual
status. Otherwise, Jesus saying that we
can “know
them by their fruits” would be meaningless (Matthew 7:15-20).
So, if
someone claims to be a Christian and the fruit that he consistently bears is
good fruit (especially when no one is looking), then it is possible, even likely,
that he is saved at this point. But if he
later falls away and becomes an atheist, it does not necessarily mean that he
was never saved.
Practical Implications
What are the
practical implications of “Once Saved, Always Saved”? What harm could possibly come from believing
this doctrine?
Many will
say that it is a license to sin. They’ll
say that when someone believes in OSAS, that person will say, “I am now saved,
so I can live like I want to, sin as much as I want and never have to worry
about falling away! I am guaranteed
Heaven, no matter what!”
Well, that’s
not likely going to happen with someone who is truly saved, and our OSAS brothers and sisters are right to object to
this argument... Yet, there is a grain
of truth in the “license to sin” mentality.
Complacency is often an all-too-real issue in the OSAS camp. It can end up being a false security. Remember, we are human beings and we do all have
the sin nature. And we do have a
constant battle with temptation in one area or another. The danger is that the time will come,
perhaps when you may be at your weakest point, when the devil will put the idea
in your head, “Hey, come on, you are eternally secure! And this is just a little sin. It’s no big
deal. You’re not going to lose your
salvation over this!” And maybe you give
in. Just this time. Or maybe, a few more times. And this process will slowly continue over a
period of time, little by little, until you find yourself neck-deep in some
sin. At this point, you can either
repent and get forgiveness and get back on track with God, or you can take the
easier route and continue in that sin. You
can go on to become an apostate. After
all, “It’s no big deal,” right?
Thankfully,
many will not give in to this, but you will encounter this “license to sin” temptation
somewhere down the line. And it will
become very attractive to many. That’s just the way sin works.
Conclusion
Let us say
firmly and in love that we see our OSAS brothers and sisters as exactly that… brothers and sisters, fellow Christians.
And I believe that it does neither side any good to be flippant in
answering the objections of the other side.
We want to
emphasize something once more. Those of
us who do not hold to “Once Saved, Always Saved” do NOT believe that one can “continue
in the Lord” by trusting in his works. It
is not works that brought us
salvation (Ephesians 2:8-10), and it is not works that keeps us saved (Galatians 3:3). It is an attitude of continually trusting in
the Savior’s work on the cross.
For the
record, saying that OSAS is not true or biblical is NOT the same thing as
saying that God has somehow failed to
keep them when someone (who was once saved) has fallen away. There is never failure on God’s part.
My friends,
apostasy is a reality, a very serious one, finalizing one’s eternity. Apostasy is normally a long and gradual
process. It is difficult for a true Christian to fall away, but still possible. God is gracious, and He will not give up
easily on anyone (2 Peter 3:9), but neither will He force anyone to serve Him if that person insists on pulling away
from Him.
