Theology Thursday: Eternal Security

Welcome to Theology Thursday! Theology is the study of God, his relation to the world, and our relation to him.

Today's question:
Do believers have eternal security?

Pastor Brady's thoughts:
Another way of stating today’s question is: can a genuine believer in Christ Jesus - a sinner presumably saved by grace through faith - walk away from the eternal life of salvation and back into the darkness of death? In other words, can faith be lost?

Theologians call this “apostasy,” a word that means abandoning or even renouncing something once believed. In the context of Christianity, apostasy means believing in and accepting Jesus as Lord and Savior in faith, committing to follow him, and then later denying that faith and rejecting that commitment (thus losing the promise of eternal life).

This is another of these doctrinal debates that Christians and the church have argued about for centuries. Some church denominations, including the Presbyterians, Reformed/Calvinists, and most Baptist groups believe that “once saved, always saved” - that Christians who genuinely came to saving faith cannot lose that salvation.

Others, including Methodists, Wesleyans, Lutherans, Pentecostals and, historically, the Christian churches (such as MCC) maintain that a genuine believer can turn away from God and lose salvation.

There are a number of biblical passages that offer support for the reality and danger of apostasy.

One is from Paul’s first letter to Timothy:

“For some people have deliberately violated their consciences; as a result, their faith has been shipwrecked. Hymenaeus and Alexander are two examples” (1st Timothy 1:19-20).

In Paul’s second letter to Timothy, Paul declares, triumphantly:

“I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith” (2nd Timothy 4:7). For Paul to state that he has “kept the faith” clearly implies that the possibility exists for that not to have been the case - that it’s possible that he could have chosen not to do so.

In another example, the writer of Hebrews warns:

“Be careful then, dear brothers and sisters. Make sure that your own hearts are not evil and unbelieving, turning you away from the living God” (Hebrews 3:12).

Notice that this verse in Hebrews is addressed to “brothers and sisters,” meaning these are people presumably and genuinely in the faith - and they are being warned, apparently, against losing their faith.

Jesus himself appears to support this same idea when he says in John chapter 15, verses 1-6:

I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful. You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you.

Remain in me, as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.

If you do not remain in me, you are like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned.

If we do not remain in faith, Jesus says, we are like dead branches that have fallen off the vine and are discarded.

Saving faith, it seems by these passages, is a result of ongoing, sincere followership of Christ. This does not mean that God’s love is conditional. It certainly is not. God is perfectly loving and fully faithful; but our participation in his saving love is conditioned upon our continuing trust in Jesus.

Those Christians who do not believe apostasy is possible - that salvation is irresistibly permanent - must deal with the real-life scenarios where it very much appears that a faithful person has walked away. We probably all know people who once claimed belief in Jesus but no longer do, or who have given their lives over to sin to the extent that faith no longer factors into their decision making, behavior, and lives.

Those who hold the position that eternal security (another theological term for the apostasy debate) means genuine faith cannot be lost, would claim that people who have “walked away” were never really saved to begin with - that their faith was never truly genuine. This, of course, is possible, on a case-by-case basis.

But this creates serious theological problems. For one, the New Testament outlines what the process of salvation entails: believe, repent, confess, be baptized, walk in the way of faithfulness. When the church has witnessed someone embrace this process start to finish and live faithfully for years, and then - tragically - abandon that faithfulness - are we to believe it was all an act? That the person was pretending or lying? This certainly does happen, but it surely cannot always be the case.

There are a number of places where the biblical writers speak of the assurance believers can expect of the salvation promised by our promise-keeping God:

…full assurance of understanding… (Colossians 2:2)
…full assurance of hope… (Hebrews 6:11)
…full assurance of faith… (Hebrews 10:22)

Other passages hit on this theme, too, including Romans 8:15-17 and Galatians 4:6. 1 John 5:13 says we have the ability to “know that you have eternal life.” 

These verses further verify that God will never abandon us and will never initiate or cause a believer to come to unbelief, but they are not proof-texts for the anti-apostasy position. They speak only of the understanding, hope, and faith of those who continue to believe. God does not force us to have faith in him, and he does not prevent us from stopping if we so choose.

Because we reject the doctrine of unconditional election, we believe that salvation is a free gift of God’s grace that must be accepted - which is to say, it is conditional; conditional based on the individual’s response to God. It is conditional initially, and the logic holds that it remains conditional.  

Humans cannot save themselves or keep themselves saved - only our God does that - but they can refuse to accept salvation and can refuse to continue in the faith.

Pastor and author James Emery White explains: “The final verdict on anyone’s salvation is when their final breath is taken. No one can take your salvation away from you against your will, but you can freely surrender it yourself. The final verdict on your life is when your life is over. This is why there is so much in the Bible about remaining steadfast and faithful to the end; about persevering to the end.”

If a believer can indeed commit apostasy - if someone can walk away from the saving grace of Jesus - under what circumstances might we understand that to have taken place?
 
This is important: apostasy is not synonymous with sin. Believers are called to repent and turn away from sin, but we do not lose our salvation when we sin (even for the sins committed after we believe). We only lose our salvation when we actively and purposefully deny God’s gift of grace after having previously received it through faith.

Salvation is the acceptance and participation in God’s grace through faith; apostasy is then forsaking that acceptance and abandoning that participation. Faith is a decision, so is un-faith.

We all have a deep need to feel assured of our place in God’s heavenly kingdom. This is natural and appropriate. It would be untenable to wake up each day worried about God’s favor. This would be the source of unending anxiety and cause us to feel the inappropriate and anti-gospel need to try and earn our righteousness. But we cannot earn it; it has already been earned, on the cross, by our Savior.

The salvation of those who believe in the saving blood of Christ Jesus is secure for all eternity. We will not lose our salvation by doing bad things or struggling with various aspects of belief.

However, if we become hardened in rebellion, if our sins cross over from bad choices for which we repent into a way of life that defines us and for which we do not repent - if we cease waging war against sin - we can no longer be assured of our salvation.  

In Paul’s letter to the Colossians, he affirms that Christ has “now reconciled you in his fleshly body through death, in order to present you before him holy and blameless and above reproach.” However, this reconciliation is conditional; it depends not just upon a one-time profession of faith but a life lived in faith. Paul says that Christ has achieved this reconciliation “if indeed you continue in the faith firmly established and steadfast, and not moved away from the hope of the gospel that you have heard” (Colossians 1:21-23).

Salvation is promised, not for those who believed at one time, but for those who persist in belief. God saves, forever, those who choose him, forever.

In other words, God saves believers.

Related Resources: 
I recommend this four part series exploring the various aspects of this question at Renew.org:

Part 1 - Are we eternally secure or must we have faithful faith? 
Part 2 - Can a Christian lose salvation? 
Part 3 - Does Hebrews teach we can lose our salvation? 
Part 4 - How does a person forfeit their salvation?  

To know Him and to make Him known!
- Pastor Brady

Have a question for Theology Thursday? Send an email to minierccstaff@gmail.com and we'll respond, or we'll include in a future Theology Thursday Buffet.