This quote from the ancient philosopher Epicurus strikes right at the heart of both the existence of God and Christianity. Is God, specifically the God of Christianity, omnipotent (all powerful)? Is the God of Christianity omni-benevolent (all loving)? If He is both all-powerful and all loving, then why doesn’t He stop evil? Perhaps God is all powerful, but not all loving or all loving, but not all powerful! This argument, although it is old, is still a weapon wielded by the likes of: atheists, skeptics and critics of Christianity as fool proof evidence that God does not exist.
I’ll never forget that fateful day on December, 26th 2004, when an earthquake in the Indian Ocean triggered a tsunami killing over 500,000 people with almost no warning. It was absolutely horrific, watching men, women and children drown to their deaths on live television. Even in the aftermath, I remember seeing thousands of human corpses scattered seemingly everywhere. At the time, I wasn’t a Christian, but I remember asking, “How could God allow such evil”. Even now as a Christian, I freely confess, the problem of evil and innocent suffering is still something I struggle with. In fact, there is not a single day that goes by where I don’t see something in the news that causes me to ask, God why? Just last week, a young man marched into a high school and gunned down seventeen young boys, girls and several adults in cold blooded murder. Now, some may quickly reply, the answer to the problem of evil is easy. When Adam and Eve disobeyed God, they fell into lives of perpetual sin terminated by death—allowing evil and death to enter the world. I agree and understand. Paul says, “Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all people, because all sinned.” Rom. 5:12. But one must remember, we’re not doing presuppositional apologetics where we assume our opponents believe in God and that the Bible is the Word of God, rather we are dealing with people who will only work logically. Now for someone that doesn’t hold to a biblical approach then the fall and death pose a significant problem. One hundred years ago before the rise of modern science, it was a widely held belief that the earth was merely thousands of years old as opposed to billions. This belief of a young earth allowed for a somewhat simple explanation that animal death did not precede the fall of Adam and Eve, rather it came after—this is known as a version of the free-will defense. However, as science progressed, it became quite apparent that the earth was not thousands of years old rather it was millions perhaps even billions of years old; and animal death took place well before humanity came on the scene. William A. Dembski, gives a thoughtful explanation for this, calling it Divine Causation. This theodicy approach hypothesizes that in the same way that Jesus was called a Lamb slain “from” the foundation of the earth (paraphrase) Rev. 13:8 meaning that Jesus’s sacrificial atonement for sin works retroactively looking both forward and backward. So Dembski posits that it’s possible for an omnipotent God to introduce animal death and predation before the fall; thus, allowing for God’s Divine Causation (anticipating the fall before it happened) to take place before the creation of man. This was done for the sake of humanity to be a mirror of what evil is before the fall. After all, we only truly understand evil by nature. While this argument is merely a summarization of Dembski’s argument and may be satisfying to the theist or intellectual; it’s still not likely to satisfy the atheist because evil is deeply offensive and bothers everyone. Earlier in the blog, I stated that even as a Christian evil is repulsive to me. Could it be that that’s why the atheist deploys this in nearly every argument against the existence of God? The problem of evil strikes right at the heart of our emotions. Who in their right mind can tolerate babies being tortured for fun, people being killed by drunk drivers or someone gunning down innocent people. I hate to sound redundant, but emotions are hard to argue against—even if you have solid intellectual arguments and answers. But even if an answer isn’t necessarily emotionally satisfying, that doesn’t mean it isn’t true. Here’s some good news, the problem of evil has been resolved! A famous philosopher once opined if we’re giving an intellectual answer to the problem of evil; we are not called to tell someone how we feel rather we are called to tell them what we think. So as difficult as the problem of evil may be emotionally, that’s no reason to think that evil and God are mutually exclusive. The key to the atheist’s argument must have a hidden premise somewhere, because for them, God and evil are contradictory—but they’re not! Does free-will exist? If it is possible that free-will exists, then God cannot make any world He wants (a perfect world where no one can choose), because free agents can freely choose. It is logically impossible to make someone freely do something against their will—therefore, the door for evil is an option. So while God allows the "potential" fro evil through freewill, He doesn't create it. A Second move for the theist and the compatibility of God and evil is, the chaos theory. As finite beings, we are limited in time and space, so it is possible that God has a perfectly just reason for permitting something to happen (notice I didn’t say causing something to happen). In the chaos theory, God being an infinite being, sees the end of history from its beginning and providentially orders it. In order to achieve His purposes, God may allow for suffering to take place. Of course, suffering to finite beings may seem pointless and terrible, but perhaps God has a different framework in His infinite view of things. Here’s a famous example from a movie to demonstrate the chaos theory. In the movie, Sliding Doors, Gwyneth Paltrow plays an actress who rushing down the stairs of the subway station to catch the train, but when she gets close to the train the movie splits. In one life the doors shut and she misses the train. In the other split she makes the train just before the doors close. Based on such a trivial event in her life her two paths diverge. In the one scene where she makes the train, she has an interview for a job and gets it. This leads to a life of money, success and prosperity. However, in the other life, she misses the train and interview becoming broke, improvised and unhappy. The worst part is, she missed the train because a little girl playing with her doll on the stairs caused her to miss the train. We cant help but wonder how many minute trivialities led up to that moment. But the interesting part is the way the film ends. In the happy life, the woman is suddenly killed in a car wreck, however, in the seemingly terrible life, her hardship turns to success. The point is simple, we are simply not in a position at all to judge if God a good reason for a hardship occurring in our lives. Every event in history has a ripple effect that might not show up until centuries later. Only an all knowing, all powerful and all loving God can know such things.
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Ask most Protestant Reformed Christian’s why they aren’t Catholic, and you’ll probably get some corky responses. I’ve heard anything from Catholic’s worship Mary to Catholic’s believe in purgatory or the Papacy. But ask any sharp Reformed individual why they’re not Catholic, and they’ll probably say, Catholic’s don’t know how to get to heaven; they’re works based and that’s what justified Luther leaving the Church. So, on the one-hand you have Protestants condemning Catholics because they have a two- part ticket to heaven (Jesus, plus works); and Catholic’s yelling Protestants have one ticket and that’s all they need. To put it more succinctly, Catholic’s claim that Protestants just take their one-way ticket to heaven, stick it in their back pocket and their good to go “faith alone”. So this whole debate centers around the doctrine of justification; how do I get to heaven. This is a very divisive issue that Catholic’s and Protestants have debated for hundreds of years, condemning one another to battlefield graves—ultimately leading to a split in the Church.
The entire debate on justification could be summarized by this phrase “justified by faith alone”. I’ll just come right out and say it, nowhere in Scripture will you explicitly find the phrase, “you are justified by faith alone “. According to the defenders of this, even though it’s not explicit, it is implicit. You will, however, find the phrase that a man is not justified by faith alone Jas. 2:24. Now I should quickly point out that thee Reformer himself, Martin Luther, was so troubled with James 2 that he believed the epistle did not belong in the canon of Scripture. Why, because it undermines his entire defense of sola fide. I know at this point it sounds like I am bashing the Reformed view on justification—but I’m not. Now, do I disagree with the moniker “faith alone”? Yes, and here’s why. I wish to begin in the gospel of Luke and the crucifixion scene. While our Lord was hanging from the cross, there were two criminals hanging on either side of Him. Luke and the other synoptic writers tell us that one of them was hurling insults at Jesus, while the other was repentant. Now to the one that acted justly and repented, Jesus said, “I tell you the truth, today you will be with me in paradise.” Luke 23:43. If you ask me, this verse is more persuasive than anything else found in Romans or Galatians to support “faith alone”, because it clearly demonstrates “faith alone”. This criminal was hanging from a cross and couldn’t possibly do any good works meritorious of salvation, right? So was he justified by “faith alone”? The answer is, yes! Do protestants believe he was justified by “faith alone”? Of course they do, and so do Catholics. So if Catholics believe in “works based” salvation, then they’re contradicting themselves. But I think they’re a little sharper than that. So where does this whole “works” thing fit into Catholic theology? Well, if you have a pulse, and you’re breathing, and Jesus Christ is your Lord and Savior—then what are you going to do? Good works! You and I are not that thief on the cross—we are His hands and feet. I love those famous Protestant verses that get pounded into little youngsters at Awana year after year, “For it is by GRACE you have been SAVED, through FAITH—and this not from YOURSELVES. It is the gift of God—not by WORKS, so that NO ONE can boast.” Eph. 2:8-9. I love those verses, preach it, live it, do it—keep reading. “For WE are God’s workmanship CREATED in Christ Jesus to DO GOOD WORKS” Eph. 2:10. As you can see, the gift of God’s salvation to those in Christ Jesus is not earned, but as living breathing people born again—we’re made for good works. Elsewhere in his letter to the Corinthians Paul says, “And now, these three things remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.” 1 Cor. 13:13. Again faith is absolutely necessary, but remember faith is the root. Love, in Scripture, is not a feeling, it’s a deed, it’s a life, it’s a work, it’s what we are commanded to do. Finally, James explicitly says, “You see that a person is justified by what he does and not by faith alone” Jas. 2:24. Nowhere as I already stated does Paul say we are justified by faith alone. Paul does, however, say we are justified by faith without the works of the law Gal. 2:16. Hopefully by now it is quite apparent that Catholics and Protestants are talking about the same things, only at times we use broader and narrower terms to express that. In the narrow sense of things, the good thief on the cross was saved by “faith alone”. However, in a broad sense, we aren’t justified by “faith alone” rather, based on what we do with the time we have been given. After all, “faith without deeds is dead” Jas. 2:26. Remember, biblical faith is not just a mental ascent where you say, I have faith—it’s much deeper than that. James says, “You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that—and shudder” Jas. 2:19. So intellectual faith is not enough for salvation. When Paul speaks of being saved by faith in Romans and Galatians, yes, he is talking about being saved by faith. But again, it’s not an intellectual ascent instead, its an opening up of one’s self to God—trusting and loving Him alone. Both sides of the Church need to recognize this. At one point in time the Catholic Church was unified. I believe it can happen again, and I pray for that everyday. You shall not bear false witness Exodus 20:16. This verse is a seemingly direct law from the Word of God with no ambiguity or need for interpretation. But are biblical ethics more nuanced than that? In the Old Testament, when God called the children of Israel out of slavery and bondage from Egypt, He gave them covenantal rules and commands they were to follow. Some of these laws were known as “case laws”, meaning they were laws put in place that if such and such happened, Israel was to do this. For example, “If a slave has taken refuge with you, do not hand him over to his master. Let him live among you wherever he likes and in whatever town he chooses. Do not oppress him.” Deut. 23:15. This is a case law, “if” something like this happens, then you ought to do this. However, there are also “statute laws” these laws on the other hand are direct commands from God to His people and humanity, and while not always universal (do not eat an animal with a split hoof Lev. 11:3), they were direct commands given to Israel to refrain from. One of these commands is, “You shall not bear false witness.” Exodus 20:16. Now this falls into the category of universal truth which is true for all people regardless of the lapse of time or culture. Here’s the apparent dilemma. Even though Scripture clearly communicates lying as wrong, does this then mean we must always tell the truth or is lying permissible to preserve the greater good.
The eighteenth-century philosopher Emmanuel Kant was committed to “absolutes” (he was not a Christian). Kant was so committed to absolutes that he rationalized that revealing the whereabouts of his friend to an axe murderer would be the right thing to do—if such a thing happened. Why, you ask. Kant argued that he wouldn’t actually share in any of the responsibility of his friend’s death because he did the right thing. So rather than Kant taking the blame for disclosing his friend’s whereabouts; the blame would rest entirely on the murderer. I too have a godly friend that adheres to a wooden-literal approach to this command. From his perspective, bearing false witness under any circumstance is wrong. The way he sees things is, God, who is omniscient (knows all things), and you, being finite (not knowing all things) should not try and lead anyone astray for any reason or thwart something God has put in place because you don’t know what the outcome will be. For example, if an abusive husband shows up at your door looking for his wife and you’re harboring her, then you should tell him. Or if a burglar comes to your home demanding your money, you immediately obey his request and give it to him. Again, my friend believes perhaps God in His infinite wisdom has another plan. Now this can get into what is known as middle-knowledge or Molinism (not going there). But you get the point of the person who takes God’s Law with the utmost sincerity—if God has ordained it, get out of the way. But is there a difference from “lying” and “deception”? Doesn’t lying involve breaking trust with another person or deliberately deceiving someone for your own benefit? Proverbs 3:27 says, “Do not withhold good from those to whom it is due, when it is in your power to do it.” Here the writer exhorts those who know what is best to do are obligated to do it. Christians can sometimes pin themselves into nasty corners when they hold to wooden-literal approaches in Scripture that are nuanced. For example, the famous skeptic, Michael Shermer suggests that Christian’s who hold “absolutes” should be ashamed of themselves. Telling a murderer that your wife and children are in the home when they could hide is just flat out evil! Shermer, concludes that moral standards really don’t exist for the Christian then. So does Scripture provide us with options when using deception as being okay to provide the greater good principle? I think it does. In fact, before the Mosaic Law was given to the Israelites, we read in Exodus 1:15-21 that the Hebrew midwives, because they feared God, lied to Pharaoh to preserve the lives of many children. When asked by Pharaoh, why didn’t they kill the children, they replied, “. . . the Hebrew women are vigorous and give birth before we can get there.” Also, in the book of Joshua, we read that Rahab of Jericho lied in order to preserve the lives of the Hebrew spies (Joshua 2, Heb. 11:31 & Jas. 2:25). Sometimes people will argue, God never ordained that or told them to do that—which is true. But these people were seen as doing the right thing to preserve human life. So does God ever permit deception to seek the greater good? We do have an account where God tells Samuel to deceive when faced with the imminent fact that if he were to anoint David as king and Saul was to find out, then Saul would surely kill Samuel. So God’s advice to Samuel was, take a heifer with you, and say, I have come to sacrifice to the Lord. So here, God urged Samuel to deceive anyone who might ask what he was doing because of Saul’s ruthlessness (1 Samuel 16:1-5). Another example from the book of Joshua was during the conquering of Canaan. In this narrative, God tells Joshua to set an “ambush” or deliberately deceive the enemy so the could defeat them (Josh. 8:2). So based on the panoply of Scripture and not just isolated readings of a verse, it can be clearly demonstrated that using “deception” when coupled with moral actions is not seen as a sin against God. You may not know this, but you likely use deception for good in many ways. Do you ever leave a light on when you’re not home or on vacation, because you want a would-be thief to believe someone really is home when they’re not? Do you ever get a phone call from someone you don’t want to talk to, so you don’t answer it pretending that you’re busy or not available? Or if your child asks you about private matters, you don’t have to disclose the matters to them. So in the final analysis, lets exercise good judgments that are righteous and holy while do what is pleasing to God. “Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.” Gal. 5:24
Next time you’re at church during the Sunday morning service, pay extra close attention, because what I am about to say gets preached over and over again. It goes something like this. Even though you are a new creation in Christ Jesus (born again John 3) and possess the Holy Spirit (1 Cor. 3:16), you are a sinner with a sinful nature that continues to sin. Does that sound familiar? I don’t know of many churches that don’t thunder that message from the pulpits weekly. Why is that? Are we really just a bunch of sinners that can’t seem to live lives of holiness and righteousness? Do we find some sort of comfort when we hear that? What would happen if a non-Christian was seriously considering Christianity as a viable option, but while attending the service, they discovered that Christians really aren’t any different than them—they’re just a bunch of sinners. What kind of hope would that give them? Would you really want to be apart of that? In one breath we preach the absolute awesomeness and regenerate power of the Holy Spirit against sin. But in the same breath, we’re talking about how sinful and wretched we are. Does that message bode well? I work out at the gym five days a week for the health and conditioning benefits. But why do people go to the gym? Most people come to the gym to get fit! Why, perhaps they don’t like what they have become or they’re obese and need help—whatever the case they’re seeking change. Now, would it make any sense for the YMCA (where I go) to post a great big billboard of a 500lb. man with flab hanging everywhere riding a bike saying, come on, join our gym? Of course not! But this is the image the church projects! We essentially say, we’re just like you, we’re sinners too—join our church. But advertising companies know better, don’t they? They show the finished product on the billboard; they show tangible change or transformation that has taken place in someone’s life. That’s exactly what so many of our churches are missing today. I get it, we sin, we’re not perfect. I’m not advocating sinless perfection here; but should we be living lives diametrically different than the world holy and pleasing to God? The answer is an absolute, yes! So we have to stop buying into this whole paradigm that “I’m just a sinner” or “Paul, the greatest of the apostles couldn’t do what he should have done either.” I once had a Christian man tell me there were sins in his life that he struggled with, but based on what Paul said in Romans 7 he was therefore comforted. You are not schizophrenic possessing two natures; Scripture completely opposes such a notion. In Romans 6:16b-18 Paul says, “. . .you are slaves to the one you obey—whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness. But thanks be to God that, though you used to be slaves to sin, you wholeheartedly obeyed the form of teaching to which you were entrusted. You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness.” Is Paul saying you have two natures and they are at wits end with one another? Some would like to believe that based on the ensuing passage in Romans 7:14-25, but that is not at all what Paul has envisioned. Paul is clearly speaking about an individual who is on the cusp of becoming a Christian but hasn’t yet their faith in Jesus. That’s why in Romans 8:1a Paul says, “Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” As a believer in Jesus Christ and His atoning work we do not live according to the flesh but according to the Spirit (paraphrase of Romans 8:4b). We are also not controlled by the flesh but by the Spirit, if the Spirit of God lives in you (paraphrase Romans 8:9). So do we have the power to not sin? Of course, but only through the enabling power of the Holy Spirit. Paul says, “No temptation has seized you except that which is common to man, and God is faithful, He will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear, but when you are tempted, He will provide an escape.” 1 Cor. 10:13. The question here is, do we really believe that? I have a friend who holds to a peculiar view on sin that I am seriously looking into. He calls it imputed sins and unimputed sins. When I first met him, he said he didn’t sin. I immediately quoted him 1 John 1:8,10 “If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.” “If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and His Word has no place in our lives.” He quickly retorted back with 1 John 3:6 “No one who lives in Him keeps on sinning. No one who continues to sin has either seen Him or known Him.” Without getting into the commentary aspect of it, he believes imputed sins are sins we are cognitively aware of and fully capable to live free from by the Power of the Holy Spirit. However, these unimputed sins are sins by which we are not consciously aware of, but when we become aware of them we are held accountable and must not do them again. For example, Paul says in 1 Corinthians 8:13” Therefore, if what I eat causes my brother to fall into sin, I will never eat meat again, so that I will not cause him to fall.” Paul says, be careful how you exercise your freedom. Eating meat sacrificed to idols was perfectly fine in as much as it didn’t cause another brother to stumble, but if it did, then it was sinful to Paul. In today’s version of Christianity, we have blurred the flesh/Spirit distinction by telling the populace they are walking civil wars fighting two battles, and they can’t possibly win. But based on what Scripture says and by the renewing of our minds, we can live lives pleasing to God. This blog was not a polemic against the Church, rather an alarm calling all Christians to holiness. Is the Bible that you and I are reading today really what the original authors penned? Wow, that little question has so much packed in it that I could seriously write a book on that single question. But that’s not my intent; my intention is to succinctly answer that question in about 1000 words or less.
The first couple questions that come to mind when I think about that question is, what is a translation and why so many? Well, a translation simply put is when you take one language i.e. Greek and convert it into a receptor language i.e. English. Of course this can not under any circumstances be transferred literally word for word; and anyone who knows two languages can understand this. Here’s my favorite example of this. Most English Americans know a little Spanish and have heard the saying, “como te llamas?” Translated, it means, what’s your name? Now, if I were to say, okay, translate that “literally” word for word back to me. The translator would look at me funny and say, “what yourself call?” Now I don’t know about you, but that doesn’t make any sense because no one speaks like that. So keep in mind that when a translator is translating, he or she is doing their best to accurately reproduce what the original author was communicating. Now is this done with 100% accuracy, no. There’s an old saying, “every translator is a traitor.” Not to sound negative here, but no one comes at a text completely objectively, that’s why many translations are done by committees rather than individuals—as this helps to ferret out agendas. But even with committees, there are still theological slants. Here’s a profound example from the NIV 1984 (by the way, I love the NIV and am by no means diminishing the quality of the translation). In Paul’s letter to the Romans, there is an interpretation of what the NIV committee wanted to get across, and in doing so, they changed the meaning of the passage and the original word Paul spoke to his amanuensis. In Romans 1:13 we read, “I do not want you to be unaware, brothers, that I planned many times to come to you (but have been prevented from doing so until now) in order that I might have a harvest among you, just as I have had among the other Gentiles.” Okay, without unpacking this passage, it’s pretty clear that Paul has been longing to come to them but was somehow prevented. But now that he can come, he wants to have a “harvest” among them. When we hear “harvest”, we immediately interpret that to mean Paul wants to evangelize them, right? But the Roman church was already well established; and Paul says later in the letter that he never treads where others have worked. Secondly, the NIV translation team changed the Greek word karpos or fruit and used the word “harvest” instead, why? Because this NIV translation team wants to encourage evangelism—nothing wrong with that. But here’s what’s interesting. What Paul really had in mind was, money not evangelism! That’s right, Paul wanted some money and he uses a euphemism to ease into asking them for money. How do I know this? Great question. At the close of the letter, in Romans 15:28 Paul says, “So after I have completed this task and have made sure that they have received this “fruit”, I will go to Spain and visit you on the way.” Now the preceding verses 15:23-27 act as book ends (the same way Paul opened the letter) to ask the Roman church for some cash just as the churches in Macedonia and Achaia were willing to do. Paul was such a genius in the way he politely asks for some money—I love it. So why so many translations? Well, this one is pretty easy to answer. The simple answer for so many translations is, there are lots of different reading levels. For Example, the NIV I just mentioned has a vocabulary of about 800 words at a eighth grade reading level, while the NASB is over double that. The wide array of translations helps people from all levels better understand the Word of God. The problem with that, however, is that some translations become paraphrases rather than translations and some important things can be missed. Now very quickly, I wish to answer another aspect of this question, and that is, are the translations we possess today accurate? Skeptics love to use this by stating that the Bible has been retransmitted so many times that we can’t possibly possess what the original author really wrote. Or there are more errors in the Bible than there are words-- which is true (I’ll explain in a second). First, imagine I hand wrote this blog, gave it to you, and told you to copy it and then give it to a friend and have them do the same thing. Lets say this went on for weeks and weeks of copy after copy being handed to different people and they in turn were copying it. Tragically, during this entire process, I asked you to give me the original back, but you lost it. To make matters worse, even though we have all those copies in circulation, every one of them are different, why you ask? Because everyone made mistakes copying the blog. So how can anyone know what I actually said? Well, this is where the science of textual criticism takes over. You see, even though everyone copying the blog made mistakes, they didn’t make the same mistakes. So what a textual critic can do is, gather up as many of those copies as possible and cancel out all the mistakes by comparing the writings (its tedious). Here’s what’s really cool, after dismissing all the errors, in the process the original emerges—isn’t that awesome. So you can hold your head high about the accuracy of your Bible translation. The last part of this I want to touch on is, the many errors contained in the New Testament documents. Famed textual Bart Ehrman is famous for telling the masses that there are more errors in the New Testament than there are words—and he’s right. There are over 400,000 errors in the NT alone—that’s more errors than there are words. In fact, that’s 2.5 errors for every word, how’s that possible. Well, the reason there are so many errors is because there are so many manuscripts to work with (over 5800). As the marvelous NT textual critic Daniel Wallace says, “we have an embarrassment of riches when it comes to the NT.” So imagine that before Guttenberg and the printing press every time the Bible was copied, it was done by hand—needless to say, there were errors. Some of these errors are simple, for example, the omission of a word, the addition of a word, or the transposition of a word (Christ Jesus or Jesus Christ). The point I’m trying to make here is, while yes, there are variant readings of words from manuscript to manuscript, none of those variants effect a single Christian doctrine. Much more could be said, but I hope you are encouraged and better equipped to get into the Word and share it with others. God bless! What does it mean to possess eternal security, and is it true? In this blog, I want to be very open and candid about my own personal thoughts on the topic-- speaking from my own experience and exegesis about salvation. Regarding this subject, there are really only one of two positions a believer can hold to (A) once I make a profession of faith in Christ, I am saved and cannot lose that salvation or (B) when I make a profession of faith in Christ, I am saved, but can willingly relinquish that gift of salvation by walking away. Now, there are way too many passages to go over, especially in a blog, but I’ll lay out the popular texts.
In the very organic stages of my walk with the Lord Jesus Christ, it seemed to me that embedded in the plain rudimentary teachings of the New Testament documents, there were crystal clear warnings that someone could apostatize or walk away from the faith. This conclusion wasn’t based on any deep biblical exegesis of Scripture, rather it was Nick’s plain old interpretation of the text (which isn’t always a bad thing). However, as I began to listen and read many popular pastors and authorities on Scripture--they spoke otherwise. I remember hearing a most convincing sermon from one of my favorites, the late RC Sproul that pretty much put any of my thoughts to rest regarding the potential losing my salvation. Then came along the ever popular, John MacArthur, James D. Kennedy, John Piper and a host of others that thoroughly refuted such a notion. I remember one of my favorites speaking from the gospel of John saying, “in John 6:47” Jesus said, “I tell you the truth, he who believes has eternal life.” The key word here is “has” not might have or may have, but “has” eternal life. Romans 8:38-39 was also deployed where Paul says, “For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Oh, there were more! 1 Cor. 1:8 “He will also keep you firm to the end, so that you will be blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.” Or Paul, speaking to the Christians in Philippi, “. . .being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.” Phil. 1:6b. How do you argue against those verses? Well, you don’t! That’s right, I agree 100% completely with those verses, and the truth that lies within them. God will keep both you and me strong to the end. I absolutely positively believe and affirm that. But everything hinges on what? Free will. Now, I am not doing a blog on determinism and compatibilistic freedom, I doing one on eternal security, however, it hinges on one of those two positions. Most people, at least normal everyday people, believe in love, right? And while I know I’m answering for them, most, if not all that are either married or dating, and didn’t apply force or coercion when they proposed or asked someone out on a date. If they did, then it certainly wasn’t free will or love—it was force. In a similar manner, God loves us and freely offers His love and salvation to us, provided we receive His love and obey His commands. You see, when I said I affirm those verses, I really do, however, I interpret them differently. Think about the list Paul rattles off in Romans 8:38-39 that I just cited. Paul seemingly mentions everything except for what? Me. That’s right. Nothing other than me walking away from God will separate me from His love and salvation. And God is faithful to keep me strong to the end—even when I fail. But any loving being (except God), sadly, can choose to walk away from the free gift of love. Love is always a two-way street, a commitment, a covenant, something that should be cherished and handled with great care. So what happens when someone walks away from faith? Does God give them what they want? Were they never really saved? I think God gives us what we want and our salvation is lost—perhaps without return. I heard one guy jokingly say that he’s been born again so many times he has stretch marks. I know that sounds a bit funny, but I don’t think we’re born again, and again, and again, and again. According to Jesus, in John 3 we are reborn once, light overtakes darkness and we become renewed in our thinking and live lives holy and pleasing unto our Master. But what if we are beyond the elementary things, being enlightened, tasting the heavenly gift, sharing in the Holy Spirit, only to later fall away Heb.6:1-6. I’m not talking about backsliding here. I’m talking about someone who willfully turns their back on God and says, I do not believe in you anymore. Some would then appeal 1 John 2:19. I don’t buy the bit that they were never saved in the first place. In that passage, it is abundantly clear that John is dealing those that have seceded or withdrew their membership from the community of believers denying the deity of Jesus (v.22) a.k.a antichrists. I know many will disagree with me on this one, but Hebrews 6:1-6 is a frightful state to be in if you deny your master to the point where you reject Him. Yes, Peter denied the Lord, but that was all prior to the reception of the Holy Spirit. In the final analysis, I do not know if anyone can pass the point of no return before their last breath, but we must remain faithful and true to our Master. bb |
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