3) Difficult passages and problems... We recognize that there are passages that might suggest that the believer can lose the salvation he once had, as contradictory as that sounds. Here are a few that I have heard from others over the years.
a) Doesn't eternal
security promote riotous living?
i)
In the
context of the “whole council of God” it does not promote wickedness. The full truth is summarized in 1 Jn. 2:1: My
little children, these things I write to you, so that you may not sin. And if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with
the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.
This assurance is important for the believer who struggles with
sin. He needs to know that the work of
Christ covers all sin. I often have
illustrated this with a contrast of my son’s basketball coach in high school,
who regularly angrily yanked players from a game every time they made a
mistake, with one of my all-time favorites, John Wooden, whose demeanor and
approach was to observe players and let them work through struggles, and then
teach them calmly during a time-out or in some private setting. Christians need to know that their Advocate
will not leave them nor forsake them as they navigate the Christian life. The examples of Scripture fit this
picture.
ii)
It is apparent
that the person who uses the doctrine of “eternal security” to justify his
continuing in sin does not actually know who he is in Christ. How shall we who died to sin live any
longer in it (Rom. 6:2).
iii)
It is
possible that the person who “continues in sin” is disqualified, a term
and thought that comes from 2 Cor. 13:4-5.
Paul recognizes that all believers, including himself, are “weak in Him”
but we live by His power (v4).
Then he advises, no, he commands the Corinthians to examine yourselves
as to whether you are in the faith. Test
yourselves. Do you not know yourselves,
that Jesus Christ is in you? – unless indeed you are disqualified. Both the context and the use of this term
elsewhere in the NT leads to the conclusion that Paul is saying, “unless indeed
you are found to be not in the faith, not what you claim to be.” Paul spoke of Jannes and Jambres who resisted
Moses as “disapproved concerning the faith” (2 Tim. 3:8). He spoke of the Cretans like this: … those
who are defiled and unbelieving … They profess to know God, but in works they
deny Him, being abominable, disobedient, and disqualified for every good
work (Titus 1:15-16).
iv) When I am speaking with someone like this,
someone who believes they can live a life of sin and yet be assured of their
eternal relationship with God through Christ, I seek to be very careful. First, I remember that I do not know their
heart. Second, I know that their life is
dishonoring to Christ and totally inconsistent with their profession of faith
in Christ and they must come to repentance.
And third, I do not want to simply send them to a passage like 1 John 5:12-13. To assure them that they know Christ is
something I cannot say and is not what they need to hear. They need to “examine themselves.” The general idea of the “conversion”
experience is that a person has come to the end of themselves, like those on
the Day of Pentecost who were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the
rest of the apostles, ‘Men and brethren, what shall we do?’ (Ac.
2:37). It is possible that people come
to Christ without that sense of sin and guilt. They have only made a
profession so as to join their friends or for some other motivation.
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