Ok, let’s pick up where we left off last week. We were talking about predestination vs free will which is basically calvinism vs arminianism. These two theological ideologies differ on another hot topic. And here it is: Can you lose your salvation? What does eternal security mean to a disciple of Jesus? What about if you backslide? Can a christian backslide...or “slide back” into sin? Of course you can. You’ve probably already done it twice today. But does that mean you’ve lost your salvation, if you sinned this morning? That is the big question. And the short answer is...no. We will spend the rest of today examining the longer much more complicated answer. Doesn’t that sound fun? Again, we will be dealing with some broad strokes, so we have a good overview of the topic. The biblical evidence is substantial for both the Arminian and Calvinist positions. John Wesley and Charles Finney were great men of God who took the Arminian position. John Calvin and Charles Spurgeon were great men of God who took the Calvinist position. It is not stupid or immoral or faithless to take either position. I will present a lot of scripture today that will seem to support both sides. This is not to frustrate or confuse you, but to educate you on the subject, so that no matter which side you land on, you won’t have done it just because your pastor or denomination told you to. OK, let’s jump in.
The word “backslider” or “backsliding” does not appear in the New Testament and is used in the Old Testament primarily of Israel. The Jews, though they were God’s chosen people, continually turned their backs on Him and rebelled against His Word. That is why they were forced to make sacrifices for sin over and over in order to restore their relationship with the God they had offended. Some would use this to support the idea of being one of God’s children, and then walking away...but then God restores you when you repent again. Wash, rinse, repeat as necessary. This looks like the position of backsliding today. However, as new testament Christians, today we have a perfect, once-and-for-all sacrifice of Jesus on the cross and need no further sacrifice for our sin. The calvinist position says that since God’s grace is irresistible and you had nothing to do with being chosen...then logically, you cannot be unchosen over something you do. God does not change His mind about you, if you mess up. So I guess this means that after you surrender your life to Jesus, you are free to keep sinning all you want, and God will just keep on forgiving your willful disobedience. Remember it was His choice to save you and He knew you’d keep sinning. Does that sound right to you? Romans 6:1-2 “1 What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? 2 By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it?”
Eternal security is not a license to sin. Rather, it is the security of knowing that God’s love is guaranteed for those who trust in Christ. Knowing and understanding God’s tremendous gift of salvation accomplishes the opposite of giving a license to sin. How could anyone, knowing the price Jesus Christ paid for us, go on to live a life of sin? Calvinism says that anyone doing this is demonstrating not that eternal security has given him a license to sin, but rather that they are not really saved. They never really truly repented. 1 John 3:7-10 “7 Little children, let no one deceive you. Whoever practices righteousness is righteous, as he is righteous. 8 Whoever makes a practice of sinning is of the devil, for the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil. 9 No one born of God makes a practice of sinning, for God's seed abides in him; and he cannot keep on sinning, because he has been born of God. 10 By this it is evident who are the children of God, and who are the children of the devil: whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is the one who does not love his brother.” Clearly, we are not permitted as kingdom citizens, to keep doing things that violate God’s kingdom principles, just because His grace will cover us if we do. This is where we have to question ourselves and if we are truly surrendered to the King. And that all sounds great until you come across Romans 7. Romans 7:15-20 “ 15 For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. 16 Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law, that it is good. 17 So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells
within me. 18 For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. 19 For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. 20 Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me.” So what do we do with Paul’s dilemma? Had Paul lost his salvation? How do we reconcile Paul’s not being able to do what was right and still being saved? The difference is “wanting to” sin and enjoying it, vs being frustrated by your behavior and having a desire not to grieve the Holy Spirit. Paul is not talking about losing salvation, but rather ongoing sanctification. Sanctification is the process of growing up in Christ. It’s about true repentance which means making a true effort to turn away from sin, not to keep doing it after you are saved. Let me put it this way. When a child is young and immature they wear diapers...big thick ones, because all they know is when they want to go, they go. But when they get old enough to understand that they should go to the bathroom instead of peeing in their pants, that’s what they do. It’s embarrassing for them to keep wearing a diaper when they know better. It’s a beginning sign of maturity when they take the diaper off. Well, imaging this for a minute. What if you saw a perfectly healthy 30yr old wearing a thick diaper, all the time. I mean it’s obvious he’s got one on and he makes no effort to hide it. He’s not embarrassed by it at all. When he wants to go, he just goes. Those who love him have tried to tell him what his behavior looks like, but he’s having none of it. You can’t tell him what to do.
Now there’s no law that says he can’t do that, and he believes it’s within his rights to do whatever he wants, so he does the most convenient thing for himself...he wears a diaper. That sounds crazy doesn’t it? Well, the Christian who never matures, but continues in sin is just like diaper guy. You know better, but you make no effort to control yourself. You just do whatever you want, when you want. And you’re not the least bit embarrassed by it. But you should be. Romans 6:12-14 “12 Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions. 13 Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness. 14 For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.” Making a mistake and then trying hard to correct that behavior is very different than ongoing willful disobedience. There are several denominations that hold to arminian free will, who teach that your ongoing salvation is dependent on your ability to stop sinning. If you don’t it’s called backsliding. Mostly it’s the idea that after you have repented of your sins and surrendered your life to Christ...if you then allow sin to be present in your life, or in other words, you slide back into sin... you will end up in hell anyway. Since it was your free will that is going to get you into heaven, it’s your free will that can keep you out also. The problem with this thought is that it can lead you to a place where you believe you can lose your salvation as easily as you can lose your car keys. So the question becomes “Can we lose salvation by accident?”
But I can’t find any verses that support the idea that if you have truly surrendered to King Jesus and have lived for Him for 30 years, and then just 60 seconds before you have a massive heart attack and die, you have an argument with someone and feel hate for them...thus sin is in your heart...because of that, your name was removed from the book of life...you just died...and now you are headed to hell. Is that how all this is supposed to work out? So we clearly have two different views of remaining saved. The assumption that you can live your life sinning all you want and still get to go to heaven is not a correct assumption. And at the same time, the belief that sinning only once just before you die will send you to hell is also incorrect belief. Jude 24 "To Him who is able to keep you from falling and to present you before His glorious presence without fault and with great joy." God’s power is able to keep the believer from falling. It is up to Him, not us, to present us before His glorious presence. Our eternal security is a result of God keeping us, not us maintaining our own salvation. Jesus said this, John 10:28-29 ”I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one can snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, no one can snatch them out of my Father’s hand.” Both Jesus and the Father have us firmly grasped in their hand. Who could possibly separate us from the grip of both the Father and the Son?
Ephesians 1:13-14 “13 In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, 14 who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory.” You cannot be separated from salvation by accident or making a mistake and doing something that breaks the law of God. If you could, then you would not be sealed and guaranteed. I don’t see it saying you can be unsealed if you commit a sin. "That which can't be gained by moral perfection, cannot be lost by moral imperfection." -Michael S. Heiser Romans 8:38-39 ”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." Our salvation is based on God’s love for those whom He has redeemed and nothing can separate us from that. Our salvation is purchased by Christ, promised by the Father, and sealed by the Holy Spirit. It is unbiblical to say that salvation is received by faith, but then has to be maintained by works. The apostle Paul addresses this issue. Galatians 3:2-6 “2 Let me ask you only this: Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law or by hearing with faith? 3 Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh?”
Since we are saved by faith, our salvation is also maintained and secured by faith. We cannot earn our own salvation. Therefore, neither can we earn the maintenance of our salvation. So obviously, good works does not keep us saved and sin does not separate us from salvation. But what about if a person knowingly, willingly walks away from their faith? What if they abandon their belief in Jesus and actively tell people that Jesus is not the way to God? Hebrews 6:4-6 “4 For it is impossible, in the case of those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, and have shared in the Holy Spirit, 5 and have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the age to come, 6 and then have fallen away, to restore them again to repentance, since they are crucifying once again the Son of God to their own harm and holding him up to contempt.” Some people will use this passage to show that backsliding is biblical because it describes a true disciple who has fallen away. But hold on a minute before you get to settled on that idea. It’s true...This does seem to support not only the ability to fall away from salvation...but it also says that if you do, you cannot get it back. This does not support the classic definition of backsliding where if you sin and repent, God reinstates you. This verse begins by saying that it is impossible to restore you again if you have fallen away completely. So, what do we do with that? 1 John 2:3-6 “3 And by this we know that we have come to know him, if we keep his commandments. 4 Whoever says “I know him” but does not keep his commandments is a liar,
and the truth is not in him, 5 but whoever keeps his word, in him truly the love of God is perfected. By this we may know that we are in him: 6 whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked. Here is another passage that seems to support losing salvation. 2 Peter 2:20-22 “For if, after they have escaped the defilements of the world through the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them and overcome, the last state has become worse for them than the first. For it would have been better for them never to have known the way of righteousness than after knowing it to turn back from the holy commandment delivered to them. What the true proverb says has happened to them: “The dog returns to its own vomit, and the sow, after washing herself, returns to wallow in the mire.” This again seems to support that a christian can backslide, but the problem is that the context of this passage is specifically about false teachers. Which is actually what got us started on this topic anyway. The false teachers here are intentionally leading people astray. But in order to do that, they would have to first know what the truth is. So were they saved in the beginning or not? That is something that only God can know. If they were saved in the beginning it is clear that they have made a clear decision to walk away. It didn’t happen by accident. 2 Timothy 2:11-13 “Here is a trustworthy saying: If we died with him, we will also live with him; if we endure, we will also reign with him. If we deny him, he will also deny us; if we are faithless, he will remain faithful, for he cannot disown himself.” Here Paul is quoting the words of Jesus.
Matthew 10:32-33 “32 So everyone who acknowledges me before men, I also will acknowledge before my Father who is in heaven, 33 but whoever denies me before men, I also will deny before my Father who is in heaven.” But what about all the people who used to go to church or who even grew up in church and now don’t claim to believe in God. 1 John 2:19 “They went out from us, but they did not really belong to us. For if they had belonged to us, they would have remained with us; but their going showed that none of them belonged to us.” Just because someone grew up going to church does not mean they are a christian. Just because you are standing in a garage, that does not make you a mechanic. A true Christian who falls back into sin is still saved, but at the same time a person who lives a life controlled by sin is probably not truly a Christian...but that’s God’s call, not mine or yours. Let me wrap this up by saying this. If you are concerned about losing your salvation over a sin you committed after becoming Christian...stop worrying, you can rest in the fact that you are still a child of God. The fact that you still want to be saved is the proof that you have not abandoned the faith.
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