Monday, April 06, 2009

How can you lose what you didn’t win?

Yesterday our message was on eternal security, although it was couched in the converse, i.e. can a believer lose their salvation? It was put together well and made the case quite convincingly that the Bible teaches that all of the sins of the believer are paid in full on the cross. I would add that when Christ made propitiation, He did so for all of the sins throughout the life of the believer, both before and after being born again.

What really struck me as I sat there, and I am sure this point has been made before, is that a proper view of the sovereign nature of salvation eliminates the idea of a Christian losing their salvation. Redemption of lost sinners is something that is all of Christ and none of us. Even the requisite faith needed to be saved is a gift granted us by God, a changed heart, a dead man brought to new life. The cross secured the salvation of God’s elect; it didn’t merely make it possible for people to save themselves. With so many false professors out there, it can seem like people are losing their salvation left and right, but the truth is that they never were saved to begin with. They may have had an emotional experience, they may have been conditioned to assert certain truths, but they were never truly born again and their falling away is evidence of an unregenerate heart rather than a genuine salvation lost.

We didn’t win our salvation so how in the world could we lose it? If our salvation is not based on anything we did, how can it be lost by anything we do?

5 comments:

ambersun said...

Hi from Australia

Yeah this is what my church teaches as well.

The whole pre-destination vs free will thing - they go for pre-destination all the way.

As for me I think God is outside our common mortal reality and is, consequently, mysterious.

Can someone, therefore, lose their salvation? I would actually say yes they can. There is a certain section in Hebrews that backs this up.

It says something like they can not come back to Christ because that would be crucifying him twice.

God Bless

Amber

Arthur Sido said...

Hi Amber,

If you are going to a church that teaches predestination, then you are going to a good church because that is what the Bible teaches as well! It is hard to avoid that doctrine, the Bible is replete with references to predestination, election, God choosing people, etc.

The verses you are referring to in Hebrews are Heb 6: 4-6

Heb 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.

I think it is instructive to look at the verses that follow…

Heb 6:7 For land that has drunk the rain that often falls on it, and produces a crop useful to those for whose sake it is cultivated, receives a blessing from God. 8 But if it bears thorns and thistles, it is worthless and near to being cursed, and its end is to be burned.

When the Word of God falls on people, it either bears fruit or it does not. That doesn’t mean that people cannot give an outward expression of faith without genuine conversion. Look at the crowds in the Gospels who followed Christ and revered Him when He was feeding them but turned away when He taught of the sacrifice of His own flesh and blood. Or the crowds who shouted hosanna! When He came into Jerusalem but shouted “Crucify Him!” a few days later. I think the parable in Mark 4: 1-8 is instructive. Some people, when the Word is sown among them, spring up to embrace what it can do for them but they have no foundation, their hearts are not fertile soil prepared by the Holy Spirit to be receptive. When you look at salvation as the Bible presents it, as a sovereign work of God and look at verses like John 10: 27-29

27 My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. 28 I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. 29 My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father's hand.

Losing your salvation makes sense only if you reject the Biblical doctrine that God chose some, among all the multitudes of lost humanity, to regenerate their hearts, see them turned to Christ and be saved. If Christ made atonement for the sins of His people, then those sins are paid for. Jesus already suffered and made propitiation for them. God will not, He can not, demand satisfaction for the sins that have been atoned for by Christ already.

I am the Clay said...

Once we are "born again" we can not become "un born".

What about those who willingly walk away? The Bible tells us that Jesus will keep us from falling ( Jude 24) , but I wonder about those who have walked in the faith, proclaimed Christ and then walk away.

Thoughts?

gloria

Arthur Sido said...

Gloria, I would say that people like that are making false professions. religion has appeal to lots of people for lots of reason. I think back to mormonism, an experience we share. I was committed to the mormon church but for my own reasons. People who make professions of faith but walk away fall into the 1 John 2:19 category:

They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us. But they went out, that it might become plain that they all are not of us.

Those who profess Christ because they are born-again are different than those who profess Christ with their mouths but who have unchanged hearts.

I am the Clay said...

Thank you arthur for explaining to me and I can most definately see what you are saying. That is why if a person is truly "born again" they most definately can not become unborn.....

Gloria