Are we eternally secure? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.
The interesting fact about this question is everyone regardless thinks we should live the same way.
Christians have nearly always affirmed that it is necessary for an individual who has become a Christian to persist in faith over the remainder of that person’s life in order to attain final salvation. It is not enough to have had “faith,” however we might define pistis, but then to cease.
Matthew W. Bates. Beyond the Salvation Wars (Kindle Locations 3134-3136). Kindle Edition.
So you have someone who says they were a Christian and then lost their faith.
Calvinists: They were never really a Christian to begin with.
Arminians: They lost their salvation.
Both sides think you’re lost either way. Both sides also are going to be saying that if you’re a faithful Christian, you will live faithfully. That’s why I really think the question here comes down to trust and what is the basis of trust and both sides should say grace, and I suspect both sides majority would say grace.
Something interesting reading Bates is that this is where he does say the path takes a more individualistic turn, and that really makes sense. Bates does not contend that the whole community is likely to fall away. Instead, it will be some within that community who will fall.
Really, this is one chapter where there wasn’t much new that you won’t hear elsewhere in my opinion. I like Bates’s work, but when I personally gave him my final thoughts, I did say there is one big problem I had in this chapter. It is not a content problem, but a pastoral one.
If you tell people that you think they can lose salvation, and I am not disputing that, you will inevitably have readers who are concerned that they have done that. I have talked to several people who had been convinced that they had committed blasphemy against the Holy Spirit. I think about people who are in Celebrate Recovery and try to be Christians but are struggling with issues of addiction. What about a teenage boy who is struggling with masturbation and/or pornography?
Granted, realizing that they could be cut off could get them to shape up, but also they need to know where the grace of God is present in their lives. How is God with them in the midst of their struggle? Does the man who has fallen into the trap of watching pornography again need to fear he has also disappointed God?
Bates’s book is commendable on many levels, but this is one area of the book where a pastoral perspective was definitely needed. If anything, I think Bates should actually write a whole book on this topic. There should be a book on practically living allegiance, dealing with setbacks, wrestling with moral issues, and learning how to accept grace and forgiveness in your own life. After all, these questions of salvation should not just be academic endeavors, but lived ones as well.
Next time, we’ll look again at the order of salvation.
In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)
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