Once Saved Always Saved?

Trust the Word, not the Memes!

I apologize for my nearly month-long absence – sometimes I find myself distracted like that dog in the animated movie UP: …SQUIRREL! Yes, I’ve been chasing squirrels. Let the gossip lines burn up now.

Seriously, I must have a kind of adult ADHD – I have FAR too many interests, and all of them are like a cacophony of individual lobbyists armed with glitter guns and shiny objects to arrest my attention. If I dare for just one moment open the closet I keep them in, there’s a really good chance I’ll disappear into the forest of my hobbies, past-times and squirrel chasing.

Today I’m attempting to cover some ground that was recently trodden by an otherwise (perhaps) well-meaning person who posted the following meme to one of my favorite Facebook groups:

Danger, Will Robinson…

Let me just start out by stating that the meme is both scripturally incorrect and theologically way out to lunch, but it does spark some lively debate which in some ways is great. Satan was a Cherub, so not a recipient of faith or grace. For me, it also points out a topic which I find both fascinating and terrifying at the same time: that in the very presence of the living God, a Cherub decided to go off the reservation, and in doing so, influenced a fill third of the heavenly host of angels.

If that’s not coffee table discussion material, nothing is. What this points to is that not only do those guardian Cherubs have free agency, so do the angels. It points to a universal constant in God’s creation – God having created beings, He does not hold them prisoner, especially given that the observable creation has been provided a measure of observable free will. I mean, if you really want to see a contest of wills, try getting a donkey to do literally anything but eat. It is a fascinating topic for discussion, but one perhaps for a later article.

Today I’m going to do my best to provide why I believe this meme is not only way off, its wholly unscriptural and even theologically incompatible with common sense.

Alright, let’s get started.

The two sides to this theological debate are arguably Christian brothers and sisters, so in many respects this restricts the audience of my essay to Christians which is fine, because it is important for us to pull together in unity. This truly is an ‘essential’ or core belief as it touches on the efficacy of the cross and on the nature of our relationship with the living God.

In other words, its not a subject that we can blithely dismiss as unimportant to our Christian walk – it is just as important, if not more so, than the issue the early church founders experienced with the Judaizers; those who tried to pull outward, visible components of the old covenant into the new covenant. In fact, the early church struggled with the same issues most Christian churches struggle with today – legalism, polytheism, unbelief, and sects/cults which all love to hitch a ride on Christ’s back with their own book(s) and ideas, all of which fall short and are but distractions and obfuscations to the new covenant gospel message.

One thing stands out to me from all of the noise – as a fallen creation, we are born in the nature of sin. All of us suffer from the fall, and if there’s one particular problem in all of our hearts from that fall, it’s pride. Pride is a hideous thing and I hope to help you see some facets of why it is so ugly and dangerous to our relationship with God.

Pride causes us to consciously and often subconsciously reject some things that God does for us and tells us. For example, the gift of faith and subsequent gift of salvation.

We may think we’re good at receiving gifts, but in reality, we are terrible at it. A true, real gift is something given for nothing given or expected in return. Otherwise, it’s not really a gift. Anything given with the expectation of receiving something in return is no longer a gift – it’s a payment, a conditional purchase or simply a grift entree. Most of us can’t truly fathom receiving a priceless gift without having a strong desire to demonstrate some measure of worthiness, perform reciprocation or in some other way earn the unmerited favor. This is where legalism and other errors are introduced, and some get into the error of attempting to earn their salvation.

Grace is by definition, unmerited favor, and the fallen heart of man fights against it because it is an affront to our pride. It’s this same sense of pride that is seen demonstrated when people reject receiving help from others. Some people will suffer and deny themselves assistance all the way to their graves because their pride is offended that they otherwise need help.

The priceless and immeasurably valuable gift of salvation drives some to attempt to put additional terms and conditions around it that are not found in scripture because their skewed sense of justice demands something is horribly missing – such a priceless thing should have gate keepers and watchdogs at the very least!

But they fail to grasp both the requirement and the nature of grace itself. Grace is required because we could never earn nor warrant salvation. Grace is given. Without it, nobody would be saved. Nobody is worthy except Jesus Christ.

Let’s also recognize something else.  There is a huge difference between faith and belief. I often hear Christians conflating faith with ordinary belief. Ordinary belief in something does not convey faith. You might look at it in the same way I you may believe an expert marksman to be the best shot in the world, but you probably don’t have the kind of faith in them required to willingly allow them to shoot an apple off the top of your head.  You might even see them actually do that with other willing participants, but unless you’re wholly convinced – utterly so – most of us won’t put mere belief in their demonstrated skill ahead of our very lives. This is perhaps a poor example, but one that I think conveys the salient difference between believing God exists and having faith in Him.

While belief is very much a binary true/false; you either believe in God or you don’t, faith is something entirely different. It is a divinely provided gift – and it’s a gift that needs exercise in order to increase and develop.

A great many Christians profess belief in God, but they don’t trust God with much. They have not exercised their faith to the extent where they know and actually trust God will always do what He says He will do. Most Christians fall into the spectrum of faith at the lower end – the colder, maybe near temperate zone where they find comfort. Some may be willing to attend worship services and fellowship with other believers as long as it’s convenient. But if the music isn’t to their liking, or there’s a ball game or birthday party, they won’t be there.

Forget calling fire out of heaven, most Christians are busy playing in worldly fires.

Some will demonstrate what they think deserves to be recognized as commitment, but then ask them to test God in the one avenue where God suggests we do test Him (hint: Malachi 3:10)

Oops! There’s almost always immediate objections. Maybe 1% if that, will meekly acknowledge their failure to really trust God with all of their finances. Most will excuse themselves stating they  “can’t afford to,” and some will point out that tithing is Old Testament – old covenant – doctrine, and it is. These same folks believe Pastors live on mana dropped out of heaven every morning and there’s a squad of angels running a treadmill in the attic to generate electricity at the church. Point this out to them and then watch as the fingers get pointed at the frequent abusers of God’s money – those preachers focused on the health, wealth and prosperity doctrines (Joel Osteen et al) who tend to live lavish, worldly lifestyles.

This is our natural tendency. It’s called blame shifting. And we do this by selectively criticizing and using isolated examples to deny our individual responsibility and accountability to God and His word. It’s the old, “Well, THEY aren’t behaving, why should I?” argument. It’s worth noting here that the giving and supply provided by believers didn’t cease with the new covenant – instead of a command it became a love offering, something that is still quite necessary.

Our old nature seeks anything to deflect the honest confrontation of our inability to trust God to do what He says He will do when we’re obedient. Lot’s of Christians love to point out God’s promises, but they fail to recognize that much of them are predicated with, “If you [insert something you should do] … I will… [insert promise here].” It’s a pattern found all throughout scripture. If you…. I will…

However, we are experts at deflection and side-stepping accountability. As a result, our faith is never truly exercised because we steadfastly refuse to even try to trust God, preferring instead to trust our own skills, understandings, and finances. Consequently, many Christians fail to see the reality of God’s promises in their lives because they’re almost always disobedient. Failing to fully recognize our ongoing personal, individual depravity even while professing Christ and having been saved, Christians move to a false theology to support denial and resistance to obedience. The very word obedience is something almost universally abhorrent to our hearts and minds even as Christians, but it is an essential component to the Christian walk.

There is a danger to the Christian who believes the ‘once saved, always saved’ doctrine, and a there is also danger to the Christian who believes they can, through sin, lose their salvation.

Many Christians fall into what I’ve termed the ‘Golden bus ticket’ doctrine: they believe that no matter what happens, they’ll be with God and accepted into heaven. Holding onto that belief, they give themselves license to do whatever they please – resolutely denying that obedience is at all necessary, and openly defying the importance of committing to fellowship and submission to scriptural authority within the church. Pride prevents them from both recognizing God’s selected ministers and subjecting and committing themselves through the church.

The other group believe that sin – any sin – separates them from God’s grace and salvation. Many will provide truly ugly, reprehensible examples of worldly behavior and then demand you justify God keeping them in salvation after they continue to manifest egregious sin in their lives. This group I refer to as the serial crucifiers who believe that they need to confess, repent and re-ask Christ back into their lives after each and every sin.

The real trouble with the Golden bus ticket riders is that they go from John 3:16 to Revelation 3:16. They never exercise their faith and willingly fall into the trap of the world; falling in love with it to the exclusion of taking up their cross and denying their own lives. Are these folks saved? Only God knows the condition of their hearts, but from my own perspective, most aren’t saved – they may have spoken the words and stood in front of a church and continue to profess Christ, but there’s no real evidence that they have. As Jesus said, you will know a tree by its fruit. If their fruit isn’t spiritually alive and instead quite dead, then they’re only fooling themselves.

Any of us can put on a set of overalls and stand in a grease pit and claim that we’re qualified mechanics, but I’d recommend at least in my case that you never trust me to fix your car. I can pretend to be, claim to be, and insist that I’m a qualified mechanic, but if I’m not a mechanic, then I’m simply not regardless of my insistence and pretense. Looking at the attendance of my own church, this applies to far too many here in the United States. It’s the type of Christianity I’ve termed “3C Christianity” - Convenient Consumer Christianity. Like a drive-in burger place, Christians love anonymity so they can hide and not be asked to actually – gasp – commit to helping out with something or providing a testimony. They just pop in for a quick spiritual meal on Sunday and speed off, forsaking the fellowship because there’s so much else to do.

A lot of churches are like this.

We recently lost a faithful woman who had to move back to Idaho to be with her family. She kept writing to me that she misses our friendly more family-like atmosphere. Nobody at her new church stays after the service, there are no open discussions or sharing experiences of faith and answered prayer before or after the service. It is all in, and then all out.

None of the ‘3C’ group will dare speak the truth in love on social media. Mostly because they don’t read their bible and they’re afraid of being wrong or being accused of wrong think. So, they’re smugly comfortable hiding their core beliefs never once imagining that’s what Jesus spoke against in Matthew 5:14-16. For those of the ‘3C’ group who are rightly and truly saved, they know they are disobedient and struggle with it to the extent that they never mature in their walk. They are much like the servant who was given a talent, then turns around and buries it.

They will face a perfectly just, perfectly Holy God and will need to answer for their failure to exercise and use the provided talent of faith in a meaningful and honest way.

The other group, the serial crucifiers are much like the Judaizers found in Acts and other books trying to suggest that God’s Grace is insufficient and that Christ’s sacrifice on the cross isn’t a complete work. Now, many in this group will deny this, so let’s examine some things about it.

Like the once-saved-always-saved group, there are also passages in the bible that seem to suggest there are conditions where an individual can fall out of grace and into condemnation. For example, the passage in Hebrews 6:4-6 that talks about those once enlightened and have tasted the heavenly gift who turn away. For many of the same reasons belief is not the same as faith, being enlightened is not the same as being regenerated. Enlightenment speaks to knowledge, or some level of instruction and so it is quite possible to get to within tasting range of salvation but turn away from it. Many do, and this is entirely scriptural as much in the same way, Jesus tasted death, but returned to life – tasting does not convey eating or permanence.

Further, if we evaluate this belief a little further, we might see that not only is it unscriptural, it also doesn’t make a lick of sense. One person on social media recently provided an example where our ‘Christian’ person goes out, sleeps with another woman, kills the husband and so forth. It’s an imaginary scenario designed to cast doubt, because if you’re truly saved, such acts are indeed quite foreign to you spiritually. It gets you to reject the idea that you’d ever do it yourself, but then begs the question how could God tolerate such a person in heaven?

I have a simpler test of this broken theology that doesn’t require egregious, far-fringe case examples and instead, brings the question home to a place we can all associate with.

Let’s play the same game, since such games appear to be important to their theological understanding. Instead, let’s examine Ralph and Mary Normal, driving home together from a shopping trip. Ralph and Mary have been faithfully married for several years and both are true Christians, having placed their faith in Christ. Ralph is driving and makes a left turn from the highway onto their street, but they are suddenly broad-sided by a dump truck carrying a load of gravel.

Both Ralph and Mary die in the collision. Standing before God, Ralph watches as Mary is granted entrance into heaven but finds out when God addresses him, that he’s denied entrance because he failed to repent of the sin of failing to indicate that left turn from the highway which resulted in the accident which killed both he and his wife. 

According to the lose-your-salvation group, Ralph is now headed to an eternity in torment, separated from God forever.

Why?

Because Ralph failed to obey the law. He committed a sin. Doesn’t matter if he forgot or remembered but decided not to anyway. ANY transgression of the law is sin. Any falling short of the Glory of God is sin. If you THINK you’re doing 55mph on the highway, but your actual speed is 55.1 mph, then you are over the speed limit and thus breaking the law.

Seems unreasonable, doesn’t it? Well, it is that and in fact is unscriptural.

Maybe folks in this camp haven’t read James 2:10? I can’t speak for them, but it’s pretty clear here in scripture that any amount of sin is fatal. This is one of the key doctrinal points of Christianity – there are no small or great sins as it pertains to the penalty of sin, which is death.

In our imaginary example, Mary actually wouldn’t make it in either because there’s always some sin at some point in every day that we fail to observe or catch that we’ll not repent of, or ask for forgives for, so she’ll get cast into that same lake. Fortunately, this is all bogus theology. God’s word is clear: the wages of sin is death – that means the smallest error and the largest error both carry the same penalty. If we could lose our salvation because of great sins, we can also lose it to ‘tiny’ ones because the penalty is the same for both.

The good news here is that once you have received the gift of eternal salvation, it’s eternal. We should not presume this means no change because that too, is a lie. We are given the Holy Spirit, our own spirit is regenerated, our hearts and minds are renewed. We are not the same as we once were. We are, as scripture states, a new creation.

That spirit that God put inside of us causes us to avoid sin and to walk in righteousness. This doesn’t mean we won’t or can’t sin, but that it has changed us in such a way that we tend to avoid it rather than be hopelessly enslaved to it.

Satan loves nothing better than to trip up Christians and get them to doubt the goodness of God – it creates conditions that we avoid trusting God, we avoid circumstances that would otherwise expand our horizons and increase our faith. God does not provide us a spirit of fear, which the lose your salvation crowd invariably embraces. The King I know loves you and I beyond my limited comprehension and capacity to articulate. He knows I’m a class act screw-up yet He called me to the pulpit anyway. I’m still playfully poking Him with the, “What on earth are you thinking?” line, because I know I don’t measure up. I try not to use that as an excuse, and He knows my heart well enough to know I don’t.

The freedom I experience in Christ is knowing that I will likely fail often, but He’s right there with me – guiding, prompting, correcting, suggesting and drawing me into a closer more intimate walk with Him despite my often tiny and sometimes epic failures. Yes, I do pray and repent of my foolishness, yes, I do feel remorse when I make mistakes.

Like many of you, I hate making them, but I don’t let them cower me into the corner fearing for my salvation. Christ’s completed work on the cross is sufficient for my full atonement, once and forever.

And it’s sufficient for yours as well.