Jesus, in the parable of the sower, said, “Those on the
rock are the ones who receive the word with joy when they hear it, but they
have no root. They believe for a while, but in the time of testing they fall
away” (Luke 8:13).
Last month we considered how the Bible does not teach
perseverance of the saints (once saved, always saved) as the Calvinists teach,
but rather the Bible gives several promises assuring believers of their
salvation. This month, I’d like us to consider three ways that a person can
forfeit their salvation. Then next month we will consider three ways that we
can know for a fact that we are saved.
The first way that a person can forfeit their salvation is
through spiritual suicide. Spiritual suicide is a deliberate decision to
stop believing in Christ and His saving work, thus renouncing the Christian
faith. In Romans 8:35ff, the Apostle Paul lists several things that cannot
separate us from the love of Christ but Paul never lists the individual
believer themselves. We can make the decision to reject Christ after becoming
saved (Heb. 6:4-8; 10:26-29).
Keith Drury said, “While God’s love is unconditional, my
relationship with God is two-way. Love can be unilateral. A relationship,
however, is bilateral. For instance, I could insist that nothing my wife could
ever do would change my love—I love her unconditionally and irrevocably, yet a
true relationship is two-way. What if she were to walk out on me, and run off
with another man, totally rejecting me and everything I stood for? Would I
still love her? Yes, I could love her, if my love were unconditional. But would
we still have a relationship? That's another question.
A relationship is bilateral—"it takes two." Love
can go one way, but a relationship is two-way. Relationships are ongoing
dynamic sort of things which take two (at least partially) willing persons.
Someone might argue that this immoral wife still had some legal standing with
her husband, but most of us would admit that a pattern of continual and
repeated purposeful acts of rebellion would end the two-way-ness of the relationship.
My love might live on, but my marriage relationship would be dead.
Relationships are not unilateral” (Christian Security, available from
http://www.crivoice.org/security.html). Thus, with any relationship, one
individual can make the freewill decision to walk away severing that
relationship.
The second way that a person can forfeit their salvation is
through slow spiritual starvation. Jesus warns us of this danger.
Sometimes, He says, the seed of the Word fell “on rocky places, where they
did not have much soil; and immediately they sprang up, because they had no
depth of soil. But when the sun had risen, they were scorched; and because they
had no root, they withered away” (Matt. 13:5-6). This represents “the man
who hears the Word and immediately receives it with joy; yet he has no firm
root in himself, but is only temporary, and when affliction or persecution
arises because of the Word, immediately he falls away” (13:20-21).
Faith must constantly be nurtured and nourished and
exercised to become full-grown (Matt. 13:5-6, 20-21; 2 Peter 2:10-11). To this
end God has provided us with spiritual disciplines such as those in Acts 2:42: the
apostles’ teaching (discipleship), fellowship (modeled in NT church
through consistent weekly church life: both corporately and small groups);
“breaking of bread,” (or consistent and faithful participation in
worship as seen in the Lord’s Supper); and “prayer.” These are the means
by which faith is nourished; to neglect them allows faith to weaken or even to
die.
Faithful participation in the spiritual disciplines, such
as those mentioned above: worship, discipleship, fellowship (and service and
evangelism), is a necessary means of extending roots of faith beyond, around,
and beneath the rocky places of life, enabling them to anchor and nourish the
Christian life. If we are not careful to extend these roots, spiritual
starvation is the result.
The third way that a person can forfeit their salvation is
through the strangulation of sin. If a Christian allows sin in their
life to continue and flourish without fighting against them, they will sooner
or later choke the life out of their faith (Mt. 13:7, 22). This is not talking
about a Christian sinning one time; this is about practicing sin on a continual
basis (1 John 3:1-24).
There are many Christians who excuse their struggles with
sin by appealing to the grace of God. Yes, praise God that His grace is there
for when we do sin, and every Christian struggles with sin at times (1 John
1:8). However, this does not give us license to merely excuse our actions.
Scripture admonishes us to not take sin lightly. If one continues to live a
life controlled by their sinful desires, they will most certainly revert back
into a state of spiritual death. This is what the Apostle Paul spoke of in
Romans 8:13 “For if you live according to the sinful nature, you will die;
but if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live.”
Peter warns those who have “escaped the defilements of the world” of the
danger of again becoming “entangled in them” and being “overcome”
(2 Peter 2:20). Continuing to sin after becoming a Christian is like opening
the fort and inviting the enemy inside (portions from Jack Cottrell, The
Faith Once for All, p. 381-382).
Regardless of whether you feel like you have committed
spiritual suicide, slow spiritual starvation, or the strangulation of sin,
forgiveness and restoration are possible. The story of the Prodigal Son shows
this (Luke 15:11-32) and so does the fate of those Jewish branches on the olive
tree that were broken off because of unbelief (Rom. 11:20-23).
Furthermore, a believer cannot lose his or her salvation as
one might lose their glasses. But by willful rebellion, there is the
possibility of falling away, of shipwrecking of one’s faith. Thus, our
salvation is much like the following illustration. Picture a father crossing a
busy highway with a small child by his side holding his hand quite firmly. The
father has good judgment and he is capable of shielding the child from any
calamity and protecting him from any outside force harming him as they make
their way across the highway. The one eventuality the father cannot prevent is
the child being willful and wrenching himself free from his grasp, running off,
and being struck by a vehicle. This is an adequate parable of what Paul means
in Romans 8 which speaks of nothing separating us from God’s love. God has a
firm loving grip on the believer, and no outside force can separate the
believer from God and God’s love.
The Good News, then, is that one cannot lose or misplace
one’s salvation or simply wander away by accident. Indeed, only by an enormous
willful effort could one throw it away. Such is the loving grasp God has on His
children (portions from Ben Witherington III. Paul’s Romans, p. 235).
God allows us the freewill choice to receive His offer of salvation, and He
likewise, gives us the freewill choice to walk away from Him! Thus, may we
choose to remain in Christ!
In His service,
Matt
