Posted on 04/12/2021 8:16:16 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
A headline this week has many people scratching their head: Former Desiring God writer Paul Maxwell announces he's no longer Christian. How can this happen? Did he lose his salvation? Below is my response about salvation that I’ve shared before. I also just released this short clip that goes into more detail on why Paul Maxwell may have fallen away.
A common question for many is, “Can I lose my salvation?” I’ve heard both sides of the argument, and only God truly knows a person’s heart, but I can share a few thoughts. The reason there is a debate is because the Scriptures teach that salvation is a gift from God that cannot be earned, but they also offer warnings about falling away. There should be a healthy tension between God’s sovereignty and man’s responsibility. This issue should not create a spirit of division, elitism, or theological superiority.
One school of thought suggests that salvation cannot be lost, as in losing your car keys, but that it can be left, as in walking away from it. This may be why Jesus spoke of the man who said in his heart “my master delays His coming; therefore, I will turn from living a godly life”. When the master returned unexpectedly, the servant was banished because he chose to turn from what he knew to be right.
In another passage, Jesus said, “You have left your first love,” when speaking to the church in Ephesus (Revelation 2:4). James 5:19-20 adds, if anyone wanders from the truth and someone turns him back, a soul is saved from death. If anything, these Scriptures, and many more, reinforce the fact that we have certain responsibilities.
Three Key Points to Consider
1. We must look at the context of such verses. For example, in James 5 the context is a believer who is sick because he or she wandered from God (a pattern of sin) – from alcohol and drugs to lying and slander, and from sexual sin to the sin of pride – the warnings, convictions, and rebukes were all ignored. The elders become involved in hope that confession and repentance take place, and that faith-filled prayer releases the person from God’s chastisement (cf. Hebrews 12:5-7). The believer is heading toward physical death as the result of wandering from God, but if repentance takes place, they will be restored – the soul is saved and his ongoing pattern of sin (multitude) is covered, concealed, and dealt with. This verse is not about salvation, but disobedience.
We should never turn from what we know to be right. Jesus encouraged His followers to be watchful, prepared, and ready for His return. Are we watchful? Are we prepared? Are we ready? (Read Matthew 24:45-51; Luke 21:34.) The Scriptures offer a healthy tension between God’s sovereignty and man’s responsibility.
The other school of thought suggests that some passages are dealing with people who never fully surrendered to Christ. As a result, they fell away. They heard the Gospel, but never fully embraced it and turned from their sins; they only had “intellectual” knowledge of salvation. According to this view, the real question isn’t, “Can a person lose their salvation?” but, “Was the person really saved to begin with?”
Titus 1:16 and James 2:14 both conclude that many people “say” that they know God, but deny Him by their lifestyle. I John 2:19 suggests that those who acknowledge Christ initially, but deny Him later, are not saved to begin with: “They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us.”
2. Who holds us together? If we must maintain our salvation, what happens if Alzheimers or some other mind-debilitating disease sets in and begins to twist, corrupt, and pollute our thinking? Is all lost, or are we held together because we are a child of God? I am convinced, like Paul, “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” (Romans 8:38-39). Nothing can separate us from God, but we should never ignore the strong warnings about turning from Him.
When it comes to salvation, we all agree that God gets all the glory and all the credit. Salvation is His work. We are never outside of His sovereignty and control: “It is God who makes us stand firm in Christ” (2 Corinthians 1:21).
Our salvation is guaranteed based on the assurances found in Scripture, but we also must “work out our own salvation with fear and trembling” (cf. Philippians 2:12). My goal is to be faithful to the command to preach, witness, and proclaim while understanding that God does the drawing, saving, and sealing.
3. At the heart of the division is Calvinism vs. Arminianism. Sadly, brother is shooting brother and sister is wounding sister. Have we forgotten how to show grace to those in the Body who we disagree with? Those who believe you can lose your salvation should not chide those who believe in eternal security – “once saved always saved” is by no means a license to sin – it’s a belief in God’s guarantee. But on the flip side, those who embrace eternal security should not mock those who disagree.
But What About Hebrews 6?
I can hear it now, “But what about Hebrews 6:4-6.” It says, “It is impossible for those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, who have shared in the Holy Spirit, who have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the coming age, if they fall away, to be brought back to repentance, because to their loss they are crucifying the Son of God all over again and subjecting him to public disgrace.”
Based on my understanding of terms such as “enlightened,” “tasted,” and “shared,” they are not necessarily words linked to salvation. Judas Iscariot was enlightened — he knew a great deal. He also tasted and shared in the ministry of Christ, but we all know his fate. When he fell away, repentance was elusive. His fate was sealed. However, this verse should force all Christians to take inventory.
The Most Important Question
We all sin and fall short, but the important question to ask is what is the condition of your heart — have you truly repented and believed in Christ as your Lord and Savior, or are you trusting in false assurance? This may be why Paul said in 2 Corinthians 13:5, “Examine yourself as to whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Do you not know yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you?”
Our actions reveal a great deal about our relationship with Christ. A.W. Tozer said: “When people find that after being in the church for years they are not making much progress, they ought to examine themselves and wonder whether they have been truly converted.”
Has your heart become so hard as to reject Jesus Christ? If so, you can change that today. I’m aware that I’m driving this point home, but I’d rather err on the side of speaking too much about a committed relationship with Jesus than too little. It’s never too late to get back on track: “Return to me, and I will return to you,” says the Lord (Micah 3:7). God is sovereign but man has a responsibility to repent and return.
Shane Idleman is the founder and lead pastor of Westside Christian Fellowship in Lancaster, California, just North of Los Angeles. Shane's sermons, articles, books, and radio program can all be found at shaneidleman.com or wcfav.org. He is the author of Feasting & Fasting, If My People, Desperate for More of God, and Help! I'm Addicted.
The Hebrews passage refers to the mechanics of Efficacious Grace, also discussed in Eph 1:13.
It is also in response to the First Call. The Call is when God the Father asks a human if they believe in the work of Jesus Christ on the Cross. It occurs per His Plan, at the proper time and place, so the predestined mechanics of making the Gospel available to the human has already occurred.
If after understanding the Gospel, have it been made known spiritually through the work of God the Holy Spirit, and the human denies Christ, he has no other opportunity for salvation.
This is different than somebody who rejects their ‘faith’ after occupying a worldly system of works they identify with the Church.
So the referenced verse in Hebrews pertains to presalvation activity, while the Pastor in the article claims to be a case of postsalvation action.
In post-salvation sin, the answer is the same as in all other cases of sin. All sin was paid for on the Cross. The out of fellowship believer simply returns to God by Facing God, confessing all his known and unknown sins to God, through faith in what Christ provided on the Cross. He is faithful and just to then forgive those sins, and return us back into fellowship with Him. (1Jn1:9)
Regarding losing one’s salvation, the best verse in the Bible is John 3:17. It doesn’t begin with “Except,”.
Not passing judgement, just stating a fact.
[[ I simply don’t know how a person can TRULY trust in Jesus Christ and walk away.]]
Christians are just like everyone else, we have fears, disappointments, tragedies, etc etc etc. It s when we take our minds of Christ, and start to feel sorry for ourselves, that Satan comes along and feeds that self pity, and causes the person to become extremely self centered. They begin feeding their negative thoughts daily, and before you know it, they get so discouraged they walk away, or worse, commit suicide.
Yes even born again people can become so self absorbed that they come to a point where they take their own lives. Self centeredness along with mental health problems is a serious problem. Christians are not immune to mental health problems, and many allow those problems to consume them.
Satan laughs when Christians hurt. His goal is to cause as much misery in a person’s life that they quit or worse.
Of course, many who ‘walk away were, as you pointed out, never one of us to begin with. They are what is referred to as apostates. People who wanted all the ‘perks’ of being a part oft the family of God, but who never came to a true saving knowledge of Christ, then they finally get fed up, and turn from ‘the faith once and for all. To these folks, there is no salvation possible fro them on. They were never saved to begin. With, but with the vast knowledge they gained about God and salvation while playing thr part of a Christian, they now totally reject. God allowed them inside j formation so to spea. Allowed them to bet as close as a yone can to salvation, but they finally reject it
That is not to say that everyone who walks away is an apostate. Some just need a break for awhile. But those that openly dec.are ‘I am no longer a christian’ are very likely apostates who never tru,y saved
To paraphrase Dorothy Gale, if you “lost” your salvation then you never really had it in the first place.
Therefore, you cannot have Assurance of Salvation because you might have never been Saved later in life
Matthew 8:20 For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.
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That is in the Bible for sure. But the CONTEXT is .... Church discipline. Understanding Scripture is based (in part) on the context. (and around and around we go on who is rightly dividing the Word Of God)
RE: I simply don’t know how a person can TRULY trust in Jesus Christ and walk away.
Here’s another interesting question to ponder: Which Jesus is that person trusting in? The Jesus of scripture, or a Jesus of their own personal desire? The former is the real Jesus, the latter is an idol that will fail you eventually.
Unfortunately, I hear too many church going people make remarks like: “MY JESUS would not disapprove of this” or “MY JESUS would not do that”. Whenever I hear the words MY JESUS, it’s a red flag to me.
Maxwell is more motivational speaker than anything else.
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You are probably thinking of John Maxwell. And that is a different topic entirely.
If you consider yourself “no longer yours”, but rather a “possession of Christ”... belonging to him... etc.,
Then your own free will no longer applies.
Your free will was exercised when you gave your life to Christ.
Therefore, **** IF **** you have become “HIS”, then NOONE (including yourself) can rob God of HIS possession.
There is no way for us to know what is in the hearts of those who say “I’m no longer a Christian”.
Peter said this in a sense... “I don’t know the man!”
Did he lose his salvation?
We simply cannot know if those who “walk away” were ever saved to begin with, or if their emotions are getting the better of them on their true status with God.
We do know from God’s word that He does not break covenant.
If you can lose your salvation, then God breaks His covenants.
A wise old Rabbi once said:
It doesn’t matter if I stand alone, as long as I stand in God’s light.
The scripture is NOT written in coded language! Good Grief! Do you make God out to be a liar?
Talk about reading man-made doctrine into very clear and easy to understand scripture....
Statements like yours are overly broad. There are many good churches. It’s similar to declaring websites like FreeRepublic are filled with intolerant right wing insurrectionists.
Therefore, you cannot have Assurance of Salvation because you might have never been Saved later in life
The Bible does speak to both. It is our small minds that want easy quick answers.
So how does one know if you have real assurance of salvation? That is a very deep question and Gods Living Word does speak to that also.
See post 37.
[[“Can I lose my salvation?”
To paraphrase Dorothy Gale, if you “lost” your salvation then you never really had it in the first place. ]]
Exactly! Many people ‘play the part’ but never truly accept Christ. They love th e emotional comraderiship and support they get from playing the ‘part of the family’, but they never accept Christ.. we know a couple of folks just like the following-
Sadly, many folks are like that. They only joined the church because people paid attention to them, and it helped bolster their social acceptance need. Later however, they claim that they are ‘no longer a christian’ and regret ‘ever having fallen for myths’.
They chose the world over God because the world gives them ‘liscence’ to live a sinful lifestyle that they craves, and which now caters to their emotional social needs.
The funny part is. They claim to be happy and free now, but wow, she is a typical miserable liberal now. She slams Christians to our face now, then if anyone attempts to refute her claims, she screams ‘I will not discuss religion. I don’t want to get into arguments with you’ (we’ve actually had some say this to us after running us and our faith down for the whole conversation. If we try to defend ourselves of Christ for that matter, they accuse us of ‘trying to start a fight and they hang up. )
The perpetually outraged are very fond of claiming that they are ‘at peace, and happy now’ when they walk away from God and His people
What a bunch of nonsense.
God does not speak in secret codes that only certain religions can correctly “interpret” for us.
There is no Scripture to support those “interpretations”.
They are simply fabrications of Catholicism used to control and subdue the masses to its religious system.
Christians can practice Christianity without church affiliation just fine.
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You can’t receive the Eucharist, the body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, by practicing Christianity all by yourself.
Mr. Maxwell is just loo-loo. Simple as that.
A loss of belief can be painful beyond measure. It is not necessarily the choosing of any sin, at least not any gratifying one, just loss of all assurance.
I try to persevere in keeping faith by obedience and prayer and hope, even when belief is weak.
A leader who has persistently lost belief does better to step away than to maintain leaddership.
[[Peter said this in a sense... “I don’t know the man!”]]
Yes, but one key difference between Peter and an apostate who makes a declaration of renunciation.
Paul’s denial was said out of fear, not out of a determined comittment to denounce God/Christ as his way of life from that point forward.
The Bible gives us a sign to watch for to determine who is an apostate or not. If that person fulfills the terms for being an apostate, there is no longer any chance that person can be saved.
Peter was remorseful immediately and repented, apostates do not repent because they feel no remorse when denying Christ and God are who they are
So if the “high profile Christian” had “real Assurance”, what then? The only real assurance under this theology is to die in the Faith (Perseverance of the Saints). Any other Assurance may evaporate later.
False Conversions are rampant today because witnesses are reluctant to confront the unSaved with their sin because it might prevent the witness from getting a “win”. You cannot convince a drowning man that he really needs a lifeguard if he thinks he is just swimming. He might acknowledge the lifeguard is there but doesn’t feel the lifeguard is necessary for his needs.
This guy might have been Saved but perhaps he wondered about the unfairness of God being on the Throne and not him. That seems to get many believers IMHO
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