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.
I would rather have a Paul Maxwell out of the church than a Ravi Zacharias in the church.
[[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.]]
True, but someone struggling with faith doesn’t usually denounce God or the faith. They just declare that they are struggling with their faith and need help. Apostates however denounce God/Christ in a final act of leaving behind the faith once and for all. They rob God of His God’s hip by denouncing Him.
A person struggling becomes unsure, an apostate becomes ‘sure that God is not someone they want or that even exists
Doh that should be, ‘of His Godship’, not His ‘hips 😆
They are fools is a perfectly acceptable answer.
It’s quite reasonable to love God but utterly hate what Christianity has become. It’s the preachers who won’t condemn the Creflo Dollars and other phonies, ‘faith healers’ and prosperity pimps that are driving it.
You’re guilty of any behavior you don’t condemn in my opinion, ESPECIALLY as applied to religion, particularly Islam and Christianity.
For short term gain.
Read the parable of the Sower again.
Contemplate how Judas fell.
Study the early persecutions.
When faced with the choice of fame and wealth versus disdain and persecution, why be surprised some choose fame?
The Roman Catholics are going through a much worse schism than the SBC.
I pray for my separated cousins in the RCC who are in a situation where some many priests and bishops are antichrist.
In my situation, I can walk away when a pastor goes full off the rails. Most Catholics in bad dioceses do not have that option.
I suspect a lot of people, having grown up in a Christian culture, mistake Christianity with many worldly or religious rituals, but fail to have listened and understood the Gospel message spiritually.
Many confuse church lifestyles as good works, but independently of faith in what Christ provided on the Cross, the payment for ALL sin, and failure to believe in Him through faith in His work on the Cross, they simply fall back into sins of flesh and worldliness.
There is another sin, not studied much, but manifests itself frequently around those who perform human good works independent of faith in Christ. It is known as Approbation Lust. The pastor in the article might also have become aware of adversity coming to Christians, and like many Masons, sees nothing wrong in lying and denying Christ to escape adversity.
It most certainly is, in places. Of course, the original readers to whom the epistle was written understood the "code" -- it was intended to keep their Roman persecutors ignorant. However, we moderns don't necessarily have the original readers' fluency with that vocabulary, so the code is not always as plain to us.
Cf "disciplina arcani".
Note that the OP basically says he doesn't understand the passage. The original readers of the epistle understood it exactly.
Read the Greek fathers and get back to me.
Off-the-wall question. If I tell you something in a language you and I both understand, but our enemies do not, which of us is "lying"?
BTW, if the Scripture is so plain and easy to understand, why do Protestants spend so much time arguing over what it means?
Just as foretold. Paul said the Day of the Lord is preceded by a great apostacy, and Jesus asked the question, when the Son of Man comes, will He find faith?
I have a guess about why these guys are dropping out.
And I suppose “Hebrews” is code for “Catholics.”
Eternal life wouldn’t be eternal if you could lose it.
[[I suspect a lot of people, having grown up in a Christian culture, mistake Christianity with many worldly or religious rituals, but fail to have listened and understood the Gospel message spiritually]]
Very true ‘having a form of religion, but denying the gospels’
“Statements like yours are overly broad.”
Unless you think my statement/experience applies to all churches then it is not. I never said it was all churches. But so far as I can tell it’s a whole boatload of them around Sacramento that fit this description.
Part of why I intend to move to Idaho. Next week my wife and I are going up there to find a new home.
He knows the end from the beginning so He can’t change His mind or take back something He’s given. Everything He says has to agree with everything else He says.
For example, if the Bible says it’s God who makes us stand firm in Christ, that He anointed us, set His seal of ownership on us and put His Spirit in our hearts as a guarantee of what’s to come (2 Cor. 1:21-22), then it can’t say that we can walk away from our salvation or have it taken away from us someplace else.
The opinion pieces of the Greek “fathers” is NOT Scripture and is therefor irrelevant to correct doctrine.
Liberalism is liberalism is liberalism. There is nothing above progressive dogma. Look at the Pope. The only room for any major religion in the liberal church is to further liberal goals. How many times do idiot progressives say “my brother’s keeper” or “turn the other cheek” with no context just to bash Christians?
The Bible isn’t such a complex document that it requires years of formal education before you can begin to comprehend it. I’ve always believed the Bible was meant to be understood by any believer who can read and has a serious interest in knowing what it says. I say this because I believe the Bible is best approached by relying on the power of the Holy Spirit rather than one’s own intellect. James 1:5 says that any of us who lacks wisdom need only ask God who gives generously to all without finding fault.
Conversely, without the Spirit, we cannot accept the things that come from the Spirit of God regardless of our mental prowess. (1 Cor. 2:14) This is why we hear of people who tried to read the Bible as non-believers and found they couldn’t figure it out, but as soon as they were born again it began to make sense. They didn’t suddenly become more intelligent, they simply gained the supernatural insight of the Holy Spirit who teaches us all things. (John 14:26)
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