By Shane Kastler
Recently I received an anonymous e-mail that took issue with my belief that God is sovereign over salvation and that those who are saved cannot lose their salvation. While I have not published the writer's original e-mail, I am publishing my response to it below. Hopefully it will be helpful to others who might want to explore these topics.
Hi,
Thanks for the email. By the way, my name is Shane. What's yours? I noticed the email wasn't signed, so perhaps you wish to remain anonymous. But I thought I'd try to be neighborly nonetheless.
You said in your email that if God chooses to save some while sending others to Hell – this would make God “unrighteous and unjust.” With all due respect, you and I do not get to judge what is righteous and just. That is God's domain. And if God, as our Creator, were to set a standard of holiness; He is completely within His rights to do so. And if any person falls short of the standard, God (as our Creator) has every right to condemn such a person to Hell. And if EVERY PERSON sins and fails to live by God's standard, then God would be just in sending EVERY PERSON to Hell. And finally, if God so chose to send SOME people to the Hell that they deserve, and chose to SAVE OTHERS of His own choosing, then that would be an example of God's grace. Not an example of God being unjust. Interestingly enough, your position is the very same one the Bible refutes in Romans 9, a chapter that is very germane to this question. God is not required to be gracious to all, nor is He required to be gracious to any. But He chooses to be gracious to some.
I believe many people make the mistake of not beginning with the idea of all people being spiritually “dead in their trespasses and sins” (Ephesians 2:1); and thus all people deserving condemnation. If we STARTED with this truth, then the idea of God's electing grace makes a lot more sense. Most people start with the idea of man being basically good, and having free will. And when you start with the wrong premise, you will invariably be led to the wrong conclusion.
You also objected to my belief that faith is a gift from God. Your exact words were, “Salvation is a gift of God, available by his goodness to all mankind via Christ – to those who will believe his message and receive it.” While I agree with you that salvation is a gift of God. And I agree that the message of salvation should be proclaimed to all. I would ask a deeper question of you and say, “Who are those that believe and receive this message?” If man is truly “dead in his trespasses and sins” then man, by nature, will reject Christ. Of course, Jesus himself taught that sinners will not come to him by nature. But that “all that the Father gives Me, will come to Me.” (John 6:37) He furthermore, told a baffled Nicodemus that to see the kingdom he must be “born again” (John 3:3). Which is to say that the Spirit must grant life to one who is dead. And the Spirit clearly doesn't do this for everyone. Which was why Jesus told Nicodemus, “The wind blows where it wishes and you hear the sound of it, but do not know where it comes from and where it is going; so is everyone who is born of the Spirit.” (John 3:8) I fear that your argument puts you on the side of Nicodemus in John 3, and opposite Jesus in John 6; which is not a good place to be. When a sinner is “born again” they are granted faith to embrace Christ for who He is. They turn from sin, and they come to Him. The Apostle Paul reiterates that faith is a gift in Ephesians 2:8-9: "For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, IT IS THE GIFT OF GOD; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast.” (emphasis added)
Moving on now, to your complaint that I believe that those who are saved cannot lose their salvation. What some refer to as “eternal security” or the more accurate description of “perseverance of the saints.” My belief that those saved will never be lost is based on the teaching of Jesus, and goes “hand-in-hand” with my belief that salvation is a work of God and not man. While you pointed out verses that teach that some will fall away, I would contend that those who fall away were false converts who were not born again. We have all known people who professed Christ, then after a season they “fell away.” I don't see this as a loss of salvation, but rather as evidence that they never were truly converted. I base this on Jesus's words, “My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me; and I give eternal life to them, and they will never perish; and no one will snatch them out of My hand. My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand.” (John 10:27-29)
Several arguments could be made to defend my position from this passage alone. Not the least of which would be to say that if Jesus promises “ETERNAL” life then it cannot be lost. How can you temporarily possess something that is ETERNAL? If this were possible, then Jesus's use of the word ETERNAL has lost all meaning. Furthermore, Jesus's clear teaching in this passage is that no one can pluck a believer out of HIS HAND, nor the FATHER'S HAND. They are secure. You stated that there are many passages in the Bible that warn about falling away, and that if believers are truly secure then these warnings would be “hot air.” To the contrary, I believe that such warnings are some of the very ways that God uses to keep His sheep secure. Those who are truly His, will respond to the warnings and those who are not His, will ultimately reject the warnings. God doesn't need these admonitions in order to see who are His, but we need the admonitions, and the resulting responses of obedient faith to bolster our assurance. The warnings help us, not God. Since God needs no help.
As for your statement that when the Lord threatens to blot names out of the book of life in Revelation 3:5, this is teaching the loss of salvation... I disagree. I think you are confusing a general reference to “life” with what is sometimes called the “Lamb's Book of Life” as recorded in Revelation 13:8. Incidentally, this passage would also further bolster my argument that salvation is a gift of God to His elect, since Revelation 13:8 says the names were written, “BEFORE THE FOUNDATION OF THE WORLD.” This ties in directly with what Ephesians teaches, that we were “chosen in Him BEFORE THE FOUNDATION OF THE WORLD.” (Ephesians 1:4 emphasis added)
To have one's name blotted out of the “book of life” is used frequently in Scripture to describe someone's death at the hand of God. It speaks of the temporal judgment of dying, not the loss of salvation. With all of this said, I will concede one point to you. If indeed salvation is attained by a free act of man's will, then it would also stand to reason that man could change his mind or change his ways and thus lose the salvation he chose. I believe that many Baptists are in error when they teach that salvation is an act of man's free will, but that once attained man can never lose this salvation. This teaching would be both unbiblical and illogical. Which is why I believe that the sinner's security is bound up in the fact that salvation is a sovereign act of God, and not an act of man. Since man is spiritually dead, desperately wicked, hopelessly confused, and endlessly fickle.
As for the last text you cited from Genesis 4, “Then the LORD said to Cain, “Why are you angry? And why has your countenance fallen? If you do well, will not your countenance be lifted up? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door; and its desire is for you, but you must master it.” (Genesis 4:6-7) You say this is evidence in Cain's (and thus man's) free will. I disagree. To the contrary, Cain is clearly enslaved to sin, as all people are. And both WOULD NOT and COULD NOT obey of his own volition. No one can or does, unless God grants it. Cain could only "master" sin by God's grace changing him. Which is the only way any of us can master sin. If God commands us to change, then our response should not be, "I can change on my own." But rather, "God, I can change if you CHANGE ME! Please be merciful to me, the sinner!" (see Luke 18:13)
While I understand the difficulty in trying to reconcile God demanding something that is impossible for us to naturally do, I would argue that this is exactly what the gospel does. It commands spiritually dead sinners to come to life and follow Him. And this they will not do, unless He grants them life. This then, is what gives God the utmost glory. That He would demand something that we cannot do. He would supernaturally change us, so that we DO what He commands. And then, amazingly, He rewards us for doing what ultimately was HIS WORK in us (see Eph. 2:10). To me, this is what is so AMAZING about GRACE.
In conclusion, while you and I have clear theological disagreements; I think they partially stem from how we view the Scriptures. You have cited several verses that might seem to defend your position. I have cited verses that defend my position. Yet, hopefully we can agree that ALL of these verses are God-inspired and true. The questions then become, How do we reconcile such verses? Do they contradict each other? Are they compatible in some way? Or are they merely beyond our capacity to comprehend? While there is much about God that is beyond us, it behooves us to try as we might to understand all of His Word that we can. We may conclude that some passages are too difficult for us. But hopefully we will never conclude that our verses are right, while someone else's verses are wrong. All of Scripture is Divine truth, to the extent that it is interpreted correctly, taken in context, and applied accurately to our life.
Hopefully this email clarifies my views somewhat.
Blessings to you,
Shane Kastler
Thsnks for the post!
One passage that has stood out for for me is this one in 2Timothy.
2 Timothy 2:24-26 (NASB)
24 The Lord's bond-servant must not be quarrelsome, but be kind to all, able to teach, patient when wronged,
25 with gentleness correcting those who are in opposition, if perhaps God may grant them repentance leading to the knowledge of the truth,
26 and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil, having been held captive by him to do his will.
Here's where I saw the possibility of God "granting" repentance to a person who is under the influence of another will other than his own. Wrap your head around that and you'll understand that the will of man is an unreliable source of comfort and strength. The will is only set free in Christ. Outside of Christ, the will is in bondage to sin and the devil. The sad part about it is, the poor soul doesn't even recognize the captivity of his own will until the light of Christ exposes it!
So the request still rings true today. May God grant repentance and knowledge to those whose will is captive.
Posted by: James | December 19, 2018 at 07:35 AM