Category Archives: Eternal security

Stutters on the stairway: Arminianism vs Calvinism (eternal security)

Stairway to Heaven (PublicDomainPictures.net)

By Spencer D Gear

Will there every be unity in the body of Christ on controversial topics on our stairway to heaven? What about,

Iinfant vs believers’ baptism?
Eternal punishment vs annihilation?
Arminianism vs Calvinism on predestination, limited or unlimited atonement, eternal security, free will?
Premillennialism, Amillennialism, and Postmillennialism?

On this journey, will there ever be complete agreement on controversial theological topics?

It is not unusual to get some heated discussion online with Christian forums on controversial topics relating to Calvinism and Arminianism, where there are differences of interpretation regarding election, predestination, and eternal security. I write as a convinced evangelical, Reformed Arminian.

What is a Reformed or Reformation Arminian? See the Roger E Olson article, ‘Reformed Arminian‘.

I made this submission to an online Christian forum:

It says the one who is continuing to believe, continues to have eternal life- that’s the meaning of the Greek present tense [John 3:36].

Didn’t you believe that I knew the parsing and meaning of the Greek present tense?

So, eternal security is based on the fact that a person continues to believe in Jesus. It is not a once saved, always saved view, but a perseverance of the saints view – the saints are those who continue to believe. They are not those who once believed and gave up believing? The only guarantee of eternal life is for those who are continuing to believe at the time of death (or at the time of Christ’s second coming if it arrives before the believer dies).[1]

This was the reply:

No, according to scripture, 1 Jn. 2:19, if they depart, stop beliving (sic), they never believed in the first place. Unless you are calling the Apostle John a liar. Are you? And from Jesus’ own mouth, no man, not even yourself can take yourself out of God’s hand. That is, unless Jesus was lying?[2]

To what does 1 John 2:19 refer?[3] It states: ‘They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us. But they went out, that it might become plain that they all are not of us’ (ESV).

What’s the context? First John 2:18 states, ‘Children, it is the last hour, as you have heard that antichrist is coming, so now many antichrists have come. Therefore we know that it is the last hour’ (ESV).

It is talking about antichrists in our midst.

That is not the discussion point that I’m addressing. I’m talking about people who formerly continued to believe in Jesus and were committed evangelical Christians for a considerable time and who gave up believing in Jesus. They committed apostasy. But you want that to mean that they never believed in the first place. I disagree profoundly! These people did continue to believe for a time and showed fruits of repentance. But then they quit believing (often related to circumstances in their life that left a big negative impact).

Warnings about the need to continue believing

The warning to the children of God in 1 John 2 (the chapter to which you refer) is:

And now, little children, abide in him, so that when he appears we may have confidence and not shrink from him in shame at his coming. If you know that he is righteous, you may be sure that everyone who practices righteousness has been born of him (1 John 2:28-29 ESV)

From these two verses, we know that:

‘abide’ = menete = Greek present tense verb, which means continuing action, i.e. ‘continues to abide’;
‘everyone who practices righteousness’, where ‘practices’ = poiwn (doing) = Greek present tense participle which indicates continuing action, the meaning of which is, ‘who continues doing/practising’.
Verse 29 is clear that the children of God (based on v. 28) are those who continue to do/practice righteousness. It is not dealing with those Christians who used to do righteousness.

I do not believe that sinning willingly means apostasy. So this person created a straw man logical fallacy against my views with his example of Peter and Paul. We cannot have a rational conversation when people respond in this manner in using such fallacies.

Mountains

(Courtesy ChristArt)

Responses to these posts

You might like to take a read of some of the responses to the information I provided above. These are samples:

‘This is a pretty desperate and contradictory reply, in my opinion’.[4]

‘The problem is on your end, since you do not submit to the scriptures, but only wrest a few to annoy the saints’.[5]

‘Again, the man-centered salvation so prevelant in synergism and Arminianism. That which you so proudly taunt’.[6]

‘So it is impossible for one to backslide, and yet still believe in God? That is the point I take away from all your posts’.[7]

‘according to scripture, 1 Jn. 2:19, if they depart, stop beliving, they never believed in the first place. Unless you are calling the Apostle John a liar. Are you?’[8]

‘So using your standard, we must therefore conclude that since both Peter and Paul sinned willingly, not once, not twice, but at least three times, they lost their salvation, and thusly were not able to “renew them unto repentance”. But tell me, when Peter and Paul both sinned, did they cease to “abide” in Christ? Did they cease to “believe” continuously? Remember, you can “commit apostasy and perish by a willful act of their own.” Who said that? Was it me? Hum…’[9]

‘But notice you say this, without even bothering to acknowledge what the scripture says. What kind of a person sits here telling us these things, but doesn’t bother to respond to points properly? Are you capable of challenging what I have shown is clearly in those verses? If so, then show me, but take on what we say and respond to them specifically. Don’t dance around them as you do, and then get all huffy puffy after making sweeping assertions about it. It seems that you use the word “infallible” not to refer to the scriptures, but to your own point of view, and thus you do not take well to challenges’.[10]

With regard to this last post I made a complaint to the moderators about his emotionally abusive language with language such as:[11]

‘without even bothering to acknowledge what the scripture says’;

‘What kind of a person sits here telling us these things, but doesn’t bother to respond to points properly?’ (I have spent a lot of time on detailed responses on this forum but I will not continue with interaction with you when you make this kind of false allegation.)

‘Are you capable of challenging’.

‘Don’t dance around them as you do, and then get all huffy puffy after making sweeping assertions about it’.

‘It seems that you use the word “infallible” not to refer to the scriptures, but to your own point of view’.

Petruchio’s response to me was: ‘You keep using this phrase to everything people say to you. I don’t think it means what you think it means. (I can’t post the photo of Inigo until I get a total of 50 posts! ).’[12]

My response was:

Here you give another straw man logical fallacy. When you create a view which I did not state, you have created a straw man logical fallacy.

Here is a description of the straw man fallacy.

If you continue this approach in your responses to me, I will not reply. We cannot have a logical conversation when you use a logical fallacy.[13]

It seems to me from interaction on this Christian forum that I have to be alert to the logical fallacies that others and I use. I will name them as I see and understand them in their posts and also my own. I am not immune to using logical fallacies and I want people to draw my attention to them.

See the Nizkor Project for a description of a reasonably comprehensive list of logical fallacies.

Logical fallacies

Notes:

[1] OzSpen#113 Christian Forums, Baptists, Eternal Security, OzSpen#113, available at: http://www.christianforums.com/t7775412-12/ (Accessed 29 September 2013).

[2] DeaconDean#114, ibid.

[3] This is my response as OzSpen#117, ibid.

[4] Petruchio#43, ibid.

[5] Ibid.

[6] DeaconDean#114, ibid.

[7] Ibid.

[8] Ibid.

[9] DeaconDean#116, ibid.

[10] Petruchio#121, ibid.

[11] OzSpen#122, ibid. I made a complaint about this post to the moderators. Maybe this could be removed from the forum.

[12] Petruchio#123, ibid.

[13] OzSpen#124, ibid.

What does it mean to shipwreck your faith?

Edit Post

Spencer D Gear

Maheno shipwreck (photo 2007), Fraser Island,

off the Queensland coast (about 3 hours north of Brisbane)

Courtesy Wikipedia

The New Zealand hospital ship Maheno (before the wreck)

Courtesy Wikipedia

In the controversy between Calvinism and Arminianism it is not unusual to read or hear a back and forth about the ability or inability to lose eternal salvation through Christ. Since Calvinists believe that a person, once genuinely saved, cannot lose salvation, it is common to hear language like this:

‘It is my opinion, and I stress opinion, that it is not possible to lose one’s salvation’ (CARM).

’56 Bible Verses about Losing Your Salvation’ (OpenBible.info)

One set of verses often raised about losing salvation is, First Timothy 1:18-20, which states,

¹⁸This charge I entrust to you, Timothy, my child, in accordance with the prophecies previously made about you, that by them you may wage the good warfare, ¹⁹holding faith and a good conscience. By rejecting this, some have made shipwreck of their faith, ²⁰among whom are Hymenaeus and Alexander, whom I have handed over to Satan that they may learn not to blaspheme (ESV).

In commenting on these verses, one Calvinist wrote, ‘Did Paul say that they lost their salvation?’[1]

My response was:

So what does ‘shipwreck of their faith mean’? The Maheno ship wreck on the shores of Fraser Island (about 3 hours north of Brisbane on the Pacific Ocean coast) is useless, wrecked as a viable ship.

Is a shipwrecked faith viable or not to enter the sea of eternal life? Or is shipwrecked faith as useless as the Maheno as a ship in the Pacific Ocean?[2]

(courtesy ChristArt)

The reply from this person was:

‘This command I entrust to you, Timothy, my son, in accordance with the prophecies previously made concerning you, that by them you fight the good fight, keeping faith and a good conscience, which some have rejected and suffered shipwreck in regard to their faith. Among these are Hymenaeus and Alexander, whom I have handed over to Satan, so that they will be taught not to blaspheme’ (1 Timothy 1:18-20 NASB).

It would appear that Paul has I’m (sic) mind correction for these two. Not because they lost their salvation, but because they are not acting in the right manner. Paul is hoping that they will be corrected (taught).[3]

[4]Paul has a motivation to deal with ‘keeping faith and a good conscience’ or ‘holding faith and a good conscience’ (ESV). In context this is faith in the prophecies (apostolic teaching?) he had received.

What had Hymenaeus and Alexander done to ‘shipwreck’ their faith? Arndt & Gingrich’s Greek lexicon gives the meaning of this word from apwthew as ‘reject, repudiate’ (Arndt & Gingrich 1957:102). Therefore Lenski’s commentary, based on the Greek, concludes that

they got so far away from the apostolic prophecies that they did even what is here stated regarding their conscience and their faith. Paul himself had dealt with two of them, and when he held up to them the prophecies, i. e., the apostolic gospel teaching, and thereby tried to reach their conscience he found that they had actually thrust all good conscience away and had thereby lost their faith altogether. The true gospel teaching no longer made an impression on them, it had been smothered by their myths, etc (Lenski 1937:532-533).

The consequence for Hymenaeus and Alexander was that Paul has them ‘handed over to Satan’. What this means exactly has been the cause of much debate. However, it seems evident that these two men no longer have a good conscience and faith, so it seems that Paul means that these two are, according to exegete, Gordon Fee, ‘”put back into Satan’s sphere,” outside the church and the fellowship of God’s people…. Paul expects by such an “excommunication” they will “be caught not to blaspheme”‘ (Fee 1988:59).

What ‘blaspheme’ means here is not certain but there are hints in context. In 1:13 Paul says of his life before Christ, ‘formerly I was a blasphemer’ and in 6:4 he states that ‘slander’ (ESV) or ‘malicious talk’ (NIV) that come out of ‘a different doctrine’ (ESV) or ‘false doctrines’ (NIV). However the word is blasphemiai (i.e. blasphemies). This is from a list of what happens as a result of false teachers who had ‘an unhealthy craving for controversy’ (6:4 ESV).

Thus handing over to Satan seems to be an action of excommunication because they had rejected God’s grace for salvation and had pursued the arguments of the false teachers. It seems that Timothy was in Ephesus to deal with the false doctrine that was being perpetrated by false teachers and this was leading people away from the faith.

How would he respond? It was predictable for a Calvinist: ‘So you don’t think that they were apostate, right?’[5] To which I responded, ‘False! They had rejected, repudiated their faith. That’s what the Greek word means!’[6]

File:Wreck of the Central America.jpg

An artists rendition of the 1857 shipwreck (the Central America).

Courtesy Wikimedia Commons

To another person, he wrote: ‘It still says nothing of them losing their salvation’.[7] To which I replied,[8] ‘Yes it does! That’s the meaning of ‘shipwrecked’, based on the Greek exegesis.

What had Hymenaeus and Alexander done to ‘shipwreck’ their faith. Arndt & Gingrich’s Greek lexicon gives the meaning of this word from apwthew as ‘reject, repudiate’ (Arndt & Gingrich 1957:102).

Therefore Lenski’s commentary, based on the Greek, concludes that

they got so far away from the apostolic prophecies that they did even what is here stated regarding their conscience and their faith. Paul himself had dealt with two of them, and when he held up to them the prophecies, i. e., the apostolic gospel teaching, and thereby tried to reach their conscience he found that they had actually thrust all good conscience away and had thereby lost their faith altogether. The true gospel teaching no longer made an impression on them, it had been smothered by their myths, etc. (Lenski 1937:532-533).

Faith that is shipwrecked is faith that has been repudiated, rejected. It couldn’t be clearer, based on the Greek etymology.

To shipwreck one’s faith is to abandon/repudiate the faith, reject the faith. This is similar to the message given in Hebrews 6:4-6,

For it is impossible, in the case of those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, and have shared in the Holy Spirit, ⁵and have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the age to come, ⁶and then have fallen away, to restore them again to repentance, since they are crucifying once again the Son of God to their own harm and holding him up to contempt (ESV).

For my lengthy exegesis and exposition, see: ‘Once Saved, Always Saved or Once Saved, Lost Again? (an exposition of Hebrews 6:4-6)’.

I recommend the article by Roger E Olson, ‘What’s wrong with Calvinism?‘ (Patheos, March 22, 2013).

Works consulted

Arndt, W F & Gingrich, F W 1957. A Greek-English lexicon of the New Testament and other early Christian literature. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press (limited edition licensed to Zondervan Publishing House).

Fee, G D 1988. 1 and 2 Timothy, Titus (New International Biblical Commentary). Peabody, Massachusetts: Hendrickson Publishers.

Lenski, R C H 1937. Commentary on the New Testament: The interpretation of St. Paul’s epistles to the Colossians, to the Thessalonians, to Timothy, to Titus, and to Philemon. Peabody, Massachusetts: Hendrickson Publishers Inc.

Notes:

[1] Hammster #25, Christian Forums, Baptists, ‘Saved only by grace’, available at: http://www.christianforums.com/t7773567-3/ (Accessed 14 September 2013).

[2] OzSpen #32, ibid.

[3] Hammster #34, ibid.

[4] This is my reply as OzSpen #39, ibid.

[5] Hammster #41, ibid.

[6] OzSpen #43, ibid.

[7] Hammster #37, ibid.

[8] OzSpen #42, ibid.

Is the Holy Spirit’s seal a guarantee of eternal security?

Peace Dove

ChristArt

By Spencer D Gear

It is not uncommon to read statements like this one about the Holy Spirit’s sealing redemption to guarantee eternal security.

What do you do with this scripture:
And grieve not the holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption.
Who hath also sealed us, and given the earnest of the Spirit in our hearts.
If you are seal when you get saved, telling me how in the world are you going to be unsaved?
Can you open the hand of God, who holds us and cause him to let you go?[1]

This was my response.[2] Quoting Ephesians 4:30 as you have done as a guarantee of eternal security is dangerous.[3] Here’s why:

In Romans 4:11 the same word for ‘sealed’ is used as in Eph 4:30. If this means an unbreakable and permanent seal of eternal security, then the same must apply to Rom. 4:11 – an unbreakable and permanent seal of circumcision.

But that cannot be the situation. What does Rom. 4:11 state?

He received the sign of circumcision as a seal of the righteousness that he had by faith while he was still uncircumcised. The purpose was to make him the father of all who believe without being circumcised, so that righteousness would be counted to them as well (Rom. 4:11 ESV).

We know from Scripture that the sealing of circumcision could be broken through unbelief (see Rom. 11:20-23 where circumcised Jews could be broken off through unbelief). See also Rom. 2:25-29.

So, sealing of circumcision, as in Rom. 4:11, depends on continued faith. As long as a person continues to believe that person is sealed.

Therefore, because a person is ‘sealed’ does not guarantee continued faithfulness. It does not guarantee an eternal destiny that is guaranteed, signed sealed and delivered and that such a person can never fall away.

We have the same kind of situation in John 10:27-28:

My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. 28 I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand (ESV).

I had a person say to me at church recently that he became convinced of eternal security by accepting what John 10:28 stated – nobody could pluck believers out of the Father’s hand.

However, what are the conditions for not being plucked/snatched out of the Father’s hand? The words that I have highlighted in vv 27-28 are all in the Greek present tense. So the meaning is continuous action as the Greek tense emphasises the KIND of action more than the time of action.

Therefore the meaning of those 4 words in bold is: ‘My sheep continue to hear my voice, and I continue to know them, and they continue to follow me. 28 I continue to give them eternal life….’

There is no guarantee of eternal security without continuing belief – continuing to hear, continuing to know, and continuing to follow. What is God’s guarantee for this continuing belief? God continues to give them eternal life.

That is the biblical teaching on eternal security. Perseverance of the saints is necessary for sealing to be guaranteed.

Red Approved Stamp Clip Art

Clker.com

Notes:

[1] Christian Forums, Baptists, ‘falling away’, SoulBap6#16, available at: http://www.christianforums.com/t7699897-2/#post61859654 (Accessed 29 November 2012).

[2] Ibid., OzSpen#17.

[3] I received this exegetical insight from an article by Ben Henshaw 2012. Some further reflections on the nature of the sealing of the Holy Spirit in Ephesians 1:13 and 3:30 (online), 22 March. Society of Evangelical Arminians. Available at: http://evangelicalarminians.org/?q=Henshaw.Some-Further-Reflections-on-the-Nature-of-the-Sealing-of-the-Holy-Spirit-in-Eph-1.13-and-4.30 (Accessed 29 November 2012).

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