Grappling with Once-Saved-Always-Saved Premise

Believers are likely to wonder if the once-saved-always-saved assurance (as taught by certain denominations) is reconcilable with the anomalies routinely reported among different Christian communities.  The worst-case counter-example will be when renowned mega-church leaders fall dramatically into abject disrepute and leave in their wake such adverse impact that the large followings they attracted thereafter become disillusioned and rudderless.  In a similar vein, supposedly staunch followers are prone to feel distraught when interacting with close relatives or bosom friends who have openly renounced their Christian faith in favour of other religions.  As regards pew-warmers in church, even they may find occasion to query the beliefs of their ostensibly Christian bosses who keep resorting to business practices that run afoul of biblical ethics.

 

Given the prevalence of such counter-examples, what is the basis for pastors and counsellors teaching Christians how to seek comfort in the once-saved-always-saved promise?  The starting premise must be what Jesus told the Jews confronting Him in the temple porch: “I give them eternal life and they shall never perish; neither shall anyone snatch them out of My hand.” (John 10:28)  Reinforcing this forceful declaration is His re-assurance in the very next verse that “My Father, Who has given them to Me, is greater than all and no one is able to snatch them out of My Father’s hand.” (John 10:29)  Looking at these two consecutive verses together is sufficient to establish that none will ever be able to snatch whomever both Father and Son placed under protective cover.

 

If any Christian thinks he need not read any further and can now exit this blog-site, he ought to honestly ask himself whether eternal life has really been guaranteed based on his presumption of being securely ensconced within His hand.  Irrefutably documented in John 10:28 is the testimony of Jesus bestowing eternal life only on them who, as identified in John 10:29, are those given by the Father to Him.  Affirmation that this is indeed so has subsequently been furnished by Jesus when praying whilst lifting His eyes to heaven: “Those whom You gave to Me I have kept, and none of them is lost …” (John 17:12)  The inference then is that eternal life is granted to those foreknown by God as desirous of embracing the gospel message and accepting His salvation offer.

 

As an aside, it is interesting to additionally consider the latter portion of John 17:12 where “… none of them is lost except for the son of perdition that the Scripture might be fulfilled.”  Even though still active among the 12 at the time of Jesus’ prayer in John 17:12, Judas was already deemed as lost and therefore excluded from “those whom You gave to Me”.  That Jesus foretold this as being in concurrence with scriptural prophecy lends support to the conviction that God foreknew Judas would become “the son of perdition” way before his actual act of betrayal in the Garden of Gethsemane.

 

The next biblical passage of relevance to the present discussion is found in Paul’s theological exposition where, first of all, Romans 8:28 draws attention to pre-destination as a natural concomitant of foreknowledge: “whom He foreknew, He also pre-destined to be conformed to the image of His Son”.  The divinely-ordained progression that ensues is meticulously spelt out by the erudite apostle in Romans 8:29: “whom He pre-destined, these He also called; whom He called, these He also justified; whom He justified, these He also glorified.”  At which point in time do both of the past-tense verbs ‘foreknew’ and ‘pre-destined’ refer to specifically?  Another Pauline epistle has explicitly addressed this matter: “God chose us in Him from the foundation of the world … having pre-destined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself …” (Ephesians 1:4-5).  Paul’s second epistle to the church at Thessalonica does shed some light with II Thessalonians 2:18 likewise stating that “God from the beginning chose you for salvation …” but, in all frankness, its term “from the beginning” does not quite convey the vivid clarity of his other expression “from the foundation of the world”.

 

There is no doubt that the pronouns ‘He’ and ‘His’ appearing in Romans 8:28-29 refer only to the Father (as Romans 8:28 already contains the phrase ‘His Son’).  Interestingly, there is a Petrine epistle alluding to the Father’s foreknowledge too: “… to the pilgrims of the Dispersion …, elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father …” (I Peter 1:1-2)  So far, the discussion has dwelled on Christians foreknown by the Father; actually, the chosen race may similarly draw encouragement from Paul’s comprehensive exposition that “God has not cast away His people whom He foreknew” (Romans 11:2) as well.

 

Included in I Peter 1:2 is the important term ‘elect’ which must be taken into consideration — on top of ‘foreknew’ and ‘pre-destined’.  Although not incorporated into the divinely-ordained progression spelt out by Paul in Romans 8:29, this term has been featured in different New Testament books as can be seen from the following selection of sample verses:

●     “false christs and false prophets will rise … to deceive, if possible, even the elect” (Matthew 24:23)

●     “but the elect have obtained it and the rest were blinded” (Romans 11:7)

●     “to the elect lady and her children whom I love” (II John 1).

 

In truth, sinners are plainly told that “… if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved” (Romans 10:9).  The question arising from this verse (often shared during evangelistic outreach) is whether confession and belief are likewise requisites to be complied by those identified in I Peter 1:2 as the “elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father”.  The answer is obvious when this phrase is viewed in the entirety of I Peter 1:2 which reads thus: “elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, in sanctification of the Spirit, for obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ.”  Looking at what Peter added when elaborating, there cannot be any dispute that confession is necessary before the sins of the elect may be atoned by the blood of the Lamb while belief is the foundational bedrock upon which obedience will develop as a character trait of the elect who are certainly not spared from the sanctification process effectuated by the in-dwelling of the Spirit.  Furthermore, the elect are enjoined by Peter to “be even more diligent to make your call and election sure” (II Peter 1:10); if the elect unswervingly pursue what have been specified in II Peter 1:5-7 by the apostle whom the Messiah commissioned to tend His flock, they then have his unreserved assurance that “you will neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ” (II Peter 1:8) “for so an entrance will be supplied to you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ” (II Peter 1:11).

The cautionary note from John (when writing to little children walking in the light) is unequivocal that “if we say we have not sinned, we make Him a liar and His word in not in us” (I John 1:10).  When, hypothetically speaking, the elect lady (to whom the Elder addressed in II John 1) had sinned, would she as a consequence lose her salvation?  As taught by John, “if we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (I John 1:9).  Of greater significance is the declaration that “He Who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ” (Philippians 1:6).  This divine commitment to the elect would have been of comfort for King David who, living a millennium prior to Paul’s epistle, fell into such anguish (but only after God took him to task in II Samuel 12:9 because of his adultery-and-murder sins) that he had to plead: “do not cast me away from Your presence and do not take Your Holy Spirit from me” (Psalm 51:11).

Before the present discussion can be drawn to a conclusion, there still remains the task of reviewing the counter-examples outlined in the introductory paragraph.  For those fallen leaders capable of performing signs and wonders to attract devotees, did they forfeit their salvation along the way?  A clue is available from Jesus’ response that “I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practise lawlessness” (Matthew 7:23) when confronted by many claiming “Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name and done many wonders in Your name?” (Matthew 7:22)  As regards the so-called Christians lacking in absolute faithfulness to unreservedly “believe in Him” (John 3:16) or fervently “come to the knowledge of the truth” (I Timothy 2:4) and therefore behaving no differently from non-believers, Jesus’ rebuttal is simply that “not everyone who says to Me ‘Lord, Lord’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven but he who does the will of My father in heaven.” (Matthew 7:21)  What happens to those eventually reneging on their faith in Him?  “It is impossible for those who were once enlightened and have tasted the heavenly gift and have become partakers of the Holy Spirit and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come, if they fall away, to renew them again to repentance since they crucify again for themselves the Son of God and put Him to open shame” (Hebrews 6:4-6) as well as “trampled the Son of God underfoot, counted the blood and the covenant by which he was sanctified a common thing and insulted the Spirit of grace” (Hebrews 10:29).  Given God’s foreknowledge together with Jesus’ denial of having known them, these wannabe Christians must not have been among the elect in the first place and so the question of whether they lost their salvation is in point of fact entirely irrelevant.  Bearing this in mind is helpful when seeking to comprehend the following not-so-familiar gospel narrative which many are likely to perceive as counter-intuitive: “… many believed in His name when they saw the signs which He did, but Jesus did not commit Himself to them because He knew all men and had no need that anyone should testify of man for He knew what was in man.” (John 2:23-24)

 

 

 

 

PS:  There is no intention here to additionally re-visit the misconception of limited atonement.  Neither may the present discussion be misconstrued as a veiled attempt at re-vitalising such a notion.  Those interested in this particular non-issue ought to check out another blog article (entitled “Addressing certain Concerns associated with Limited Atonement”) which was uploaded on 30 August 2023.