In a facebook post, Dr. Robert A.J. Gagnon wrote the following against the common claim that 1 John 2:19 teaches all those who fall away were never regenerated believers:
First John 2:19 is the Holy Grail of both the
OSAS position and the much better Calvinist POTS position. Back in college days
as a new believer over four decades ago, it was also my first go-to verse that
I would use to establish "eternal security," the "once-saved-always
saved" position.
Even today I would say that it is the best
verse that anyone can cite to support such a claim. But the context for the
verse ultimately doesn't establish OSAS and POTS views. It cannot overturn the
mountain of evidence for the view that Jesus and all the NT writers wanted
their audiences to believe that even those who start as genuine believers could
finish up not inheriting God's kingdom and not reaping a harvest of eternal
life.
After careful study of this text in its context,
I now believe that 1 John 2:19 not only does not prove that genuine believers
can never fall away but actually provides evidence for the view that genuine
believers can fall away -- the exact opposite of the interpretation given to it
by proponents of a OSAS or POTS view.
In 2:18b-19 the Elder John states:
"Many antichrists have appeared, from
which we know that it is the last hour. They went out from us but they were not
from us (i.e., did not belong to us, were not part of us). For if they had been
from us, they would have remained with us (till now) -- but (this happened) in
order they might be exposed [or: made manifest, revealed, shown, known] (for
what they are, namely) that they are all not (i.e., that none of them are) from
us." (GET)
These "antichrists" who left John's
community are further described as persons "denying that the Christ
(Messiah) is Jesus" (2:22). Possibly, as with later gnostics, they viewed
"the Christ" as merely inhabiting Jesus' body without any intrinsic
connection, where Jesus is just the body-shell of the spirit-being Christ.
On the surface it seems as if John is saying
that, had these antichrists been genuine believers, they would never have
departed from the true faith: once saved, always saved. As it turns out, this
is an overread of 2:19.
The key to a proper understanding of this
remark is found five verses later:
"Let (i.e., see to it that) what you
heard from the beginning remain (abide, stay) in you. If what you heard from
the beginning remains in you, you too will remain in the Son and in the Father.
And this is the promise that he himself promised to us, eternal life."
(2:24-25; GET)
Had John intended in 2:19 a "once saved,
always saved" or "perseverance of the saints" view, it would be
strange for him to exhort his readers to see to it that the gospel message
about the earthly Jesus as God's Son remain (abide, stay) in them. He even uses
a conditional sentence: They will remain in the Son and receive eternal life
only if the gospel that they heard from the beginning likewise remains in them.
For a OSAS or even POTS view, if they had
begun as genuine believers, they could never be denied eternal life. No
exhortation to remain or conditional clause making eternal life contingent on
remaining would be necessary. The very concept of remaining (staying, abiding;
Gk. meno) implies that a process had already begun. What is being required is
continuance.
There is no question here of his audience
being fake believers. Were they fake believers, they would not be exhorted to
continue in this condition. Throughout 1 John we find expressions of confidence
that their start in the faith was genuine, including in the immediate context:
"And you have an anointing from the Holy
One, and you all know (i.e., have knowledge). I have not written to you that
you do not know the truth but that you know it.... And the anointing that you
received from Him remains in you, and you do not have need for anyone to teach
you, but as his anointing teaches you about all things, and is true and not a
lie, and just as it taught you, remain in him [or: it]. And now, little
children, remain in him, so that if (i.e., when) he is made manifest (is
revealed, appears), we may have boldness and not be ashamed away from (i.e.,
before) him at his coming" (2:20-21, 27-28; GET)
Clearly, then, when he exhorts them to have
the gospel remain in them and makes their reception of eternal life contingent
upon the same, John is indicating the possibility that they too, while having
begun well, could finish badly if they do not hold firmly to the gospel that
the earthly Jesus, and not just some spirit-being "Christ," is the
Son of God and also "the atonement for our sins" (2:2; 4:10; see also
1:7).
Ch. 2 begins and ends with another way in
which the believers must "remain": They must continue to keep Jesus'
commandments (2:3-17, 29). Indeed, this is a major theme throughout the letter.
The author of 1 John repeatedly states that if you ....
walk in darkness,
keep on sinning as a defining feature of your
life,
are not keeping God’s commands,
love “the world” with its lusts,
as a way of life do not do what is right,
or hate your brother,
then ...
you have no partnership with Christ,
his atoning blood does not continue to cleanse
your sins,
you are from the devil rather than from God,
the truth is not in you,
you do not remain in Christ and God,
you are not in the light,
the love of the Father is not in you,
you have not come to know God,
you remain in death and have not transferred
to life,
you do not love God,
and you have no basis for reassuring your
heart that you belong to Christ.
You are, in short, a liar.
An essential component of remaining in Christ
or God is a transformed life:
"The one who says that he remains in him
ought, as that one walked, also himself to walk in this way" (2:6)
"The one who does the will of God remains
forever" (2:17b)
"Everyone who remains in him does not
keep on sinning" (3:6a)
"The one who keeps his commandments
remains in him and he (God) in him" (3:24a)
"If we love one another, God remains in
us" (4:12b)
"The one who remains in love remains in
God, and God remains in him" (4:16b)
The author can even say that "everyone
who hates his brother ... does not have eternal life remaining in him"
(3:15). This destroys the "logical" deductive reasoning that if
eternal life is to remain eternal, it cannot be lost. In fact, it can be lost
because eternal life is located in the Son, and if one ceases to remain in the
Son, so too does eternal life depart from that one.
Right from the beginning of 1 John, the
application of the atonement is limited to those who exhibit a transformed
life:
“If we say that we have partnership with him
and are walking in darkness, we lie and do not have the truth; but if we are
walking in the light as he himself is in the light we have partnership with one
another and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin.” (1:6-7; GET)
In other words, if we say that we are
Christians who have already confessed our sins to God and that he has forgiven
us, but then we lead our lives under the primary control of sin (walk in
darkness), we do not have ongoing partnership with Christ and his atoning death
does not continue to apply to us its cleansing effect.
The repeated warnings in 1 John destroy any
view of OSAS that treats the transformed life as optional. Without the
transformed life, there is no promise of eternal life. The middle term between
faith and eternal life is the transformed life.
If it is possible, as John repeatedly
indicates, that those who began in Christ or God might not remain (stay, abide)
in that condition, then using 2:19 to claim a OSAS or even POTS view becomes
untenable. Yet we must still make sense of 2:19 in that larger context.
When John states that by "going out from
us" the antichrists show that they "were not from us," and that
"if they had been from us, they would have remained with us," he
means not that genuine believers can never cease to remain in Christ. That
interpretation would contradict the rest of the letter.
Rather, John means that believers who
genuinely believe in Christ but subsequently depart from this belief and from a
transformed life, show that they were never really genuine believers. In what
sense? Not in the sense that they never had a genuine faith but in the sense
that in John's definition "genuine (true) believers" means believers
who endeavor to remain (continue, stay) in Christ until Christ returns by
holding firmly to the gospel and living the transformed life of those in whom Christ is still "walking."
In short, by leaving John's community and
changing over to a heretical gospel and a life of sin, these antichrists show
not necessarily that they never believed an orthodox gospel and lived a
transformed life but rather that they couldn't "remain" (continue,
stay, abide) in that condition. Only those who so "remain" in the
true faith till Christ returns are truly "from us." If they had truly
been "from us" (belonged to us, were part of us), they not only would
have begun well; they would have finished well.
All this means that 1 John 2:19, far from
providing conclusive proof that once-genuine believers will always "be
saved," irrespective of whether they live transformed lives (OSAS), or
even will necessarily by God's grace persevere till the end with righteous
lives, actually provides proof that once-genuine believers can fall away from
the faith and lose "eternal life" by not remaining in the state of
redemption that they had "from the beginning."