Tuesday, July 13, 2021

Robert Gagnon vs. common abuse of 1 John 2:19 by Proponents of Eternal Security/Perseverance of the Saints

 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."