. . . the ethical seriousness of the NT involves the
assumption not only that Christians should be held responsible for their
behavior, but that if their behavior persistently is of an immoral sort, they
can sin their way right out of a place in the Kingdom of God. These warnings,
such as we find in Gal. 5, are given to all Christians, because none are
eternally secure until they are securely in eternity. None. There is a reason
why John of Patmos warns all the members of the church at Sardis in Rev. 3.5
that God can blot someone’s name out of the book of everlasting life if they don’t’
believe as well as believe. But at the same time, there are equal reassurances
that: (1) God can and does give the aid, support, grace necessary for a
believer to stand and withstand any and all temptations (see Eph. 6.10-20); and
(2) apostasy, whether intellectual or mortal, does not happen by accident. One
cannot accidentally “lose” one’s salvation, like losing a pair of glasses. Apostasy
by definition is a deliberate and willful rebellion against the very presence
of God in one’s life, a grieving of the Holy Spirit. It requires conscious and
repeated repudiation of God’s presence, power, work in a person’s life. This is
what the author of Heb. 6 calls a deliberate crucifying of Christ afresh. It is
why Paul in Gal. 5 speaks of a person whose pattern of behavior earns the label
of thief, adultery, and the like. Paul is not talking about a single or
singular serious sin, like say that of King David, which is regretted, repented
of, and one is restored from. The writers of the NT firmly believe that a
person can change, that their behavior can improve, with the aid of the Spirit
and God’s grace, that giving into temptation is not inevitable, and that God holds
Christians responsible for their behavior, indeed, they all must appear before
the bema seat judgment of Christ to give an account of the deeds they have
done in the body (2 Cor. 5) and this applies especially to ministers (1 Cor.
3). (Ben Witherington III, Biblical Theology: The Convergence of the Canon [Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2019], 434)
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