Recently, Matt Slick appeared on Sam Shamoun's youtube page to defend Sola Fide (as understood within his Reformed understanding). Needless to say, he was very slick with his biblical interpretation:
To see why Slick is simply wrong, see, for e.g.:
Does LDS Theology Confuse the Relationship Between Justification and Sanctification?
Full Refutation of the Protestant Interpretation of John 19:30 (Slick made a huge fuss about the meaning of τετελεσται)
Udo Schnelle on the Dynamic Relationship Between God's Drawing of Man to Himself and Genuine Human Freedom in the Gospel of John (refutes Slick's eisegesis of John 6:37, 44)
Dave Bartosiewicz vs. Transformative Justification (cf. Refutation of Dave Bartosiewicz on justification and the atonement being forensic and Response to Leon Morris on -οω verbs and the meaning of δικαιοω)
King David Refutes Reformed Soteriology (on Romans 4 and Paul's use of David)
Interestingly, Slick claims that those who hold to baptismal regeneration (which would include Luther and many Protestants, modern and historical) are going to hell, and even claimed that the author of 1 Clement taught against baptismal regeneration! For a refutation of this, see:
To address just one verse Slick abuses, he claims that Gal 5:4 supports his Reformed theology and is only addressing those with a false faith, not a saving faith--in other words, it does not refute the P of TULIP ("perseverance of the saints"). In his translation of Gal 5:4, Craig Keener rendered the verse thusly:
You who seek to be righted by the law have been cut off from Christ; you’ve fallen away from God’s abundant generosity.
Keener notes, Paul is actually teaching true believers can lose their salvation:
Cut off (καταργεω, katargeō) is the language of annulling something (as in 3:17) or rendering it ineffective (as in 5:11). It follows naturally from the idea of Christ no longer being of benefit to them (5:2) . . . it would seem special pleading to take Paul’s warnings of apostasy as something less than a real possibility. Paul elsewhere warns gentile believers that if they fall from faith, they too will be cut off as were Jewish people who failed to believe (Rom. 11:22; c. 8:13). Paul disciplines himself in order to avoid being disqualified (αδοκιμος, adokimos, 1 Cor. 9:27), going on to warn the Corinthians that despite their spiritual resources, they could be struck down as were many Israelites in the wilderness (10:1-11); they must stand and avoid falling (10:12). They must examine themselves to make sure that they remain in the faith and are not disqualified (αδοκιμος, 2 Cor. 13:5-6). Had persecution moved the Thessalonians to abandon faith in Christ, Paul’s labor among them would have been in vain (1 Thess. 3:5). Colossian believers would be presented blameless before God, provided they continued in the faith (Col. 1:23). Paul’s concern was their ultimate salvation; he does not address the question of some individuals falling away, yet later returning, since the conditions that facilitated their falling to begin with usually precluded their interest in returning. Gentile sources do reveal that many who had become Christians reconverted back to paganism afterward.
Already in Scripture, if the righteous turn to the way of sin, their righteousness will be forgotten (Ezek. 18:24, 27; 33:12-13, 18), but I the wicked turn to righteousness, they will live (33:14-16, 19). Jewish people lamented apostasy (1 Macc. 1:41-51), with some Jewish sects believing that even members of other Jewish sects had abandoned righteousness (e.g., 1QpHab 8.9). Some expected apostasy as one of the tragic signs of the end time (e.g., 1 En. 9:17; T. Iss. 6:1; T. Naph. 4:1; 3 En. 48A:5-6; m. Soṭah 9:15; Pesiq. Rab Kah. 5:9; Pesiq. Rab. 15:14/15; cf. 4 Ezra 5:1-2; 14:16-18) as under previous persecutions. Early Judaism divided regarding whether apostates would be forgiven if they repented. Paul probably also envisioned the prophesied end-time apostasy (Mark 13:12-13; Matt. 24:12) as already occurring in his day (cf. 2 Thess. 2:3). Subsequent centuries of Christian thought also required perseverance in the faith.
Corinthians’ sexual sin contradicted Christian faith (1 Cor. 6:9-20), but Galatians were in danger of abandoning faith in Christ no less by adding to (and thus subtracting from) the faith. Like baptism, circumcision functioned as a demarcation, a rite of passage into a given community (in this case, of ethnicity; in the case of Christian baptism, of faith). By going under the law as if their baptism was inadequate, they would essentially deny the efficacy of their baptism. Paul certainly did not teach the popular doctrine today of “once saved, always saved”; a convert does not regularly move in and out of the saved community, but a convert who deconverts is again a nonbeliever. (Craig S. Kenner, Galatians: A Commentary [Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker Academic, 2019], 453, 454-56)
Commenting on this text, Don Garlington, a New Testament scholar and leading advocate for the New Perspective on Paul, wrote the following which supports this thesis that this passage refutes eternal security:
Paul is worried not about circumcision as an isolated act or as a thing in itself, but rather what it will lead to: the endeavor to be justified “in the law.” The most emphatic element of the verse is placed forward into the clause: “You have been severed from Christ” (NASB). The verb translated “severed” (katargeō) frequently means to make ineffective or nullify (BDAG, 525). In the present cast, it signifies the dissolution of a relationship, namely the Galatians’ former (covenant) relationship to Christ. But commentators point out that the verb can mean “cut off.” If this usage was in Paul’s mind at all, then there would be a deliberate play on circumcision: those who “cut” the flesh are “cut off” from Christ. A formal commitment to the Torah through circumcision is equivalent to ending the relationship with the Christ of Paul’s gospel . . . If those who want to be justified in the law have severed their relationship with Christ, they have, but the nature of the case, “fallen away from grace.” The verb “fall away” (ekpiptō) is used of a withering flower falling from its stem to the ground (Jas 1:11; 1 Pet 1:24) or of a ship failing to hold its course (Acts 27:26, 29). “God’s grace in Christ . . . is like the stem which supports the flower and through which the life-sustaining sustenance flows. Or like the channel which leads to safety between the rocks of disaster, a course from which they were in danger of being driven, by dangerous currents and cross winds” (Dunn, Galatians, 268-69). (Don Garlington, An Exposition of Galatians: A Reading from the New Perspective [Eugene, Oreg.: Wipf & Stock, 2007], 299-300)
Obviously the apostle Paul did not share Slick's (heretical) understanding of the security of the believer.
