In a series of recent (public) facebook posts, Dr. Robert A.J. Gagnon has discussed many common "proof-texts" in support of Eternal Security/Perseverance of the Saints. Here are his discussions of Rom 8:35, 38-39, 1 Cor 9:24-27, John 10:28-30 and John 6:39
Many promoters of the OSAS or the superior POTS view of eternal
security often make Rom 8:35, 38-39 a prime go-to text, which they usually
summarize as “nothing can separate us from the love of God.” However, the text
doesn’t say “nothing.” This is what the text says:
"What [or: who] will separate us from the love of Christ?
Distress or tight straits or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or
sword? …. For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, neither angels nor
rulers, neither things present nor things to come, nor powers—neither height
nor depth—nor any other created thing will be able to separate us from the love
of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord." (GET)
The passage, great and comforting as it is, speaks only of
things external to ourselves: persecution, a deprivation of material goods,
angels and other spiritual powers, death.
The remark “nor any other creation [or: created thing]” (8:39)
appears to refer primarily to the material structures of non-human creation or
at least created things external to one’s own self (compare 8:18-23, which distinguishes
“creation” from the sons or children of God).
The lists do not include “a life lived under the control of
sin operating in human members” and for good reason: Paul has already stated
clearly that such a life leads to death. For example,
"Do you not know that the one to whom you are presenting
yourselves (as) slaves for obedience, you are slaves to the one whom you are
obeying, (mark you) either of sin for death or of obedience for righteousness….
For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ
Jesus our Lord." (Rom 6:16, 21; GET)
"So then, brothers (and sisters), we are debtors not to
the flesh, (that is,) to live in conformity to the flesh. For, if you continue
to live in conformity to the flesh, you are going to die. But if by (means of)
the Spirit you are putting to death the deeds of the body, you will live. For
as many as are being led by the Spirit of God, these (very ones) are sons (and
daughters) of God." (Rom 8:12-14; GET)
Christians are not free to be under sin’s controlling
influence. Those that are will not inherit eternal life. The children of God
are those who are led by the Spirit of God, not those who live their lives in
conformity to the flesh.
So with his remarks in 8:35, 38-39 Paul is not taking back
warnings that he has just promoted in 6:1-8:17 (rejecting the view that because
one is “under grace” one can live a sinful life and still inherit eternal life)
and will restate later in 11:20-22 (about being cut off if they don’t continue
in God’s kindness).
Believers must cooperate with the continuing work of grace in
their lives. This cooperation is no way, shape, or form meritorious or
deserved. We are justified by faith, but not faith as a one-time action that
does not issue in a transformed life. The assurance about not being separated
from the love of God in Christ does not apply to once-genuine believers who put
themselves at high risk by discontinuing a life led by the Spirit of Christ.
For those, Paul warns, separation is possible and separation presupposes a
prior attachment now severed.
Paul is not promoting eternal insecurity. He wants genuine
believers to be assured of inheritance of the Kingdom of God. But he does not
want to give them a false assurance that they could depart egregiously, long-term,
and without repentance from a Spirit-led life and still be confident of such
inheritance.
One of the most remarkable texts of dozens that challenge both
the OSAS (Once Saved, Always Saved)/ES (Eternal Security) view of salvation and
even the far better POTS (Preservation of the Saints) view is found in 1 Cor
9:24-27. There Paul cites himself as an example, making it clear that even he
could yet be disqualified from the prize of eternal life if he should stop
bringing his body under subjection to Christ’s lordship:
"Do you not know that those who are running in a stadium
are all running but (only) one receives the prize? Be running like this in
order that you may convincingly receive it. Now everyone who competes exercises
self-control in every way. So those people (do it) in order that they may
receive a perishable wreath but we an imperishable one. Hence I am running like
this: … I whip my body into shape and bring it into subjection (as though my
slave), lest somehow, after proclaiming to others, I myself should come to be
disqualified." (GET)
There can be no question that by “disqualified” Paul means not
gaining the prize of eternal life. "The prize" is called "an
imperishable wreath" and is distinguished from an earthly "perishable
wreath." To not "receive the prize" of "an imperishable
wreath" is to receive the prize of imperishability, or eternal life, in
the Kingdom of God. The only other use of the adjective
"imperishable" (aphthartos) in 1 Corinthians describes the
acquisition of imperishability that comes with the resurrection from the dead:
"The trumpet will sound and the dead will rise
imperishable and we shall all be changed. For it is necessary that this
perishable (body) put on imperishability and this mortal (body) put on
immortality. And when this perishable (body) puts on imperishability and this
mortal (body) puts on immortality, then the word that is written shall come to
pass: 'Death was swallowed up into Victory....'" (15:52-55; GET).
The only uses of the abstract noun "imperishability"
(aphtharsia) likewise appear in 1 Corinthians only in this context of the
resurrection from the dead (1 Cor 15:42, 50, 53-54; cp. Rom 2:7; 2 Tim 1:10).
"So also the resurrection of the dead: (The body) is sown in corruption,
it is raised in imperishability.... Flesh and blood is not able to inherit the
Kingdom of God, nor does the corruptible inherit imperishability" (1 Cor
15:42, 50; GET).
Paul then in 1 Cor 9:24-27 is not distinguishing between
different levels of imperishable existence but between not receiving
imperishability (resurrection) and receiving it.
Paul makes similar remarks in Phil 3:8-14:
"I underwent the loss of† all things ... in order that I
may gain Christ ... with the aim of knowing him and the power of his
resurrection and partnership in‡ his sufferings, being (continually) conformed
to his death, if somehow I may attain to the resurrection that is from the
dead. Not that I already took (hold of this) or have already been perfected,
but I pursue, if also I may overtake (it).... I pursue toward (the) goal for
the prize of God’s calling above in Christ Jesus." (GET)
Here, as in 1 Cor 9:24-27, "the prize" (brabeion,
used only in 1 Cor 9:24 and Phil 3:14 in the Bible) is spelled out again as the
resurrection from the dead. Paul also speaks similarly here of a rigorous
regiment needed in order to attain this prize, which prize he stresses he has
not yet attained and even might not attain should he lapse in this regiment:
"partnership in Christ's sufferings, being (continually) conformed to
Christ's death, if somehow I may attain to the resurrection.... Not that I
already took (hold of this) or have already been perfected, but I pursue, if
also I may overtake (it)."
That the prize in 1 Cor 9:24-27 is imperishable life is
evident also from his application of this point to his warnings aimed at the
Corinthians. They think their place in the Kingdom is assured but Paul compares
their situation to God's judgment of the wilderness generation, who, though
experiencing similar tokens of salvation (imprints of the salvation-reality
experienced by Christians), could be thwarted from entry into "the
promised land" (the Kingdom of God) by idolatry and sexual immorality.
Paul isn't warning the Corinthian believers merely that they might be lowered a
few rungs on the heavenly tiers but rather that they might not make it at all
if they continue to put God "to the test."
Nor can anyone doubt that Paul had made a genuine confession
of faith in Christ. Yet he still considers it a possibility that he could be
excluded from God’s kingdom if he didn’t continue running the race and bringing
his body into subjection.
Paul is not making this observation only for his own sake; he
applies it to the Corinthians who apparently hold something akin to the modern
OSAS view. Paul recounted to them the Old Testament story of the destruction of
the wilderness generation as God’s judgment for their involvement in idolatry
and sexual immorality (1 Cor 10:1-13):
"I do not want you to be ignorant (of the fact), brothers
(and sisters), that our fathers [i.e. ancestors] all were under the cloud and
all went through the sea. And all were baptized [i.e., immersed, plunged] into
Moses in [i.e., by means of] the cloud and in the sea; and all ate the same
spiritual food and all drank the same spiritual drink; for they drank from the
spiritual rock that was following (them), and the rock was the Christ. But God
did not think well of most of them, for they were strewn in the desert.
"Now these things became examples (tupoi) for us, in
order that we might not be desirers of evil things, just as those (persons)
also desired. Nor become idolaters, just as some of them (were), as (indeed) it
is written: “The people sat down to eat and to drink and stood up to play”
[Exod 32:6]. Nor let us commit sexual immorality, just as some of them
committed sexual immorality and fell in one day twenty-three thousand. Nor let us
put Christ [or: the Lord] to the test, just as some of them put (him) to the
test and were killed by the serpents. Nor let us grumble, as some of them
grumbled and were killed by the Destroyer. Now these things happened to those
(persons) as an example (to us) [or: in an archetypal manner; Gk. tupikōs], and
they were written with a view for our admonition, onto whom the ends of the
ages have come down. So let the one who thinks that he stands watch out lest he
falls. No test has taken you except a human one [or: one common to humanity;
i.e., bearable]. God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tested beyond
what you are able (to bear) but will make with the test also the way out in
order that you may be able to bear up (under it)." (GET)
The point of Paul’s midrash (exposition) of Israel’s
disastrous desert wanderings after their exodus from Egypt is clearly to warn
the Corinthians not to become presumptuous through some eternal security
doctrine. Israel’s wilderness generation had tokens of salvation comparable to
that of the Corinthian believers: a “baptism” of sorts “into Moses” as well as
partaking of “spiritual food and drink.”
True, their tokens of salvation were shadows or archetypes
prefiguring the reality of Christian experience. Nonetheless, they were real
experiences of God’s deliverance. Yet because of engaging in idolatry and
sexual immorality hardly any of them made it to the promised land—an image that
prefigures Christian inheritance of the kingdom of God in the age to come.
Paul’s point is to warn the Corinthians: Even though you have
been incorporated into Christ and regularly confirm that relationship in the
celebration of the Eucharist, you too could still fall if you persist in
idolatry (compare the rebuke in the rest of ch. 10 about not going to an idol’s
temple) and sexual immorality (compare the case of the incestuous man in chs.
5-6).
It is in connection with this warning that Paul wants the
Corinthians to think again of his metaphor in 9:27-29 of not winning the wreath
of imperishability if he slacks off in the race.
The assurances at the end in 10:12-13 regarding God’s
faithfulness to restrict the testing to a degree that they can endure (or else
make a way of escape) do not take back the previous warning that they could yet
fail to pass the test. The Corinthians would endure or take the ‘way out”
precisely by not engaging in idolatry and/or sexual immorality. God has done
everything on his part to make it possible for the Corinthians to “flee sexual
immorality” (6:18) and “flee from idolatry” (10:14). So they have not excuse
for not fleeing such evils and only themselves to blame if they should fall.
Paul does not encourage the Corinthians to reassure themselves
that they could never fall away. On the contrary he insists that “the one who
thinks that he stands should watch out lest he falls.” The prospect of falling
is real. It is the reason for the all-too-genuine warning. What is at stake for
the Corinthian believers? Paul has already told them in 6:9-10: The sexually
immoral and idolaters will not inherit the kingdom of God.
It is important to remember here that Paul is certain not only
that he is a genuine believer but also that the Corinthians are. He repeatedly
refers to their reception of the Spirit of Christ, from the thanksgiving in
1:4-9 on. In the midrash (exposition) of Israel's wilderness wanderings, he
recognizes that the Corinthians have indeed left "Egypt" (the old
pre-Christian life) and experienced redemption. But they haven't yet made it to
the promised land (for the Corinthians, the Kingdom of God). If they don't flee
idolatry and sexual immorality, he warns them, they might not make it.
This possible fate does not lead Paul to deny that they were
ever genuine believers who possessed the Spirit of Christ, as the POTS view
would require. In fact, in treating the case of the incestuous man (1 Cor 5),
he offers as an analogy a genuine believer who is a "member of Christ's
body," "joined to the Lord" and "one Spirit with him,"
and whose body is "a temple of the Holy Spirit in you," and who have
already been "bought with a price," the price of Christ's atoning
death (6:15-20).
Being a genuine believer does not make the commission of
egregious unrepentant sin better (on the false assumption that such a one has
no worry about losing salvation). It makes it worse, because in a perverse way
it involves Christ's temple in the sin. Paul's warnings to the Corinthians
presumes the genuineness of their faith and yet still warns them of future
disqualification.
Paul wanted the Corinthian Christians to believe that, even
though, they were genuine members of Christ's body, they could yet fall away
from the faith to their eternal ruin should they now be overtaken by the sins
of idolatry and sexual immorality.
Another favorite text from the Gospel of John that OSAS
(Once-Saved-Always-Saved) Christians often cite, in addition to John 6:39
treated in a prior post, is John 10:28-30:
"And I give [my sheep] eternal life, and they shall
certainly never perish; and no one will snatch them from my hand. My Father who
has given (them) to me [or read with other significant manuscripts: what my
Father has given] is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of
my Father’s hand. I and my Father are one."
The passage provides an assurance to Jesus’ “sheep” that no
“wolves” coming from outside are strong enough to get at the sheep that remain
in his fold (contrast 10:12 which refers to a wolf “snatching” the sheep from
“the hired help”).
It also defines “the sheep” in 10:27 as those who “are
listening to my voice” and “are following me.” There is no assurance given here
that those who stop hearing Jesus’ voice and following him will not perish.
This is evident from other texts in John that supply conditions or
qualifications, for example (emphases added):
"I am the light of the world. The one who follows me
shall certainly not walk in the darkness but will have the light of life."
(8:12)
"So Jesus was saying to the Jews who had believed him,
'If you remain in my word, you are truly my disciples.'" (8:31)
"Amen, amen, I say to you, if anyone keeps my word, he
shall certainly never see death." (8:51)
"The one who has my commandments and keeps them is the
one who loves me; and the one who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I
will love him and will manifest myself to him." (14:21)
"If you keep my commandments, you will remain in my love,
just as I have kept the commandments of my Father and remain in his love…. You
are my friends if you are doing what I am commanding you." (15:10)
An example of those who did not so remain in Jesus’ word and
continue to follow him appears in John 6:66-71. The text speaks of “many of his
disciples” who no longer followed Jesus after his
eat-my-flesh-and-drink-my-blood speech.
Most important of all is the vine-branches analogy in John 15
(discussed in the prior post), which makes clear that believers who are “in
Christ” are removed by God if they do not “bear fruit.” Those that are removed
are thrown “into the fire.”
It is important to note here that exclusion from God’s kingdom
for failure to bear fruit does not imply that those who do bear fruit in some
way merit God’s kindness. The branch produces fruit only if it remains in the
vine: “Without me you can do nothing.” Only the Father and the Son get the credit
for our transformed lives.
John 6:39 is one of the main proof texts used to promote a
doctrine of eternal security. Taken in isolation it seems to demonstrate just
that: "This is the will of the One who sent me, that everything that he
has given me I will not lose from it (i.e., that I will not lose anything of
what he has given me), but I will raise it up on the last day."
In the context of the whole of John's Gospel, however, it does
not prove eternal security. It demonstrates what Jesus reiterates in the very
next verse, "that everyone who is seeing the Son and believing in him has
eternal life, and I (Jesus) will raise him up on the last day." But the
"believing in him" is not the one-time act that many promoters of
eternal security make it out to be; rather it is a continuous state of being
that must persist for the whole of one's Christian life (a view of faith that
agrees with Paul's own: Gal 2:19-20; 1 Cor 15:1-2; Rom 1:17; etc.).
Those who do not persist in faith by failing to bear fruit
(i.e., to live a transformed life) are presented in John 15:1-17 as being like
branches that are cut off from the Vine (Christ) and thrown into the fire to be
destroyed. Only those who persist in faith show themselves to be
"given" to Christ by God and not lost by Jesus -- not
"lost" in the sense of failing to be raised up on the last day.
Those who persist in faith, which is shown by bearing fruit,
Jesus will not lose but will raise up on the last day. Losing refers to not
resurrecting those who persist in faith (not those who at one time in their
life had faith in Christ). Jesus is assuring his followers that if they
continue in faith he will resurrect them in the Kingdom to come. He is not
assuring them that a one-time act of faith gives them an irrevocable ticket to
the Kingdom.
John 15 is clear that "every branch in me that does not
bear fruit [my Father] takes away" (v. 2). That is why Jesus emphasizes
that those who believe in him must "remain (abide, stay) in me" (v.
4). But "if anyone does not remain in me, he is thrown out like a branch
and dries up and they gather them and throw them into the fire and they are
burned" (v. 6). Only "if you keep the commandments" do you
"remain in my love" (v. 10).
Obviously the image of branches connected to the vine
represents persons who are genuinely "in Christ" through the
possession of his Spirit. The removal of branches that do not bear fruit and
their throwing into the fire is a clear illustration of the falling away of
genuine believers who no longer continue to keep his commandments and exhibit a
transformed life.
The metaphor of the vine and the branches in John 15 is
similar to the image of the cultivated olive tree offered by the apostle Paul
in Romans 11:16-24. In Romans 11:20-22, Paul, continuing his "Gentile
grafting" metaphor, states clearly to the Gentile believers in Rome:
"Don’t be high-minded (about being incorporated into the Israel tree from
which 'some' Israel branches were broken off), but fear. For if God did not
spare the natural branches, neither will he spare you. See then the kindness
and severity of God: on the one hand, toward those who fell, severity; on the
other hand, toward you the kindness of God, if (Gk. ean) you remain [stay,
abide, continue] in the kindness, since (otherwise) you too will be cut
off."
The "if" clause is a clear condition and an implicit
warning for those who don't continue in God's kindness by exhibiting a
transformed life (see 12:1-2). Paul doesn't say that the Gentile believers only
appear to be grafted into the cultivated olive tree. God has genuinely grafted
them in, which is a metaphor for being within the sphere of salvation. The
breaking off of "some" Israel branches (11:17) is a statement about
removal (at least for the time being) of unbelieving Jews from the sphere of
salvation. The cutting of Gentile branches must refer to the same thing:
removal from the sphere of salvation after having once been in it.
One could argue that Paul and John don't really mean what they
are saying; or that by threatening genuine believers with loss of salvation
Paul and John effect their retention in the fold (i.e., the warnings are God's
perfectly effective means of keeping all believers eternally secure, without
which they might fall). But one cannot say that Paul and John do not want their
audience of believers in Christ to think that they can never fall away. The
analogy works only the premise that they can, if they do not continue in faith,
which is presented as a real possibility.
The horticulture analogy works only if their audience is
persuaded to believe that they could fall away. So this is manifestly what Paul
and John want their audience to believe (which, incidentally, does not
translate into eternal insecurity). When we assure believers that they can
never fall away once they make a single genuine confession of faith in Christ,
we undo what Paul and John (and Jesus, and the writers of Hebrews, the Petrine
epistles, James, and Revelation) are attempting to achieve: Keeping them
vigilant in the faith through a dire warning of loss of salvation.
