Critics of the Bible often say that the Bible contradicts itself. I understand where this is coming from. Sometimes the contradiction is about something of no consequence. For instance, who saw the resurrected Jesus first? I don’t care. That the Bible has contradictory accounts of how the resurrection of Jesus was discovered does not bother me. On the contrary, it reflects that the accounts are real and not deliberately coordinated. People have terrible memories when they experience a startling event. The resurrection was that.
There are more substantial apparent contradictions. The biggest seems to be how we are saved. Is it by grace, as a gift, or is it the result of our works. Calling this a contradiction simply reflects a misunderstanding of what is said. We are saved by Jesus. It is not our faith or our works, Jesus is the cause. Faith results from Jesus getting a hold on minds. Good works, properly motivated, are the result of Jesus getting a hold of our minds as well.
The next largest apparent contradiction is the topic I want to write about today. Can a person who has legitimately received God’s grace, is saved, and has the Holy Spirit, fall from grace; or is that impossible? There are several passages that would suggest that you can’t, and, taken alone, seem conclusive. But there are a great many passages that make no sense if we stay with that interpretation. Does the Bible contradict itself?
Let’s look at the support passages for “once saved, always saved”.
27 My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me.28 I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. 29 My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand.
John 10:27-29 (ESV)
This is a powerful passage and very good news. If I were concerned about losing what I have through Jesus, one concern would be that outside forces like other people or maybe Satan could tear me away from Christ. In this passage we learn that this can’t happen. It nullifies all possibilities but one. Me. I can take myself away.
23 since you have been born again, not of perishable seed but of imperishable, through the living and abiding word of God;
1 Peter 1:23 (ESV)
“Imperishable” is the strong word here. What is imperishable? The Word of God. God’s promise will never change. That still doesn’t exclude my changing.
35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword?
Romans 8:35 (ESV)
This is a rhetorical question with the implied answer of “nothing”. God will not stop loving us. Does it say that our love won’t grow cold or that we can’t separate ourselves?
13 In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit,
Ephesians 1:13 (ESV)
The Holy Spirit “seals” us. How can it be unsealed? We don’t have a direct definition of what this means. Without a doubt the Holy Spirit fights for us to remain “in Christ”. This is a substantial resource in not falling away from grace, but it is not an absolute one. In appears that God wants us to have some agency in the preservation of our faith. We couldn’t do anything to earn or deserve our salvation, but we are given some ability to show our love for God by using the resources God gives to last from the moment we first are connected to Christ to the moment we leave our sinful flesh behind at our death.
As I mentioned before, there are many passages that exhort us to exert our agency to “remain in Christ”, “confirm our election”, “never fall”, and similar statements. There are parables that include portions of about people who fall away like the Parable of the Sower https://givingchrist.com/2018/11/13/insights-from-the-parable-of-the-sower/, and others. There is also a parable of someone coming back from falling away in the Parable of Prodigal Son. The most in-your-face account of falling from grace is the book of Galatians.
The Galatians were a group brought to salvation by Paul himself. They have the gifts of the Holy Spirit. They know the Gospel. They are legit. Yet, when a group known as the Judaizers shows up and preaches that you are saved by Jesus but must be circumcised as a nod to the Old Testament law, and they adopt this adulterated “gospel”. Pauls says this to them:
2 Look: I, Paul, say to you that if you accept circumcision, Christ will be of no advantage to you. 3 I testify again to every man who accepts circumcision that he is obligated to keep the whole law.4 You are severed from Christ, you who would be justified by the law; you have fallen away from grace.
Galatians 5:2-4 (ESV)
I’m sure that there must be theologians, who proclaim “once saved, always saved”, who spin this passage so that it fits. If it would be the only passage like this, I would listen. It is not. This passage uses the strong words “be of no advantage”, “severed”, “fallen”. It seems definitive to me. The passages above can easily be seen as limited in their scope. They don’t talk about our abandoning Christ. There is no contradiction.
The answer may not be what you wish. To be fair, everybody understands that people fall away. That, sadly, is readily observable. It is just how we explain it. To say that these people never had a legitimate faith casts doubt in minds of everyone about their standing with God. I can confidently say that I am in Christ. I can observe a preponderance of evidence that this is so. I can also have confidence that I will remain in Christ because God does have me, loves me, He is trustworthy and consistent, and the Holy Spirit fights for me.
I just need to respect the dangers that are still in me.
Giving Christ 