In this article, I want to expand on what I wrote about in my last article. Last time I showed how passages that are interpreted as saying that once we are genuinely saved there is no falling away can be reinterpreted to agree with all of Scripture. The danger of falling away lies within and not in God or other outside forces. Last time I expanded on Galatians and the example it gives of distorting the Gospel and consequently falling from grace. I wish that were the only way to fall away. It is not.
The Bible does point out other ways to fail. A fairly well-defined one is failing to forgive. It is right there in the Lord’s Prayer. Forgive us our trespasses how? As we forgive those who trespass against us. What if we don’t forgive? The Parable of the Unforgiving Servant in Matthew 18:21-35 is quite explicit. After telling the story of a servant who was forgiven a massive debt and then proceeded to not forgive a modest one, the story concludes with this sobering statement:
34 And in anger his master delivered him to the jailers, until he should pay all his debt. 35 So also my heavenly Father will do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother from your heart.”
Matthew 18:34-35 (ESV)
What this means is fairly obvious. We must forgive those who ask us for forgiveness. Now as the disciples of Jesus we are given the task of forgiving or retaining sin. In the case of defiance or indifference we are to “retain”, announce non-forgiveness. We are not allowed to retain a sin because we are hurt or angry. Our debt before God was greater and He forgives. Can a genuinely saved person fail to forgive. I’m afraid the answer is “yes”. When we are outside of forgiveness because we refuse to forgive, then we are not part of the Body of Christ and Kingdom of Heaven anymore.
Another scenario is described in the Parable of the Sower (Luke 8:4-15, Matthew 13, and Mark 4). Two groups of the four described in the parable have plants, which represent our faith connection to Jesus, which fail in the course of time because of shallow roots or choking thorns. How do you get into such a situation? Nobody is inherently set up to fail. It is an internal problem, that causes this. God provides the means to have “spiritual depth”. He provides what is described as the “moisture” required to have a living plant. The power of God’s Word (Romans 10:17) and the function of Jesus’ body and blood in the Lord’s Supper (John 6:56) are what directly sustains our connection to Christ in times of trials and keeps our priorities straight in the presences of life’s worries, the attraction of wealth, and the attraction of the pleasures of life. You do have to use them. Many people foolishly and recklessly don’t. You can also add as examples of this problem the luke-warmness of the congregations in Ephesus (Revelation 2) and Laodicea (Revelation 3). Their tepid faith is leading to a similar end.
The final scenario is unrepentant sin. Unfortunately, we still retain our sinful nature after we are saved. We are given the Holy Spirit to counter this fact, but people choose ways to follow sinful nature. Death will relieve us of sinful nature. Until then, we are to live in repentance. The Bible exhorts us to obey. This is to please God. This is to enhance our mission. It also counters this backdoor failure of faith. The discipline of confession is to counter this problem. 1 Corinthians 10:1-12 uses the example of Israel during the Exodus to illustrate the ongoing danger. Now, we are not exactly like the Old Testament people. The grace of Jesus has come. The Holy Spirit is given. Still Paul warns that we might “fall”. Unrepentant idolatry, sexual sin, even grumbling are mentioned as routes to failure in this section. There are others. Several of the letters to the churches in Revelation 2 and 3 have similar warnings. They had in their midst the seeds of this becoming a congregation-wide disaster just as the Corinthians did, in the form of the Nicolaitians, those encouraging food sacrificed to idols and sexual immorality, and Jezebel (who taught the same).
With the last two examples you can see a type of crossover problem. It could be seen as dangerous doctrine or dangerous, unrepentant behavior. This is my biggest problem with the ideology of the LGBTQ+ community. I realize that these behaviors have a root in a person’s sinful nature. So you are born with one factor. Not everybody is. I also know that much of this disorientation can be connected to trauma. Nobody asks for this. Still, sin is not just willful disobedience. It is also what we are. If one understands that these orientations, urges and behaviors are sin, then they are no worse than any other sin and totally forgivable. A repentant person may experience these things all their lives, and still be “in Christ”. The ideology seeks to normalize these things and encourages unrepentance which walls you off from Jesus as all unrepentance does.
Christ finds us as people who are spiritually dead. He fulfills the Law for us. He suffers being forsaken in our stead. His righteous becomes our righteousness when the Holy Spirit gets through to us and Jesus connects us to himself. This is all God. It is not from us. We then must persevere through the remainder of our lives with our sinful nature and in a faith-hostile environment. God provides the means to do so, but it is not a slam-dunk. People fail all the time. Understanding and respecting the dangers goes a long way to achieving the goal. It is a part of “working out your salvation with fear and trembling” (Phil. 2:12)
Giving Christ 