Question:
A friend of mine is struggling with the issue of eternal security. Here’s the gist of his struggle:
John 1:17 says, “For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.”
Eph 2:8 says, “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith.” Ok, so salvation has come thru grace by faith. OK, well what is faith? We know that the Bible says, “Faith without works is dead (James 2). The Bible also says Christians will be recognized by fruits (Matt 7:16). So if it’s about works and bearing fruit, then that brings me to, if someone is a professing Christian, but not bearing fruit… does that mean they are not saved? does that mean they have lost their salvation? or were they never saved?
Answer:
On the question of eternal security and assurance of salvation (two sides of the same theological coin), the truth is that the Bible itself has a certain creative tension on the issue. I’m convinced that is Holy Spirit-inspired and healthy. On an issue like this, I am increasingly uncomfortable with anyone being able to offer a simple, logical, consistent explanation that settles everything for everyone at every point in their lives. If God wanted to do that for us, he certainly would have inspired a systematic theology textbook instead of the Bible, which is full of stories of real people, theology applied to real situations, and at some points some deliberately creative tension and paradox.
1 John is the best book for your friend to read and meditate on. 1 John was written for the issue of assurance and insists believers can live with assurance of eternal life (1 John 5:13). But it doesn’t give the standard evangelical answer shaped by the Second Great Awakening – come to the altar call, pray the sinner’s prayer, and just believe that if you did that with sincerity you’re going to heaven based on that experience at a given moment in time.
Instead, John asks three questions to increase assurance: Do you believe Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God? Do you obey his commands? Do you love with his kind of love? Faith, obedience, and love generate assurance. But it’s not about perfection in any of those areas – see 1:7 through 2:1. It’s about trusting him to forgive you because Jesus Christ is your advocate before the Father.
So that’s the constant tension. I am saved not by what I do, but by faith in Jesus Christ. But the response to that is gratitude which constantly pushes me to deeper faith, obedience, and love – leaving no stone unturned in my desire to please him. If that’s not my heart, I should expect doubt to creep in, rightfully. If it is my heart, then I simply have to tell myself the truth over and over again (or else go to a good Christian counselor) and give God the opportunity to heal my feelings of false guilt even when I realize my constant shortcomings and failures.
Bob,
Love the new site!
I won’t turn every post into a deep theological discussion, but it seems to me some of the tension over “Who is saved?” in the broader modern world has been reduced from “faith v. works” to “faith in Christ v. faith in ‘God’.” The historic traditions of insisting on capitulation to very specific tenets (covering the theological gamut from the Trinity, say, to Baptism fine points) seem to be eroding. There seems to be a continual watering down of salvation requirements, so to speak, until all that is left for some is a requirement not to be (openly) atheistic.
I’m sure many might bemoan what they predicted as the logical extension of the ecumenical movement: As the church seeks to embrace a wider audience, it insists on progressively fewer criteria in which one must have “faith”–fewer absolutes which serve as the bare minimum beliefs for salvation–until, at last, all that is required for salvation is some sort of vague faith in “God” without any absolute specifics at all.
And that watering down, in turn, leads to a loss of assurance. After all, if the church can’t get straight what the core requirements are for salvation, then maybe there aren’t any–or if there are, we can’t be assured we have them right…