U
uther
Guest
OldProf,
I have read through these posts with great interest and I have also read the particular passages from the Gospel of John that you refer most to in your defence of “assurance of salvation.”
Several of the posters for the Catholic position have touched on the nub of this in several ways. The net effect, I think, is that we are not really that far apart, but much of it depends upon our understanding of pre-destination and free-will. Perhaps you will agree that those are the underlying principles going on in this discussion.
Let me give you a scenario for which I draw upon my own Evangelical past to construct. Suppose we have a Billy Graham crusade (going back a few years) and ten people go down at the altar call and accept Jesus as their personal Lord and Savior. They pray the sinner’s prayer and are assured by the counselors that they are now saved and should they die today, they will go to heaven.
Let us suppose that such a scenario did in fact happen. They were all on the same bus that got hit by a train and they all died, all ten of them. Would you not say then that all of them have gone to heaven? If we are to leave judgment up to God and we objectively know that each one has publicly declared their faith in Jesus Christ, how could we distinguish between them and suggest that one or more of them may not have been truly saved, or truly Christian? There is “assurance of salvation” in action, it seems to me.
However. let us suppose that such a disaster did not happen and ten years later we looked in on the lives of all of these ten people. Perhaps we might want to invoke the parable of the sower and the seed, because we find that perhaps four or five of them are no longer practicing Christians in any meaningful sense. This “backsliding” (a term I heard repeated many times in my youth) may have gone on quickly in some cases, or perhaps over a longer period of years.
It seems to me then, that the idea that those four or five were never Christian in the first place is simply a catch-all convenient dodge to hold together the “assurance” doctrine. How so? Because simply put, when those ten people stood before the altar ten years before, they were told that they had the assurance of salvation and believed it. How could we say otherwise? Do we know their hearts? Must we not take someone’s word who says “yes, I was saved at such-and-such time on such-and-such day in such-and-such place.” Yet, the escape valve of never having been a Christian throws doubt over the entire concept of “assurance” does it not? How can you tell someone that accepts Jesus into his heart that they have the “assurance” of salvation absolutely but with the caveat that, “oh, by the way, if you don’t produce fruit, if you don’t live a moral life, that assurance is not absolute after all and in fact you probably were never a Christian to begin with.” At which point the convert says, “I thought you told me that accepting Jesus into my heart was all that I had to do to be saved!”
Others here have pointed out the truth of the matter. Jesus assures us this; Satan, from whom all evil derives, and all temptation arises, through minions and agents directly, has no power to take anyone away from Christ. He just does not have that power. Christ protects those who are his own. He laid down his life for the sheep and he guards them. Absolutely. Amen!
But the one thing he does not do to his sheep is turn them into non-humans, into zombie Christians. He does not remove their free will. In fact, if we take as a touch-stone to this discussion, the verse 2 Peter 3:9 “The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.” (KJV)
or from our Lord himself in Matthew 18:14 " Even so it is not the will of your Father which is in heaven, that one of these little ones should perish." (KJV);
we see that God is not willing that anyone should be lost. But we know that God has the power to save us, so that there can be only one thing causing those to be lost who are part of the many on the wide path to destruction. What is that one thing? Their own free will. They chose it. So then the parable of the sower merely illustrates that fact, that God does not remove free-will.
(Cont.)
I have read through these posts with great interest and I have also read the particular passages from the Gospel of John that you refer most to in your defence of “assurance of salvation.”
Several of the posters for the Catholic position have touched on the nub of this in several ways. The net effect, I think, is that we are not really that far apart, but much of it depends upon our understanding of pre-destination and free-will. Perhaps you will agree that those are the underlying principles going on in this discussion.
Let me give you a scenario for which I draw upon my own Evangelical past to construct. Suppose we have a Billy Graham crusade (going back a few years) and ten people go down at the altar call and accept Jesus as their personal Lord and Savior. They pray the sinner’s prayer and are assured by the counselors that they are now saved and should they die today, they will go to heaven.
Let us suppose that such a scenario did in fact happen. They were all on the same bus that got hit by a train and they all died, all ten of them. Would you not say then that all of them have gone to heaven? If we are to leave judgment up to God and we objectively know that each one has publicly declared their faith in Jesus Christ, how could we distinguish between them and suggest that one or more of them may not have been truly saved, or truly Christian? There is “assurance of salvation” in action, it seems to me.
However. let us suppose that such a disaster did not happen and ten years later we looked in on the lives of all of these ten people. Perhaps we might want to invoke the parable of the sower and the seed, because we find that perhaps four or five of them are no longer practicing Christians in any meaningful sense. This “backsliding” (a term I heard repeated many times in my youth) may have gone on quickly in some cases, or perhaps over a longer period of years.
It seems to me then, that the idea that those four or five were never Christian in the first place is simply a catch-all convenient dodge to hold together the “assurance” doctrine. How so? Because simply put, when those ten people stood before the altar ten years before, they were told that they had the assurance of salvation and believed it. How could we say otherwise? Do we know their hearts? Must we not take someone’s word who says “yes, I was saved at such-and-such time on such-and-such day in such-and-such place.” Yet, the escape valve of never having been a Christian throws doubt over the entire concept of “assurance” does it not? How can you tell someone that accepts Jesus into his heart that they have the “assurance” of salvation absolutely but with the caveat that, “oh, by the way, if you don’t produce fruit, if you don’t live a moral life, that assurance is not absolute after all and in fact you probably were never a Christian to begin with.” At which point the convert says, “I thought you told me that accepting Jesus into my heart was all that I had to do to be saved!”
Others here have pointed out the truth of the matter. Jesus assures us this; Satan, from whom all evil derives, and all temptation arises, through minions and agents directly, has no power to take anyone away from Christ. He just does not have that power. Christ protects those who are his own. He laid down his life for the sheep and he guards them. Absolutely. Amen!
But the one thing he does not do to his sheep is turn them into non-humans, into zombie Christians. He does not remove their free will. In fact, if we take as a touch-stone to this discussion, the verse 2 Peter 3:9 “The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.” (KJV)
or from our Lord himself in Matthew 18:14 " Even so it is not the will of your Father which is in heaven, that one of these little ones should perish." (KJV);
we see that God is not willing that anyone should be lost. But we know that God has the power to save us, so that there can be only one thing causing those to be lost who are part of the many on the wide path to destruction. What is that one thing? Their own free will. They chose it. So then the parable of the sower merely illustrates that fact, that God does not remove free-will.
(Cont.)
