The P of TULIP is Perseverance of the Saints. And so the question rises, "can you lose your salvation?" Just asking that question will get you kicked out of many in-home bible studies! Nevertheless, the Reformed and the Arminian Protestants answer this in ways that we note and unpack. And then me? The UU? Who takes Trinity (and so personhood, and agency, and mission, and love) as my theological foundation, what do I say? What bible verses inform my thinking? What theological commitments inform my thinking? At the show's opening I make a couple cultural reflections (because the Lordship of Christ does not stop at the boundary of cuulture) on judging evil vs. doing evil. Which of those two is worse? I also a question provocative for contemporary Christianity, was Jesus tame? Come think and laugh with me!
The Uncensored Unprofessor
371 Reformed vs. Arminian (9) Can You Lose Your Salvation?
(upbeat music) With the oral sting of a new crown in my mouth, welcome to the uncensored unprofessor. Yeah, I went into the dentist this morning and got a new crown put in my upper tooth. Maybe I'll tell the story next week, but hey, enough about me. Welcome all you nerds. Welcome to a little show about big ideas. Ideas like, can you lose salvation? I mean, snikies, merely asking that'll get you booted out of many in-home Bible studies, right? And thinking about big ideas, here's one. Studying the gospels and seeing Jesus in his historical context, do you think he was tame? Was Jesus of Nazareth a tame person? Was his message tame? Did people experience him as a tame personality? I won't answer that for you today, but I want you to think about it. No one has so touched or imprinted himself upon all of human history as Jesus the Christ. So I wonder, was he tame? Many of my listeners live in Southern California. Where I did for, what, 35 years, I loved it there. But if you live in the LA or the Orange County area, maybe you need a new roof on your home. You have a commercial business that needs some roofing work. If so, I highly recommend Gallerini roofing to you. That's G-A-L-L-A-R-I-N-I Gallerini roofing. Licensed and insured, they've been in business for over 35 years. And they do high quality, professional, courteous roofing work. They do repairs too, not just new roofs. So give him a call at 714-244-6567. That's 714-244-6567. You won't be disappointed. Gallerini roofing, a proud, uncensored, unprofessor, sponsor. Oh, but questions. I have another one for you. Which is worse, assuming evil intent within a person's actions or ignoring the open evil at work inside a person's actions? Hmm, the former, assuming evil, is if erroneous, bearing false witness against someone of violation of the ninth commandment. The latter, ignoring open evil at work is a violation of both God's command to hate evil and his constant biblical exhortations for us to actually do something about that evil at work in our midst. So, which is worse? And please, oh, please now. I'm not asking that question with regard to 2024's pleasant, never offensive. Nice, Christianity. No, I'm asking it in light of 66 inspired books of the Bible. Which is worse, assuming evil intent in a person's actions or ignoring the open evil at work in a person's actions? Please chew on that one for a while. Oh, and I just gotta say thank you, us, Guinness. I gotta ask you one more question, my un-listener, which is the worse in judging evil or doing evil? Because I fear just asking that I fear too many so-called Christians are confused about the matter. Now, I just gotta be honest, I'm still waiting. I'm waiting for the event. I'm waiting for the thing, the blow up, the urban riot, the shooting, the electrical grid going down somewhere, World War III. I'm waiting for whatever it is that is going to attempt to redirect our nation and influence the election. And it's the truth, every morning I check the news. Did Joe Biden have a stroke? Did someone shoot Trump? 'Cause something's going to happen prior to November 5th. There's no way the Dems are rolling into that election with the possibility of losing the presidency following his abysmal debate performance a couple of weeks ago. Slochi's losing momentum in every poll, every swing state, even in purple-ish states. So do we think the progressives will willingly lose absolute DOJ power like they have right now? Persecuting Latin-speaking Catholics, Latin-celebrating Catholics? No. Do we think they wanna lose an arms wide open border? De nada. Do they wanna lose control over LGBTQing the military? Look it, there's no way they're rolling into the election with their arms raised in electoral surrender. I mean, unless they plan on stealing the election again, yes, it could just be a Soviet-style matter of ballots versus votes, right? I mean, there are citizens who vote and then there's the counting of ballots. And in 2020, ballots were far more critical than people who voted, so what's it gonna be? But here's the story today, you guys. I have way too much to cover theologically speaking, so that's all the cultural question asking and application that I'm going to note. - Aww. (upbeat music) - Can you lose your salvation? I'm gonna dig into that. But first I need to do some earnest soul care follow up. In prior episodes, I've used some terminology that I wanna clarify. Me, I do know my evangelical audience. (laughs) And I know how my few previous shows have been received or not, so I wanna unpack some things for you. I addressed the topics of evil, God and the existence of evil and the issue of salvation and works last week by using the categories of Trinity, personhood, agency, and mission. And again, 'cause I know my audience, there were listeners who were like, but Ed, none of those categories show up as express Bible verses. Why rely on terms that aren't biblical? So, let's do some use-plaining. Trinity, it's true. Nowhere does the word Trinity appear in the Bible, but the Bible, its first and foremost aim is to drive us to God. Or more particularly, the Bible is driving us to the character of God. We see that through moral commandments and lessons and stories and teachings about eternity and relationship, all of that is predicated on the character, the essence of God. We're called to obedience and relationship in eternal life with a God who is a certain and specific God. And as we drive ever deeper into that issue about God's identity, we learn expressly through the coming of Jesus Christ that God is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. So then, to have Trinity as the foundation of our theology, that's about as sturdy as we can get. Everything in the biblical, everything in the Christian worldview flows out of whom God is, and as Father, Son, and Spirit, we are on a rock-solid foundation for all our framing of reality. God and His works, theologians insist, God and His works are a perfect unity. God does what God is, some famous theologian wrote, and what God is, Trinity, a second qualifier about personhood. Some of you heard me delineating God and the problem of evil, and then last week again with grace and works, as matters of personhood, and you wondered, but, hey, Ed, hey, Dr. You, personhood is not a verse somewhere in the Bible. And to be fair, you're right. There is no verse. But the Bible is everywhere unpacking reality as a matter of God in relation to other persons. First, again, with regard to the Trinity, God in relation to God, Father, Son, and Spirit. But flowing out of that, we see God in relation to we humus persons. We see Him in relation to Adam and Eve, then to Enoch and Abraham, Jacob, Isaac, Mary, and on, and on, and on. The Bible shows that God is reaching out to and revealing Himself to persons. And frankly, you guys, the fact that Western civilization for some 2,000 years now has been oriented around the category of personhood, owes directly to millions and millions of folks reading the Bible and seeing that God relates to us as persons. God, the person reaching out for a relationship and shared mission with human persons. So personhood is about as biblical a category as one can get. And so then flowing out of personhood is the category of agency. It's one I use frequently. Weave that frequently throughout my shows because God created us with agency. And that's part, part. It's part of what it means to be a person. Agency? Yes, it means things like power, potential, having a will, having the ability to express that will. There's an, we have an element of responsibility with regards to life. Now among Protestants, more commonly, this would be referred to as free will. But I wanna move as past the sovereignty of God versus free will 500 year old rassel in match. I wanna go to better and more biblical ways of framing who God calls us to be, whom he created us to be. And he didn't create us to be robots. We're not monkeys, most of us. He created us as agents. God never relates to his sole character in the Bible as though they were helpless robots. No, we are agents. Agents who can respond to God himself an agent who has personhood, power, potential, preferences. We're agents who can, as we learn across the Bible, even say no to God. (laughs) Why not just (laughs) and why not just say we have free will? Because it's not enough. It's not biblical enough to frame this as a matter of merely choosing up or down. Yes or no. We're not only beings with a will. We affect things. We change things. We do things. And when we do, it changes life itself. We are beings, persons, person created in the image of the tri-personally, eternal being. We're persons with power and potential and impact. And what we do impacts reality. And the Bible, from beginning to end, it both presumes our being agents and maintains that God will one day judges for our agency. He's not gonna only judge us for what we choose with our free will, he'll judge us for what we did with our relational power, what we did with our potential, what we did with our ability to impact and shape and heal or curse creation agency. And that, all that takes me today to mission. Now this is, I'm dogmatically certain. Mission is a category that gets entirely overlooked in the Reformed Arminian spat. The Reformed and Arminian family fricasso in its five century long argument now about who is the elect or not. That fricasso ignores entirely the Bible's beginning to end emphasis, that God calls humanity, God calls persons, Abraham, God calls Israel, calls his family and disciples, calls the church to mission. God wants co-workers. God didn't create us merely to enjoy life. And he did create us to enjoy life, but God called us to more than that. He called us to shape life, shape his creation. He called us to work and to bless. In Genesis 1, 28, and then shortly thereafter, in chapter 2, 15, we see the appearance of mission early on. God blessed them and God said to them be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth. And the Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to till it and keep it. From the very beginning, the Bible shows that God created us to work to do something beautiful with this cosmos. And frankly, as it turns out, with the coming of God's son, Jesus of Nazareth, that work includes gospel mission. The mission of the gospel is incorporated by our beautiful Lord with his coming into God's original plan. Go and be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. Jesus put it, summed it up this way in Matthew 28, 19. Go there, go there for and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. But the latter, the great commission making disciples, that commission doesn't eliminate the former, go and fill and subdue and steward my creation, do something beautiful with the cosmos. No, the latter, the great commission, completes the former. The great commission beautifies the former cultural mandate. The great commission renews the cultural mandate. The great commission takes the former, the cultural mandate, and presents it to God through Jesus Christ as a gift, as incense, as a holy offering. And so me, the UU, again, I just don't frame reality. I just don't frame these matters, salvation and election and damnation, inside the 200, excuse me, inside the 500 year old parameters of the Reformed and Arminian debate. And it, please know, it's not that that's an old way of framing it, the older I get, the more I like and treasure old things. It's not that the Reformed, Arminian debate is too old, it's that it's not biblical enough. And please, will you let me make one more clarification? Probably just like you, I assume the Reformed Arminian debate as the final standard, right? I mean, if you're not Arminian, you must be Reformed, or if you're not Reformed, you necessarily must be Arminian, right? I mean, that's how it was always rolled out to me, or maybe I assume that that's how I always thought it went. And so holding that, I'd say most Protestants and Catholics and Eastern Orthodox and the independents are Arminian since they're not Reformed. But actually, no, there are as myself and showing in this series, there are other ways to frame these matters, Trinitarian ways, personal ways, missional ways that align far more carefully without the Bible across 66 books, constantly presents the matter of life in God to us. But like I say, I know my evangelical audience and I just thought, you know what, I need to go back and clarify some terms. Whoo, it's important to clarify terms. If you have questions, email me at uncensoredunprofessor@gmail.com. Now, can you lose your salvation? And I want you to know, this is a springboard question off of the Reformed tulip. To you, L-I-P-P for perseverance of the saints. Saints, yeah, the elect. Can you lose your salvation? And the Reformed, they say, nope, no way. God in his pre-creational decree determine the individuals, not groups, not groupings. God determine the individuals who would be saved. If not also, who would be damned? Theologian Olsen put it in the negative like this. Satan wants all people damned to hell and God only wants a certain number damned to hell. Close quotes. And I say yikes, snikies, merciful God. But, say the Reformed, at least God wants to save some. Some? Yes, the elect. Those chosen for reasons known only to God in his pre-creational decree for eternal salvation. And so the Reformed say, praise God for his grace. And the Reformed assert, the elect cannot lose their salvation. Hallelujah. The elect cannot lose their salvation. Hallelujah. Why? Because. Monogism. It is God alone through his energy that saves. The elect person responds, amen, to the Holy Spirit's work of regeneration. And then the elect person believes and then lives a faithful life. Reformed theologian, Lorraine Bootner, said it like this, quote, "The elect are so influenced by divine power that their coming to God is an act of voluntary choice." Close quote. Or, again, Reformed theologians, Steele and Thomas wrote, quote, "Simply stated, the Holy Spirit never fails to bring salvation, never fails to bring to salvation those sinners whom he personally calls to Christ. He inevitably applies salvation to every sinner whom he intends to save, and it is his intention to save all the elect." End of quote. And then there's famed Reformed theologian, R.C. Sproul, who said, "God unilaterally and monetistically does for us what we cannot do for ourselves." Close quote. And all that in the Reformed model mysteriously happens without the person's will being violated. And so, so, there's nothing an elect person can do to lose salvation. Thanks be to God and Jesus Christ. God is Savior, not us. Our salvation, or the salvation of the elect, is certain. And that's the Reformed position. That's the P of Tulip. Now, I've pointed at this out before, but that is an emotionally reassuring position, right? It is indeed peace generating to know one cannot lose one salvation because it's a God thing. Salvation's a God thing. It's all about the power of God. Well, well, well, unless, unless, as I feared as a 13-year-old boy, what if I'm not one of the elect? What if I only think I am? What if I live my whole life and die and stand before God? And he tells me, "Sorry, Ed. You are not, as it turns out, one of my elect." Now, that'd be a terrifying reality for certain, right? But my assessment of the Reformed here today anyway, it's at least a two-fold problem. First, it makes, as we saw in my episode on the problem of evil, the Reformed position makes God the author of sin and Satan in reprobation. That's quite a problem. The Reformed model really paints God into a Freddy Kruegerian box, paints God into a box that the scriptures don't paint. And then, secondly, the problem I have with Reformed theology is that it denies creation, it denies a Mago Day, denies creation a Mago Day, and so it denies human agency. It denies the agency, mostly of the elect, because they have no role to play in the relationship of salvation, and it denies the agency entirely of the non-elect, the reprobate. But the truth is, the Bible just doesn't view agency in monergistic, God alone ways it just doesn't. It sees people, it sees persons as agents, and people respond of their own volition from out of actively involving their own agency. People are willfully involved in their final damnation, or people are, by the love of God, involved in the relationship called eternal life. So, me, Reformed on losing salvation, I can no go there. I don't accept the premises, I don't accept their doctrine of election, the dude can't abide their denial of creation. I don't accept that human beings are so totally depraved as to be incapable of responding to the workings of the Spirit. So, from A to Z, the dude cannot abide the Reformed position. And God bless all my Reformed sisters and brothers listening today, I'm honored to have you with me. What about the Armenians? Can you lose your salvation in the Armenian model? Well, the short answer is... Yes! One can lose salvation, but the more careful answer is yes, but there's mucho much variance. Some Armenians say yes, some Armenians say no, no. Why the divergence, why the variety? Well, the Bible in general, the New Testament in particular, has scores of verses that go in both directions on eternal security. Or, to put the question differently, do Armenians embrace one saved, always saved? And the answer is... mostly no. Mostly one saved, always saved, goes to Reformed sensibilities, sensibility stemming back to God's decree and irresistible grace. You see, you guys, this is important. In Armenian, out in Armenian models, following her man-zune, Arminius, John Wesley, in heavyweight theologians like Tom Odin, salvation is about responding to the Holy Spirit's offer of Prevenient Grace. And next week, I'm going to do an entire episode on common, common and Prevenient Grace. But for now, Prevenient is Latin for pre-coming, prior coming, already at work. By his spirit, God approaches sinners. I mean, here's Romans 5-8. But God chose his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. And it's true, in history, God already took the initiative for salvation in Christ's atoning death. The work of salvation on Golgoth that preceded our response. And out of Christ's atonement, God's Spirit begins in our hearts and minds, perhaps, by raising doubts or hungers, yearnings, and accompanying that, or preceding that, the Spirit convicts us of sin. And the work of grace, all of God, prior to a person's repentance and faith, this Prevenient Grace makes possible the person saying to us to the lordship of Christ. Again, it's the operation of a prior grace, Prevenient Grace, and God always takes the initiative in salvation. But importantly, in our many in theology, grace can be, indeed, rejected. Grace can be resisted. Grace is not irresistible. When someone is in Christ, can grace be resisted and rejected at the point of moving one outside of Christ? Well, that's a question. And our minions are, again, divided on the answer. Me? What do I want? Do you believe? Well, my short answer is yes. I believe it is possible to lose salvation. Jesus, many warnings about falling away or betraying Him make no sense if that's not possible. The Apostle Paul's warnings about apostasy and heresy and false doctrine all become pointless if falling away is impossible. Or the strong warnings in Hebrews, those are not mere rhetorical devices. Or to bring it into our experience, we, sadly, we all know people who once confess Christ, but today their hearts are stone cold. They're angry at the church. We even know folks who once followed Christ, who now hate Christianity, and that's losing salvation. Evil is real. So is the possibility of losing salvation and the possibility of forsaking Christ. And to think it through more carefully, I want to present a few important biblical themes. First, God is always first mover. Both the Reformed and our minions assert that, and I agree so do the Eastern Orthodox and the Roman Catholics. And I agree, salvation is always at the Lord's initiative. No one who ever lived reached out to God, apart from God. Never. I've never heard of a Christian walking by themselves out of the jungle. A Christian is someone who responds to the gospel. The gospel is God's initiative. God's call always. Even today, and you probably heard these stories, because I have heard many of them and read many of them, even those Muslims today who have life redirecting dreams, they are always directed to a church, or in the dream to the Bible, or in a dream to the pastor or a believer, and that dream is how, in their case, God takes the initiative. God moves first. So my first point is to agree with the Reformed and the our minions. We don't save ourselves. Full stop. A second point. The biblical portrayal is often more narrow, though, than the matter of salvation. And what we learn again through the biblical stories is that God approaches people for the sake of mission. Oh, we Protestants consumed as we are by questions of salvation. We find it nearly impossible to read the Bible without asking of every Bible figure and every Bible story. Was that person saved or not? But hear me clearly. That's not the Bible's first salvo. That's not the first point. The first point again in a story is often more a matter of relationship, a matter of partnering with God, a matter of joining God's mission and work with him in history. And whether that mission is to fight battles on behalf of the nation of Israel or to be a faithful king, a faithful judge, priest, prophet, who speaks to Israel on behalf of God's revelations, or joining God's mission of blessing the cosmos with his commands and ways of life or living faithfully in light of God's word. It's all a matter of mission. And so frequently we don't know whether the person was finally saved. Was, I mean, was King Saul finally saved? I mean, he was, it looks to me like at the end he was unfaithful. He rejected God's ways at the end of his life. He fell on his own sword. Did he manage to finally reject saving relationship with God? I don't know. What about David? I mean, he strategized to kill Uriah, the Hittite, so he could commit adultery with his wife Bathsheba. Did that ultimately move David out of a saving relationship with God? I don't know. I don't think so if I read the Psalms. If I read those stories, I don't think so. When Uza touched the ark of the covenant in 2 Samuel, chapter 6, and he was on the spot struck dead by God, was he therefore eternally damned? I don't know. But what I do know is each of those figures went against dramatically so the mission God had called them to enjoin. So my point, the church needs to be even more about mission than she is. And I can't, oh, you guys, I can't fill this out much more here, but serving Christ, and this is so dramatically ignored by too much of the church, serving Christ as a matter of gospel mission, serving Christ as a matter of making disciples. And it's true our works do give our words integrity. No, our mission is not about creating utopia. Yes, we need to be like Jesus and address suffering. No, we have zero interest in a neo-Marxist celebration of evil. No, our works are not part of salvation. Our works are not part of salvation. They are part of the mission. I mean, Jesus in Matthew 7 even warned those who said they were doing good deeds in his name. He says to them, "If you didn't do the will of the Father, on that day I may say to you, depart from me, I never knew you." This is about gospel mission, proclaiming Christ, bearing fruit, making disciples, disciples not just converts. A third point for me as I reway in on the Reformed Arminian debate about losing salvation. Third, salvation is not, not I say, a matter of Satan getting one vote, God getting one vote, and you casting the deciding vote. Apologies to my boyhood pastor. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeesh. Setting it up that way borders on semi-plegianism, a heresy that both the Reformed and Arminians rightly attacked. They both rightly attack works righteousness. Well, setting it up that way also gives Satan far too much credit, far too much agency. No, the truth is Romans 831. If Christ is for us, who can be against us? God's vote is 100% the saving in the grace, right? We merely not our head or bow our heart or live our lives with gratitude. We merely say amen to God's offer of grace. Salvation is of God alone. Eternal life, I mean, who can cause herself to live forever? Eternal life is of God alone, so if Christ is for us, who can be against us? If Christ is for us, who can be against us? And the answer is us, we, ourself, for. And here I'm going to be very pastoral. If you, my listener, are struggling with whether you are still in Christ, I mean, years ago you confessed Christ as Lord, but now you know you're not living for Him. You still feel conviction of the Holy Spirit in your heart, do you? Do you still feel that convicting work? Do you find yourself being miserable about your sins? If so, you are still His child. You are still in Christ. No, the true, scary places to no longer care, to no longer sense that conviction, to no longer be aware of the operation of the Holy Spirit, to no longer even be bothered by patterns of sin. But if you struggle, you miserable sinner, right? Christians are miserable sinners. But if you are, if the Spirit is still working, you belong to Him. Go repent, find a confesser if need be, mend your ways, and start living for our Lord, our beautiful Savior. Our fifth point for you today, this won't surprise you. Salvation is a relationship. Are you in Christ? Is your whole identity given to Christ? Salvation is a relationship. But it's a relationship that involves everything. Again, salvation is not just about free will, it's about the whole of our agency. Yeesh, I'm thinking. Evangelicals don't like things that aren't overtly stated in the Bible. Where do you find a verse saying that salvation is a relationship? I looked. It was nil. Oh, M. Gershness, we are right to infer from the Bible that the foundation and aim of salvation is relationship. So, evangelicals, they'll accept that salvation is a relationship, but then, at the same time, they'll refuse to think about the rest of their faith theologically, because that is what comprehending salvation as a relationship is. The whole of that is theology. Evangelicals will refuse to think about the rest of their faith theologically about the Trinity, or personhood, or agency, or mission. But, oh, but I deter. Sorry, this is a relationship. And if salvation is a relationship, when is that relationship ended? I don't know. But I know that God won't end the relationship. He won't give up on his covenantal commitment. He will never stop loving his children. He will even discipline his kids to bring them back to him. That's biblical through and through. So, if God won't end the relationship, can we? And me, your un-un-host. I say, theologically answering, yes, we can end the relationship. Why? Because we have agency and personhood, and we can end relationships, and we can resist love. Even in Christ, even inside salvation, love is not coerced. Even inside the beautiful Christ, love is not forced. Well, there you go. You're no longer welcome in our home Bible fellowship. Oh, thank you, my nasally friend. You guys, God bless you as you think and process and grow and become ever more deeply a disciple of the living Christ. Thanks for joining me this week, and until next week, please everyone go and turn on your beautiful God-given brains. [MUSIC] [MUSIC]