Did you ever come to a realization and, after the fact, wonder why you had so long overlooked it? It is so simply, straightforward, and obvious that you would think you exercised conscious oversight to miss it. Some time back I had one of those “dumb me” moments. Observing religious people will not only tell you much about their beliefs, but it will also tell you an amazing volume about what this person believes regarding his/her god. Religious people naturally strive to imitate their god. If they have a warped and unbilblical view of God, you may first see it in their conduct before they clearly acknowledge the point in their conversation. Growing up in the deep south of this country, I lived near and attended school with many young people who belonged to one of the more consistent “salvation by works” churches in the country. They really believed in salvation by works. Their god weighed every thought, word, and deed and, short of full repentance before death, would send them to eternal punishment for the slightest violation. I should not have been surprised to observe the obvious. In their interactions with other people these folks were arrogant, harsh, and unforgiving. Why not? They were imitating their god!

     This week’s study introduces a fascinating passage that we will study more before moving on to other lessons. The dominant problem in this section of the Roman letter (chapters nine through eleven) confronts both theological error and behavioral error. In significant detail Paul works to link the theological with the behavioral. Theological error explains and predicts behavioral error. In this case the Roman church was challenged, likely by Jewish members of that church, with harsh legalism. At first this error would appear in behavioral attitudes of arrogance. We see this attitude clearly in these chapters, as well as in the earlier sections of the Roman letter. Some of these Jewish Christians embraced a legalistic notion that a “true believer” must be circumcised and in some way become a good Jew in order to “really” be a true Christian (This is the precise error that Paul and Barnabas confronted and rejected in Acts 15). Paul always confronts legalism, but he especially gets in its face here and in the Galatian letter. Paul seems clearly to also understand that, left to its natural course, legalism that begins in the arena of conduct will eventually overflow into one’s beliefs regarding how God saves sinners (I here use the term “God saves sinners” to refer specifically to the Bible’s teaching regarding the eternal state of God’s chosen people). In other words behavioral or attitudinal legalism inevitably leads one to move progressively and predictably in the direction of legalism regarding eternal salvation, a belief that man must do something to contribute to or cause his/her eternal salvation.

     Few specific New Testament doctrines exhibit more relevance to our times and the dominant beliefs of sincere professing Christians than Paul’s teachings regarding these issues. Belief in any form of salvation by human works will inevitably confuse eternal salvation with temporal salvation; or to put the question in different words, they will increasingly confuse new birth and eternal security with discipleship, the Bible’s teaching regarding how God’s regenerate elect should—are commanded in Scripture—to live in the here and now. Inevitably this confusion will impute to man some absolute prerequisite for eternal salvation. Many of you will recognize this simple statement from a popular evangelist of the twentieth century, “God did all He could do to save you. Jesus died on the cross and did all He could do to save you. The Holy Spirit woos you and does all He can do to save you. There is nothing you can do to save yourself.” If left at that point, advocates of this populist view would face an irreconcilable dilemma. God did all He can do, and what He did simply wasn’t enough, but there is nothing you can do. To avoid the hopeless dilemma, the popular evangelist, as well as those who agreed with his teachings, inevitably added, “But if you believe in Jesus and confess Him as your Savior, He will save you.” Wait a minute! I thought there was nothing you could do! In one sentence you tell the sinner that there is nothing he can do, and in the very next sentence you tell him that he must do something! Which is it? Can he or can he not do something to save himself?

     The bewildering confusion and illogical blending of new birth and eternal salvation with discipleship leads to many such inconsistent beliefs and illogical conclusions. Scripture repeatedly and clearly distinguishes eternal salvation from discipleship. We all readily and simply understand that the coincidence of natural birth does not absolutely guarantee that every child in a family will be a loving, obedient, and pliable child to the parents’ will. Natural birth and the child’s behavior are two distinct matters. One never guarantees the other. Why then do we find it so difficult to see the parallel in the family of God? To acknowledge the obvious, that some children in a family—or some children of God—are not always obedient and focused on obeying and honoring their parents in no way glorifies or praises disobedience. It rather confronts reality. Once we acknowledge the obvious we can then work at teaching and exemplary strategies to influence children (either natural or spiritual) to respect and to obey the teachings of their family. The fact that a natural child rebels does not negate the birth or the irreversible genetic/familial relationship that child possesses with his/her natural parents. We grieve the child’s sins, but we understand the permanence of the relationship. Scripture affirms a similar truth in the family of God. The notion that all regenerate children of God shall surely obey God and increasingly obey His teachings implies that disobedience dissolves the new birth. Among those who believe in the doctrines of grace, but are nevertheless attracted to this errant belief, the response will more often be “If you do not remain increasingly faithful, I can’t give you any assurance that you were born again in the first place.” Ask these people to apply that same rule to their own children in their own family. Will it work? Does the child’s familial relationship depend on the child’s behavior?

     In this section of Romans Paul grieved at the sins of Jewish people whom he describes in terms that make it incredibly difficult and inconsistent to view as anything other than regenerate children of God. In no instance does he praise their unbelief or sin. In no instance does he lay the responsibility for their unbelief and sin anywhere but on their own shoulders. Yet he never questions their eternal standing with God. Nor does he presume upon himself the role of assurance that Scripture consistently attributes to the Holy Spirit, not to man.

     I will offer through this study session that we might accept three views of new birth (as the experiential expression of eternal redemption and eternal security) and discipleship.

1. Both our eternal salvation and our discipleship are all of us. While God may provide instruction and guidance, He carefully respects our “free will” and allows us to make the final choice.
   
   
2. Both our eternal salvation and our discipleship are all of God. God is as active and we are as passive in one as in the other. Even our obedience to the gospel and our walk of faith are wholly and irresistibly determined by an effectual divine decree. A few years ago I heard a man who held this view state in a sermon, “…repentance comes about by the effectual moving of the Holy Spirit.” The man was referring to our repentance. Typically advocates of this view, like this example, will attribute every act, mental or physical, of faith and obedience to a divine, irresistible, and effectual work of God, leaving the regenerate believer wholly passive in his/her discipleship.
   
   
3. Our eternal salvation is wholly of God, and we are wholly passive in that work. God met all the prerequisite conditions necessary for our eternal redemption from sin and for our safe and secure eternal union with God’s love, including the personal application of it to every elect person in the new birth. However, our discipleship, our walk of faith, in this life, although influenced by the Holy Spirit, by the teachings of Scripture, and by the preaching of the true gospel of Scripture, is also contingent on our willing, conscious, and voluntary decision to walk this way.

     I further will offer that only the third option is supported by the consistent teaching of Scripture. In other words we must distinguish between our eternal salvation (by whatever names or terms we choose to describe it) and our discipleship, our walk of faith here in time. In our study lesson for this week Paul asserts what—to some contemporary Christians who embrace the first view—seems alarming and inconceivable. There exist in this world some people who at the same time are both regenerate children of God, but who are also enemies to the truth of the gospel! It is this startling truth that Paul presents that attracts us to linger with these verses and to study further.

God bless,
Joe Holder

Eternal Salvation: Distinct from Discipleship

"As concerning the gospel, they are enemies for your sakes: but as touching the election, they are beloved for the fathers’ sakes. For the gifts and calling of God are without repentance. For as ye in times past have not believed God, yet have now obtained mercy through their unbelief: Even so have these also now not believed, that through your mercy they also may obtain mercy. For God hath concluded them all in unbelief, that he might have mercy upon all. O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out! (Romans 11:28-33) "

     Often when discussing Scripture with people of other beliefs, I have heard the empty refrain, “If I believed that, why would I bother to live a godly life?” Occasionally people who believe in something less than full grace for eternal salvation, despite their “grace” terminology, will accuse those of us who believe in God’s grace as the exclusive basis for our eternal standing with God of being antinomians. “Antinomian” (1) means someone who rejects God’s moral law as being applicable to them. I observe that in fact the person who makes the accusation in this instance reveals far more antinomian qualities than those of us who believe wholly in grace and strive to live a godly faithful life out of love and gratitude to God for His amazing grace. According to Paul (Galatians 5:6), faith works by love. In sharp contrast he describes legalism (Galatians 4:9) as “…weak and beggarly…” and in Romans 8:15 he depicts legalism as a form of bondage motivated by fear. By their very acknowledgement that they would not live a godly life if they didn’t believe that their conduct in some way contributed to their eternal destiny, these people reveal that they practice a moral life only because of fear of the consequences and because they believe that it will provide them with personal gain in the form of eternal security. Those of us who practice moral conduct because of our love for God and because of our desire to honor Him with our life—wholly apart from personal gain—are repulsed by immorality because it is immoral, not because of a fear of loss or punishment.

     Consider this illustration. Two children are friends. One confesses that he walks the “straight and narrow” because he knows the terror of what his parents would do if he did otherwise. He has no personal moral conviction that controls his conduct. The other child walks the same “high road” path of moral uprightness, but he does so because he loves and respects his parents and, because they have been so incredibly loving to him, he wants above all else to honor them by his personal choices whether they know what he does or not. These two children reveal much about themselves, but they reveal far more about their parents than about themselves! Can we apply this example to our personal attitude toward God? I believe we can. If we live our whole lives in fear of divine retribution against us, we are telling all who observe us something about ourselves, but we disclose far more about our belief in a god who is mean-spirited and vindictive. Conversely, if we practice godly living based on our belief in divine goodness and grace—because it is right and because it honors the gracious God who deserves to be honored—we reveal our belief in God’s noble character. Which message do we wish to communicate to those who observe us?

     The dominant teaching of our time patterns its teachings after the first child—and after the unforgiving, vindictive god of legalism. Shame on professing Christians for such a low and dishonorable testimony about God.

     It has been my observation that people mirror the attitude and actions they believe their god practices. People who believe God is a harsh, critical parent who strains His infinite vision to find a fault in them that He can punish with severity and glee will demonstrate a similar attitude toward the people around them. Why not? They are imitating their god! Similarly people who believe God operates with a duplicitous revealed will that is opposed to an unstated-in-Scripture secret will also imitate their god. This view claims that God’s revealed will prohibits sin and commands righteousness, while also claiming that God has a “secret will” from which He either causes or “orchestrates” all the evil in the world for a mystical “greater good.” Imagine the idea; God caused or orchestrated Hitler’s ovens that brought about the death of perhaps millions of Jews for a secret “greater good.” How repulsive! How contradictory to Scripture! So if someone believes this blasphemous idea, why should we be surprised to observe this person demonstrating shameless duplicity in his/her personal conduct? He/She is merely imitating his/her god! Ask this person to defend his/her views, and you’ll learn more than you ever imagined about God’s secret will. They seem to think it is no longer secret; their god has chosen to reveal to them the intimate details of that secret will. This person will tell you that his/her atrocious beliefs are solidly based on God’s “secret will.” If they know God’s secret will, it is no longer secret. If they do not know it, any argument based on it involves fallacious circular reasoning. Further any argument based on a supposed knowledge of God’s secret will that categorically contradicts God’s “revealed” will and moral character in Scripture accuses God of blatant duplicity.

     Arguments that are based on appeal to God’s supposed secret will predictably tend to imply contradictions between God’s revealed and secret wills. No surprise, such arguments are often confusing and at times openly dishonest. In the movie “Independence Day” the world is threatened by the invasion of an advanced race of extraterrestrial beings. At a crucial moment the president of the United States is taken to a top secret underground research facility that has been aware of and studied these beings for decades. When the president becomes aware of the longstanding existence of this facility, he turns to his cabinet member who was responsible for the facility and questions why he, the nation’s president, had never been informed. The cabinet member smiles smugly and answers with only two words, “Plausible deniability.” In other words he felt altogether justified in withholding the information from the president so that the president could openly deny the existence of any extraterrestrial beings because he really didn’t know about them. Thankfully in the movie the president fumes and immediately replies to this duplicitous cabinet member, “You’re fired!” Above all other people, ministers of the gospel are required of God to be clear, concise, and unmistakable in their use of words and terms as they communicate God’s truth to their listeners. When a man repeatedly uses vague wording and/or ill-defined terms to convey a particular idea, but when challenged, always defends himself with “Oh no, you misunderstood me. I didn’t mean that at all,” you are witnessing the shameful conduct of a believer in a duplicitous god imitating his god! This response accuses God of imitating the duplicitous cabinet member in the movie. If God can be duplicitous, why can’t His followers imitate Him and freely use “plausible deniability”?

     The clarity with which Paul in our study verses and their context distinguishes one’s eternal state with God from their discipleship, a believer’s faithful conduct here in time, provides a model of godly, concise, and transparent articulation that every believer, especially every minister of the gospel, should strive to model. Paul first affirms that all “Israel” shall be saved. He is primarily dealing with a first century problem in Judaism, not with a hypothetical end-times restoration of Jews to the faith. He has defined a Jew as he uses the term to refer to a regenerate elect person, not to a national or cultural Jew. He has fully developed the idea that many national cultural Jews of his day in fact rejected Jesus as their Messiah and as their promised Savior. He did not so describe all such unbelievers, but according to Paul, some of these Jews were in fact children of God, “real” Jews. He then affirms that “…all Israel shall be saved….” He further affirms that their salvation is not assured based on their up-front active participation in the work of their eternal salvation, but rather on the fact that the Deliverer comes out of Zion and turns their sins away from them. He also avoids the “back-loaded” notion of eternal security based on active discipleship rather than on the Deliverer’s successful and finished work, simply another form of salvation by works. However, at this point a major tension point arises that Paul must clarify. If all Israel shall surely be saved, what about these unbelieving regenerate Jews of which he has written? Are they saved—eternally redeemed from their sins by the Deliverer?

     It is at this point that Paul surfaces the amazing truth of our study lesson. He does not praise these people for their unbelief and sin—quite the opposite. He grieves for them. He could—didn’t say he did—wish himself accursed from Christ if that action would in some way move them from their entrenched unbelief. However, Paul clearly affirms what most modern Christians refuse to accept. There is a clear distinction in Scripture between regeneration and conversion. The populist view is that your regeneration and your conversion under the gospel are in some inseparable way linked so that one seldom—if ever—occurs apart form the other. Whether a person teaches the Arminian view of salvation by human works with some divine assistance or the “back-loaded” version of salvation by works through a human-centric concept of perseverance (2) —“If you do not continue faithfully, how can I give you any assurance that you are really saved at all?”—Paul rejects both errors in one masterful sweep. He acknowledges the startling fact—at least startling to some—that there actually exists a group of people who are both God’s regenerate elect—beloved for the fathers’ sakes—and yet enemies to the truth of the gospel.

     Paul will reason that God’s gifts and calling are not fickle or duplicitous. If He calls one of His children in regeneration, He will not later recant that calling because of their failure to obey or to persevere. His deliverance in turning our sins away from us is permanent! Our obedience is not thereby divinely guaranteed. Paul has repeatedly in this chapter—as Scripture consistently affirms—made the point that the unbelief and rejection of the Jews was not the result of a mystical divine decree, but rather was caused by their own actions. He has also affirmed that those Jews and Gentiles who presently enjoyed the benefits of the gospel, the rich fatness of the olive tree, enjoy those blessings by the active practice of their faith, not by an irresistible divine decree that predetermined that all the elect will practice true faith in Christ. Therefore, he affirms, we must avoid any form of high-mindedness and live rather in godly—not slavish—fear as we walk the walk of faith. While God’s eternal deliverance of His chosen people is wholly void of conditions or contingencies on our part, our discipleship distinctly stands on the contingency of our willing, conscious, and voluntary embracing of the walk of faith. If we turn from that walk of faith, we shall quickly discover that we have been pruned out of the fatness of God’s olive tree gospel blessings just as those first century Jews were. This chapter, though dealing with an ancient and very real problem with “Israel,” addresses us today with both incredible promises and with incredible warnings. Let us sit at Paul’s feet and learn his lesson—the Holy Spirit’s lesson—well.

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Elder Joseph R Holder
Gospel Gleanings

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(1) Noah Webster’s 1828 American Dictionary of the English Language defines the word as “…under the gospel dispensation, the law is of no use or obligation…” or as “…one who pays no regard to the law or to good works.” Do not overlook that Paul’s critics accused him of antinomianism, and he emphatically denied the charge (Romans 3:1-8).

(2) I here distinguish the historical and confessional use of the term “perseverance” from its contemporary and corrupted use. Old and respected confessions use the term in one of two ways, clearly affirmed by a contextual reading. First one meaning of the word “perseverance” in the seventeenth century when several respected confessions were framed was “preservation,” as it is so defined in the Oxford English Dictionary. Secondly, and corroborating the meaning of the word as used at the time, the language of these confessions clearly affirms that the intent of the writers was to state their belief that God “perseveres” in His eternal purpose to preserve His elect from eternal falling. The human-centric corruption of perseverance commonly taught today that puts major emphasis on how well you as a professing Christian continue in faith and good works is in fact, as stated by Dr. Tom Constable (Dallas Theological Seminary), a subtle way of teaching “back-door” salvation by works. Scripture consistently exhorts—and commands—that believers not only remain as faithful to God as they presently are, but that they grow in grace and in their knowledge of the truth, but Scripture no where implies that such faithful obedience and spiritual growth are the result of a divine irresistible decree. “The righteous shall hold on his way” was the confession of Job (Job 17:9) during his self-defensive, self-righteous season, not a statement of a divine promise. After his repentance at the end of the book of Job, this godly example of patience in no way resembled this self-assertive attitude.

I further observe that the human-centric view of perseverance that asserts that a child of God shall by divine irresistible decree live an increasingly godly life till death simply does not stand the test of Scripture. To “persevere” in Scripture appears as an admonition, not as a divine decree or a divine guarantee. Further, Abraham, the classical model of faith for both Old and New Testaments, along with multiple other people in Scripture whose eternal salvation none would question, in fact did not “persevere” in his walk of faith as clearly defined by advocates of the contemporary human-centric view of perseverance. Genesis 25:6, the last verse in the divinely inspired record of Scripture prior to the record of Abraham’s death, hardly describes a man who increasingly “persevered” in his good works to the moment of death. Scripture records Abraham’s entanglement with one concubine, but it never mentions till this verse that he at some—presumably—later time after Sarah’s death and his marriage to Keturah fathered several children by more concubines. Did Abraham in fact increase in his godliness and “persevere” in his faith that appears so clearly in earlier seasons of his life? Advocates of this errant view repeatedly must repeatedly appeal to non-Biblical reasoning to rationalize their human-centric view that confuses the divine moral commandments of God with the divine and unchanging purpose of God to preserve His elect from final separation (Romans 8:38-39).