This week we continue our study of verses from the eleventh chapter of Romans that reveal Paul’s—and the Holy Spirit’s—distinction between eternal salvation and discipleship. The idea that our discipleship and our eternal security are merely different points on a single continuum is both confusing and essentially errant. It inevitably leads to distortions of essential Bible doctrines. The New Testament teaches that God secures our eternal security exclusively through the work of our—and His appointed—Surety, the Lord Jesus Christ, personally applying that work to His elect through the direct and immediate work of the Holy Spirit. At times Scripture refers to this work under the general term “salvation” or “saved.” However, when Scripture is dealing with this truth, it always depicts this salvation as in no way related to our works or will. At other times Scripture refers to our discipleship with the same general term, but in these contexts it consistently includes the conditionality of the believer’s will and conduct. You can readily imagine the confusion that prevails when people attempt to merge these two distinct doctrines into one. Invariably they will predictably drift toward requiring acts of the will as well as works of righteousness on a person as conditions that the believer must meet to gain eternal standing. Occasionally they will deviate in the opposite direction and impose the exclusive work of God onto our discipleship in a rigorously deterministic manner. The first error compromises the Bible doctrine of eternal salvation and falls into the error of salvation by human contribution or works. The second error compromises God’s moral government of humanity and effectively reduces every believer to a mindless robot, mystically moved along the game board of life by the cosmic puppeteer of the universe. Invariably the first error reduces God to a weakling who tried and failed to accomplish salvation for anyone at all. And invariably the second error imposes onto God the cause of sin and the endless variations in the quality of discipleship. After all, if God is wholly the cause of our acts of discipleship, then we cannot conclude otherwise than that He causes some believers to be incredibly selfless and faithful, while leaving other believers to do as little as possible in their half-hearted discipleship. Neither of these errant ideas can be consistently supported by the teachings of Scripture for they are both based on fundamental errors of Biblical interpretation.

     There is a better—a Biblical—alternative to these two extreme and opposite errors. It is this alternative and the related balance of Biblical interpretation and truth that we seek as we study Paul’s inspired writings to the Romans. May we be good students of Paul’s—and of the Holy Spirit who guided Paul’s words.

God bless,
Joe Holder

Eternal Salvation: Distinct from Discipleship (continued)

"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) "

     How is it that someone can be at the same time both an enemy of the gospel and beloved of God? The populist Christian beliefs of our time ridicule the idea and in one of several ways by their teachings limit the number in the family of God to the number of active disciples. Their definition of an active disciple typically mirrors their personal perception of their own discipleship. Anyone who has not risen to their degree of attainment stands in doubt, and they reserve a precious few folks in their esteem to have risen above their level. The utter subjectivity of the measure of discipleship in these various ideas should alert any who consider such thoughts that they are embracing a subjective opinion of Christianity, not the New Testament standard of the faith.

     Make no mistake. An enemy is not a friend. These people whom Paul describes as enemies of the gospel were in no way friends to the gospel. Consider Paul’s attitude toward the people who traveled from Jerusalem Church to Antioch and taught the Antioch people that circumcision was essential to salvation (in whatever way we interpret salvation in this context). They specifically taught that the Antioch believers must be circumcised “…after the manner of Moses.” Moses was circumcised as an adult, not according to the Jewish pattern of infant circumcision. It seems likely that these folks were insisting that the adult Gentile males in the Antioch Church must submit to circumcision. Moses, not Jesus, became the pattern for their measure of authentic Christianity, a clue that they had forgotten the right way that Jesus taught. Moses often becomes the measure of authenticity for the legalist, whether the focus of the legalistic demands includes circumcision or some other expression of legalism extracted from a portion of the Mosaic code. For the legalist, “This is my beloved Son; hear him” (Luke 9:35), fades into the background under the loud trumpet that plays a different song, “This is Moses; hear him.”

     Paul and Barnabas “…had no small dissension and disputation with them….” (Acts 15:2) Could we say that Paul regarded them as enemies to the gospel that he and Barnabas preached? How could we say otherwise? Sometimes the gathering in Jerusalem is described as a “church council,” but I suggest that the context rather describes a meeting of Antioch Church representatives and Jerusalem Church because the advocates of circumcision in Antioch were members of the Jerusalem Church. There is nothing in the fifteenth chapter of Acts to indicate that any other churches were present or involved in this meeting at all. After a significant discussion, Jerusalem Church disclaimed the teaching of its errant members and sent a letter to Antioch Church.

     What impression do you gather when you combine the two words “dissension and disputation”? They disagreed, and they discussed their differences? They didn’t ignore their differences or downplay them as a mere semantic distinction. How could they when errant Jerusalem members were disrupting Antioch Church with such abominable error? To ignore error is to approve it! Neither Paul nor Barnabas had such a low inclination toward this error—or such a low esteem for the truth of the gospel.

     Paul’s most intense New Testament letter is the Galatian epistle. It is quite likely that Acts fifteen or similar teaching disrupted a group of churches in Galatia that Paul had earlier taught the truth of the gospel. When Paul learned of the false teachers and their impact on these churches, he wrote this letter. He is intense toward the Galatians, but in the end he voices confidence that the Galatians will reconsider and return to the truth of the gospel. However, Paul is not so kind toward the false teachers who influenced them away from the gospel. In Galatians 1:6-10 Paul defines the teaching that these men preached to the Galatians as a perversion of the true gospel, he categorically rejected the idea that the teachers of this errant gospel were not in fact merely teaching the same gospel with different terms, but that they were in fact preaching a different gospel, one of low quality compared to the true gospel that he had preached to them. In fact he concludes this section of his opening with the solemn “…let him be accursed.” Do you suppose that Paul considered these men friends of the gospel or enemies of the gospel?

     It is likely that these false teachers attempted to convince the Galatians that they were actually preaching the same gospel that Paul preached with only minor variations here and there. Based on Galatians 5:11, we may reasonably consider that the false teachers likely told the Galatians about Paul having Timothy circumcised, wholly misrepresenting the event to imply that Paul actually agreed with them when he in no way held the same views as theirs. How common in false teachers, to imply that they are not teaching anything different at all, but that they merely explain themselves differently. Those who teach error will work long and hard to convince people that they are not teaching anything different from the accepted gospel message. Once their error is exposed as error, they lose their ability to deceive their hearers, to “fly under the radar” and mislead people under their influence. “I would they were even cut off which trouble you” (Galatians 5:12), hardly sounds like words that Paul would utter toward a friend of the gospel. Could it be? Did Paul consider these men to be enemies of the gospel?

     Recently a friend observed a fascinating point. Satan doesn’t have any new tricks; he merely continues to use his old tricks on new people. A study of historical Christian doctrine will affirm that Satan regularly repeats his old tactics again and again. Why not? They work! Arius taught the abominable error of an evolving god—Jesus is a created lesser god to Jehovah. In the late nineteenth century Judge Russell embraced Arius’ doctrine and started the Jehovah’s Witness organization. Pelagius developed an elaborate scheme of salvation by human effort that was at the time rejected by the Roman Church, but over time his views slowly invaded and influenced their beliefs. Centuries later Arminius made modest alterations to Pelagius’ ideas and almost succeeded in destroying the Protestant Reformation. Interestingly Arminius’ ideas were promoted by a contemporary Jesuit writer Luis de Molina. Satan may alter the vehicle with which he tempts Christians into error, but he uses the same tactics he has always used.

     While Paul in no way addresses the eternal state of either the false teachers in Antioch or in Galatia, both cases exemplify men inside the fellowship of the churches who taught error and were confronted by Paul and others because of the error they preached. Paul left their eternal standing in God’s hands, as we should also do. However, in the case of the people whom he describes in our study passage, Paul specifically describes them with the two-pronged characteristics of being at the same time both enemies of the gospel and beloved of God. We might safely regard the Galatian churches at the time of Paul’s epistle to them as being—at least for the moment under the influence of false teachers—enemies of the gospel. Yet he also described them as “brethren,” not as alien unregenerate sinners. He urges them to reclaim the liberty of the true gospel and to return to the fruitful service that once commanded their primary life’s work. Never throughout the Galatian letter does he at any time threaten them with warnings that they might not even be children of God. He rather admonishes them as children of God presently deceived and caught in error. “If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit.” (Galatians 5:25)

     After devoting three lengthy chapters to God’s dealings with “Israel” (Romans chapters nine through eleven), Paul will conclude this section of the Roman letter with an amazing emphasis on God’s unsearchable and magnificent mercy, wisdom, knowledge, judgments, and ways (Romans 11:32-36).

     Do not neglect Paul’s double focus in our study verses. By the inspiration of the Holy Spirit he very simply and clearly states a truth that sadly most contemporary Christians refuse to consider. It is indeed possible for someone to be at the same time beloved of God and an enemy of the gospel. Rather than pronouncing a divine sentence of eternal dimensions upon these enemies of the gospel, Paul will rather conclude, “For God hath concluded them all in unbelief, that he might have mercy upon all.” Does Paul restrict divine mercy only to those whom he views as friends of the gospel, or solely to believers in the true gospel? Or does he here include both categories of people he just characterized in the prior verse? What is the significance of “them all” in this verse? No, he is not teaching universalism, but he does include the people whom he described by both terms in the prior verse. Paul will repeatedly emphasize God’s intimate and personal knowledge of His chosen people as he closes this section of the Roman letter with that punctuating truth. In similar form to Timothy Paul will confront and refute the abominable teaching that denies a literal bodily resurrection—or that miscasts it as a past allegorical event—but he will strongly affirm that, despite the success of these false teachers, “…The Lord knoweth them that are his…” ( 2 Timothy 2:19). How amazing our God is! How incredible is divine mercy! How intimate His knowledge of His own!

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Elder Joseph R Holder
Gospel Gleanings

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