Once saved always saved

J.C. Thibodaux, “The Calvinist Mitigation of the Divine Warnings Given to the Saints”

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  Central to the debate over inevitable perseverance are the the numerous warnings in scripture cautioning the saints against falling away. A prominent explanation offered as to why the scriptures would say such things, if falling away is not truly possible for a believer, is that God uses such warnings as a means to spur Christians on to perseverance. Despite these efforts, the scriptural warnings addressed to genuine believers, some of which pronounce eternal destruction for violating certain commandments of God, constitute an airtight argument against the Calvinist teaching of inevitable perseverance of the saints, in that teaching that what the scriptures warn against could not truly occur strips the divine warnings of all relevance, making them of no effect.

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Robert Shank on Calvinist Pastors and the Warning Passages of Scripture

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In 1960 Robert Shank published a book called Life in the Son. This book was written to refute the teaching of eternal security. At the time of it’s publication Robert Shank was a Southern Baptist minister. The book caused no little stir among the Southern Baptists and it led to the author eventually leaving the Southern Baptist denomination and joining the Churches of Christ. In this book Shank writes about the way Calvinist Pastors preach and teach the warning passages in Scripture. Though a bit polemical, I found it expresses well the way Arminians view the Calvinist understanding of the warning passages. Following the quote by Shank I will give an example of what he’s talking about from popular Calvinist Pastor John Piper. Shank writes,

“Completely absurd is the assumption that men are to be sincerely persuaded that apostasy is impossible and, at the same time, sincerely alarmed by the warnings…

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The Biblical Doctrines of Grace (Part Two)

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For the Calvinist, the “doctrines of grace” is a synonym for TULIP theology. So, do the Biblical Doctrines of Grace of Arminianism also follow a system, such as TULIP? Arminianism proper has not historically employed an acronym as the one used for nearly four centuries by Calvinists.

Let it be stated, however, that if it had not been for the followers of Arminius (the Remonstrants) presenting their five arguments to the state to be approved as orthodox consent, then the TULIP would have never been constructed. And the original order of the Remonstrants was Conditional Election (to those in Christ), Unlimited Atonement, Total Depravity, Resistible Grace, and Conditional Perseverance.

If the Calvinists had strictly followed the Arminian system, it would have spelled ULTIP, which is a bad acronym, considering Ultip is not a word. Worse off, the Arminian acronym would have been CUTRC. The best sense which we could make out of that construct is TRUCC, also not a word.

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Never Really Saved to Begin With?

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This post attempts to put the Calvinistic “never really saved to begin with” view of apostasy to the test when reading select passages relevant to the topic of apostasy. The results speak for themselves.

“I am the vine, you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. If anyone does not remain in me he is like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned. [proving that he was never in Christ to begin with, making it impossible to ‘remain’ in Him or be ‘cut off’ from Him] Jn. 15:3-6

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Once A Son Always A Son?

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It is a popular teaching today that once someone becomes a child of God through faith in Jesus Christ, he or she will never cease to be God’s child regardless of behavior and continuance in saving faith.

In order to express this teaching, it is reasoned from human experience to that which is spiritual and a strong distinction is made between “fellowship” and “relationship”. It is said that a believer can harm and even sever one’s fellowship with God while somehow maintaining a saving relationship. The only way to express this concept is through human analogy.

Neil T. Anderson gives us the basis of this argumentation in Stomping Out the Darkness, co-authored by Dave Park. Under the heading: There’s A Difference Between Relationship and Fellowship, Anderson writes…

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