Do
Those Who Leave the Faith Go to Heaven?
Posted by Clark Bates
February 18, 2016
I recently read an article of a Methodist minister who had turned from Christianity to embrace atheism. Raised in a Southern Baptist home and feeling called by God at the age of 6, she sought to fulfill that calling in the ministry. The pastor recognized some of the disparities in the Baptist teaching of Scriptures regarding women in the pastorate, but found a home within the more permissive UMC. However, the pastor states, she felt as though she was serving a “taskmaster God who's standard she never quite met.”1 Setting these concerns aside, she persevered but found that when she asked the truly difficult questions, religion could not give her an answer. In her own words:
There
is more to this minister's story but the article led me to consider
the age old question, “Do Christians that leave the faith remain
saved?” In more theological language, this has been known in the
church as the Eternal State of the Apostate, or the Lapsed. In most
Christian circles the way in which this question is answered relies
heavily on the particular theological bent of the believer. There is
the “once saved, always saved” ethos, while on the other end
there is the “never was saved to begin with” formula. I will say
there is biblical truth found in both these positions but let's
examine Scripture on the matter.3
In
Luke 8 Jesus gives the “Parable of the Sower” in which He relays
a story of the spreading of the gospel and how it is received by
various hearers. In verse 6 He says that “some fell on the rock,
and as it grew up, it withered away, because it had no moisture. .
.”4
Jesus then explained this parable with the following statement, “The
ones on the rock are those who, when they hear the word, receive it
with joy. But these have no root; they believe for a while,
and in time of testing fall away.”5
There are those that would argue that this passage speaks of true
believers who depart from the faith into apostasy, but given the
differentiation between this group and the last in verse 15 (Having
an honest and good heart) it seems to speak of nominal Christians;
those who appreciate Jesus but have not taken Him into their heart.
In this way, Luke would be in agreement with John's first epistle in
which he writes, “They went out from us, but they were not of us;
for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us. . .”6
Paul,
in his letters, writes of fellow believers that have fallen away in a
similar fashion: Demas7,
as well as Hymaneus and Alexander8;
and James, brother of the Lord, writes, “if anyone among you
wanders from the truth and someone brings him back, let him know that
whoever brings back a sinner from his wandering will save his soul
from death. . .”9
seeming to indicate that a believer in Christ can not only leave the
faith but be brought back.
While
it might be possible to interpret the preceding passages to say that
only nominal Christians leave the faith and therefore were never
truly saved to begin with, there is still the haunting message of
Hebrews 6, “For it is impossible, in the case of those who have
once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, and have
shared the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the goodness of the word of
God and the powers of the age to come, and then have fallen away, to
restore them again to repentance, since they are crucifying once
again the Son of God. . .”10
Committed
reformed theologian Thomas Schreiner recognizes the great difficulty
in maintaining a “once saved, always saved”, or eternal security,
theology in light of this passage, “If
I were not convinced of unconditional election, I would surely be an
Arminian. The warning passages are so strong that I can understand
why many think that believers can lose their salvation. What is
interesting to me is that there are so many believers who reject
unconditional election and yet they hold on to eternal security.”11
Therefore, for Schreiner to make sense of passages like these, the
apostasy described must serve as a warning sent by God to be used as
a means by which to prevent the believer from leaving the faith,
thereby ensuring their perseverance and eternal security.
For
the Arminian, the exact opposite is true. Arminian theology
maintains a belief in corporate election and corporate security,
meaning that the church as a whole is guaranteed by God to persevere,
but this in no way promises the individual believer that they,
themselves, will. For the Arminian, passages such as Hebrews 6 say
exactly what they appear to, that those who leave the faith lose
their salvation. “The possibility of apostasy posits the corporate
nature of the election. The Scriptures bear witness to actual
instances of apostasy and abound with solemn warnings against the
peril, which (contrary to the assumptions of some) is real rather
than hypothetical.”12
Others,
like philosopher of science William Lane Craig, seek to resolve this
conundrum by appealing to God's nature.
“But it seems to me that
here the Calvinist . . . is confusing two quite distinct questions:
Will
any elect person fall away, and can
an elect person fall away?. . .one is a modal question and the other
is a de facto question. . . . Perhaps what you are seeing here is
that beneath the surface and surfacing now is this old debate between
divine foreknowledge and human freedom. This fatalistic idea that if
God knows what will happen then everything happens necessarily. . .
that equation is simply logically fallacious. Even if God knows that
you will not apostatize, it doesn’t follow that you cannot
apostatize. You could apostatize but you won’t. So God’s
assuring you that you will not is in no way incompatible with your
ability to fall away.”13
Regardless
of which path we seek to resolve this difficulty, confusion tends to
abound. How, then, do we answer this practically? The early church
father, Cyprian, wrote of the desire of believers who had apostatized
to avoid persecution or martyrdom and subsequently wished to return
to the church. In his Epistle
IX
he admonished the clergy for being too hasty in bringing them back,
“.
. . and by imposition of the hand of the bishop and clergy receive
the right of communion: now with their time still unfulfilled, while
persecution is still raging, while the peace of the Church itself is
not yet restored, they are admitted to communion, and their name is
presented; and while the penitence is not yet performed, confession
is not yet made, the hands of the bishop and clergy are not yet laid
upon them, the eucharist is given to them. . .”14
In
so doing, he warned the church that a seemingly repentant apostate
must be observed and tested for a season, before returning to the
church in full brotherhood. However, later in his Epistle
X,
Cyprian affirmed that such a restoration was possible, “. . . and
to the lapsed indeed pardon may be granted in respect of this thing.
For what dead person would not hasten to be made alive? Who would not
be eager to attain to his own salvation?”15
Cyprian's
words are similar to those of James in which it is encouraged that
the church seek to restore those who have wandered from the faith.
What remains important for you and I is to acknowledge that an
individual's eternal state with God rests solely on their confession
and repentance in Jesus Christ. The true and saving work of
justification is not an outwardly visible one in many respects. Such
a change can be evidenced often in the manner in which a believer
carries themselves, but this is not always a certainty. Therefore,
rather than dispute about an apostate's eternal state, we must
continue in the admonition of our Lord to be known by our love.16
This is not a permissive love that ignores the sins of a former
brother or sister in the Lord, but a love which causes us to come
alongside them, when possible, listen to their doubts, their anger
and their struggles, and encourage them to return to their first
Love.
In
the case of the Methodist pastor mentioned above, she felt as though
she served under a demanding God and as a result of this
misconception of God, her struggle evolved into doubts that went
unanswered and eventually led to an abandonment of faith. She was
not serving the One who said, “Take my yoke upon you, and learn
from me, for I am gentle and lowly of heart, and you will find rest
for your souls. For my burden is easy
and my yoke is light.”17
Far too often we enter into the theological side of this debate only
to justify the condemnation of those to whom we feel superior.
Christ has called us to a better way, a way of unconditional love.
Yes, a tree is known by its fruit, so prove where your roots lead by
producing fruit for the kingdom and love even your wayward brethren.
3 I
will state from the very outset that this discussion is far too
lengthy for a simple blog post and that for every Scripture listed
another can be presented for the opposing side. Because of this I
recommend readers seek more study from theologians such as Thomas
Schreiner, Darrel Bock, Douglas Moo, William Lane Craig, Craig L.
Bloomberg and Mike Brown. All have written on this subject from
their various perspectives and provide excellent information to
consider.
4 Luke
8:6.
5 Luke
8:13.
6 1
John 2:19
7 2
Tim. 4:10
8 1
Tim. 1:19-20.
9 James
5:19-20.
10 Hebrews
6:4-6.
11 Thomas
R. Schreiner, “Perseverance and Assurance: A Survey and a
Proposal,” The Southern Baptist Journal of Theology, Spring
1998, Vol. 2, No. 1, pp. 32-62. See
http://www.sbts.edu/documents/tschreiner/2.1_article.pdf
(Accessed February 18, 2016).
12 Robert
Shank, Elect in the Son
(Bloomington, MN: Bethany House Publisers, 1989), 49.
16 John
13:35.
17 Matt.
11:29-30.
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