Review: WHAT THE EARLY CHRISTIANS BELIEVED ABOUT SALVATION by David Bercot

Several of Bercot's audio lessons have been transcribed and edited into short books. This is one of them.

In a sense there are few surprises. Man can't earn his own salvation, nor can he accumulate enough goodness to help anyone else. Salvation is by an individual's choice to exercise faith, contrary to some Reformation doctrines. I'm short, it's pretty much what I've always been taught.

Except for one important respect. Though a person is completely cleansed of sin at the moment of salvation -- if he dies right then, there's nothing to prevent him going to Heaven -- but afterwards that salvation must be maintained. This is completely different from what I've been taught, especially as a Baptist. If I understand correctly, the early church wasn't saying that a person could lose his salvation, but they were saying he could throw it away.

As always, Bercot is true to Scripture and to the early church itself. That both encourages and disturbs me. I'm encouraged because I have learned to trust Bercot because he's so careful. I'm disturbed because if this book is true then I and millions of other people have been taught falsehoods, not out of malice but out of ignorance. Regardless, I highly recommend it; at worst it raises some worthwhile questions.