MY POST FOR THE BIBLE EXCHANGE THIS WEEK:Something you can't lose but you can throw away

Since I can't get to The Bible Exchange this week, I've decided to post it here. So below is "Something you can't lose but throw away.

I have a question: if you can't fall away from worshipping Christ, why are there so many warnings against it in the New Testament?

I haven't made a secret of the fact that I was a Southern Baptist for many years, and was even ordained in that denomination, but feel that I can't be one of them anymore because of the issue of eternal security. I just don't believe in it anymore, because I can't find anyone in the New Testament who talked that way.

For those who don't know, eternal security, also annoyingly called “once saved always saved”, means that once you've given yourself to Jesus,you can never be lost again, no matter what you do. Though touted as a Baptist distinctive, it's functionality identical to the Calvinist doctrine of the perseverance of the saints. 

Of course, people do fall away, which is explained by saying that they were never saved in the first place. This is supposed to give us assurance of our salvation, but it has the opposite effect on me. According to this belief, you can live your whole life thinking you're saved because of some event in your past, only to find out you're not after you die, when there's nothing you can do about it anyway. That's not comforting, it's demonic, and it's again identical to the perseverance of the saints.

I believe, because Scripture teaches it, that it is possible to apostasize, that a person can turn his back on his faith if he decides to. This doesn't make me “eternally insecure”, nor does it mean that I'm constantly afraid of losing my salvation , any more than an obedient son is constantly afraid of losing disowned by his father. There are some people would say I'll be damned for believing that, but that'll just another way of saying we're saved by theology, and only those who believe a particular theology can avoid Hell and enter Paradise.

Other people would say that I'm limiting the sovereignty of God by making human decision too important. Some would even say that I don't believe in God’s sovereignty at all. That's just silly. God isn't less in charge because he doesn't make people do things. While I know that they say there things to ensure that people know that God is sovereign, but it effectively makes them sovereign, since they're the ones who decide what God is like.

All that said, you don't have to worry that Jesus will lose you. Jesus will not lose anyone. No one will accidentally go to Hell. At the same time, you shouldn't assume that you're saved when you're not. No one will blackmail his way into Heaven either.

Christ promised to abide in anyone who would abide in him. In that sense no one can lose his salvation. But you can't spend your whole life spitting in God’s face and expect him to save you in the end. If you do that, you're just throwing his sacrifice away.

[LC Bloom tries not to throw anything useful away. He's from Birmingham, Alabama, and can be reached at lechroom@icloud.com. He also writes for Built for Glory and COBRASAURUS‼‼!]