Some say it is impossible to fall from grace, but Paul disagrees:  “You have become estranged from Christ, you who attempt to be justified by law; you have fallen from grace.”  (Gal. 5:4).  When one turns from the finished work of Christ at Calvary to a human legal system, he has indeed “fallen from grace.”  The state of grace that one enters when they receive Christ must be embraced throughout life.  We must “walk in the light” (1 John 1:7) and “walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit” (Rom. 8:1-2).  It is possible to receive God’s grace “in vain” (2 Cor. 6:1; cf. 1 Cor. 15:10). 

           

            It is incredible that some argue that once a person is saved, he can never be lost no matter how ungodly or rebellious his life may become.  One of the most poorly reasoned books I have ever read was written by Charles Stanley.  The book is entitled Eternal Security: Can You Be Sure? (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1990). While Dr. Stanley has written some very helpful material on a number of subjects, and even the book under consideration has some good things in it, he makes some of the most outrageous statements a Bible believer could ever make.  For example, on page 92, Dr. Stanley writes: “Does the Scripture actually teach that regardless of the consistency of our faith, our salvation is secure?  Yes it does, through both proposition and illustration.” (emphasis mine).  Note it carefully:  According to Dr. Stanley, the Bible teaches that “our salvation is secure” even if our faith does not continue.  In the context of the statement, he does not appear to me to be saying that we can be saved even if our faith is inconsistent in the sense of weakness, but inconsistent in the sense that it does not continue.  On the next page, Dr. Stanley states it plainly: “The unfaithful believer will not lose his salvation.”  This is horrible theology.  The Bible teaches nothing even close to this.  The Bible does teach the “eternal security” of the faithful believer, but the doctrine of eternal security for the unfaithful believer is the product of Dr. Stanley’s imagination.  We shudder to think how many spiritual rebels have spurned the love of God and returned to the world, only to find comfort in their disobedience in such a doctrine of “eternal security.” 

 

            What would the Apostle Paul think of such thinking?  We do not have to speculate, for Paul wrote to the Hebrews (assuming that Paul wrote the book, and if not it was written by someone who shared his views):  “Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief, in departing from the living God.” (Heb. 3:12).  Notice that “brethren”—i.e., saved people—were warned that they could depart from God if they were not careful.  Also, one has to wonder, if Dr. Stanley’s reasoning is correct, why Paul would urge baptized believers in the Lord Jesus to “continue in the grace of God” (Acts 13:43).  The word translated “continue” in that passage is in the present tense both in the English and the Greek.  How could it speak of anything but sustained faithfulness to Christ? And it was to “children of God” who had been “baptized into Christ” (Gal. 3:26-27) who were warned of being “severed from Christ” and being “fallen away from grace” (Gal. 5:4; cf. Heb. 12:5). 

 

            The New Testament contains a multitude of warnings to believers to continue serving Christ faithfully.  One would have to ignore virtually half of the Bible to miss this.  Jesus Himself warned believers to “be faithful unto death” (Rev. 2:10), and Jude admonished all believers to “keep” themselves “in the love of God” (Jude 21).  Peter even went so far as to say that falling away from Christ was not only possible, but it would put one in a worse spiritual condition than if they had never accepted Christ in the first place:  “For if after they have escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, they are again entangled therein, and overcome, the latter end is worse with them than the beginning.  For it had been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than, after they have known it, to turn from the holy commandment delivered unto them.  But it is happened unto them according to the true proverb, The dog is turned to his own vomit again; and the sow that was washed to her wallowing in the mire.”  (2 Pet. 2:20-22).  I am in no position to judge the hearts of teachers like Charles Stanley, but I must admit that it seems a man would have to be more committed to a denominational doctrine than to the Bible to argue, in view of Peter’s statement, that Christians can never abandon Christ and lose their salvation. 

 

            More than fifty years ago, C. R. Nichol pointed out the inconsistency of those who deny human freedom to make their own choices subsequent to salvation.  In his book, The Possibility of Apostasy, He wrote:  “The whole theory of the impossibility of apostasy views man as entirely helpless before and after conversion.”  (Clifton: Nichol Publishing Company, 1951, p. 85).  Brother Nichol was speaking here of strict Calvinists, which Charles Stanley is not.  Stanley, in other words, would not deny human freedom to choose Christ in the first place, but he would deny the ability to choose to abandon Christ after being saved.  In other words, once we are saved by Christ we lose our ability to choose whether or not we will remain faithful to Him. 

 

            Such makes the Bible’s warnings to Christians absolutely meaningless.  It is illogical to think that I can choose to begin following God, but I cannot choose to stop it.  Here the full “five-point” Calvinists make much more sense and are far more consistent.  A. W. Pink’s book, entitled simply, Eternal Security (Grand Rapids:  Baker, 1974), is a far superior book to Stanley’s.  Pink was a full Calvinist—and an extreme one at that.  Pink, like Stanley, taught the impossibility of a child of God ever losing his salvation, but unlike Stanley, he taught it within the doctrinal parameters of five-point Calvinism. 

 

            Pink believed that the reason a true believer could not choose to abandon Christ is because he did not choose Christ in the first place.  Calvinists make a much stronger case for what Stanley is calling “eternal security”—only they call it “perseverance of the saints” or “the perseverance of God with and in the saints.”  The doctrine of “once-saved-always-saved” has its roots in Calvinism, but all five points of Calvinism stand or fall together.  Men like Stanley have held on to one and abandoned the others.  Let me give a brief overview of the five points of which we speak.  

 

            The five doctrines of historic Calvinism can, of course, be remembered by the acrostic, TULIP.  The “T” stands for the first point:  the doctrine of “Total Depravity.”   Because of Adam’s sin, it is believed that the whole human race has been contaminated with the disease of a corrupt nature.  The word “total” refers, not to humankind being as bad as it is possible for us to be, but to the fact that sin has affected every part of us—mind, soul and body.  Because of this, if anyone is going to be saved, God must do it all for us, for we are so sinful that we cannot even make a move toward God without His gracious enabling.

 
            The “U” stands for “Unconditional Election.”  This point asserts that in eternity past, before the world even began, God elected certain ones to salvation and passed over the rest. Every person who will finally be saved, in other words, will be there, first of all, because of this electing process.  The basis for God’s election was His own unmerited grace and not because of anything good He saw in the recipients, including foreseen faith.

            The “L” stands for “Limited Atonement.”  This point does not suggest that Christ’s death was limited in its power but in its purpose or scope.  Christ came into the world to save the ones whom God elected. Christ’s death actually secured the salvation of the elect—it did not merely make their salvation possible by making them “savable.”

 
            The “I” stands for “Irresistible Grace.”  Coming on the heels of Limited Atonement, this point emphasizes that God will make sure “the elect” for whom Christ died will get the word about it.  God will open their eyes to their own depravity and make them aware of what Christ has done for them.  God gives them faith, so that not one of the elect will resist what God through the Spirit is doing and be lost.

 
            Finally, the “P” stands for “Perseverance of the Saints.”  This view suggests that God keeps by His power and determination those who, by His own power and determination, have come to faith in Jesus.  This point is a logical deduction from the others, for if God elects us unto salvation and sends His Son into the world to actually save us, God’s plans cannot be thwarted by one of the elect falling away from salvation.      

 

            I do not accept the Calvinistic view of eternal security, but I am saying that it is far more reasonable than the view of many “once-saved-always-saved” teachers of our day. Men like Charles Stanley have divorced “perseverance of the saints” from “unconditional election” and, as we have said, the system stands or falls as a unit.  Augustine and John Calvin believed that man could not choose to abandon faith because he did not really choose for himself to believe in the first place.  Man is so sinful he could never choose Christ, so God did it for Him by unconditionally electing him to salvation.  Dr. Stanley has man deciding of his own free will to accept Christ, but having that free will taken away from him once he is saved.  In other words, he can choose to begin following Christ, but he cannot choose to stop. 

 

            Falling from grace is not as easy as some make it out to be—but it is possible nonetheless.  Hear the words of Paul concerning two first century apostates:  “Holding faith, and a good conscience; which some having put away concerning faith have made shipwreck: Of whom is Hymenaeus and Alexander; whom I have delivered unto Satan, that they may learn not to blaspheme.”  (1 Tim. 1:19-20).  These men had made “shipwreck” of their faith—and they were lost.  

 

            The inspired record of Simon the sorcerer teaches us that one who has been baptized into Christ can put his soul in jeopardy by sinning:  “Then Simon himself also believed; and when he was baptized he continued with Philip, and was amazed, seeing the miracles and signs which were done.  Now when the apostles who were at Jerusalem heard that Samaria had received the word of God, they sent Peter and John to them, who, when they had come down, prayed for them that they might receive the Holy Spirit. For as yet He had fallen upon none of them. They had only been baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. Then they laid hands on them, and they received the Holy Spirit.  And when Simon saw that through the laying on of the apostles’ hands the Holy Spirit was given, he offered them money, saying, ‘Give me this power also, that anyone on whom I lay hands may receive the Holy Spirit.’  But Peter said to him, ‘Your money perish with you, because you thought that the gift of God could be purchased with money!  You have neither part nor portion in this matter, for your heart is not right in the sight of God.  Repent therefore of this your wickedness, and pray God if perhaps the thought of your heart may be forgiven you.  For I see that you are poisoned by bitterness and bound by iniquity.’  Then Simon answered and said, ‘Pray to the Lord for me, that none of the things which you have spoken may come upon me.’”  (Acts 8:13-24, NKJV). 

 

            I have heard it suggested that if we do not believe in “once-saved-always-saved” then we would have to keep baptizing people over and over every time they fall into sin.  But this view fails to recognize that there are conditions of salvation for the sinner who has never responded to Christ and conditions of salvation for those who are already Christians.  For the alien sinner, the Bible teaches that repentance of sins, faith in Christ, and baptism in His name are required for salvation.  For the rebellious child of God, the conditions of salvation are repentance and prayer, asking God to forgive them.  The apostles did not re-baptize Simon—his faith and baptism into Christ were authentic—but he had to repent and ask God to forgive him because his heart was wicked.  To stay saved, the baptized believer must remain faithful to Christ.  If he fails to do so, the only hope he has of salvation is if he repents and turns back to God. 

 

            The Galatians (Ga. 5:4-7), the prodigal son (Luke 15:24), Judas (Matthew 26:14-16), and even some renegade angels (2 Pet. 2:4; Jude 6) all fell from the state of grace.  This is why believers are warned to “take heed” lest we fall (1 Cor. 10:12), to abide in Christ (John 15:6), and to make our calling and election sure (2 Pet. 1:10).  It was Jesus who said, “Verily, verily, I say unto you, If a man keeps my saying, he shall never see death.”  (John 8:51).  The word “keeps”—in the English as well as the Greek—suggests sustained obedience and faithfulness.  “If” we keep Jesus’ word—if we keep following Him in faith and obedience—we have the promise of eternal life. 

 

            There is no good reason to ignore or explain away all the warnings that the Bible gives against apostasy.  We do not have to engage in such manipulation of Scripture in order to exalt and magnify the grace of God.  There is much in the Scriptures about the security of the faithful believer—but there is no security for the unfaithful believer.  Actually, the concept of “security” is only understood alongside the concept of “faithfulness,” for it is the faithful believer—and only the faithful believer—who is promised God’s salvation.

 

Bryan Dunaway