Salvation Lost

This was an email reply that I recently made to a co-worker who asked me about Hebrews 9 and eternal security. I hope I was able to give an answer for my hope in a loving way. I have to work at the "loving way" sometimes...lol.

I am totally bewildered on how anyone could use Hebrews 9:22 as a proof text for losing ones salvation. It seems to be part of a larger discussion in chapter 9 that is dealing with how the holy tent, the holy items, and the blood sacrifice of the Mosaic covenant are foreshadowing symbols of the true redemption bought by Christ thru his blood and his subsequent intercession to the Father in the true holy place, heaven.

Verse 22 reads: "...without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sin." That is true. If Christ had not died for sin, if he had not poured out his blood and became sin, then we never would have been forgiven and made holy before God. What that has to do with "falling away", I don't know.

When I hear people tell me that you can lose your salvation, I reply with Romans 8:38-39. After explaining how God has adopted us as his children and how we should hope for our future glory, Paul culminates with the statement that nothing can separate us from the love of Christ. Verse 39 is clear: "...nor anything else in ALL creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord."

However, this goes back to our debate on Calvinism and Arminianism. I believe that 'once saved, always saved" because I believe that God does the saving apart from any works of mine (see Ephesians 1 and 2). That position seems untenable for the libertarian free will theologian.

In fact historical Arminianism argues that a believer can "choose" to reject God the same way they "chose" to accept him. I am not talking about committing a sin that causes one to be "unsaved." That is a Roman-Catholic belief. I am saying that Arminian theologians would tell you that you may deliberately push God away after you have accepted him.

The strange thing is...modern evangelicalism, up until the 21st century has seen the synthesis of the two positions. People like Billy Graham believe that you choose God (Arminianism) but that he holds on to you once you are in the family (Calvinism). I think that this 20th century blending of the two theological systems is illogical.

But times are changing, the Calvinistic or Reformed beliefs of the past are coming back into the spotlight. More and more people are seeing that the biblical accounts explaining our salvation and the nature of God are best worked out in the writings of men like Augustine of Hippo, Luther, Calvin, Knox, Spurgeon, and contemporaries like Piper and Driscoll.

Having done more research into the issue, what I found is Hebrews 10:26-31. Look that up and you will see how it might be misread as applying to Christians today. I think that people who interpret the passage as being proof for losing your salvation are reading out of context.

We must remember that the book of Hebrews was written by a Jew to Jews to get them to understand what exactally Christ did. Most books of the NT are written to Gentiles, this one is not.

So - in context I believe that the "we" of verse 26 is the Jews specifically and not modern Christians. Furthermore I interpret the thoughts here to basically say:

"Before God revealed his Son, the Messiah, to us...we Jews had special status with God thru the Mosaic covenant. God passed over our sins in his grace as he anticipated the coming of the Christ which would remove sin for those who trusted the Messiah. Now, Christ has come and if we continue living in the past by spurning the Son of God and clinging to the law and the traditions, we will be rightly judged with a judgement far worse than the death prescribed under the old covenant. We will be put into the fire. That is a scary thing."

This seems like a fair, contextual summary of what is being said here. One thing is for sure: it cannot be saying that once we are saved, if we sin, we will be lost. Why?

In addition to the Romans 8 passage I gave you earlier, read John 10: 27-30. In these red letter verses, Jesus says that his sheep know him, he gives them eternal life, and "...they will never perish...no one is able to snatch them out of my hand." That is pretty clear. No ambiguity in that statement. Once he saves us, we are in the family.

I think most people who object to eternal security do so because they cannot reconcile the idea that you can be saved, then do whatever sins you want, and still go to heaven. I understand their worry at a theology like that. The thing is, the bible doesn't teach that. The bible teaches that when we are saved the old self is killed and shed off and the Holy Spirit dwells within us to change our hearts and renew our minds that we might not desire to do the things of the flesh anymore. This new birth sets us on the road to being more sanctified and closer to resembling Jesus every day. And with that biblical message there is great hope that we who have been called and justified will persevere to the end by God's hand alone.