Was He Ever Saved?

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Paul Shelby Lewis
 
The debate between the “eternal security” and the “salvation’s revolving door” crowds is always interesting.  Both sides claim that they rest their opinion on what they deem to be the overwhelming evidence of Scripture; both have cases that are worth (at the very least) heart felt and prayer filled consideration. 
 
This article, however, is not about that debate, but rather about an inconsistency within the “Eternal Security” camp.  Let me be clear from the outset, I do not think there is any doubt that when Scripture says, “No one can take [my sheep] out of my Father’s hand,” that no one includes myself as concerns my salvific state.  Moreover, it makes no philosophical sense to say that someone can lose that which refers to their eternal state (justifying salvation).  So, what is my bone of contention?
 
Whenever someone who has claimed the name of Christ falls into unrepentant sin, proponents of eternal security tend to start asking the question, “Do you think he was ever saved?”  They cite Scriptures such as Matthew 3:16-17:  “You will know them by their fruits.  Grapes are not gathered from thorn bushes nor figs from thistles, are they?  So every good tree bears good fruit, but the bad tree bears bad fruit.”  Another favorite is 1 John 3:8 which says, “No one who is born of God practices [in an active, continual sense] sin.”  Finally, there is Hebrews 12:6 which states, “the Lord disciplines those whom He loves.” 
 
The logic for the believers in eternal security is simple:
           
            Person X is not bearing fruit, is living perpetually in sin, and is not                                               being disciplined for that sin.
            Person X is not currently saved.
            Once a person is saved, he will remain saved.
            Therefore, Person X was never saved.
 
But what happens when the subject in question lived as a “man of God” for many years?   What if, for ten years prior, this man or woman bore much fruit?  What if, five years before his or her current state of sinful behavior, the logic looked like the following:
           
            Person X is bearing fruit and living in a righteous manner.
            Person X is currently saved.
            Once a person is saved, he will remain saved.
            Therefore, Person X will always be saved.
 
On the face of things, the same verses listed above to prove that the one who is now unrepentant was never saved would have shown conclusively, five years before this point, that he was saved.  Were his many years of “service” to Christ nothing more than dross to be burned away at the judgment?  Was he simply producing fruit of the devil; of deception?  People can cite Matthew 7:21-23 all they want; but are we really to believe that everyone surrounding such people who fall into sin—those who worked with them, prayed with them, mentored them, and were mentored by them—are all so spiritually dull as to not suspect a hint of an impure motive in their actions? 
 
This is why the question, “Do you think he was ever saved,” makes my blood boil.  For one thing, it is a classic case of eternal security proponents trying to have their cake and eat it, too.  If we are to use one standard to judge whether or not someone is saved and come to the undeniable conclusion that he is, let’s not turn around ten years from now and use the exact same standard to argue that he never was saved.  I understand making this point when someone falls into the category of the seed that fell on the rock and quickly withered (Luke 8).  But what of someone who teaches, preaches, mentors, and by all accounts follows hard after Christ for 10, 20, 30, 40, or even 50 years?  Are we to disregard the 50 in light of the five? 
 
Moreover, there is no way for us to know the internal discipline that someone may be enduring because of his sin.  Just like people having a bad day can hide it from their closest friends, so can someone enduring the Lord’s internal discipline hide it on account of his own pride.  How would we know that a man living in adultery does not wake up every morning fighting to ignore the internal tugging of the Holy Spirit?  Every believer has ignored such tugging at one point in his or her life; have you ever said something to your wife, husband, father, mother, brother, sister, or close friend despite a clear mind as to the damage it will bring and the forgiveness for which you will eventually ask?  If we can do such a thing once, what is to stop someone from continuing in such a practice? 
 
Recall the words of the Apostle Paul in His Magnum Opus:  “For what I am doing, I do not understand; for I am not practicing what I would like to do, but I am doing the very thing I hate.  .  .  .  For the good that I want, I do not do, but I practice the very evil I do not want” (Rom. 7:15, 19).  Sin is blinding, it is powerful, and it can cripple even the strongest follower of Christ.  Better that we allow the Lord to work, to enact His discipline as He sees fit, even to bring about the death of which He warns in 1 John 5 or 1 Corinthians 5, rather than engage in the ceaseless debate as to whether someone was or was not saved.

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