Afterthought
Puritan Board Senior
Hello, I'm new to the forum and was saved out of modern evangelicalism--which included the weak doctrine of eternal security. I recently got into an argument with two people (who were arguing as one person, since I allowed the person I was arguing with to get help from another) about needing to accept Christ as Savior and Lord for salvation. Now, I had come to the conclusion that such was true from what I had read in the Bible, and I thought the Bible was pretty clear about that. Little did I know that some people had advanced the doctrine of eternal security by explaining away certain Bible passages through the idea of being saved at one point and becoming a disciple at another point. =/ I was fortunate to have never come across such an idea until now.
Anyway, I'm a little lost on how to deal with such people. Can you help? I'll give some portions of the conversation to give you an idea of what I'm talking about. I found it puzzling that these specific people accepted that you needed to repent. Perhaps I can use that as a contact point (if they mean the same thing by repentance that I meant, that is =/)? Also, as another note, I don't plan on debating these people due to a lack of time, but I wish to have an appropriate reply to them and to others who hold to this doctrine that I will inevitably meet. Now for the portions of our conversation:
Me:"God's followers are not devoted. I'm going to go ahead and say that such people are probably not God's followers. The reasoning being that true Christians bear fruit (near the end of John, Galatians, etc). You can know a true Christian by whether they love God and thus obey Him (1 John). You can know a true Christian if you see an increase in holiness--he or she becoming more Christ-like--as time goes on. A true Christian does not live a life of sin but is dead to it (Romans 6). If there is no evidence of this in a Christian's life, you have every reason to doubt whether the person is a Christian or not."
Person'sReply:"Were you referring to John 15? It does speak of bearing fruit, but it also clearly indicates that bearing fruit is evidence of discipleship, not evidence of simply being saved (v. 8). When I was saved at about five years of age, I didn't become a disciple of Jesus Christ right away. It took a long battle with the flesh before I finally did become one of His disciples. Other than that, this part looks good."
In reply to something else I say later, this person says something similar to the above:"But you are correct that anyone saved will be transformed by God's power. Their behaviour will change, but it may take some time." (emphasis mine)
(Note: I did mean John 15 though I should have explicitly mentioned "good tree bears good fruit" passages. I did not give exact Bible citations since I was writing this quickly and knew these two knew the Bible pretty well.)
Me:"...we only preach half the Gospel when we tell people that praying a certain prayer will save them once for all. People are to believe and repent of their sins. You cannot accept Jesus as Savior without accepting Him as Lord. You must do both to be saved. To say otherwise in a gospel presentation is to preach a false gospel. Notice how in Peter’s first sermons in Acts the response to the Gospel was to 'repent and be baptized.' Notice also that this was after the people had already accepted his message by faith (they believed what he said to be true and affirmed it as good) and so faith is implicit in 'repent and be baptized.'"
Person'sReply:"Correct except for 'You cannot accept Jesus as Savior without accepting Him as Lord. You must do both to be saved. To say otherwise in a gospel presentation is to preach a false gospel.' When we accept Jesus as out savior, we are (even if we do not know it) accepting Him as our Lord. A conscious acceptance of Jesus Christ as our Lord is not necessary to salvation."
OtherPerson'sReply:"I did not accept Jesus as Lord until quite a few years after I was saved. But I absolutely agree that repenting of sin is necessary. If someone doesn't recognize their need for a saviour from sin, they're probably wanting religion for the sake of belonging to a group or something."
Me:"True saving faith gives birth to good deeds. You know a tree by its fruit. A person abiding in Christ will produce good fruit. If there are no good deeds evident, then that person’s 'faith' is no faith at all (James 2). This was the original meaning of 'Salvation by Faith Alone' as stated by the Reformers! As they said, 'Justification is by faith alone, but not by a faith that is alone.' Not to mention that in Jewish thought, belief and action were 'one'--that is, your actions show what you believe--and so all the other verses where only faith is mentioned imply action (i.e., repentance, obedience). It is nonsense to say you trust Christ for salvation if your actions don’t show it."
Person'sReply:"Good, except the possibility of a carnal Christian should be noted when looking at a 'Christian's' life."
Me:"Good deeds will always follow true saving faith. Any other kind of faith does not save. Thus, contrary to popular belief, there is no such thing as a 'fire insurance' Christian--one who simply prays a prayer to be safe for eternity than goes on living however he or she sees fit. Anyone who does that is not a Christian at all and needs to be saved. This also means that the weak version of eternal security that goes around Modern Evangelicalism is a false doctrine. The stronger version of it--'perseverance of the saints'--is much different: people who continue to do good deeds will be saved which shows them to be Christians and true Christians will continue to do good deeds until the end and be saved. It’s easy to see how people have distorted that though, huh?"
Person'sReply:"I have some problems with this paragraph. There may be people who do truly accept Jesus as their Savior but are not taught to live a holy life. But I would agree that someone who says they accept Jesus as their Savior but go on to live their life as they please despite what they have heard about holiness probably are not Christians. Also, what portion of the Bible are you using to back up what you said about the perseverance of the saints?" (I believe I can back up the perseverance of the saints, but I left it in the dialogue to show these people's position better)
I then mentioned something about warning "carnal Christians" to repentance (using Ezekiel 33 as evidence) and that we should not admit that such people are saved and so giving them false assurance, but I later edited the paragraph because it sounded like a cold "witch hunt" and needed to be balanced. Thus, the reply to what I said there is not worth mentioning in detail (which was basically saying that if a person accepts Jesus as Savior and so knows from the Bible that he or she is saved, saying that such a person is a Christian isn't wrong), but the final reply to my entire argument is worth mentioning:
Person'sReply:"I agree with quite a bit that you said. One of your messages mentioned the verse which says we should make our calling and election sure, which is important to remember because apparently we can know we believe, we can know we are saved. Overall, though, when you consider the possibility of carnal Christians, Christians who haven't become disciples of Jesus yet, your points are important to remember. In other words, these are related to the problem you are focusing on. However, we can't totally count people as unsaved if their lives don't display a bunch of good works, but we should spur them to good works in the Lord." (emphasis mine)
I realize that my way of arguing was...filled with some rhetoric. Besides that though, did they have a point in anything they said in response to me? Was I wrong in anything I said? Perhaps we were simply talking past each other (I plan on asking them to define "repentance")? For future reference too, do you have some suggestions for help and/or resources to deal with such people who do not accept that repentance is necessary so that I'm better prepared to deal with this doctrine in general and not just in this specific situation?
I have done some research already through searching these forums and found some verses I might be able to use, but they will probably be explained away through the "disciple later" idea: "Not everyone who says to me, Lord! Lord! shall enter into the Kingdom of heaven." (Mt. 7:21); "Why do you call me Lord! Lord! and do not the things that I say?" (Lk. 6:46); "If you love me keep my commandments." (Jn. 14:15); along with vv. 21, 23) "For this is the love of God: that we keep his commandments." (1 Jn. 5:3); I delight in the law of God after the inner man." (Rom. 7:22); (2 Cor 5:17); (Luke 14:27). I had also planned on using the "sowing to the Spirit/reaping eternal life", the "sin lists/not inherit the kingdom of God", and the "good tree/good fruit" verses.
Any help will be appreciated!
Anyway, I'm a little lost on how to deal with such people. Can you help? I'll give some portions of the conversation to give you an idea of what I'm talking about. I found it puzzling that these specific people accepted that you needed to repent. Perhaps I can use that as a contact point (if they mean the same thing by repentance that I meant, that is =/)? Also, as another note, I don't plan on debating these people due to a lack of time, but I wish to have an appropriate reply to them and to others who hold to this doctrine that I will inevitably meet. Now for the portions of our conversation:
Me:"God's followers are not devoted. I'm going to go ahead and say that such people are probably not God's followers. The reasoning being that true Christians bear fruit (near the end of John, Galatians, etc). You can know a true Christian by whether they love God and thus obey Him (1 John). You can know a true Christian if you see an increase in holiness--he or she becoming more Christ-like--as time goes on. A true Christian does not live a life of sin but is dead to it (Romans 6). If there is no evidence of this in a Christian's life, you have every reason to doubt whether the person is a Christian or not."
Person'sReply:"Were you referring to John 15? It does speak of bearing fruit, but it also clearly indicates that bearing fruit is evidence of discipleship, not evidence of simply being saved (v. 8). When I was saved at about five years of age, I didn't become a disciple of Jesus Christ right away. It took a long battle with the flesh before I finally did become one of His disciples. Other than that, this part looks good."
In reply to something else I say later, this person says something similar to the above:"But you are correct that anyone saved will be transformed by God's power. Their behaviour will change, but it may take some time." (emphasis mine)
(Note: I did mean John 15 though I should have explicitly mentioned "good tree bears good fruit" passages. I did not give exact Bible citations since I was writing this quickly and knew these two knew the Bible pretty well.)
Me:"...we only preach half the Gospel when we tell people that praying a certain prayer will save them once for all. People are to believe and repent of their sins. You cannot accept Jesus as Savior without accepting Him as Lord. You must do both to be saved. To say otherwise in a gospel presentation is to preach a false gospel. Notice how in Peter’s first sermons in Acts the response to the Gospel was to 'repent and be baptized.' Notice also that this was after the people had already accepted his message by faith (they believed what he said to be true and affirmed it as good) and so faith is implicit in 'repent and be baptized.'"
Person'sReply:"Correct except for 'You cannot accept Jesus as Savior without accepting Him as Lord. You must do both to be saved. To say otherwise in a gospel presentation is to preach a false gospel.' When we accept Jesus as out savior, we are (even if we do not know it) accepting Him as our Lord. A conscious acceptance of Jesus Christ as our Lord is not necessary to salvation."
OtherPerson'sReply:"I did not accept Jesus as Lord until quite a few years after I was saved. But I absolutely agree that repenting of sin is necessary. If someone doesn't recognize their need for a saviour from sin, they're probably wanting religion for the sake of belonging to a group or something."
Me:"True saving faith gives birth to good deeds. You know a tree by its fruit. A person abiding in Christ will produce good fruit. If there are no good deeds evident, then that person’s 'faith' is no faith at all (James 2). This was the original meaning of 'Salvation by Faith Alone' as stated by the Reformers! As they said, 'Justification is by faith alone, but not by a faith that is alone.' Not to mention that in Jewish thought, belief and action were 'one'--that is, your actions show what you believe--and so all the other verses where only faith is mentioned imply action (i.e., repentance, obedience). It is nonsense to say you trust Christ for salvation if your actions don’t show it."
Person'sReply:"Good, except the possibility of a carnal Christian should be noted when looking at a 'Christian's' life."
Me:"Good deeds will always follow true saving faith. Any other kind of faith does not save. Thus, contrary to popular belief, there is no such thing as a 'fire insurance' Christian--one who simply prays a prayer to be safe for eternity than goes on living however he or she sees fit. Anyone who does that is not a Christian at all and needs to be saved. This also means that the weak version of eternal security that goes around Modern Evangelicalism is a false doctrine. The stronger version of it--'perseverance of the saints'--is much different: people who continue to do good deeds will be saved which shows them to be Christians and true Christians will continue to do good deeds until the end and be saved. It’s easy to see how people have distorted that though, huh?"
Person'sReply:"I have some problems with this paragraph. There may be people who do truly accept Jesus as their Savior but are not taught to live a holy life. But I would agree that someone who says they accept Jesus as their Savior but go on to live their life as they please despite what they have heard about holiness probably are not Christians. Also, what portion of the Bible are you using to back up what you said about the perseverance of the saints?" (I believe I can back up the perseverance of the saints, but I left it in the dialogue to show these people's position better)
I then mentioned something about warning "carnal Christians" to repentance (using Ezekiel 33 as evidence) and that we should not admit that such people are saved and so giving them false assurance, but I later edited the paragraph because it sounded like a cold "witch hunt" and needed to be balanced. Thus, the reply to what I said there is not worth mentioning in detail (which was basically saying that if a person accepts Jesus as Savior and so knows from the Bible that he or she is saved, saying that such a person is a Christian isn't wrong), but the final reply to my entire argument is worth mentioning:
Person'sReply:"I agree with quite a bit that you said. One of your messages mentioned the verse which says we should make our calling and election sure, which is important to remember because apparently we can know we believe, we can know we are saved. Overall, though, when you consider the possibility of carnal Christians, Christians who haven't become disciples of Jesus yet, your points are important to remember. In other words, these are related to the problem you are focusing on. However, we can't totally count people as unsaved if their lives don't display a bunch of good works, but we should spur them to good works in the Lord." (emphasis mine)
I realize that my way of arguing was...filled with some rhetoric. Besides that though, did they have a point in anything they said in response to me? Was I wrong in anything I said? Perhaps we were simply talking past each other (I plan on asking them to define "repentance")? For future reference too, do you have some suggestions for help and/or resources to deal with such people who do not accept that repentance is necessary so that I'm better prepared to deal with this doctrine in general and not just in this specific situation?
I have done some research already through searching these forums and found some verses I might be able to use, but they will probably be explained away through the "disciple later" idea: "Not everyone who says to me, Lord! Lord! shall enter into the Kingdom of heaven." (Mt. 7:21); "Why do you call me Lord! Lord! and do not the things that I say?" (Lk. 6:46); "If you love me keep my commandments." (Jn. 14:15); along with vv. 21, 23) "For this is the love of God: that we keep his commandments." (1 Jn. 5:3); I delight in the law of God after the inner man." (Rom. 7:22); (2 Cor 5:17); (Luke 14:27). I had also planned on using the "sowing to the Spirit/reaping eternal life", the "sin lists/not inherit the kingdom of God", and the "good tree/good fruit" verses.
Any help will be appreciated!
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