- Faith Is Not Given Us to Fail

10 - Faith Is Not Given Us to Fail
COMING INTO THE CHRISTIAN LIFE by faith does not release us from the cautions God has given us in His Word. Study the Bible seriously, and you will find that God desires His church to be watchful and alert, diligent in the humble life of faith and trust.
In the Letter to the Hebrews, we come to a sobering caution and a spiritual responsibility:
See to it that no one misses the grace of God and that no bitter root grows up to cause trouble and defile many.(Hebrews 12:15)
In the King James Version, this verse carries an even stronger warning: “Looking diligently lest any man fail of the grace of God …”
We know our human natures, and we do not deny our human weaknesses. We confess that we need both the cautions and the encouragements God has provided. We know very well our need to lean on the divine promises for the better kind of life—the life of faith and trust that is pleasing to God.
This Letter to the Hebrews was written in the first place to provide caution and encouragement. And it still speaks plainly to us today. Its message and appeal come to us with urgency: “There are decisions to be made. You must dare to believe! You must dare to obey God! Go on over to the victory side where there is forgiveness and blessing from the eternal Son, who is now your great High Priest in the heavenlies!”
The cautions may be negative, but our Lord’s emphasis is positive: “Each of you must press forward in your Christian faith and experience! Be diligent and be wise, and you will not be among those who delay and question and hold back!”
Now, what warning was the writer trying to give us when he said that some people might miss the grace of God—might fail of the grace of God? And what warning should we take from the writer’s reference to some who would actually fall away?
It is impossible for those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, who have shared in the Holy Spirit, who have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the coming age, if they fall away, to be brought back to repentance, because to their loss they are crucifying the Son of God all over again and subjecting him to public disgrace. (Hebrews 6:4-6)
Controversial statements
The interpretation of these statements has always produced differences of opinion among Christians. My purpose is not to engage in argument. Rather, I am hopeful that some of these considerations I am proposing will be helpful if you feel concerned or even confused.
Ministers have said to me that there are so many positive Scriptures that they just work around the more difficult and controversial sections. When I preach month after month in a specific book of the Bible, I try faithfully to deal with the “hard-to-understand” passages when I come to them.
For centuries, there have been differences in the interpretation of certain verses relating to the faith and endurance of Christian believers—the “perseverance of the saints,” as some call it. In Christian theology, so the dictionaries say, this simply means “the continuance in a state of grace until it is succeeded by a state of glory.”
I look back into church history, and in my own mind, I can visualize John Calvin and John Arminius—who polarized the issue of God’s sovereignty versus man’s free will—squaring off in their own differences at this point. But why should this be made such a great test in the area of our Christian fellowship?
People have cornered me and pressured me, asking pointedly, “Are you Calvinistic or Arminian in doctrine?” I think I have effectively parried this thrust by repeating a conversation I once had with a prominent English clergyman of our times. He spoke to me of another minister of his acquaintance, and I asked, “He is a Calvinist, I presume?”
My minister friend smiled with good humor. “Well,” he replied, “I think he is what we might call an equivocating Calvinist! “From a personal point of view and to answer the curious, I would say that the phrase also describes me fairly well!
We need to disagree graciously
I have always said that these are personal matters for each of us to determine in our own sincere lives of faith. I have found many thoughtful people in our fellowship who do not want to be pushed from a position of charity and understanding to the extreme edge of any doctrines, particularly where the deity and the uniqueness of Jesus Christ are not in question.
Scores of books have been written by people who have taken opposite sides on some of these difficult passages of Scripture. I have read and studied many of these books.
In this context, I recall a friend’s story. He told me that he had discovered a woodworking shop where all varieties of wooden products, like clothes pins and chair legs, were made and sold. There was a rather startling sign in front of the shop. It read: “All Kinds of Twisting and Turning Done Here.” When I have read the narrow, partisan arguments set forth in some of these books I mention, I have felt they too could use the words as an overall title: “All Kinds of Twisting and Turning Done Here”!
We do well to remember that we are Christ’s only representatives in an evil world and in a very self-centered society. I believe our Lord wants us to be day-by-day examples in the gracious art of putting our Christian love and concern ahead of any divisive dialogue.
One school of thought has always insisted that those who have fallen away could not have been genuine believers. They may have had the appearance of being Christians, but they were not. They could speak the language of Christians. They had the reputation of being Christian believers. They may have won the trust and confidence of the Christians around them, but they had not attained unto the grace of God. And because they had missed, in some way or another, the grace of God, they had fallen away.
On the other side, there are many reasons for considering those who have fallen away as once Christian believers. They were described as enlightened, as having shared in the Holy Spirit, as having tasted the goodness of the Word of God and the powers of the coming age.
But, the arguers persist, they merely had received light. They had only tasted. They may have recognized the Holy Spirit, but they did not possess Him. As a result they fell away.
We should compare Scripture with Scripture
When it comes to the original Greek, I do not profess to be a scholar. But I do know how to compare the basic meaning of the same words when they are used in different places in the Scriptures. Some teachers have commented: “Enlightened—that means they merely had light, but they were not born again. They merely received light.”
But when Paul wrote to remind the Ephesian Christians of his prayer that the eyes of their understanding would be enlightened, he used the very same word we find in Hebrews 6:4. Paul was praying for an advanced spiritual state for genuine Christians whom he called saints and chosen of God. Clearly enlightened may mean much more than merely receiving information about the gospel.
The next expression refers to their tasting of the heavenly gift, the goodness of the Word of God and the powers of the coming age. The word tasted has caused some to conclude that these to whom the writer refers merely licked at it—sampled it—to see if they liked it, and decided that they did not. But the very word used for tasting here is also used in Hebrews 2:9, where we are told that Christ “tasted death for everyone.” If tasting the heavenly gift means merely nibbling but never swallowing and digesting, are we to say the same for Christ, who tasted death for everyone? Christ experienced death. We can hardly conclude other than that the people mentioned in Hebrews 6 likewise had experienced the heavenly gift, the goodness of the Word of God and the powers of the coming age.
Then there is the expression, “who have shared in the Holy Spirit.” Those who suppose these were not genuine Christians minimize this sharing in the Holy Spirit. “They went along with Him, but they never really possessed Him.”
But I find this same Greek word translated “sharing” or” partaking of” used elsewhere in the Scriptures for accepting, receiving, eating. I have to believe this word means actual experience, also. These had received and experienced the Holy Spirit.
This would indicate that those who had experienced and actually shared in spiritual attainments could fall away, some even “crucifying the Son of God all over again” to the point they could not be brought back to repentance.
Backsliding and the “unpardonable sin”
Right here, I would like to suggest a point for clarification. I do not think we are referring to what we commonly call “backsliding” when we are considering what it may mean to fall away. Look at Peter. He failed miserably, but he was forgiven and became a great apostle. Look at Mark. He went back for a time, but he was restored and served Christ until he died.
We also know that there have been many backslidden Christians who have agonized over the possibility of having committed the unpardonable sin. I have discovered a very helpful rule in this matter. I believe it holds good throughout the whole church of God around the world. “Anyone who is concerned about having committed the unpardonable sin may be sure he or she has not!
Any person who has ever committed that dark and dread unpardonable sin feels no guilt and confesses no worry. Jesus dealt with the Pharisees and told them face to face that their expressions concerning His person and their attributing the work of the Holy Spirit to the devil were evidences of the unpardonable sin. But His warning caused them no worry. They still believed themselves to be entirely righteous! They felt no need for repentance, no sorrow for sin, no guilt for unbelief. “Do not worry about us,” was their attitude. “We do not have any problem!”
Returning to our rule for Christians with guilt and concern, the very fact that a person is worried and concerned indicates that the Spirit of God is still working in his or her life.
Being human and therefore finite, we may not know in this life all that the inspired writer meant when he used the words fall away. I suggest that to actually fall away means that the person has no worry about his or her spiritual defection. He or she shrugs it all off as though it was a foolish relationship in the first place.
Concerning the words, “it is impossible … to be brought back to repentance,” I have found a helpful suggestion. Let me refer to the example of a sinning man in the church at Corinth:
It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and of a kind that does not occur even among pagans: A man has his father’s wife. And you are proud! Shouldn’t you rather have been filled with grief and have put out of your fellowship the man who did this? Even though I am not physically present, I am with you in spirit. And I have already passed judgment on the one who did this, just as if I were present. When you are assembled in the name of our Lord Jesus and I am with you in spirit, and the power of our Lord Jesus is present, hand this man over to Satan, so that the sinful nature may be destroyed and his spirit saved on the day of the Lord. (1 Corinthians 5:1-5)
With God all things are possible
It is plain that Paul condemned this man for his incestuous acts, and it appears further that he could not be brought to repentance by the Corinthian church. So Paul said, “We will hand him over to Satan for the destruction of the flesh that the spirit may be saved in the coming day of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
In the light of this action and the instructions of Paul given to the believers in the church, I ask you a question—and I think it is a searching question: May we not conclude in faith, relative to those the church cannot bring to repentance, that God Himself may accomplish it, even by bringing them to the point of death and turning them around to Himself? The suggestion is surely inherent in this study of the incestuous man, for we learn in Second Corinthians that he indeed repented.
Some of these questions have been on the lips of Christians throughout the centuries. Some of them have been bitterly argued. There are believers still who spend much time and effort trying to convert other people to their opinions concerning them.
When it comes to this issue of the impossibility of renewing a person to repentance, the question has long ago been settled in my own heart and mind: I am not going back!
For me, the question of falling away is only academic. It is academic and not real to all Christian believers who, like their Savior, have set their faces like a flint. We will follow the Lamb wherever He leads us!
We have not come into the Christian faith to promote or protect shallow Christian experience. Neither is it our calling to defend the coldness of heart that is all too apparent in Christian circles. Let us never, never defend such coldness of heart! Rather, let us covenant to follow Jesus Christ fully and faithfully. We know that He will faithfully and lovingly do His part to keep us and sustain us.
God’s first-aid kit
But, you ask, “What if I fail? What if I stumble through some weakness of the flesh?” Probably the very best way for me to close out this discussion is to remind you of God’s first-aid kit for His devoted family.
I had some part in raising a family of six boys and one girl. As a family, we could never have made it without the first-aid kit. There was hardly a time during those years that we were not giving attention to a cut or a bruise, a cold or an illness. It is remarkable that they all survived—and in good health!
God has provided an effective truth—I call it our spiritual first-aid kit—in John’s first letter:
If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word has no place in our lives.
My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin. But if anybody does sin, we have one who speaks to the Father in our defense—Jesus Christ, the Righteous One. He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world. (1 John 1:8-10 to 1 John 2:2)
That is a plain, blunt, helpful message from the Scriptures. If you say you have not sinned, you are lying! Jesus is our great High Priest, and He appears with the Father on our behalf. He is our Advocate, our Intercessor. Go to Him, confess your sin and your need, and He will cleanse and forgive. He will bless and heal.
No turning back!
Now, we have come through these difficult, hard-to-understand passages, and it remains for us to determine that we are committed followers of the Lamb. We are not going back! I never want to experience whatever it means to fall away, to fail the God who is full of grace and truth. I do not want to know—or experience—whatever it means to fall away.
I do not want to know any more about hell. What I do know about hell is enough to make me want to know much more about heaven and our Savior, who is already there.
I do not want to find out how far I can go toward the edge without finally perishing. But I do want to know, by the grace of God, how closely and carefully I can walk with Him in faith and blessing and victory.