Surrender to Unbelief Is Treason Against Christ

 "In all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us" (Romans 8:37). 

"Thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ" (I Corinthians 15:57). 

"Everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world—our faith. Who is it that overcomes the world except the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?" (I John 5:4-5).

Does the reader notice any parallels among these three verses? In each, the respective Apostles tell us that the Christian life is one of victory. Victory over whom? Over the world, used here of the unbelieving world. 

Another thing that I would expect a reader to notice is the contrast between these verses and the expectations of the average American evangelical. Under the influence of dispensationalism and pietism, the average evangelical expects his religious experience to be one of suffering and retreat. Now, of course, we know that Jesus warned us to expect such things: "A servant is not greater than his master. If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you" (John 15:20). But notice that there is no "always" in that verse. Yet, always has become the standard expectation. That one verse is given sustained application, while the three above get buried. 

I would suggest that the expectation of continuous retreat is a self-fulfilling expectation. It has become a mark of orthodoxy to abandon our world to the unbelievers. However, as I think the verses above tell us, that is a false orthodoxy!

Never Known versus Fallen from Faith

As I have said before, the doctrine of the Perseverance of the Saints is very precious to me. I am very conscious of my weakness, so I am glad that my unfaithfulness never cancels the faithfulness of God (II Timothy 2:13). That is an important distinction: my perseverance is because Of God's faithfulness, not mine. So the common caricature of the doctrine as an expression of pride is no more than a pejorative, void of any true basis. 

We find this short statement from Jesus in Matthew 7:21-23: "Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of My Father who is in heaven. On that day many will say to Me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and cast out demons in Your name, and do many mighty works in Your name?’ And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you workers of lawlessness.'" Notice that He is talking about men who claim to be His people. Yet He rejects them, because He had never known them! That is an important statement. They are professing believers, members of the visible church. Yet He doesn't say to them, "I now kick you out." Rather, He tells them, "I never knew you." So, while they had claimed to be believers, members of the visible covenant community, the profession of Jesus was that their profession had been false. They had never been members of His invisible church, regenerate and redeemed. The Apostle John put this in more-explicit form in I John 2:19: "They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us. But they went out, that it might become plain that they all are not of us." 

Are there men who go to church and claim to be Christians, who, later, fall into grievous sin or even deny the faith that they had once professed? Of course. Does that mean that true Christians can become unbelievers? Absolutely not. Rather, they have demonstrated that their profession was a lie, and that Jesus had never known them.

Persevering in the Perfecting Power of Jesus

A common caricature of the Reformed doctrine of the perseverance of the saints is that it, supposedly, allows a person to spout some words, and then to live wickedly, assured that he is destined for Heaven. And I grant that the oft-used semi-Arminian version, "once saved-always saved," can be taken exactly that way. That is because the anti-Calvinists don't understand the difference. 

As I wrote here, once saved-always saved (hereafter, "OSAS") is the Calvinist doctrine transplanted into an otherwise Pelagian system of theology. It simply doesn't work. In contrast, perseverance holds that God will enable the believer to continue in faith and sanctification. That doesn't mean that the believer can never stumble; rather, it means that he will never ultimately stumble forever.

Consider this verse: "For by a single offering He [i. e., Jesus] has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified" (Hebrews 10:14). Notice the sequence here. By His one offering of Himself on the cross, Jesus has perfected, i. e.,  legal standing, or justification, those are being sanctified, i. e., progressive sanctification. So the one-time cross work of Jesus saved the elect, so that we have immediate standing as perfect, or holy, and will increasingly experience that holiness in our lives. 

That which has already been perfected cannot fail to achieve its purpose! 

Jesus Contra "Soul Sleep": Absent from the Body, Present with the Lord

As we know, Jesus was a frequent target of the Pharisees, as they asked Him questions that they expected to baffle Him or to expose Him to punishment by the Romans. Their opponents, the Sadducees attempted to trip up Jesus, too, but only one time. In Mark 12, they asked Him whose wife a woman would be in the resurrection, after she had been married and widowed by seven brothers. This was actually a double trap, because the Sadducees didn't believe in the resurrection.

In His response, Jesus answered both challenges, the one spoken, while the other was a trap waiting silently. "Is this not the reason you are wrong, because you know neither the Scriptures nor the power of God? For when they rise from the dead, they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven. And as for the dead being raised, have you not read in the book of Moses, in the passage about the bush, how God spoke to him, saying, ‘I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? He is not God of the dead, but of the living. You are quite wrong" (Mark 12:24-27). He rebukes their failure to believe the Scriptures, which tell us of the resurrection of the dead at the end of history (such as Job 19:26 and Daniel 12:2). Only then does He answer their surface question, denying that resurrected men will continue our social functions: "When they rise from the dead, they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven" (Mark 12:25). 

But He also rebukes the Sadducees for supposing that God  is related to men only in this physical life and no more: "Have you not read in the book of Moses, in the passage about the bush, how God spoke to him, saying, I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob? He is not God of the dead, but of the living. You are quite wrong" (Mark 12:26-27).

I bring up this story because it addresses a modern heresy, that of "soul sleep." That doctrine, with some differences, is especially associated with the Jehovah's Witnesses and Seventh-Day Adventists. They deny that the dead believers are conscious, and spiritually in Heaven with Jesus. This is the same doctrine for which Jesus rebukes the Sadducees.

The point of Jesus is the dead saints are alive now, enjoying fellowship with God now. They are not nonsexistent as the Sadducees believed, or nonexistent now to be recreated later as the Jehovah's Witnesses claim, or unconscious in the grave with their bodies as the Seventh-Day Adventists claim.

Instead, we can joyfully claim, as Paul did, "Away from the body and present with the Lord" (II Corinthians 5:8).

God's Law or Man's Law?

Recently, I have been seeing an argument from antinomians that we are not under the Old Testament law, but rather under the Law of Christ. When I have asked them to show me where that law is found, if they try to give any answer at all, they make a vague reference to "the law of love" or to the first and second commandments (Matthew 22:37-40). When I ask them to define "love" apart from the law, they usually disappear. Same thing when I point to Jesus words about His two commandments: "On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets" (Matthew 22:40). My point is simply that the Law of the Old Testament is the Law of Jesus. I am sad to say that those who hold the antinomian doctrine never give it up, simply because it is self-refuting. Rather, they always fall back on that antinomian trump card, "You are not under law but under grace" (Romans 6:14, ignoring context).

On the other hand, if my challenge to them is that men are then left free to decide right and wrong for themselves (Genesis 3:5), they deny that, too, trying to play both sides. Logically, it must be one or the other, as Gary North described in his book, "Tools of Dominion" (p. 315): "To argue that there ever was, ever is, or ever will be a time when men are not under God's specified judicial sanctions is to argue that they are under sanctions imposed by autonomous man, meaning the self-proclaimed autonomous State. In short, to argue this is inescapably to argue also that God has in history authorized either the tyranny of the unchained State or else the implicit subsidizing of criminal behavior through the State's unwillingness to impose God's specified sanctions. In either case, victims lose. This is what antinomians of all varieties refuse even to discuss, let alone answer biblically." 

I would suggest that our society has arri9ved exactly at the point described by North. Having rejected God's enscripturated Law, Western culture has turned to humanistic morality, maintained not by the inner power of the Holy Spirit, but rather enforced by increasing state violence. Enforced unsuccessfully. The result has been a split competition between a violent state and a violent anarchistic population. This is what a society looks like, when it has turned religion into psychotherapy and pietism.

Jesus Contra "Soul Sleep"

"Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in Me. In My Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to Myself, that where I am you may be also." 

- John 14:1-3 

Jehovah's Witnesses and Seventh-Day Adventists share a doctrine called "soul sleep." For SDA's, that doctrine says that the spirits of the dead remain, unconscious, with their bodies until the resurrection. For Jehovah's Witnesses, the doctrine is that the spirit of the dead ceases to exist, and is then recreated at the resurrection. So, while there are significant differences between the two, they both deny that there is an intermediate state for the spirits of the dead, whether for the godly in Heaven or for the wicked in Hell. That is a denial of the traditional doctrine of Christians, and I address them together here. 

Look at what Jesus says in the quote above. He was to go away to prepare a place for us to be with Him. Do Witnesses or SDA's claim that Jesus is currently unconscious in a grave? I hope they don't say anything so awful. Rather, we know that He rose into Heaven after His resurrection (Acts 1:9-11). Therefore, logic only allows us to take His words in Matthew to mean that He has been preparing a place with Him in Heaven. 

Even without considering any other scriptures, these words of Jesus preclude any interpretation comparable to "soul sleep." 

Social Disorder, Statism, and God's Law

I write this at a time when America is going through widespread social tumult over police shootings of black men and women. George Floyd and Breonna Taylor are names we hear on the nightly news almost every day. On one hand, we have the protesters, some of whom are committing wanton acts of violence and destruction, and on the other, politicians arguing over who better supports the police. Rather, I am asking whether Scripture tells us anything relevant to this crisis.

Do we see any solutions to this situation in Scripture? Some argue for more evangelism, saying that the Gospel provides an effective means of uniting people. While that is true, I don't think it is the only solution, and it is not my topic here. 

Rather, I am asking whether Scripture addresses government in a way that impacts this situation. And I think it does.

First, what is the source of law in the Bible? Is it the state? No, it isn't. Nowhere in Scripture do we find a basis for government promulgations regarding crimes or punishments. This isn't an argument for anarchy, but rather for a severely restricted state. If not the state, then what is the source of law? It is God alone. "See, I [Moses] have taught you statutes and rules, as the Lord my God commanded me, that you should do them in the land that you are entering to take possession of it. Keep them and do them, for that will be your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the peoples, who, when they hear all these statutes, will say, ‘Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people.’ For what great nation is there that has a god so near to it as the Lord our God is to us, whenever we call upon Him? And what great nation is there, that has statutes and rules so righteous as all this law that I set before you today?" (Deuteronomy 4:5-8). Not the king's law, or the president's or Congress's, but God's law. 

Then who is to enforce the law? Nowhere in Scripture do we see a description of a police force or of inspectors or enforcers. Rather we see this: "On the evidence of two witnesses or of three witnesses the one who is to die shall be put to death; a person shall not be put to death on the evidence of one witness. The hand of the witnesses shall be first against him to put him to death, and afterward the hand of all the people. So you shall purge the evil from your midst" (Deuteronomy 17:6-7). The enforcement of the law is not assigned to a separate enforcement class, but is instead the responsibility of the people themselves. 

Our social conflict is the result of our worship of the state, of our looking to the state for salvation, of our looking to the state to be the source of social order. Since that is not God's intended role for the state, the result of those expectations is not social order but social chaos.