J.D. Gallé | 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘕𝘦𝘰-𝘙𝘦𝘮𝘰𝘯𝘴𝘵𝘳𝘢𝘯𝘤𝘦 𝘊𝘰𝘮𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘤𝘦𝘴

15 May 2015

Jack Cottrell on Faith as a Gift of God

Some mistakenly conclude that Eph 2:8 says faith is a gift: “For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God.” This is disproved, though, by the rules of Greek grammar. The Greek word for “faith” (pistis) is feminine in gender; the pronoun referring to the gift (“that,” touto) is neuter. If it were referring back to faith, it too would be feminine in form. (There is no word in the Greek corresponding to the pronoun “it.”) This verse actually shows that faith is not a gift since grace and faith are carefully distinguished. We are saved by grace, as God’s part; but through faith, as our part, as distinct from the grace given. Faith is not a gift of grace and the result of regeneration; it is a response to grace and a prerequisite to regeneration.

Jack Cottrell, The Faith Once for All: Bible Doctrine for Today (Joplin, MO: College Press, 2002), p. 200, emphases in original[1]

Copyright © The College Press Publishing Company, 2002. All rights reserved.

In order to purchase Cottrell’s The Faith Once for All (2002),* see the links to the following websites:

Note

1. Jack Cottrell briefly interacts with other scriptural texts sometimes purported to teach that repentance (Gk: μετάνοια, metanoia) and faith (Gk: πίστις, pistis) are ‘gifts of God’ in idem, The Faith Once for All, pp. 199–200. The aforementioned section also may be found in idem, Set Free! What the Bible Says about Grace (Joplin, MO: College Press, 2009), pp. 227–9. (To visit Jack Cottrell’s official website, see the following link: <https://www.jackcottrell.com>.) —J. D. Gallé

Addendum (20 Sept. 2022). Jack Warren Cottrell (1938–2022) died on Friday, 16 September 2022, aged eighty-four.

11 May 2015

F. Leroy Forlines on the Sovereignty of God in Salvation: Upon Whom Does God Desire to Demonstrate His Mercy in Romans 9.15?

When we read in Rom. 9:15 that God will have mercy and compassion on whomever He wills, it behooves us to ask: On whom does God will to show mercy and compassion? Once it is decided that the mercy and compassion under consideration is that shown in salvation, the answer is easy.

God told Isaiah whom He wanted to have mercy on when He said, “Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the LORD, and he will have mercy [italics mine] upon him; and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon” (55:7).
We certainly do not have to list an array of references from the N.T. in order to identify those to whom God wishes to give the mercy of salvation. Let's take the answer given by Paul and Silas to the question, “What must I do to be saved?” “And they said, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house” (Acts 16:30,31).
When God chooses the one who believes in Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior to show his mercy in salvation, He is choosing whom He wills. Such a decision can in no way be viewed as a decision that God is forced to make. The whole idea of salvation was God’s idea from the outset. He could have chosen to have left the whole human race in sin without offering salvation had He chosen to do so. He planned to provide and offer salvation to lost mankind long before (in eternity past) man felt the pangs of being lost. It was not even in response to man’s pleading (much less demanding) that God chose to offer redemption.
The provision of salvation through the death and righteousness of Christ was totally God’s idea and totally God’s provision. It came about as a result of His own free acts. The decision to offer salvation on the condition of faith in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior originated with God and no one else. The decision to commission believers to take the gospel into the world was God’s decision, not man’s. The decision for the Holy Spirit to work in men's hearts in connection with the preached Word was God’s decision.
The whole plan of salvation from beginning to end is the work and plan of God. God is in charge. When salvation is offered on the condition of faith in Christ, that in no way weakens the words, “I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion.” God’s sovereignty is fully in control in this view.

F. Leroy Forlines, Romans, ed. Robert E. Picirilli, The Randall House Bible Commentary (Nashville, TN: Randall House, 1987), p. 268, emphases and square brackets in original

Copyright © F. Leroy Forlines, 1987. All rights reserved.

In order to purchase Forlines’ Randall House Bible Commentary on Romans,* see the links to the following websites:

Addendum (24 Sept. 2022). Franklin Leroy Forlines (1926–2020) died on Tuesday, 15 December 2020, aged ninety-four.

Conditional Immortality: an Interchange

J. D. Gallé | Monday, 11 May 2015

Preface

What follows is a recent interchange I had online with a fellow believer on the topic of conditional immortality. The exchange is slightly abridged from its original form. I have made a few minor revisions to my response below.

Conditional Immortality: an Interchange

Linda D. Gabriel: I did not read this whole book [Rob Bell, Love Wins: A Book about Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived (New York, NY: HarperOne, 2011)], because frankly, I didn’t want to waste my time. From the parts of the book that I have read, Rob Bell often sounds a lot like the serpent in the Garden of Eden who said to Eve, “Did God really say…?” I have one question for Mr. Bell: What Bible are you reading?

J. D. Gallé: To be fair, the majority of the Christian world does not believe that anyone truly dies, but everyone lives for ever: some in everlasting torment, others in everlasting bliss. In other words, the majority of Christians believe that the final ‘death’ of the wicked, in actuality, is everlasting life in suffering. The serpent in Genesis cast doubt on God’s word that the disobedient will die. How is it, then, that (according to the conventional view) everyone lives for ever?

Gabriel: I’m not exactly sure I’m following if you side with Bell or not. Here’s the thing: no one lives forever in a physical mortal body, but the soul is immortal and will spend eternity somewhere — with God, or separated from God and in torment. This is the part that Bell doesn't seem to agree with. Man did in fact die when Adam sinned in the Garden — died spiritually, and introduced physical death into the world as well as a part of the curse of sin. Thus every man is “born dead” and will remain spiritually dead unless God gives him spiritual life — hence the term “born again.”

Gallé: The warning of death for eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in Genesis 2.17 cannot be taken in a purely ‘spiritual’ sense. Unless you are willing to argue that we are to understand the tree of life in some strange, esoteric sense, the threat of death is best understood as the reversal of life, the return to non-life, non-consciousness. After the first man’s transgression, Adam is told that he will return to the dust from which he came by the Creator (Gen. 3.19). In the light of the creation account of Genesis 1–3, to say that death is a return to non-life and a form of de-creation fits well with the narrative. Yahweh banishes Adam from the garden of Eden in order that he may not become immortalised in his fallen state. We are not left to infer as to how this is accomplished. Without having access to the tree of life, the death of the first man is made a certainty (Gen. 3.22–24; 5.5; Rom. 5.12; 1 Cor. 15.21–22). Immortal human life is linked with a positive relationship to God and is thus derivative; it is not an innate human quality as a result of creation or being made in the image of God. You will search in vain in the Genesis account for the notion that humans possess immortal souls or spirits (or, I might add, anywhere in the entirety of Scripture).

Gabriel: Genesis 2:7 describes the creation of man as being very unique from all other creation: God breathed into man, and he became a living soul.

Gallé: I am not denying the unique role of humankind in the economy of God’s creation as recounted in the Genesis narrative. The notion I am contending against is that Genesis provides us any indication that humans have been given immaterial, immortal souls that will survive the body after death. I do not believe such a reading can be sustained. The term nephesh is used throughout Genesis to refer to animal life (Gen. 1.20, 21; 2.19; 9.10) as well as human life (2.7; 12.5). Not once is it used in Genesis to refer to disembodied life, human or animal.

Gabriel: I believe that Scripture teaches that when Adam sinned against God in the Garden, he brought physical death into the world and would himself experience death. (Obviously he didn’t drop down dead on the spot.) See Romans 5:12; Eph. 2:1; Romans 6. But whereas before he sinned he had a spiritual relationship with God, after he sinned this relationship was cut off and Adam became spiritually dead in his relationship with God. In many places it talks about man being dead in sin, and that only by the Spirit can a person be made alive. This again is obviously speaking about a person who is physically alive, but not spiritually. I think if I am understanding you correctly, we agree on this point.

Gallé: In choosing to eat of the forbidden fruit, Adam and Eve breached their relationship with the Creator by their disobedience. I suppose one may refer to their resulting alienation from God as a kind ‘spiritual death’ if he or she wishes, but I personally do not find the terminology particularly helpful. The death our first parents were warned of was physical in nature. We are provided no indication in Genesis that there is (or will be) any survival of the person’s consciousness after death. Death involves the dissolution of the entire person and his/her relationship with the environment, animal life, human life, and God. This, in my view, is what makes the believer’s future hope of participating in the resurrection life of Jesus Christ at his return so pivotal. Even believers will not be made immortal until the second advent of Christ (see 1 Cor. 15.50–55).

To reiterate what I stated earlier, death will inevitably result when persons are alienated from God; immortality is conditioned upon a positive relationship with the Creator. The two are inseparable.

Gabriel: But it sounds like you’re saying that if a person is not saved/does not have a relationship with God/is without Christ when he dies, then he ceases to exist.

Gallé: I have defined death in terms of a return to non-life and non-consciousness, yes.

Gabriel: How do you explain Heb. 9:27, where it says it is appointed unto man once to die, and then judgment?

Gallé: Read Hebrews 9.27 and 28 (ESV): ‘And just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgement, so Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him.’ I do not believe the context will bear out the notion that persons are immediately judged upon death. Christ first came as a purification offering for sins (see Heb. 1.3b), but when he returns he will come for the final salvation of his people. From the perspective of the dead it will be as though no time has elapsed when they are raised to judgement.

Gabriel: How can a person who is dead stand before God to be judged?

Gallé: The righteous and the unrighteous alike will be raised and judged according to their works. These two resurrection events, the resurrection of the just and the resurrection of the unjust, will not occur prior to the return of Christ. I am not certain whether the unrighteous will be raised and judged at the second advent of Jesus or after a literal one thousand year millennial reign of Christ and the saints. That said, it is certain that the righteous dead will be raised to immortal life at the parousia.

Gabriel: [1] And Jesus himself taught about hell, [2] and the wicked going to a place of “weeping and gnashing of teeth.” To what was he referring then?

Gallé: (1) It is undoubtedly true that Jesus taught his disciples of a future day of judgement prior to his final ascension. The term Gehenna (i.e. ‘hell’) primarily occurs in Matthew (5.22, 29–30; 10.28; 18.9; 23.15, 33); seven of its twelve occurrences in the New Testament are found in Matthew’s Gospel. Jesus refers to the Gehenna of fire (tēn geennan tou puros) in Matthew 18.9 (cf. 5.22) interchangeably with the aiōnion fire (to pur to aiōnion) in Matthew 18.8 (cf. 25.41). In the light of the future judgement scene depicted in Matthew 25.31–46, we must understand that no one will be cast into the aiōnion/Gehenna of fire prior to the final judgement (Matt. 25.41).

(2) The phrase ‘weeping and gnashing of teeth’ occurs six times in Matthew (8.12; 13.42, 50; 22.13; 24.51; 25.30) and once in Luke (13.28). For a detailed exposition of the seven ‘weeping and gnashing of teeth’ texts, see Kim Papaioannou, The Geography of Hell in the Teaching of Jesus: Gehenna, Hades, the Abyss, the Outer Darkness Where There Is Weeping and Gnashing of Teeth (Eugene, OR: Pickwick Publications, 2013), pages 175–233. I do not maintain that the ‘weeping and gnashing of teeth’ expression is to be understood as the infliction of externally imposed pain, nor do I believe that it carries the sense of ongoing duration.

Addenda

Addendum A (n.d.). Scriptural quotations marked ‘ESV’ are taken from the English Standard Version, 2011 anglicised text edition.

Addendum B (10, 24 Apr. 2023). For noteworthy literature supporting the conditional immortality of humankind and the ultimate extinction of the faithless and evildoers from both biblical and theological perspectives, see my relevant Amazon Idea List by visiting the following web page*:

Annihilationism: Eschatological Punishment (‘Hell’) as the Eventual Extirpation of the Unvirtuous

* Unless otherwise indicated, I do not earn commissions (or favours, for that matter) for the purchase of books recommended or referenced on this website or via my Amazon Idea Lists. For further information, see my web page, ‘A Word on The Neo-Remonstrance Blog’.

Latest revisions: 1 November 2016 (modified and added two citations to brackets); 13 January 2017 (added hyphenation to three terms and converted brackets to commas in one place); 7 February 2017 (added a comma in one place; added hyphenation to one term); 24 February 2018 (altered title ‘Conditional Immortality: An Exchange’ to ‘Conditional Immortality: An Interchange’; converted thirty colons to full stops; altered abbreviation ‘pp.’ to ‘pages’); altered one word in preface (12 Jul. 2021); altered one scriptural abbreviation (23 Nov. 2021); updated web-page link for Addendum B (19 Nov. 2024).

01 May 2015

Robert E. Picirilli on Faith as a Gift of God

[Jacobus] Arminius freely represented faith as the gift of God and magnified the “acts of Divine grace” that “are required to produce faith in man.” He lists the divine decrees thus: “(1) It is my will to save believers. (2) On this man I will bestow faith and preserve him in it. (3) I will save this man.” (Subsequently, he clarifies “bestow faith” as “administer the means for faith.”) In spite of all I have said above,[1] then, I do not finally object to saying that faith is the gift of God.
But if that terminology is to be used, one must clarify exactly what it means, as follows:

The capacity to believe is from God.
The possibility of believing is from God.
The content of belief—the gospel truth—is from God.
The persuasion of truth which one believes is from God.
The enabling of the individual to believe is from God.

But the believing itself can finally be done by no one other than the person called upon to believe the gospel, and that will to believe savingly is the free decision of the individual. If calling faith “the gift of God” is meant to depreciate that, then I must deny the terminology. Since it is not Biblical terminology in the first place, perhaps it is best to discard it.
Had it been important to indicate that salvation is to faith, that faith itself is part of the effects of salvation rather than a condition for salvation, one can think of numbers of ways the New Testament writers, and Jesus Himself, might have expressed that. Instead, […] the New Testament everywhere presents faith as the condition for salvation that man must meet.

Robert E. Picirilli, Grace, Faith, Free Will: Contrasting Views of Salvation: Calvinism and Arminianism (Nashville, TN: Randall House, 2002), p. 167, emphases in original

Copyright © Robert E. Picirilli, 2002. All rights reserved.

In order to purchase Picirilli’s Grace, Faith, Free Will (2002),* see the links to the following websites:

Note

1. For the author’s full(er) discussion on the concept of faith as a gift of God, see Picirilli, Grace, Faith, Free Will, pp. 165–7. Also, see Picirilli’s discussion on the relationship between ‘pre-regenerating grace’ (i.e. prevenient, divine enabling grace), human depravity, and salvational faith in the context of classical Arminian theology in Grace, Faith, Free Will, pp. 149–59. —J. D. Gallé

30 April 2015

Robert Shank on Election according to Grace

Certainly all agree that Romans 11:5f. posits that the election is not of works, but of grace. But this does not establish that election is unconditional. Rather, it only establishes that election is not conditioned on works. That election is conditioned on faith is clearly affirmed in the Scriptures. Consider the following propositions:

Romans 11:6 says in effect, Not of works, but of grace.
Romans 4:1-5 says, Not of works, but of faith.
The Bible nowhere says, Not of faith, but of grace.
Romans 4:16 says, By faith, so that by grace.
Ephesians 2:8 says, By grace, through faith.

Consider Romans 4:16: “Therefore [justification] is of faith, that it might be by grace.” So decisive is this verse that we may well observe it in another translation: “[That is why it] depends on faith, in order that the promise may rest on grace” (RSV). The contention that faith as a condition nullifies grace, often urged by Calvinists, collapses at this point. Paul affirms precisely the opposite: faith, as a condition, establishes grace and its sine qua non[1] as a modus operandi.[2] “By grace … through faith.”
It may be argued that God, acting in grace, need not have posited any condition whatever for election. At least this may be argued dialectically (though not ethically, in view of (1) the witness of the Scriptures to the moral nature of God, His economy, and His kingdom[,] and (2) the fact that faith has been posited as a condition). But the issue is not what God could do, but rather what God has done and does do, as disclosed in the Scriptures. We have earlier observed that the Bible contains many categorical affirmations positing faith as a positive factor in man of which God takes account in salvation. The many emphatic affirmations are confirmed by Romans 4:16 and also by Romans 11:7,14,17-24, which passage establishes that the election of individual men is not unconditional and is predicated on faith, as we have observed.

Robert Shank, Elect in the Son: A Study of the Doctrine of Election (Minneapolis, MN: Bethany House, 1970), pp. 125–6, emphases and square brackets in original

Copyright © Robert Lee Shank, 1970, 1989. All rights reserved.

In order to purchase Shank’s Elect in the Son (1989),* see the links to the following websites:

Notes

1. A sine qua non (Latin) is an essential condition or requirement.

2. A modus operandi (Latin) is a particular way or method of doing something. —J. D. Gallé

Addendum. Robert Lee Shank (1918–2006) died on Monday, 16 October 2006, aged eighty-eight.

Legacy (obituary)

26 April 2015

William G. MacDonald on Calvinism’s Obfuscation of the Gospel

Attempts to make individualistic election the absolute of a theological system finally succeed in doing so by backing away from the contingencies of grace for the certainties of decrees that people are helpless against. God’s love for the whole world is then called into question, and it becomes easy to conceive of him as a potentate like the Muslim God, who loves most to impose his will, and whose identity and image are conceptualized totally apart from Christ.
Moreover, it is a distortion of the doctrine of election to claim that God's will pertaining to salvation still remains a mystery after he has “made known to us the mystery of his will” (Eph. 1:9), and after “God has revealed it [his secret wisdom, hidden since time began][1] to us by his Spirit” (1 Cor. 2:7–10). It is theological tyranny of the worst kind (because it distorts God’s image and Word) to assert that lying behind the open gospel of the grace of God there exists more important but inaccessible, supersecret [sic] knowledge never revealed to anyone during this age. This “mystery” is alleged to be the composite of billions of eternal decrees by which God determined exclusively within himself and absolutely what he willed to become of every human being one at a time before he created them, assigning a destiny of damnation to the overwhelming majority, and grace to certain others, all the while keeping two things secret: (1) what is in his nature that kept all his decrees from going in the same direction and (2) who the lucky ones actually are.
The God revealed in Christ can afford to lavish the riches of his grace on his church “with all wisdom and understanding” (Eph. 1:8). He knows how important it is for us as children to know that the adoption is valid and we are chosen to be holy sons and daughters with the certainty that adheres in Christ’s [sic] being the chosen one. And in response to our faith in Christ we are marked with the seal of his ownership, the Holy Spirit, promised in the Old Testament when the mystery was still on, and given now as the initial confirmation of election. It comes after faith (Eph. 1:11–14).
A certain man who believed that election remains a mystery today and that God’s will in election is inscrutable, once announced to me strange words, that no one, except a person of his theological background, would ever think of saying: “I will love God always,” he said, “even if it should turn out in the end that his eternal decree was to send me forever to hell.” There was no place for Christ in this statement, and not even Christ’s cross had any bearing on the haunting question of his destiny. Whether out of fear or self-deception, he “loved” one who might be fooling him as to his real intentions for him. It seemed that he considered the quality of the love he professed for God superior to any his kind of God might have for him. Others have not been so charitable toward such an unpredictable will-over-love God as that.
But our only concern should be this: “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?” (Rom. 8:35). It is ultimately a faithless question, arising out of false presuppositions about God, to ask, “Am I elect?” Faith focuses on Christ, and asks oneself only if one is trusting Christ fully and is therefore obedient to him (2 Cor. 13:5). Our election, like “every spiritual blessing,” is secure “in Christ.” We should not try to look beyond him.

William G. MacDonald, ‘The Biblical Doctrine of Election’, in Clark H. Pinnock (ed.), The Grace of God and the Will of Man (1989; repr., Minneapolis, MN: Bethany House, 1995),[2] pp. 224–6, emphases in original

Copyright © Clark H. Pinnock, 1989. All rights reserved.

In order to purchase the multi-contributor, multi-essay volume, The Grace of God and the Will of Man (1989),* see the links to the following websites:

Notes

1. The parenthetical elaboration contained in square brackets is in the original.

2. Prior to its republication by Bethany House Publishers in 1995, this volume was originally entitled The Grace of God, The Will of Man: A Case for Arminianism (Grand Rapids, MI: Academie Books, 1989). —J. D. Gallé

Addendum (21 Sept. 2022). William G. MacDonald (1917–2007) died on Tuesday, 25 December 2007, aged ninety.

Wikipedia

Latest revisions: 19 November 2015 (note revised); 14 April 2016 (minor corrections made to citation); added one note, namely n. 1; converted what was formerly n. 1 to n. 2 (10 May 2022).

11 April 2015

Clark H. Pinnock on Perseverance, Conditional Security, and Apostasy

I cannot pretend that the open view of God is very appealing at this point [namely its doctrine of perseverance]. It may make sense of the biblical exhortations and it may follow from a personal model of salvation[,] but it does not appeal to our self-interest. From a biblical and theological point of view, eternal security is the first petal of Calvinism’s TULIP that should fall; from the point of view of self-interest it is surely the last. Cheap grace has appeal. There is in the flesh a desire for security apart from reciprocity born of a lack of trust in God. On the other hand, our experience of the struggles of the life of faith mesh with the open view of perseverance.[1] It is not the experience of a done deal. We who have the Spirit groan inwardly as we wait for the redemption of God (Rom. 8:23). […] (p. 170)

For some, it is inconceivable that a believer may fail to be saved in the end. How could God’s purpose for a person be thwarted in this a way? They reason that if the Spirit awakened them to faith, why would they be allowed to perish? The answer is that God respects his covenant partners and does not override their freedom. Believers can be confident about persevering – perseverance in being faithful to the divine Lover who upholds us by his unwavering faithfulness [sic] – but must not ignore obstacles to their persevering. Apostasy is not a hypothetical danger: the risk is a real one, even though God does not want it and works against it. Our desire for security can be a carnal thing, the wanting of an ironclad guarantee apart from the proper source of security, Jesus Christ. (p. 171)

Clark H. Pinnock, Most Moved Mover: A Theology of God’s Openness, Didsbury Lectures, 2000 (Carlisle, UK: Paternoster Press / Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2001)

Note

1. What Pinnock (1937–2010) refers to as ‘the open view of perseverance’ is virtually synonymous with any Arminian or non-Calvinistic doctrine of conditional security. The only significant difference lies in openness theology’s understanding of God’s foreknowledge (or lack thereof).

Open theists typically maintain that human libertarian choices, by their very nature, are unknowable – even to God. Proponents of the open view agree with Arminians in that they believe God has granted humans a limited amount of freedom that is libertarian or contra-causal in nature (at least for the present age). Yet, contrary to any traditional or classical understanding of Arminianism, a distinctive mark of openness theology lies in its rejection of the notion that God possesses exhaustive knowledge of the future.† From a practical standpoint this means that, according to the open view, God presently does not (and cannot) know with certainty who will comprise the full company of the saved and condemned before the day of judgement.
It is often maintained by open theists that, in order for God to possess an absolute, infallible, or certain knowledge of all future events, he would have to have foreordained all things exhaustively. Oddly, in maintaining this sentiment, openness advocates find themselves in agreement with theological determinists such as Calvinists, who altogether deny human libertarian freedom and uphold exhaustive divine determinism instead.

† For example, one leading theologian of the open view of God, namely Gregory A. Boyd, has argued that the future itself is non-existent and, apart from any future actions God has unilaterally determined to bring about, not knowable in any definite sense. See idem, ‘The Open-theism View’, in James K. Beilby and Paul R. Eddy (eds), Divine Foreknowledge: Four Views, Spectrum Multiview Books (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2001), pp. 13–47.

J. D. Gallé

2015–2022

Addendum (21 Sept. 2022). Clark H. Pinnock (1937–2010) died on Sunday, 15 August 2010, aged seventy-three.

* Unless otherwise indicated, I do not earn commissions (or favours, for that matter) for the purchase of books recommended or referenced on this website. For further information, see my web page, ‘A Word on The Neo-Remonstrance Blog’.

Latest revisions: 19 November 2015 (note revised in a few places); 30 April 2016 (minor emendations made to title and note); 4 October 2016 (minor note emendations); 10 January 2017 (added hyphenation to one term); 19 February 2018 (minor emendations); 26 February 2018 (removed broken link); revised and updated website links (22 Jun. 2021); added one word and initial to par. 4 [as from 29 Jun. 2022; formerly par. 3] of note (20 Nov. 2021); slightly modified par. 4 [as from 29 Jun. 2022; formerly par. 3] of note (11 Feb. 2022); added a comma in par. 2 (formerly a part of par. 1); added a paragraph break (29 Jun. 2022).

20 March 2015

Robert Shank on Unconditional Security: Do the Warning Passages of Scripture Serve as a Means of Infallibly Preserving Believers unto Final Salvation?

[I]s the peril real? Are believers actually in peril of apostatizing? Some do not think so. Many apologists for the doctrine of unconditional security, in an attempt to reconcile the warning passages with their a priori doctrine, explain them as being only God’s means of ensuring that believers shall not fall away from the faith. The essence of the arguments of many is as follows: The mere fact that travelers are warned that there is a ditch alongside the road does not mean that they will fall into it. The warnings must not lead us to suppose that they will or can. God warns believers simply because, as rational beings, they are so constituted as to require motivation. He therefore appeals to their fears to keep them on the path. But the warnings do not prove that believers will fall; on the contrary, they are God's means of ensuring that they shall not fall.
One will not read long from the advocates of the doctrine of unconditional security before encountering this “explanation” of the presence of so many urgent warnings against apostasy so obviously addressed to believers. The folly of their contention is in seen in the fact that, the moment a man becomes persuaded that their doctrine of unconditional security is correct, the warning passages immediately lose the very purpose and value which they claim for them. [A. H.] Strong quotes Dr. A. C. Kendrick on Hebrews 6:4-6: “The text describes a condition subjectively possible, and therefore needing to be held up in earnest warning to the believer, while objectively and in the absolute purpose of God, it never occurs.” But how can there be any “earnest warning” to the believer who is sufficiently “instructed” to understand that the “warning” is directed against an impossibility? How can something be subjectively possible for the person who knows it to be objectively impossible? The only possible circumstance under which the warning passages could serve the purpose and function which they claim for them would be the total rejection of the doctrine of unconditional security and inevitable perseverance.

Robert Shank, Life in the Son: A Study of the Doctrine of Perseverance, 2nd edn (Minneapolis, MN: Bethany House, 1989), pp. 164–5, emphases in original

Addendum. Robert Lee Shank (1918–2006) died on Monday, 16 October 2006, aged eighty-eight.

Legacy (obituary)

15 May 2015

Jack Cottrell on Faith as a Gift of God

11 May 2015

F. Leroy Forlines on the Sovereignty of God in Salvation: Upon Whom Does God Desire to Demonstrate His Mercy in Romans 9.15?

Conditional Immortality: an Interchange

01 May 2015

Robert E. Picirilli on Faith as a Gift of God

30 April 2015

Robert Shank on Election according to Grace

26 April 2015

William G. MacDonald on Calvinism’s Obfuscation of the Gospel

11 April 2015

Clark H. Pinnock on Perseverance, Conditional Security, and Apostasy

20 March 2015

Robert Shank on Unconditional Security: Do the Warning Passages of Scripture Serve as a Means of Infallibly Preserving Believers unto Final Salvation?

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Neo-Remonstration in a nutshell (19 Oct. 2023 – 31 Oct. 2023)