Rediscover the Gospel Eduard Serediuc

OBJECTIONS AGAINST ETERNAL SALVATION (PART VII)Matthew 18:21–35 (The Unmerciful Servant)
Matthew 18:21–35 (NKJV)21 Then Peter came to Him and said, “Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? Up to seven times?”22 Jesus said to him, “I don’t say to you, up to seven times, but up to seventy times seven.23 Therefore the Kingdom of Heaven is like a certain king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants.24 And when he had begun to settle accounts, one was brought to him who owed him ten thousand talents.25 But as he was not able to pay, his master commanded that he be sold, with his wife and children and all that he had, and that payment be made.26 The servant therefore fell down before him, saying, ‘Master, have patience with me, and I will pay you all.’27 Then the master of that servant was moved with compassion, released him, and forgave him the debt.28 “But that servant went out and found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denarii, and he laid hands on him and took him by the throat, saying, ‘Pay me what you owe!’29 So his fellow servant fell down at his feet and begged him, saying, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you all.’30 And he would not but went and threw him into prison till he should pay the debt.31 So when his fellow servants saw what had been done, they were very grieved, and came and told their master all that had been done.32 Then his master, after he had called him, said to him, ‘You wicked servant! I forgave you all that debt because you begged me.33 Should you not also have had compassion on your fellow servant, just as I had pity on you?’34 And his master was angry and delivered him to the torturers until he should pay all that was due to him.35 So My heavenly Father also will do to you if each of you, from his heart, doesn’t forgive his brother his trespasses.”Another even stronger biblical text along the same lines is the following one from Matthew 6:14–15:
Matthew 6:14–15 (NKJV)14 “For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.15 But if you don’t forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.The objection brought by some believers based on these two passages is that if you, as a child of God, fail to forgive others as you have been forgiven, your original sin debt will be reinstated, and you will lose your eternal salvation. At first glance, these passages seem to tell us God’s forgiveness, our salvation, is conditional upon how much we forgive others, and if we don’t do that, God will reinstate our sins, even after we have been forgiven initially.
We must note that what Matthew 18:21–35 conveys is in the context of the Jewish Law. At that point in time, when Jesus gave the parable, He had not died yet on the cross and nobody from His audience was yet born again. Because of this, we need to realize that Jesus, during His life before the cross, made the transition from the Law of Moses to the Gospel. Most of the things He said were in the context of the Old Covenant because that is what His audience was familiar with, while a few things were looking forward and speaking about the future New Covenant. The conditional nature of His saying in this parable sounds very much like the Law of Moses. Jesus, throughout His ministry on earth, took the Law of Moses and raised it to the strictest of standards. He talked about its spirit, about intentions, and motivations of the heart, not just outward works. By showing the extremes of the Law, Jesus was preparing them for what was coming: the New Covenant of the grace of God through Christ. Jesus used the apostle Paul to teach that grace to the Gentiles. The sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5–6) amplifies the Law of Moses, and this parable is along the same lines. So, it doesn’t say God can revoke salvation for those who are saved and whose sins were forgiven through the atonement of Jesus Christ. Th

OBJECTIONS AGAINST ETERNAL SALVATION (PART VI)John 15:1–6 (Abiding in the Vine)
John 15:1–6 (NKJV)1 I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser.2 Every branch in Me that doesn’t bear fruit He takes away; and every branch that bears fruit He prunes, that it may bear more fruit.3 You are already clean because of the Word which I have spoken to you.4 Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in Me.5 I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing.6 If anyone doesn’t abide in Me, he is cast out as a branch and is withered; and they gather them and throw them into the fire, and they are burned.This passage is often used to teach that Christians can lose their salvation. It’s easy to see why they would think that way, especially when you look at verses 2 and 6: “Every branch in Me that doesn’t bear fruit He takes away”; “anyone who doesn’t abide in Me, he is thrown into the fire, and burned.” In particular, the phrase “in Me,” which is used twice, apparently suggests a loss of salvation. The branches that don’t bear fruit—the signs of salvation—are gathered and “thrown into the fire,” a clear symbol of eternal judgment. The question is though, since these hell-bound branches were initially “in” Jesus, does that mean they represented true believers who lost their salvation? Is being “in” the vine in this parable the same thing with being saved? I would suggest the answer is no and I feel this is the correct conclusion for a few reasons. First, the Greek word translated into the verb “takes away” in Verse 2 is airo, which actually means “to lift from the ground” or “to lift with a view of carrying.” The Passion Translation (TPT) of the Bible seems to provide a more accurate rendering of that word in the first two verses of John 15:
John 15:1–2 (TPT)1 I am a true sprouting vine, and the farmer who tends the vine is my Father.2 He cares for the branches connected to Me by lifting and propping up the fruitless branches and pruning every fruitful branch to yield a greater harvest.The same Greek word airo is used in John 5:8 for the verb “take up” when Jesus tells the lame man from the pool of Bethesda to take up his bed and walk. Then, in Matthew 16:24, when Jesus says, “If anyone wants to come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me,” the airo is used for the verb “take up” again. As a matter of fact, every other instance of this Gr. word airo in the New Testament is translated as “lift up” or “take up” except in John 15:2, where it is interpreted as “cut off” or “remove,” and I have an explanation for why. The theological “lenses” of the translators really matters. All of us wear certain “lenses” of interpretation when we read the Scripture, whether we are aware of it or not. I hear sometimes believers saying, “I only obey what the Word says” when in fact they obey whatever they think the Word says most of the times. And what they say the Word says is filtered through the “glasses” they use. Blessed are those who know what kind of glasses they use! So, I believe the translators chose to render airo as “cut off” or “take away” because of their theological understanding, but it should have been translated as “lift up.” Why? Because the vine is a creeper or a crawling plant. You often see a vinedresser picking up the branches from the ground and tying them up with strings to the pillars of the vine. If the branches sit on the ground in the dust, they don’t bear fruit. In this passage, Jesus is saying the Father lifts up every fruitless branch to help it bear fruit. He is not waiting for a given opportunity to cut people off, but to make them bear fruit. That is the Father’s job. Jesus is the vine and the Father God is th

OBJECTIONS AGAINST ETERNAL SALVATION (PART V)Matthew 25:1–13 (The Ten Virgins)
Matthew 25:1–13 (NKJV)1 Then the Kingdom of Heaven shall be likened to ten virgins who took their lamps and went out to meet the bridegroom.2 Now five of them were wise, and five were foolish.3 Those who were foolish took their lamps and took no oil with them,4 but the wise took oil in their vessels with their lamps.5 But while the bridegroom was delayed, they all slumbered and slept.6 And at midnight a cry was heard: “Behold, the bridegroom is coming; go out to meet him!”7 Then all those virgins arose and trimmed their lamps.8 And the foolish said to the wise, “Give us some of your oil, for our lamps are going out.”9 But the wise answered, saying, “No, lest there should not be enough for us and you; but go rather to those who sell, and buy for yourselves.”10 And while they went to buy, the bridegroom came, and those who were ready went in with him to the wedding, and the door was shut.11 Afterward the other virgins came also saying, “Lord, Lord, open to us!”12 But he answered and said, “Assuredly, I say to you, I don’t know you.”13 Watch therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour in which the Son of Man is coming.The most common interpretation of this parable is that those ten virgins represent born-again believers belonging to the Kingdom of God who were all saved at one time. Then some of them lost their salvation due to their lack of watchfulness in morality and good works.
Let’s analyze first what we know for sure about this parable. First, the parable is about the Kingdom of Heaven, about a bridegroom who is king Jesus, and about ten virgins who represent the visible church of Christ. Second, the action in this parable occurs between the first and second coming of Jesus. Third, the harshness of the bridegroom’s answer in Verse 12—“I don’t know you” or “I never knew you”—makes very clear this parable is about an eternal matter of life and death, respectively the matter of eternal salvation into the Kingdom of God or of eternal damnation. Fourth, it’s also obvious that when the bridegroom came, alluding to the second coming of Jesus, some of those virgins, representing some Christians, participated in the wedding of the Lamb. That means they entered heaven while the rest were rejected and went to hell. Only three things are left to elucidate: (1) First, what do the oil in the lamps and the extra oil in the jars represent? (2) Second, were the people rejected genuinely born again in the first place or not? (3) Third, what does watchfulness mean?
The oil in the Old Testament was used to anoint kings and priests. It was a picture of anointing to work for God:
1 Samuel 16:13 (NKJV)13 Then Samuel took the horn of oil and anointed him (David) in the midst of his brothers; and the Spirit of the Lord came upon David from that day forward. So, Samuel arose and went to Ramah.In the New Testament, believers are anointed with the Holy Spirit, as we see in these passages:
Acts 10:38 (NKJV)38 how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power, who went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the Devil, for God was with Him.2 Corinthians 1:21 (NKJV)21 Now He who establishes us with you in Christ and has anointed us is God.1 John 2:20 (NKJV)20 But you have an anointing from the Holy One, and you know all things.1 John 2:27 (NKJV)27 But the anointing which you have received from Him abides in you, and you don’t need that anyone teach you; but as the same anointing teaches you concerning all things, and is true, and is not a lie, and just as it has taught you, you will abide in Him.Jesus was anointed with the Holy Spirit, and believers are also anointed with the Holy Spirit at the time of salvation. 1 John 2:27 says the anointing the believers received from Him abides in them and teaches them all things. According to John 14:16, 14:26, and 16:13, the Holy Spirit is the

1 Timothy 4:1–5 (Departing from the Faith)
1 Timothy 4:1–5 (NKJV)1 Now the Spirit expressly says that in latter times some will depart from the faith, giving heed to deceiving spirits and doctrines of demons,2 speaking lies in hypocrisy, having their own conscience seared with a hot iron,3 forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from foods which God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth.4 For every creature of God is good, and nothing is to be refused if it’s received with thanksgiving;5 for it’s sanctified by the word of God and prayer.The first two verses of the above text state that in the last times some people will depart from the faith by giving heed to deceiving spirits and doctrines of demons, not realizing it of course, and out of hypocrisy they will speak lies, their conscience being marked with a hot iron. Many Christians believe that the apostasy in these verses refers to the loss of eternal salvation, because they interpret deceiving spirits and the teachings of demons as immoral sins that will eventually cause some genuine Christians to lose their salvation. However, I invite you to take things one at a time and see first what these wrong teachings consist of and then who are those “some” who will fall away from the faith, what kind of faith they are referring to, and what this distancing means.
Verses 3 and 4 describe some of the things and doctrines these people promote, namely: the prohibition of marriage and abstinence from certain foods. The things related here are not immoral sins and carnal pleasures in which people usually like to indulge in, but rather “other apparently good ways” and ascetic ways of attaining righteousness. They are teachings and doctrines, but not sins.
These teachings are clothed in an appearance of holiness which makes them very subtle and deceptive. Judging by their nature, it seems that those who propagated them were trying to be holy by works instead of faith. They believed that holiness came from strict adherence to a set of rules. These doctrines seem to resemble very much the Law of Moses and to be Jewish in nature. Who can these people be? Since the passage speaks of a falling away from faith it means that those people had contact at some point with the pure teaching of salvation by faith alone in Christ. They were either so convinced that they were also born again, or they only joined the church for a while, but they could not fully renounce the Law of Moses and were never born again. Paul calls them hypocrites and liars because they preached one thing to others, but they did the exact opposite in their private lives, and their consciences became numb because of their constant living in that lifestyle. They no longer saw the seriousness of the contradiction in their lives from the desire to appear before men as religious and holy. Just as the area where an animal is marked with a hot iron becomes numb and insensitive to pain, so the conscience of these people had become desensitized. Because of this, the apostle Paul describes their conscience as being marked with a hot iron.
It is very possible that those “some” influenced by the teachings of the Jews were even leaders (pastors and teachers) of the church of Christ in Ephesus, since the heresies had to do with doctrines that are usually preached from the front. Moreover, in 1 Timothy 1:7, they are described as wanting to be teachers of the Law. If they were born again, they probably loved God, were eternally saved by grace, but from time to time were “bitten” by the self-righteousness propagated by the followers of the Law of Moses, and focused mainly on their good works in order to please God here on earth, and this was because of a lack of understanding and revelation. They were not yet fully established in Christ and believing the truth in all areas. This does not mean that they had lost their eternal salvation, but that in their daily lives, the

OBJECTIONS AGAINST ETERNAL SALVATION (PART III)Galatians 5:19–21 (The Practice of Fleshly Works)
Galatians 5:19–21 (NKJV)19 Now the works of the flesh are evident, which are: adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness,20 idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies,21 envy, murders, drunkenness, revelries, and the like; of which I tell you beforehand, just as I also told you in time past, that those who practice such things will not inherit the Kingdom of God.Some preachers use this passage to threaten Christians that, if they habitually practice the works of the flesh described in the text, they can lose their salvation at any time without knowing. First, as we demonstrated in the previous section, inheriting the Kingdom is tantamount to being saved. Second, Paul doesn’t say that those people who practice fleshly works will be disinherited from a state of heirs, but that they will not inherit anything in the first place. Third, he doesn’t specify a clear timeline or a number of times after which those who practice the works of the flesh will lose their salvation.
Fourth, if we look carefully at the context (a few verses before and a few verses after our passage), we can quickly discover that the apostle Paul is portraying a stark contrast between the flesh and the Spirit and between the works of the flesh and the fruits of the Spirit: “I say then: Walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. For the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; and these are contrary to one another, so that you do not do the things that you wish” (Galatians 5:16–17). He merely puts them side by side for comparison and godly instruction to believers. After enumerating all the works of the flesh, he begins Verse 22 with the preposition “BUT,” which commences the enumeration of the fruits of the Spirit. He concludes in Verse 24 that those who are Christ’s (who are different from those who practice the works of the flesh and will not inherit the Kingdom) have already crucified their flesh with its passions and desires. So, he encourages believers to live according to the truth about their already changed nature. In fact, in Verse 25, he says this: if you are in the Spirit, live in Him, and belong to God, then also walk, and behave in the Spirit or according to Him. The theme is clearly the renewal of the minds of believers in Christ and not their loss of salvation.
 
Ephesians 5:5–6 (The Sons of Disobedience Part 1)
Ephesians 5:5–6 (NKJV)5 For this you know, that no fornicator, unclean person, nor covetous man, who is an idolater, has any inheritance in the Kingdom of Christ and God.6 Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience.This text, which is often used as an objection to eternal salvation, is very similar to two other scriptures from previous sections with a new addition: “the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience.” The implication is that believers in Christ, who are sons of God and disobey Him by doing any of the shameful things enumerated, will come under the wrath of God after a certain point. However, what kind of disobedience is Paul talking about here? It’s disobedience of faith, not disobedience to the Law. He also says in Romans 1:5 that through Jesus, we received the grace and apostleship to bring about “the obedience of faith” among all nations. Sons of obedience are those who put their faith in Christ while the sons of disobedience are those without Christ.
Again, here the main argument to this objection is that the apostle Paul describes the behavior of those who will never inherit the Kingdom of God and are under His wrath with the purpose of teaching believers how not to live. He begins in Ephesians 4:17 by saying, “you should no longer walk as the rest of the Gentiles walk,” and he co

OBJECTION AGAINST ETERNAL SALVATION (PART II)
Hebrews 3:12–14 (Falling Away from God)
Hebrews 3:12–14 (NASB95)12 Take care, brethren, that there not be in any one of you an evil, unbelieving heart that falls away from the living God.13 But encourage one another day after day, as long as it’s still called “Today,” so that none of you will be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.14 For we have become partakers of Christ, if we hold fast the beginning of our assurance firm until the end.Some Christians interpret “falls away from the living God” in this passage as the loss of salvation. However, here we have the same explanation as before. Falling away from God or departing from the living God means beginning to profess faith in Christ but still leaning back to the old system of the Law that God has abolished and not believing fully in Christ (i.e., having an evil heart of unbelief). The “deceitfulness of sin” referred to here is the deceit of the sin of unbelief in Christ. That is the context. The following verse talks about holding fast the beginning of our assurance in Christ and not sliding back into unbelief. Also notice that in Verse 14, holding fast to the beginning of your assurance, firm until the end, is not a condition to remain in a relationship with Christ, but a result of having already become a partaker of Him. The verse doesn’t say you remain this way as long as you hold fast, but it says you know those who really have become partakers of Christ (past tense) by seeing them hold firm to their conviction of salvation until the end. The same idea is expressed in Hebrews 3:5–6:
Hebrews 3:5–6 (NKJV)5 And Moses indeed was faithful in all His house as a servant, for a testimony of those things which would be spoken afterward,6 but Christ as a Son over His own house, whose house we are if we hold fast the confidence and the rejoicing of the hope firm to the end.Some preachers render from this passage that believers remain the house of God as long as they hold fast and firm to the end the confidence and the rejoicing in hope. However, the verse doesn’t say that. It instead says believers already are the house of God, and the proof lies in the fact that they will hold fast the confidence to the end as a result of their faith. In other words, you know your house is connected to the electric grid if the lights stay on. You don’t keep the lights on to make sure you remain connected to the power grid.
 
Hebrews 12:14 (The Pursuit of Sanctification)
Hebrews 12:11–17 (NASB95)11 All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful; yet to those who have been trained by it, afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness.12 Therefore, strengthen the hands that are weak and the knees that are feeble,13 and make straight paths for your feet, so that the limb which is lame may not be put out of joint, but rather be healed.14 Pursue peace with all men, and the sanctification without which no one will see the Lord.15 See to it that no one comes short of the grace of God; that no root of bitterness springing up causes trouble, and by it many be defiled;16 that there be no immoral or godless person like Esau, who sold his own birthright for a single meal.17 For you know that even afterwards, when he desired to inherit the blessing, he was rejected, for he found no place for repentance, though he sought for it with tears.Many Christians take Hebrews 12:14 out of context and conclude that genuine born-again believers need to pursue practical sanctification (i.e., performing good works and omitting evil deeds) while they live on earth, to maintain their salvation. Otherwise, they will not get to see the Lord, meaning they can lose their salvation any moment. I admit this is a difficult verse to interpret in the right way by itself or isolated from its context, and I will explain why is so.
The sanctification referred to in Hebrews 12:14 can be only one of two types. The first type is b