For Christmas I was given a book by David Pawson (Once Saved, Always Saved?). He is rapidly becoming one of my favourite teachers and authors after seeing him a few times on God TV (It’s true I am a secret God TV viewer) and reading one of his earlier books; “The Road to Hell“.
From what I can tell he is either called to talk / write about the subjects that the rest of the Christian Church seems to like to ignore or he just likes a good argument. Either way he has produced some very interesting and thought provoking reads.
As I’ve said, I have only just picked this book up but after the first couple of Chapters I am already asking myself some questions I wasn’t expecting.
Once Saved, Always Saved is a phrase which you may be familiar with. It refers to the idea that once you become a Christian you have your ticket to heaven and nobody or nothing can take that away from you. That is possibly an over simplification but you get the idea. What I have found interesting that that without ever thinking about the idea or making any kind of conscience decision I subscribe to a form of this that Pawson calls the “Subtle, Omega” variety.
This variety is such that if you truly commit your life to Jesus then you will never fall away, anybody who does clearly didn’t commit properly in the first place and that our behaviour; our level of holiness to put it in spiritual speak, affects our level of inheritance in the next phase of our existence. The size of the prize.
Having just written that down i know that that is roughly what I think but it just doesn’t sit right. The really concerning thing is that this is not a conclusion I have come to but more ideas that have somehow; through experience, emotion, teaching, how much cheese I’ve eaten, somehow gotten into my head.
I have an idea where Mr Pawson is going with his book and I’m not sure if I will agree with all of his conclusions but I thank him now for provoking this realisation in me.
I’ll let you know where it leads when I get to the end. *smile*
10:15 am
I have been thinking about this issue a little and have come across the passage in Hebrews 6 (from the Message):
Land that drinks in the rain often falling on it and that produces a crop useful to those for whom it is farmed receives the blessing of God. But land that produces thorns and thistles is worthless and is in danger of being cursed. In the end it will be burned.
So the writer here is not saying that God won’t accept people who turn away - but it certainaly makes it clear that things can’t just resume where they left off. Doesn’t this support the view that the answer to the ‘Once saved, always saved?’ question is, in light of this, no?