For just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous. (Romans 5:19 NIV)
This is the fifth presentation on Obedience in light of righteousness by grace through faith.
In the first four, I have emphasized that soteriology obedience has nothing to do with the law as a written code and it is never an obedience to the law, but rather it is an obedience to the will of God wherever and whenever.
I have also reminded my readers that there is a difference between OBEDIENCE and LEGALISM. While obedience is a mutual relationship between a superior and an inferior (minus the law), legalism is a legally coerced system of operation between a superior and an inferior.
In this presentation, I am going to handle the question commonly asked by many Christians and that is:
If am saved by the grace of God through Faith, does it matter what I choose to do or not? If it does matter, does it have any impact on my salvation?
A response to such a question should begin from the Creation point of view. According to Genesis 1:26-30, human beings were created in the likeness and image of God (imago dei) and if there is anything like salvation, then it would mean nothing less or more than being restored to that original status.
Putting aside all the theological and scholarly discussions around what it means for us human beings to be created in the image of God, I find no better summary than that Dr. Steve Lemke gave in a conference and here it is:
“The image of God is the reflection/likeness/similarity of God’s essence which He created in human beings, and is reflected most noticeably in the Personal, Spiritual, Relational, Rational, Volitional, Moral, Responsible, and Emotional aspects of human life.
This definition does not suggest that humans are of the same substance (homoousia) with God–this, of course, is the case only for Jesus and the Holy Spirit–but merely that humans bear a likeness (homoiosis) to God.
However, it is to say that humans do mirror some of the aspects of God’s nature, and indeed that God created these aspects within humans. Humans are a reflection or copy of the divine image, but humans are obviously not divine.”
Man as a being has eight attributes that set him apart from all other creatures and make him God’s supreme creation that was created in his image. And the eight attributes (Personal, Spiritual, Relational, Rational, Volitional, Moral, Responsible, and Emotional) that constitute the image of God are they that man fell in and from, a participatory accident that essentially necessitated the plan of salvation designed by God himself.
What we see in Genesis 3 is a God who has created volitional beings with the capacity not only to choose among other alternatives but beings who were free to even choose against their own very creator (Genesis 2:16-17).
In Genesis, we see a God who is love and love gives no law but only supplies information and it is upon free-will beings in their sobriety to evaluate the information and make a choice. In Genesis chapter three, man chose against God and ushered in all that was due to sin.
In a sense then, man participated, by choice, in the fall and so man has to participate in his restoration, not by any other means, but by the same volitional faculties and choose the will of God.
While it true that man was perfect before the fall, according to the Biblical narrative in Revelation 12:7-10 and Genesis 3, his environment had a foreigner who represented an alternative life and nature of things compared to that God had created. It is this foreign agent that Bible readers call Satan (sin personified) that capitalized on the natural free-will of man and influenced him-man to choose otherwise.
In other words, the free-will of man was in the proximity of a wrong influence and man, because he is a rational being, was convinced, and because he is an emotional being, was convicted to choose otherwise (Genesis 3:1-6, Romans 14:5, 3:19).
Because human beings are just in the image of God but not God/Divine, they have the capacity to make choices but unable to envision (except by experience) the consequences of their choices and to reverse them (Genesis 3:7-24). Adam and Eve were first-time sinners so they only had one option to believe (exercise faith/trust) in God without an experiment like they opted for (2Corinthians 5:7).
Essentially then, the standard from which humanity originally fell from was not works but Faith. That is to say, man did not fail to do anything to or for God but rather he disbelieved and transferred his trust from the information supplied to him (man) by God to the new informant and the consequence was irreversible.
Since it is not by works that humanity fell, the problem of man cannot be solved by works but by faith and that is why the Bible says:
For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, that no one should boast. (Ephesians 2:8-9).
At this point of discussion already, we have attempted a response to the question:
Does it matter what a Personal, Spiritual, Relational, Rational, Volitional, Moral, Responsible, and Emotional being known as man chooses?
And we say yes it did matter in his fall and so it does matter to his salvation. Am I saying that it is possible for someone to lose their salvation? Yes, if and only if, salvation is by grace through Faith.
It is by Proof-texting (not exegetically true) that there are verses in the Bible that seem to suggest that you cannot lose your salvation (Mathew 7:21-23; John 10:27-28; Hebrews 13:5; 1 John 2:19; Romans 8:38-39; 1John 5:13; John 5:24; John 3:15-16; Ephesians 1:11-12; 1:4; John 10:28-30; Jude 1:24-25; Romans 8:37-39; Ephesians 4:30; 1Corinthians 1:8-9)
and there are also verses in the same Bible that assert you can lose your salvation (2Peter 2:1; John 15:6; 1Corinthians 15:2; Galatians 6:8-9; 2Timothy 2:12; Hebrews 6:4-6; Galatians 5:4; Hebrews 10:26; 6:4-6; Matthew 10:22; John 3:16; Hebrews 10:26; 2Peter 2:20-21; 1Corinthians 6:9-11; Galatians 5:19-20; Ephesians 5:5-6; Psalms 69:28.).
Does this mean the Bible contradicts itself on this issue? Certainly not, it instead means that we formulate apologetics based on proof-texting (wiring similar scriptures and plucking them out of context to suit our convictions) and not on exegesis (proper holistic Bible study).
I find no better neutralizing verse of the above proof-texting than this verse in 1Peter 1:4-5 that says:
To an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you, Who are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.
Whether you believe you can lose your salvation or you believe you cannot lose it, all that depends on nothing else but God’s grace through Faith. Am sure those who advocate that we cannot lose our salvation do not imply ‘Once saved always saved‘ because if they do mean that, then it would mean that salvation is a deterministic and therefore dismisses our natural free-will and freedom of choice.
Again, I wouldn’t theologically appreciate it if those who insist we can lose our salvation argue that we can lose it through what we DO or NOT DO!! For this would be absolute heresy since we emphasized our fall was not due to what we did, we cannot lose our salvation due to what we have done. Since attaining salvation did not depend on anything you did, keeping it does not depend on anything you do; and then also, losing it can’t occur because of anything you do.
It remains then to say that just like it was possible for man to lose his perfect environment by choice (read Faith/Trust), if the very man is still a Personal, Spiritual, Relational, Rational, Volitional, Moral, Responsible, and Emotional, then with the very circumstances and environment, he can still, by faith, undo his salvation and that choice will not be interrupted by God.
God is omnipotent and will not lose only those who willingly by faith choose him. The Holy Spirit will seal only those who by faith welcome him in their lives. God created us free-will beings and as long as he is love, he will not violate that to save any unbeliever. Salvation takes no hostages. Salvation is a process in which God DOES what we cannot do and our only Rational, Volitional, Moral Responsibility is to trust (Faith) in his salvation package. Whoever willingly distrusts (apistis) this procedure (salvation by Grace), BEFORE or AFTER is lost.
Does it then matter what I choose or not? Yes, it does matter. Are we saying we can sin away our salvation? Absolutely not. The reason you cannot sin away your salvation is because of what we are saved from. We are not saved from sinning (what we do), instead we are from sin (why we do).
If, like Adam in Genesis 3, we use our freedom and choose against the will of God, then that is a default choice denouncing our salvation. Just like man, through freedom, lost his perfect world, the man whom salvation has set free is potentially vulnerable. The love of God sets us free, and we are free indeed (John 8:36). How we use this freedom, however, determines whether our freedom does not become another prison.
It is true that freedom kills more people than any other killer. The fall of man happened in the realm and rhythm of freedom, and given the same situations, there is not an assurance that man in his freedom cannot opt out. Our earthly prisons are closed rooms with walls and a door, but freedom is a prison without walls and without a door and that makes it more dangerous given who we are. It is because we are free that Jesus pleads with us to abide in him, for outside him we can do nothing (John 15:1-7).
Freedom outside Christ is an indifferent stepmother who sets no task for us and as children prepare us not for future responsibilities. Like the image of God in us was lost through freedom, our salvation can also be lost through the same usage of freedom. Our God is not an indifferent step-mother and neither is he an abusive step-mother but a parent who chastens those who love him and he loves too (Hebrews 12:5-11; Revelation 3:19).
Like the prodigal son, when we recognize our sin and turn back toward God, we come to ourselves (Luke 15:17). Our minds and our inner personhood are renewed by the grace of God (Romans 7:22, 12:2; 2 Cor. 4:16; Eph. 3:16, 4:23; Col. 3:10). Through the process of justification, persons become right with God juridically; and through the process of freedom in Christ persons renew and exercise the image of God rightly by aligning themselves with Christ, the perfect image of God.
Through this dependence on the only man by which we are saved, we approach the fullness of God’s intention for us as persons. Day by day as long as we live Christ the Holy Spirit changes in us what we cannot change for ourselves (Romans 8:29; 2 Corinthian 3:18), the cycle of redemption will be completed, and we shall finally be like Him who is the perfect image of God (1John 3:2).
This is the process of restoring us, however, it is not possible without obedience (submission of our will), in our daily choices and surrender to the will of God. It was by such obedience that always said: “not my will but thy will be done” (Luke 22:42) that Jesus the incarnate man was able to secure our salvation (Romans 5:19).
God bless you, I invoke TRUTH, REASON and FAITH
Pr. I.T.WHITE
The Gospel Hawker
iTiS Well of Worship Fellowship (John 4:24) 