Without Holiness No One Will See the Lord 🔥
The fear of the Lord is clean, enduring forever;
The rules of the Lord are true, and righteous altogether.
More to be desired are they than gold, even much fine gold;
Sweeter also than honey and drippings of the honeycomb.
Moreover, by them is your servant warned;
In keeping them there is great reward.
-Psalm 19:9-11
I created a goal-based chat group. This article explains what it is about and how to join.
The group is for men who can say the following pledge:
If anyone makes a practice of sinning, there is not yet reason to think he is regenerate.
Holiness requires sexual purity.
I resolve with all my heart to live as a Christian and seek holiness.
Without holiness, no one will see the Lord.
If I ever lose this conviction, I will leave this group.
What does “if I ever lose this conviction” entail?
That refers to someone deciding he no longer agrees with the pledge. The only reason that would happen is if someone deconstructed his faith and stopped being able to intellectually affirm that the Bible’s teaching is true.
I’m not asking someone who backslides for a day to leave the group. You don’t have to know where your heart is before God in order to be in the group.
***
Would you benefit from being in this group and meeting Christian brothers who believe what you believe and who resolve to stand strong and live as Christians?
If so, please email me here.
I’m only going to let in people I have spoken with and know and trust to some degree. If that does not describe you, you might try getting to know me. Send me an email.
Or consider imitating the whole concept you see in that pledge. Just copy it and start your own group if you want.
The Group’s Vision
One of the group members asked: How do you envision the chat group looking? I am curious what kinds of conversations you anticipate.
Here’s the vision:
We can talk about what we are thinking about as far as spiritual goals, principles, wisdom, etc. Sometimes people might want to discuss Bible passages or share encouragement or something.
The key idea of the group is that people are willing to affirm the pledge. The main value of being in the group is that you decided to be in the group. That means you decided to identify your belief to a group of other people. You are saying you stand for something. And you are able to see other people who affirm the truth of what the Bible says.
This can be useful for the following reasons:
It makes it easy to find general encouragement.
It makes it easy to find someone to talk to privately if you ever need to have a serious conversation.
From the point of view of my broader goals for the New Athens project, the value of the group is that I can identify people who have strong, biblical convictions and are okay saying so, and I can get to know them and help equip them for leadership in ways that go far beyond just the personal holiness topic.
I am using the pledge as a way to identify people who believe this topic is important because this topic is one of several possible green lights to show me someone is worth investing time in.
Also, when I publicly make known the existence of this private group, this is a means of raising a flag to say I believe I know one a reason so few men are acting as the leaders society needs. Men who want to work together to change the world will benefit from having a network of other men who are serious about holiness (and the theology of obedience more generally) and who are not shy to name their premises.
Hopefully, we end up emboldening each other not only to live according to God’s expectations, but also to be leaders in helping other people understand God’s expectations and the power there is in personal discipline, as well as what is eternally at stake.
I would want to see each man grow to the point where he could consider starting a similar group from among men he knows locally or men he knows from other online communities.
The idea of all my chat groups is that they can replicate eventually. They can become a way for new leaders to develop the skills of identifying and recruiting more people willing to learn, discuss, uphold principles, and live by biblical truth. It is a system for becoming salt and light in an expanding way.
The Rationale for the Pledge:
I work as a coach to aspiring Christian writers. Time after time, I have found that issues of sexual impurity and addiction are causing Christian men to lose motivation and to shy away from becoming leaders doing the battle for truth in the public sphere.
The logic is clear: If a man does not even take dominion over his own actions and choices in secret, how can he think he is ready to be a writer or podcaster—or preacher? He is not ready. To do those things would make him a hypocrite.
You might have noticed that few pastors have the courage to say what the Bible says about sexual sin. Sometimes that comes from a lack of biblical knowledge. But it often traces to a lack of faithful living. A pastor who has lax standards of holiness for himself will tend to avoid teaching about that topic.
I want to equip a large number of Christian leaders to replace that sort of pastor. To do that, I’ve created the New Athens Project and also this goal-based chat group on the topic of holiness.
If you’re thinking about joining the group, here are some things to know:
I’m not going ask anyone to report on his own actions to the group. (And please try to be cool about that. Don’t call other people out.)
If anyone wants to talk about his goals and personal discipline work, he is welcome to share about his own experience.
No one is going to try to crush your heart or damage your reputation. We care about each other in this group.
You don’t have to know where you stand before God in order to be in this group. You do need to be able to affirm the pledge.
If you ever decide to leave the chat group for whatever reason, I am not going to assume anything one way or the other. You are welcome to tell the group or me your reasons or not.
Being in the group is not about proving you believe something or proving you are measuring up to some standard. It is about having a vision about who God is and who you want to be. Everyone is in the group to help you with that.
Holiness Matters
Here are some of my thoughts on the overall topic of why holiness matters and why sexual sin is a key spiritual stronghold that should be overthrown if we are to build an army of men who can lead with courage in today’s culture war.
Some key points:
First, the problem is widespread among conservative men, especially men in their 20s and 30s. A surprising number of men have been willing to tell me about this problem when I did not even ask. These are men who who have otherwise good testimonies and good faith convictions.
Second, it matters that we actually flee from this sin—not merely “struggle with it.” You don’t struggle with the temptation. You flee the temptation.
1 Corinthians tells us:
“Flee from sexual immorality. Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body” (1 Corinthians 6:18).
You need to understand what is at stake:
A pattern of vice limits a person’s mental horizons. That in turn allows him to expand his rationalizations for ever more internal vices and eventually for ever more visible moral errors.
Being sexually immoral is like taking stupid pills. What our families and churches need from us (and what God expects from us) is to be doing the exact opposite: We need to do the work each day to fill our minds with wisdom and become the leaders we have it in us to become.
Someone might ask: How do you flee from your desires instead of struggling with them? What does that mean? I’ll suggest watching this excellent video from When We Understand The Text. It should help bust some myths.
I also suggest the following: Try reading a chapter from the Proverbs daily. I do this. It reminds me about the dangers of self-deception generally and also the self-destructive nature of sexual sin specifically.
The book of Proverbs reminds me that, compared to older men, I am relatively lacking in wisdom and experience—and I need what they have. Also, compared to my Father in heaven, I am a total beginner in wisdom. Reading the Proverbs helps me remember who I am. It sets wisdom before my eyes. It reminds me that wisdom is better than anything else I could search for.
Also, I pray this: “God, keep me away from temptations and keep me living a holy life. Give me a clean heart. Give me faith that you will protect me.”
If you have temptation, don’t think about what is tempting you. Put down electronic devices and spend time outside or with other people. That is what fleeing means.
Someone might ask: How serious is sexual impurity?
Well, it is as serious as heaven and hell.
People Who Make a Practice of Sinning Are Not Christians
This is a hard idea for some people to understand. Pastors and teachers in your life might not have done a great job teaching you what the Bible says. In what follows, I’m going to tell you what you need to know (and what you might already know but prefer not to think about).
There is a difference between affirming the false idea of salvation by works vs. affirming what I will be saying below. What I am saying is orthodox (calvinistic) Protestant theology.
I am going to tell you what the Bible says, and I’m going to help you stop trying to believe it says something other than what it says.
Read these four points:
1 - Everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world.
2 - We know that everyone who has been born of God does not keep on sinning.
3 - No one who abides in him keeps on sinning; no one who keeps on sinning has either seen him or known him.
4 - Whoever makes a practice of sinning is of the devil, for the devil has been sinning from the beginning.
Read the above claims carefully. Do you think I am making them up? These are direct Bible quotes (1 John 5:4a, 5:18a, 3:6, 3:8a).
The Bible is not teaching that God’s elect and regenerate people never sin. It is teaching that they do not continue making a practice of sin.
Christians grow and stop their sinful habits over time. They learn God’s standards, and they work to conform to those standards. It can be difficult. It can take time. But God’s people move toward holiness in their habits. They put God first.
That means that if God forbids something, and if a regenerate person knows it, he will learn to follow God and love God more than he loves that other thing. He will learn to hate his sin. And he will stop practicing it.
Implications
If someone is making a practice of doing something he knows to be a sin, and if he does not hate his sin enough to get himself out of that pattern, then he (and others) cannot even know that he is regenerate.
Suppose a man is engaging in sexually immoral behavior at least once a week or month or some span of time (I don’t have a defined timeframe, just a general principle), and suppose that this pattern is not changing, and the man is taking no new steps to make sure it stops. In such a case, we cannot know that the man is a Christian.
He might profess all the right beliefs, but he acts as if he has no fear of God. In the Bible’s language, here is a description of a man who makes a practice of sinning:
He lacks faith.
He has been overcome by the world.
He is not born of God
He is not abiding in God
He has neither seen God nor known him
He is of the devil.
That is not my mere opinion. It is simply what the Bible passages declare.
You Might Have Been Taught Wrong
Many Christians (and purported Christians) have been taught falsely about the meaning of these passages. They do not understand that the warning passages of Scripture apply to all people. Every man ought to fear that God would send him to hell if he rejects God’s commandments. “If you love me, you will keep my commandments” (John 14:15).
Even John MacArthur seems, on occasion, to get this kind of issue wrong. For instance, MacArthur has offered a confusing account about the warning passages dealing with the need for forgivness. He claims the passages are talking about some sort of “parental forgiveness” as opposed to “judicial forgiveness.” You can read my analysis of John MacArthur’s error here.
We need to take the Bible’s warnings seriously. When Jesus says, “If you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses,” he means it Matthew 6:15). Hell is at stake.
Contrast this common-sense reading with John MacArthur’s approach: “When Scripture warns that we must forgive, it does not actually say that our salvation is at stake.” (MacArthur, John. Forgiveness, Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 1998, pg 58.) I strongly disagree with MacArthur approach to this topic, at least as expressed in that selections from his writing. (I have not done a full survey of his work.)
When you make a practice of sinning (whether it be the sin of unforgivenness or the sin of sexual impurity), what you are risking is not merely God’s disapproval and discipline. You are risking damnation.
This point does not oppose other teachings from the Bible. For instance, someone might recall that “there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Romans 8:1). This passage does not weaken the points made above. The exact point under discussion is: Who is in Christ Jesus? The Bible answers that question.
What the Bible Really Says
A friend of mine was thinking about these questions, and here is what he said to me:
“I know grace doesn’t mean we can live like devils, but I thought our forgiveness would be there, even if for some astronomical reason we dared to sin in great ways. The reality is I do fear God’s condemnation, but I don’t understand why I would as a genuine Christian. Although I lack assurance at times, there is too much evidence in my life that suggests I’ve really believed the gospel and I’m soundly saved. And I believe in eternal security.”
From our large conversation, I could see some misunderstandings about these topics. I wrote my friend a long explanation of my views. With his permission, I’m sharing it with you here. Here is what the Bible says:
“This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin” (1 John 1:5-7).
“And by this we know that we have come to know him, if we keep his commandments. Whoever says ‘I know him’ but does not keep his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him, but whoever keeps his word, in him truly the love of God is perfected. By this we may know that we are in him: whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked” (1 John 2:3-6).
“Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world—the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride of life—is not from the Father but is from the world. And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever” (1 John 2:15-17).
“Let what you heard from the beginning abide in you. If what you heard from the beginning abides in you, then you too will abide in the Son and in the Father. And this is the promise that he made to us—eternal life” (1 John 2:24-25).
“And now, little children, abide in him, so that when he appears we may have confidence and not shrink from him in shame at his coming. If you know that he is righteous, you may be sure that everyone who practices righteousness has been born of him” (1 John 2:28-29).
“Everyone who makes a practice of sinning also practices lawlessness; sin is lawlessness. You know that he appeared in order to take away sins, and in him there is no sin. No one who abides in him keeps on sinning; no one who keeps on sinning has either seen him or known him. Little children, let no one deceive you. Whoever practices righteousness is righteous, as he is righteous. Whoever makes a practice of sinning is of the devil, for the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil. No one born of God makes a practice of sinning, for God’s seed abides in him; and he cannot keep on sinning, because he has been born of God. By this it is evident who are the children of God, and who are the children of the devil: whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is the one who does not love his brother” (1 John 3:4-10).
“Whoever keeps his commandments abides in God, and God in him. And by this we know that he abides in us, by the Spirit whom he has given us (1 John 3:24).
“By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and obey his commandments. For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome. For everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world” (1 John 5:2-4a).
“We know that everyone who has been born of God does not keep on sinning, but he who was born of God protects him, and the evil one does not touch him. We know that we are from God, and the whole world lies in the power of the evil one.” And we know that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding, so that we may know him who is true; and we are in him who is true, in his Son Jesus Christ. He is the true God and eternal life. Little children, keep yourselves from idols” (1 John 5:18-21).
A Helpful Resource
I agree with this paper from Tom Schreiner exploring assurance and perseverance and the meaning of the warning passages. It is called: Perseverance and Assurance: A Survey and a Proposal. Schreiner explains that there such thing as a “prospective warning.” It is a real warning to all people in the visible church and outside of it. It is a warning about what, in fact, will actually happen if they make one or another choice. This paper is worth studying.
The Bible’s warnings are real. If you are making a practice of sinning, you should consider the warnings as applying to you. They are talking about you and what will happen to you if you do not actually learn to hate sin and act accordingly. (This comes only by the grace of God and by a miracle of the Holy Spirit changing your heart.)
All Who Love Jesus Obey Him
That does not mean that a Christian never sins. A Christian might even sin badly. But it means that a Christian cares enough about Jesus that he will make every necessary step to flee sin.
Jesus would prefer that you enter heaven with a missing hand or eye if that could help you and if the only other alternative was you going to hell. But of course a missing hand or eye is not going to help you.
Review the passage in Matthew:
“You have heard that it was said, You shall not commit adultery. But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart. If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body go into hell” (Matthew 5:27-30).
What that passage means is that you have to choose: Will you actually live like you love Jesus? Or will you make a practice of sinning? If you are engaging in sexual sin on average more than once in a very great long while, or if it has become something you are not afraid of hell about, then you ought to have no feeling of certainty about whether you are regenerate and on the way to heaven.
This is a doctrine that even many conservative pastors get wrong. They think God is an altruist. But God is an egoist (see our work about this topic at For the New Christian Intellectual, especially at this playlist on Christian Egoism). Sin offends God, and God is not going to spit in his own face (except for the humiliation Jesus received).
That, incidentally, is why Hebrews is so severe on this topic.
“For it is impossible, in the case of those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, and have shared in the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the age to come, and then have fallen away, to restore them again to repentance, since they are crucifying once again the Son of God to their own harm and holding him up to contempt” (Hebrews 6:4-6).
It means this: If someone hears the gospel and experiences friendship and worship with Christians and then decides to go on making a practice of sinning, he is holding Jesus in contempt. But Jesus says “If you love me, keep my commandments.” Those two things have to come as a package.
Consider Some of the Warning Passages in Hebrews
“But if it bears thorns and thistles, it is worthless and near to being cursed, and its end is to be burned. Though we speak in this way, yet in your case, beloved, we feel sure of better things—things that belong to salvation. For God is not unjust so as to overlook your work and the love that you have shown for his name in serving the saints, as you still do. And we desire each one of you to show the same earnestness to have the full assurance of hope until the end, so that you may not be sluggish, but imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises” (Hebrews 6:8-12).
“Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts. For if Joshua had given them rest, God would not have spoken of another day later on. So then, there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God, for whoever has entered God’s rest has also rested from his works as God did from his. Let us therefore strive to enter that rest, so that no one may fall by the same sort of disobedience. For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. And no creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account” (Hebrews 4:7b-13).
These passage teach us that we ought to have a fear of God, even if we have been in the church all of our lives.
The good news is that we can constantly go to God for mercy and grace:
“Since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need” (Hebrews 4:14-16).
We are able to go to God for mercy and grace only in the context of holding fast to our confession. The confession is that Jesus is Lord and that God raised him from the dead (Romans 10:9).
Hebrews 12 explains the implications of these truths. It is worth quoting in full:
Hebrews 12
Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, 2 looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.
3 Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted. 4 In your struggle against sin you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood. 5 And have you forgotten the exhortation that addresses you as sons?
“My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord,
nor be weary when reproved by him.
For the Lord disciplines the one he loves,
and chastises every son whom he receives.”
7 It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons. For what son is there whom his father does not discipline? 8 If you are left without discipline, in which all have participated, then you are illegitimate children and not sons. 9 Besides this, we have had earthly fathers who disciplined us and we respected them. Shall we not much more be subject to the Father of spirits and live? 10 For they disciplined us for a short time as it seemed best to them, but he disciplines us for our good, that we may share his holiness. 11 For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.
12 Therefore lift your drooping hands and strengthen your weak knees, 13 and make straight paths for your feet, so that what is lame may not be put out of joint but rather be healed. 14 Strive for peace with everyone, and for the holiness without which no one will see the Lord. 15 See to it that no one fails to obtain the grace of God; that no “root of bitterness” springs up and causes trouble, and by it many become defiled; 16 that no one is sexually immoral or unholy like Esau, who sold his birthright for a single meal. 17 For you know that afterward, when he desired to inherit the blessing, he was rejected, for he found no chance to repent, though he sought it with tears.
18 For you have not come to what may be touched, a blazing fire and darkness and gloom and a tempest 19 and the sound of a trumpet and a voice whose words made the hearers beg that no further messages be spoken to them. 20 For they could not endure the order that was given, “If even a beast touches the mountain, it shall be stoned.” 21 Indeed, so terrifying was the sight that Moses said, “I tremble with fear.” 22 But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering, 23 and to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, 24 and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.
25 See that you do not refuse him who is speaking. For if they did not escape when they refused him who warned them on earth, much less will we escape if we reject him who warns from heaven. 26 At that time his voice shook the earth, but now he has promised, “Yet once more I will shake not only the earth but also the heavens.” 27 This phrase, “Yet once more,” indicates the removal of things that are shaken—that is, things that have been made—in order that the things that cannot be shaken may remain. 28 Therefore let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, and thus let us offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe, 29 for our God is a consuming fire.
What About Salvation By Grace Alone, Through Faith Alone?
There is no conflict between all that I said above and the Bible’s teaching that we are saved by grace through faith as seen in Ephesians:
“For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them” (Ephesians 2:8-10).
Verse 10 shows what it means to be saved through faith: It means that we were created to do good works.
Faith In Action
In the Bible, the kind of faith that saves is faith in action. Consider Romans 4:
“In hope he believed against hope, that he should become the father of many nations, as he had been told, So shall your offspring be. He did not weaken in faith when he considered his own body, which was as good as dead (since he was about a hundred years old), or when he considered the barrenness of Sarah’s womb. No unbelief made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God, fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised. That is why his faith was counted to him as righteousness” (Romans 4:18-22).
James supports the same understanding of faith being tied closely to action: “You see that faith was active along with his works, and faith was completed by his works” (James 2:22).
Elsewhere, we see the Bible telling us that the faith that was attributed to Abraham as righteousness was exhibited at the binding of Isaac or at the time of the original promise God made to Abraham about Isaac when he had him count the stars (James 2:21-23, Genesis 15:6). In all cases, the promise is the same promise, and Abraham is seen acting in accordance with a conviction that the promise is true (Compare Hebrews 11:6).
We should be cautious speaking about faith as ever being something that is apart from action. The faith that saves is the faith that exists when the person is willing to take actions, not some entirely theoretical and intellectual affirmation beforehand. It is a commitment of the heart, and it has to be the kind of commitment that can and does to action. Faith and action are able to be distinguished, but not separated.
It is in light of the above understanding of the relationship between faith and action that we can understand and integrate passages like the following into our theological outlook:
“Religion that is pure and undefiled before God the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world.” (James 1:27).
“Behold, I am coming soon, bringing my recompense with me, to repay each one for what he has done” (Revelation 22:12).
“His master said to him, Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master” (Matthew 25:23).
We should actually attempt to please and obey God by doing good things. And anyone who does not want to do that is not a Christian.
The qualification about that idea needs to be that, as Ephesians 2:8-9 points out, “Grace is a gift of God, not of works so that no one may boast.”
Our morally good actions do not merit grace. And we should remember that our morally good actions come as a result of an alien righteousness (2 Corinthians 5:21). But our identification with Christ does result in Christ becoming our righteousness (1 Corinthians 1:30).
It is with that idea in mind that we are able to understand how God will apply passages like the above to us.
God really will reward people for their works and their faithfulness—and he really will punish people for their cowardice, lying ways, sexual immorality, murders (Revelation 21:8) and their lack of concern for the wellbeing of other believers or unwillingness to forgive others (Matthew 7:23, Matthew 6:15).
Apart from an understanding of faith in action that is as I am describing, it seems to me that it would be difficult to uphold all of Scripture’s warnings in a way that is logically integrated.
More About the Warning Passages
Revelation teaches the same approach to warnings and rewards:
“Remember, then, what you received and heard. Keep it, and repent. If you will not wake up, I will come like a thief, and you will not know at what hour I will come against you. Yet you have still a few names in Sardis, people who have not soiled their garments, and they will walk with me in white, for they are worthy. The one who conquers will be clothed thus in white garments, and I will never blot his name out of the book of life. I will confess his name before my Father and before his angels” (Revelation 3:3-5).
Jude teaches the same:
“But you must remember, beloved, the predictions of the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ. They said to you, “In the last time there will be scoffers, following their own ungodly passions.” It is these who cause divisions, worldly people, devoid of the Spirit. But you, beloved, building yourselves up in your most holy faith and praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in the love of God, waiting for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ that leads to eternal life. And have mercy on those who doubt; save others by snatching them out of the fire; to others show mercy with fear, hating even the garment stained by the flesh” (Jude 17-23).
Similarly, see this passage at the end of Revelation:
“Behold, I am coming soon, bringing my recompense with me, to repay each one for what he has done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end. Blessed are those who wash their robes, so that they may have the right to the tree of life and that they may enter the city by the gates. Outside are the dogs and sorcerers and the sexually immoral and murderers and idolaters, and everyone who loves and practices falsehood” (Revelation 22:12-15).
Jesus teaches the same principle in Matthew:
“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” (Matthew 7:21-23).
We don’t have to go to only to the book of James to find the doctrine about who is an is not saved being connected directly to obedience. But we should consider how clearly James states the issue:
“Therefore put away all filthiness and rampant wickedness and receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls. But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror. For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like. But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing. If anyone thinks he is religious and does not bridle his tongue but deceives his heart, this person’s religion is worthless” (James 1:21-26).
Answering My Friend
With all the above as the context, I can answer my friend’s questions:
Yes, you should fear that God will send you to hell if you are making a practice of sinning.
If you are making a practice of sinning, you should have no feeling of assurance that you are yet a born again believer in the gospel.
Your salvation should be called into question if this is happening.
You should only have assurance if you continue enduring in your faith and obedience.
Jesus teaches us that the faith that saves needs to be the kind of faith that endures: “But the one who endures to the end will be saved” (Matthew 24:13).
It is good to seek a feeling of assurance about our salvation. We can have that based on the fruit in our lives, specifically through our obedience to Jesus’ teaching, avoiding sin, and loving other Christians.
Salvation comes by believing Jesus’ words (John 5:23), and at the same time real believing (and real love of Christ) inevitably leads to us practicing obedient living.
To affirm all the above is simply to affirm the Bible’s basic teaching. No, this is not endorsing the heretical theology of salvation by good works. But many famous preachers today lack the ability to think clearly or speak accurately on these topics. If they are using less Scripture than I have here, you might want to ask why. If all they have are regurgitated slogans of other men, plus a verse or two, that is a problem.
Many pastors are simply derelict on these topics. That’s a big part of why Arminians so strongly dislike Calvinist teaching, by the way. If Calvinists cannot even show how they understand the warning passages, they aren’t going to persuade many of their hearers.
More Implications
Fearing God as a Christian means taking the prospective verses warning about hell seriously.
It is unlikely that there are any Christians who do not seriously fear hell.
All Christians approach God in a serious way, with penitence and a desire to please him and obey him.
While it is certainly true that there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ, not one can credibly claim to be in Christ while making a practice of sinning.
Short-term inconsistencies in character will eventually work themselves out. As time goes on, a man chooses his path. True repentance becomes more difficult.
“For he found no chance to repent, though he sought it with tears” (Hebrews 12:17b).
“For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions” (Romans 1:26a).
What happened to the people in Romans 1 can also happen to you. At some point it will become clear either that you do or do not desire holiness. And that is a weighty thing.
No One Who Abides in Him Keeps on Sinning
My friend had asked me: “I know grace doesn’t mean we can live like devils, but I thought our forgiveness would be there even if for some astronomical reason we dared to sin in great ways.”
I would address this claim by pointing to what 1 John 3:4-10 and many other passages teach about those who make a practice of sinning: “Whoever makes a practice of sinning is of the devil” (verse 8).
The sin of which a man truly repents is not going to send him to hell. Not if it is just one sin, or one hundred, or four hundred and ninety. The number is not the issue. The heart is the issue. What does the heart love? A love of sin will send a man to hell.
If a man has an ongoing practice of sinning, then he loves sin and he does not love Jesus. He is on the path to hell unless something in his heart changes.
In most cases, a man can only feel confident that his heart has changed after he sees a changed life: a life of consistent obedience and avoiding sin instead of loving it and seeking it.
My friend had said: “The reality is I do fear God’s condemnation.”
That is good.
I will add: You should also fear the literal demons that God might give power over your life if you give ground to the Devil.
Demons are one of the strongest reasons I am afraid to willingly disobey God. I really fear that God would allow demons to harm me or my family. I’ve read the Bible. God is not a chump. He is a man of war.
“Therefore say to the house of Israel, Thus says the Lord GOD: It is not for your sake, O house of Israel, that I am about to act, but for the sake of my holy name, which you have profaned among the nations to which you came” (Ezekiel 36:22).
I’m terrified of what God would do to me. And I am okay with that. That terror is doing me good.
Demons can and probably will harm me if I harden my heart and treat Jesus with contempt. In order to change, a man needs to hate the sin itself, and he needs to actually want to replace that old sin-loving man with a new man. Let those old desires and that old man die. Trust God to make you a new creation.
How do you do it?
By simply doing it.
It is an act of the will, and of faith.
It Is Totally Black and White
You live for God or for sin. It cannot be somewhere in the middle. There is no such thing.
That said, it is possible to go through a dark season in life and come out of it. But know this: If you don’t come out of it, and if the love of sin continues taking root in your heart, you will probably go to hell.
This is as serious as it sounds.
If you are in this position, I care about you. And I pray that you will man up.
How do you do that?
Pray this:
“Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me” (Psalm 51:10).
Declare your belief in God’s power:
“For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek” (Romans 1:16).
By Believing in Jesus’ Power, You Save Yourself
If that sounds odd, you need to study what the Bible says about saving yourself.
“Keep a close watch on yourself and on the teaching. Persist in this, for by so doing you will save both yourself and your hearers” (1 Timothy 4:16).
“And with many other words he bore witness and continued to exhort them, saying, Save yourselves from this crooked generation” (Acts 2:40).
“Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life” (Proverbs 4:23).
If you need a deeper understanding of these topics, I do recommend studying Tom Schreiner’s paper that I mentioned earlier.
It can be a challenge to understand this concept of “prospective warnings” and the implications that the warning passages seem to have on the doctrine of the perseverance of the saints. (That is a doctrine I uphold).
The difference between the regenerate and the unregenerate is whether they have a new heart that believes the warnings and acts as true belief necessarily does. The warnings are one of the means by which God moves the person to faith in the first place.
How Do the Prospective Warnings Work?
If you find this topic challenging, try this:
Imagine a story in which the guide says the following:
You have a choice to make. I already know which choice you will make because I am all-knowing and I created you the way you are. Your choice is between the path of victory and the path of defeat. If you believe my account of what each path looks like and if you love and trust my guidance, then you will choose the path of victory.
The above scenario is unlike other human experiences. But there is nothing logically impossible about it.
If you’re still trying to figure out how the warnings about a lack of faith are compatible with the doctrine of election and the regenerating work of the Holy Spirit and faith, then you need to know something—that is like asking: “How could evangelizing people and praying for their souls be compatible with the doctrine of election?”
You’re showing how much you don’t know. God works through means. We don’t use the fact that God is omniscient and omnipotent as an excuse to not do good things he has commanded us to do.
“For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.” (Ephesians 2:10).
It is valuable to understand how the theological points fit together. But if you are making a pattern of sinning against God, the theological integration is not what is causing you problems. Your problem is that you love sin. Trust and obey Jesus. Do whatever it takes to make that happen.
In the above material you can find all you need to know about the intellectual aspects of these issues. Deal with the heart issue.
One More Piece of Good News
Some people might read the warning in Hebrews 10 and fear that they might be described by it.
“For if we go on sinning deliberately after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a fearful expectation of judgment, and a fury of fire that will consume the adversaries” (Hebrews 10:26-27).
They might mistakenly read this passage as saying that anyone who has learned the gospel and then engaged in a pattern of sinning once more is forever without hope.
That’s not what the passage is saying.
If you learned the gospel and then backslid, you can repent. You are not lost forever. The warning is about those who do go on sinning deliberately and, presumably, indefinitely.
The passage teaches that the man who truly walks away from his affirmation of Christ will not be forgiven by God. Such a man abandons Christ. The abandonment is either open or by implication, as in the case when a man no longer lives for Jesus and instead lives for sin.
On the basis of other passages, we know this kind of man was never regenerated in the first place. He might have had some good actions. He might have been in a church. But he lacked the faith that persists in action, and therefore he lacked the faith that comes when the Holy Spirit changes a heart.
Even if someone abandons belief in Jesus for a time, he can return. Who is to say whether that earlier “belief” was a mere intellectual affirmation not accompanied by a change of the heart and the Holy Spirit’s gift of regeneration? It is hard to know. But in either case, we are able to know that the only unforgivable sin is failing to place your faith (true faith) in Jesus before you die.
I’ll leave you with two verses that can become the theme for anyone striving for holiness:
“Strive for peace with everyone, and for the holiness without which no one will see the Lord” (Hebrews 12:14).
“Continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure” (Philippians 2:12b-13).
If you need more context on the warning passages, I also recommend this video:
Thanks for reading, and God bless.
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