Once Saved, Always Saved (OSAS) is a Theological Myth - Part One
In my perusals of social media, I too often come across doctrines that I understand to be false, yet are proclaimed to be Biblical. I cannot abide letting the propagation of false doctrines go unchallenged. The problem is that when those that hold to these doctrines are challenged, they do not tend to listen to the arguments made against them, regardless of how sound the Scriptural arguments are against their doctrine. They hold so tightly to their beliefs that they cannot fathom that their understandings may be wrong. They often seem to be more interested in protecting themselves and their doctrine than they are in discovering Truth, but Truth is supposed to reign in our lives. If our doctrine does not stand up to Scriptural Truth, then our doctrine has to change; there is no other option.
One such doctrine that is apparently too fragile to be subjected to Biblical challenge is the doctrine of Once Saved, Always Saved (OSAS). If you hold to this doctrine, I'm afraid that you are in a situation similar to the image that I chose for this article, your little boat of security is in danger of getting swamped. I have challenged several prominent people on social media on this doctrine, and so far, without fail, after a few exchanges of ideas I have found myself banned from their pages. I can only surmise that they are beginning to realize that arguments against OSAS are stronger than those for it, but they have by this point invested too much into the doctrine to turn away from it in front of their followers, and they don’t want their followers “deceived”. These are not typically bad people who are intentionally trying to deceive those who are following them; they are simply deceived themselves and their pride then plays a part. I suspect that the same may be true for myself, but I do try to make sure that all the Scriptures point to what it is that I hold to, and that not just a few Scriptures do if I interpret them a certain way.
The OSAS doctrine claims that once one has accepted the gift of the shed blood of Jesus Christ as the payment for their sins, this person is now forever safe in the hands of Jesus, regardless of any sins which they may commit. Unfortunately, like the best fallacies, there is a nugget of truth to the words, but the truth of the matter is smudged in order to make the Scriptures support the belief. This is referred to as eisegesis, which is making the Word match what we want it to say. We should be practising exegesis, which is ensuring that our beliefs match up with what the Word is telling us. It is my goal and my calling in this life not to win new converts to Christ, but to challenge and correct wrong teachings and beliefs of those who already follow Him. This is lauded in James 5:19-20; “My brethren, if any among you strays from the truth and one turns him back, 20 let him know that he who turns a sinner from the error of his way will save his soul from death and will cover a multitude of sins.” I have plenty of sins of my own to cover, so I will not stop challenging theology that is contrary to Scripture.
This will be a very long topic to cover properly, so I will likely have to break this up into at least two or three articles in order to be able to cover it fully. I guess I should start with the warnings of the Scriptures to the churches about falling away to false doctrines, in particular to the one doctrine that was prevalent in the first century and that aligned closely with OSAS. I will point out that I will be going a little to the extreme in order to lay out these truths, but that is simply because the Bible tends to point out the extremes of disobedience and not necessarily the small errors that lead people astray, though we are warned to be on the watch for the small errors too. There will be some that will argue that a true follower of Christ will not go to the extremes that will be largely laid out in these writings, therefore, they will claim, there is no correlation between what I will write and what they believe about OSAS. This, in itself, is actually a supportive argument for my position because they are then applying degrees of sin to the acts that people commit while believing that they are still in right relationship with God, which is arguing that there is a level of sin that one can reach at which God will reject them.
Let’s start with the words of Jesus Himself which we find in Revelation 2 in His words to the churches in Pergamum and in Ephesus. In Revelation 2:15 we read that Jesus mentions the teachings of the Nicolaitans where He warns the church in Pergamum that, “you also have some who in the same way hold the teaching of the Nicolaitans.”, but we know little or nothing about the Nicolaitans. When we look further up the page to Revelation 2:6 where Jesus commended the church in Ephesus, “that you hate the deeds of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate.”, we begin to see that whatever they hold to is against what God accepts. When we look into the teachings of the Nicolaitans, we see that they dovetail closely with the topic of the doctrine of once saved, always saved in that it is taught that our acts and our deeds have no effect on our relationship with God, but that mere belief and faith secure our eternal salvation.
These above two references are all that we see about the Nicolaitans in the Scriptures, but it seems that Ireneus and Hippolytus shared some insights about this group. I should state that some of the sources for historical information are from christian sects with whom I have doctrinal disagreements, however, since there are only so many sources of information dating back to the start of the Christian faith, we sometimes need to rely on sources other than the Bible for our historical facts about what actually happened. This should, in no way, be considered an approval of the doctrines of these sects. I also feel that I must clarify that I am getting my information from numerous sources as well, who fail to offer their own sources for perusal, so my ability to footnote this article will be significantly affected.
According to what my own research is showing, there is a basis to believe that the Nicolaitan doctrines began with the teachings of Nicolas, who we see getting ordained by the Apostles at the same time as Stephen in Acts 6, where we read that Nicolas was noted to be “a proselyte from Antioch”, which means that he was a Gentile that had previously converted to Judaism, and apparently converted again to Christianity. This may play a significant part in why he apparently abandoned the teachings of the Apostles and contaminated them with his own beliefs. It is possible that Nicolas had pagan roots, and having been first converted to Judaism and then to Christianity, he may not have had the knowledge and understanding to separate the beliefs of the three religions from each other. Yet having been ordained by the Apostles for service, his bona fides were somewhat established which would “justify” the trust that others put into him and his teachings.
The teachings of Nicolas were noted by the early church authors (second century) to have offered a compromise for those who followed his teachings, that they needed not to separate themselves from the world in order to follow Christ. George Campbell Morgan wrote that, “The Nicolaitans were persons who excused certain forms of impurity, and made the grace of God a cloak for lasciviousness. This belief is known as Antinomianism, which means that the gospel frees Christians from required obedience to any law, whether scriptural, civil or moral, and that salvation is attained solely through faith and the gift of divine grace. That means there is no need for ‘Sanctification‘.”[a] The definition of antinomian is “a believer in the doctrine that faith alone, not obedience to the moral law, is necessary for salvation”, according to Webster’s New World Dictionary. This sure sounds a lot like the Nicolaitan doctrine, doesn’t it?
Again I will state that there are those who cling to the doctrine of OSAS who will claim that these first century individuals were living in blatant sin and had therefore not truly accepted Christ as their Saviour. In fact, this would be their argument for anybody who, after confession of their sins and acceptance of the gift of salvation, fails to turn from their previous follies and sins, or after having done so, returns to those things. Honestly, it is difficult to argue against this, but when someone claims to be a follower of Christ, others will look at their life and observe whatever fruit is borne, without the foreknowledge of whether or not their profession of faith is real or not. But the Scriptures talk about those people too; in 2 Peter 2:20-22 we read, “For if, after they have escaped the defilements of the world by the knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them and are overcome, the last state has become worse for them than the first. 21 For it would be better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than having known it, to turn away from the holy commandment handed on to them. 22 It has happened to them according to the true proverb, “A dog returns to its own vomit,” and, “A sow, after washing, returns to wallowing in the mire.”
In regards to this, Al Maxey wrote. “This may all seem rather absurd to us, even hard to believe, yet one won’t have a great deal of difficulty finding those in the Lord’s church today who, at least in principle if not in fact, hold to these same Nicolaitan beliefs! These are those who see nothing wrong with a certain amount of compromise with the world about them, with becoming more and more worldly in nature and practice, while still claiming to be faithful disciples of Christ! Such compromise is nothing short of that ancient Nicolaitan heresy raising its ugly head in a modern setting.”[b] How true this is! We are called to righteousness, as I wrote about in my last two articles. This means that we are to reject the ways of the world in order to strive to sanctification that leads to eternal life (Romans 6:22).
Even if I am wrong about my assertions, which I am confident that I am not, is it not a dangerous belief to espouse to new believers that they do not need to change their ways in order to attain to eternal salvation? What value is there to the world if Christians act the same way as everybody else, but at least we are going to be with God in paradise? There is no benefit! We will make no difference in the world if we accept that no level of sinful acts can separate us from the love of God! Matthew 5:13 tell us that, “You are the salt of the earth; but if the salt has become tasteless, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled under foot by men.” If we claim to love God but our lives look no different than the lives of unbelievers around us, then we are not salt to the world, and we are good for nothing. This is the danger of the OSAS doctrine. It allows for that which should be salty to lose its effect. This undermines the teachings of the Apostle Paul in all of his letters to the churches.
This is a doctrine that will lead to destruction. In Rev. 2:14-15 the Lord makes this connection plain: “You have there some who hold the teaching of Balaam, who kept teaching Balak to put a stumbling block before the sons of Israel, to eat things sacrificed to idols, and to commit acts of immorality. You also have some who in the same way hold the teaching of the Nicolaitans.” If you look in Numbers chapters 22-24, we read most of the story of Balaam. We see that he was a prophet of God; in fact, we even have a record of Balaam’s conversation with God and we see Balaam initially obey God, yet his heart was not with God. The details of this story may actually require an entirely separate article to dive into, so let’s just jump to the end of the story. Balaam blesses the nation of Israel against the will of Balak, the king of Moab, who had hired Balaam to curse Israel. Yet even though Balaam blessed Israel at that time, God knew Balaam’s heart, and Balaam’s actions later betrayed what his true heart was. In chapter 25 of Numbers we read that Israel played the harlot with the people of Moab and began to do the same things that the Moabites were doing, but we only receive the context for this later on where we read above in Revelation 2 that it was Balaam who taught Balak to “put a stumbling block before the sons of Israel”, in order to cause God’s favour to be removed from Israel. Balaam’s strategy initially worked, but Phinehas, in his zeal for God, put a stop to it. And what was Balaam’s end? In Joshua 13:22 we read that “The sons of Israel also killed Balaam the son of Beor, the diviner, with the sword among the rest of their slain.”
So we see that the notion that our salvation is not affected by the sins that we may continue to partake in is not a new one; in fact, it is almost as old as Christianity itself. As I have said before, the acceptance of Jesus debt payment for our sins is only the first step of a journey. The purpose of that journey is to refine us, bring us to righteousness, sanctification and finally eternal life. In the next article I will begin to lay out the arguments that those who hold to OSAS use to try to support their beliefs, and then I will lay out the refutations to that belief from the Scriptures. Please be sure to check in again to see how the Bible itself refutes the notion of once saved, always saved.
As usual, please feel free to let me know what you think by using the comments section below.
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