Wesleyan Theology and the Doctrine of Salvation — Unit 9: Perseverance and the Possibility of Falling Away

Key Verse

"Beware, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God." (Hebrews 3:12, NKJV)

Learning Objectives

When you finish this unit, you should be able to:

1. Explain conditional security as the Wesleyan view, and say what it does and does not mean.

2. State the doctrine of eternal security (the perseverance of the saints) fairly, with its main texts and its pastoral concerns.

3. Name the main Scriptures Wesleyans use for the possibility of falling away, and explain the three main readings of Hebrews 6:4-6.

4. Give the Wesleyan answer to the main eternal-security texts: John 10:27-29, Romans 8:38-39, Philippians 1:6, Ephesians 1:13-14 and 1 John 2:19.

5. Describe how a pastor comforts the anxious, warns the careless, and calls back the one who has wandered.

The Voice of This Course

This course is written from inside the Wesleyan tradition for Wesleyan students. It is theologically conservative: the Bible is the inspired and final authority, and God is one God in three persons. "We" means the evangelical Wesleyan-Holiness and Methodist churches.

This unit treats a question on which faithful, Bible-loving Christians disagree. Many Baptists, Presbyterians and other evangelicals hold that a true believer can never be lost. We hold that a believer can fall away by persistent unbelief, and that he can be restored. We will state the other view as its holders state it, and then give our answer. Scripture says, "Test all things; hold fast what is good" (1 Thessalonians 5:21).

The Question and the Terms

Can a person who has truly been born again, forgiven and adopted, afterward be lost? Two answers are given.

Eternal security. Those who teach it say that a true believer can never finally be lost. The Reformed churches call this "the perseverance of the saints." They mean that God keeps all His elect to the end, so that every truly saved person will continue in faith until death. In popular speech, especially among Baptists and others in Latin America and elsewhere, the teaching is often put as "once saved, always saved." Some who use these words mean that even a believer who stops believing remains saved. The Reformed teachers usually say something more careful: that a truly saved person will not stop believing.

Conditional security. This is the Wesleyan teaching. The believer is secure in Christ, but the security is in Christ and is received by a living faith that continues. A believer may, by persistent unbelief and a willful rejection of Christ, fall away. He does not fall by one sin, or by a moment of doubt, or by weakness. He may be restored if he turns again.

The Wesleyan view is not a revolving door, and it is not a teaching of fear. It rests on three things: God is faithful, Christ is able to save to the uttermost those who come to God through Him (Hebrews 7:25), and the human being is responsible to go on trusting. Earlier units taught resistible grace and the reality of our response of faith. Conditional security is the same teaching carried to its end.

The Eternal Security View Stated Fairly

Those who teach eternal security love God's glory and the believer's comfort, and their arguments deserve respect.

God's sovereign purpose. If God has chosen a person in Christ before the foundation of the world, His purpose cannot fail. Paul says, "being confident of this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ" (Philippians 1:6).

The promises of Christ. Jesus said of His sheep, "And I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; neither shall anyone snatch them out of My hand" (John 10:28).

God's love. Paul is persuaded that nothing, including "any other created thing," shall be able "to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord" (Romans 8:38-39).

The seal of the Spirit. Believers "were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, who is the guarantee of our inheritance" (Ephesians 1:13-14). Peter says that we are "kept by the power of God through faith for salvation" (1 Peter 1:5).

The pastoral concern. Eternal security gives rest to troubled believers and protects against the idea that we keep ourselves saved by our own works. Those who hold it ask what is eternal about eternal life if it can be lost.

The warning passages. The Reformed do not ignore the warnings of Scripture. They hold that warnings are the means God uses to keep His elect persevering. Some say that people who fall away were never truly regenerate, citing 1 John 2:19: "They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us." We honor the seriousness with which these brothers treat the warnings.

The Wesleyan Teaching from Scripture

The Wesleyan view rests on the same Bible, and on many passages that speak of real danger for real believers.

John 15:1-6. Jesus says that He is the vine and His disciples are the branches. "Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit He takes away" (John 15:2). "If anyone does not 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" (John 15:6). The branches are in Christ, and they can be cut off.

Hebrews 3:12-14 and the wilderness generation. The key verse warns believers against "an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God." The writer points to Israel, who came out of Egypt, were redeemed and were led by God, and yet fell in the wilderness through unbelief (Hebrews 3:16-19). Paul uses the same example and says, "Therefore let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall" (1 Corinthians 10:12).

Hebrews 6:4-6 and 10:26-31. These passages speak of those who were enlightened, who tasted the heavenly gift and were made partakers of the Holy Spirit, and then fell away; and of those who go on sinning willfully after receiving the knowledge of the truth, and who count the blood of the covenant by which they were sanctified an unholy thing (Hebrews 10:29).

Other passages. Paul says of those who sought to be justified by law, "You have become estranged from Christ... you have fallen from grace" (Galatians 5:4). He speaks of some who rejected faith and a good conscience and so "suffered shipwreck" concerning the faith (1 Timothy 1:19). He writes that Gentile believers stand by faith and will be cut off if they do not continue in God's goodness (Romans 11:20-22). He tells the Colossians that they will be presented holy "if indeed you continue in the faith" (Colossians 1:22-23). He disciplines his own body lest, after preaching to others, he himself be disqualified (1 Corinthians 9:27). Peter warns of those who escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Saviour and are again entangled in them (2 Peter 2:20-22).

The Methodist Articles of Religion (1784) state the Wesleyan position in a plain sentence: after receiving the Holy Spirit, we may depart from grace given and fall into sin, and by God's grace rise again and amend our lives. John Wesley wrote a short work on the perseverance of the saints and preached on restoring the backslider.

Three Readings of Hebrews 6:4-6

Hebrews 6:4-6 is the hardest passage in this debate, and honesty requires us to say that there are three main readings.

1. The warning is about real believers who fall. This is the Wesleyan reading. The words "enlightened," "tasted the heavenly gift," and "partakers of the Holy Spirit" describe true Christian experience. Falling away is a real possibility. It is a total rejection of Christ after receiving Him, and where it is willful and settled, the heart is hardened and cannot be renewed to repentance while it remains so.

2. The warning is about those who came close but were never truly saved. Many Reformed teachers read it this way. The people described had a great nearness to the gospel but did not have saving faith.

3. The warning is a means God uses to keep His elect from the sin it describes. The elect will heed it.

We hold the first reading. The language is used for true believers elsewhere in Hebrews, and the writer addresses his readers as brothers (Hebrews 3:12). Yet he is "confident of better things" in their case (Hebrews 6:9).

Our Answers to the Eternal Security Texts

We receive every promise that the eternal-security tradition cites. We differ about what the promises say.

John 10:27-29. No one can snatch the sheep from the Saviour's hand. We rejoice in this. No devil, no persecutor, no outside power can take a believer from Christ. But verse 27 describes the sheep: "My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me." The promise is for those who continue to hear and follow. The passage does not say that a sheep cannot choose to leave the Shepherd.

Romans 8:38-39. Paul lists death, life, angels, powers, and other created things. We agree that nothing outside us can separate us from God's love. Yet the same chapter warns that "if you live according to the flesh you will die" (Romans 8:13). Paul's confidence is in God's love, and it does not remove the call to keep living by the Spirit.

Philippians 1:6. God will finish what He has begun, and this is certain. Paul writes to a church whose faith he sees. The same Paul says in the next chapter, "Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling" (Philippians 2:12). God's faithfulness is not in doubt. What the verse does not say is that the believer's continuing consent is unnecessary.

Ephesians 1:13-14. The seal and guarantee are given to those who are "in Him," who "having believed" were sealed. The Spirit's seal is a pledge to the believer. Yet Paul also writes, "Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption" (Ephesians 4:30). The seal can be grieved.

1 John 2:19. This verse speaks of false teachers who left the fellowship. John says they never truly belonged. We agree that some who depart were never converted. But this verse cannot explain every warning. The branches in John 15 were in Christ. The people in Hebrews 10:29 were "sanctified" by the blood. Paul says that some have "fallen from grace." Not all of these can be read as pretenders.

"If it can be lost, it was not eternal." Eternal life is the life of Christ, given to those who are in Him by faith. The life is eternal because He is eternal. It is held in union with Him: "He who has the Son has life" (1 John 5:12). The believer who stays in Christ has eternal life. The one who leaves Him has left the life.

"This makes salvation depend on us." It makes salvation depend on Christ, and on our trusting Him. The condition is not performance but faith, the open hand of Unit 8. A believer who trusts is secure, and Wesley taught assurance as strongly as anyone (Unit 7). Conditional security is a warning to keep trusting, not to walk in fear.

Falling Away and Restoration

The Wesleyan teaching includes a great hope: the one who has fallen may be restored.

We must distinguish backsliding from final apostasy. A backslider is a believer who has wandered, grown cold, or sinned grievously. He is still drawn by God, and his conscience troubles him. The Lord says to a cold church, "As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten. Therefore be zealous and repent" (Revelation 3:19). Peter denied Christ three times and was restored (John 21:15-17). The prodigal son was welcomed home (Luke 15:11-24). "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness" (1 John 1:9).

Final apostasy is the settled rejection of Christ by one who knew Him. We should not be quick to say that anyone has reached it. If a person fears he has fallen beyond hope and longs to return, the longing itself shows that God is still at work.

A Note on the Historians

Historians remind us that this question was open for a time. Jacobus Arminius himself was cautious on the point, and the Remonstrants in 1610 left it for further study. The Synod of Dort, 1618-1619, answered with the Reformed doctrine of perseverance. Wesley, in the next century, taught the Wesleyan view plainly.

Pastoral Application

A mother comes to her pastor in tears. Her son made a profession of faith at fourteen and was baptized. Now he is twenty-six, and he has told her that he no longer believes in God. She asks, "Pastor, is my son lost? Was he ever saved at all?"

The pastor does not give a quick answer, because the answer is not his to give. He tells her that Scripture warns that a person may turn away from Christ, and that Scripture also shows a Father who runs to meet the returning son. He does not say that her son was never saved, since he cannot know that, and he does not say that her son is certainly safe. He tells her what is sure: the Lord has not given up on him, prayer is powerful, and the door is open. He reads Luke 15 and 1 John 1:9 with her, suggests that she write her son a loving letter and pray for him by name each day, and promises to pray with her weekly. To the anxious believer who fears every failure, he would say something different: a person who still loves Christ and is sorry for sin is not in the condition of Hebrews 6, and may rest in Christ.

Summary

Eternal security, taught by the Reformed as the perseverance of the saints, holds that true believers will be kept to the end, on the ground of God's sovereign purpose, Christ's promises, God's love, and the Spirit's seal. Its holders treat the warnings of Scripture as means of perseverance, or as describing those who were never truly saved. The Wesleyan teaching is conditional security. The believer is secure in Christ as long as he continues in a living faith, and he can fall away by persistent unbelief. The Wesleyan case rests on John 15, Hebrews 3, 6 and 10, 1 Corinthians 10, Galatians 5, and other texts. Wesleyans read Hebrews 6:4-6 as a warning to true believers. The eternal-security texts are promises to those who continue in Christ, and no outside power can take them from His hand, though a person may himself turn away. The Wesleyan view includes the hope of restoration for the backslider.

Further Reading

• John Wesley, sermon "A Call to Backsliders," a primary source.

• John Wesley, Serious Thoughts upon the Perseverance of the Saints, a primary source.

• Methodist Articles of Religion (1784), the article on sin after justification, a primary source.

• John Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the New Testament, on John 15 and Hebrews 6, a primary source.

• The Canons of Dort (1618-1619), fifth head, on the perseverance of the saints, a primary source for the Reformed view.

• The Westminster Confession of Faith (1646), the chapter on perseverance, a primary source for the Reformed view.

• Course 2, Unit 4 (election), Unit 7 (assurance) and Unit 8 (the way of salvation).

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