FGO by Brother Jason Rhoad:
Chances are, you have
been asked that question at some point in your life. If not, chances are real
good that you will be asked. But the real question is: Do you have a good
answer to the question? Typically, the questioner has a somewhat different view
of salvation as compared to what the Catholic Church as always taught. Usually
what they really mean, is “don’t you wish you had an absolute assurance of
salvation?
As with most Protestant
teachings, we have to be careful not to paint with too broad of a brush. There is
quite a range of views about salvation out there. That in itself is a bit
telling. Often times in my discussions with people, the notion that all
Christians agree on the essentials comes up. I usually respond with something
like this. “Do you consider salvation an essential?” I then proceed to point
out that there is terrible disagreement among Christians on the topic of
salvation. What do we have to do to get it? Can we lose it once we have it? Is
faith alone all that is required? Does baptism have anything to do with it? As
you might suspect, there are as many answers to these questions as there are
denominations. I mention all this just to point out that this topic is not
unlike any number of others that divide Christians. But I want to focus on a
particular viewpoint on salvation that is quite popular in this part of the
country. That is, Once Saved Always Saved.
Two major pillars of the
Protestant Reformation are Sola Scriptura
(The Bible Alone is the sole rule of faith) and Sola Fide (Salvation is by faith alone). It is an offshoot of this
second pillar that we will examine here. According to the OSAS teaching, once a
person accepts Christ as their personal Lord and savior, they then have an
absolute assurance that when they die, they will go to heaven. They may well
lead a good and holy life after accepting Christ, but it is not a condition for
salvation. Indeed nothing they do, no sin they commit, can ever undo their
salvation, even if they want it to. The thinking goes like this: There is
nothing we can do to earn our salvation, therefore there is nothing we can do
to lose it. That sounds reasonable enough, until we take a closer look.
We would agree that
there is nothing we can do to merit salvation. We are saved by God’s grace,
which is a free, unmerited gift. There is nothing we can do to earn it. There
is no criteria like, if you do this many good deeds, etc. you go to heaven.
Only Christ’s perfect sacrifice on the cross and the grace that flows from it
is enough to be able to reconcile man to God. But it in no way follows that
once we receive an unmerited gift that we have to keep that gift forever. Our
free will is still intact and we can choose to do any number of things with a
gift given to us. We can give it back, misplace it, destroy it, give it to
someone else, take it back to the store, etc. We can even forfeit something we
are given by later displeasing the one who gave it. For instance, when someone
has been given a special position but is later stripped of the position due to
mismanagement.
What about when we turn
to scripture? We find there Adam and Eve, who received God’s grace as unmerited
as any of us. But they most definitely did do something to demerit that grace.
Through their disobedience, they lost the grace they had been given. So while
it sounds nice to say that since we did nothing to get it we can do nothing to
lose it, it simply does not hold up scrutiny.
Elsewhere in scripture, there is the Parable of the Prodigal
Son in Luke chapter 15. The Prodigal Son was in his father’s house, and the
father in the parable is representative of God the Father. Then, the Prodigal
Son leaves his father’s house and goes and lives a sinful life. In the end,
though, he repents and returns to his father. After he comes back, the father
says this of him in verse 24: “For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he
was lost, and is found.”
To be dead is to be unsaved, and to be alive is to be saved.
Notice very carefully, though, that the father says the son is alive “again.”
In other words, the son was alive, or saved, when he was in his father’s house
at the beginning of the parable; was “dead,” or unsaved, when he left his
father’s house and lived in sin; then was alive again, saved again, when he
repented and returned to his father’s house. Alive, dead, alive again. Saved,
unsaved, saved again.
These are merely two of
many examples from scripture that point out the fallacy of OSAS. The argument
can be furthered via practical example. Take for instance, someone who
professes Christ as his savior at age 14. For ten years, lives an exemplary
Christian life. He then gets married and starts a family. Eventually though, he
begins to grow lukewarm. He succumbs to temptation and cheats on his wife. He
stops going to church and eventually comes to believe that God doesn’t even
exist. Does a decision he made at one point in his youth trump every other
decision he ever makes? A typical response to this is that the person was never
really saved in the 1st place. To which I answer, what kind of
assurance is that? He thought he was. What if he’d have died during the 10 year
period following his salvation experience before falling away? If he was never
really saved, would he have gone to hell, even though he thought he was saved?
I once asked a Baptist
friend of mine, are there people who think they are saved but are really not?
He said yes. I said, are you one of those people? Oh no, he said, I know I’m
saved. See a problem here?
So what does the Church
teach concerning salvation? Simply put, if we persevere to the end, and die in
a state of grace, we will go to heaven. If we die in a state of mortal sin, we
will go to hell. And we leave the judging to Christ. We do not judge ourselves.
Paul puts it best in 1 Cor 4:4, “I am not aware of anything against myself, but
I am not there justified. It is the Lord who judges me. In 1 Cor 9:27, Paul
admits that even he could fall away. “I pummel my body and subdue it, lest
after preaching to others, I myself should be disqualified.”
I have heard and read of
many occasions where Catholics were talked into leaving their faith because the
Church does not teach an absolute assurance of salvation. I can certainly
sympathize. I wish the Protestant doctrine of once saved always saved were
true. But unfortunately, it simply isn’t. That doesn’t mean that we are to go
around terrified of whether or not we will get to heaven. Indeed we can be assured
that if we remain in God’s grace, He will be true to His promises. Furthermore,
Christ gave us the sacraments, particularly reconciliation, to impart in a
visible and real way, His grace upon us. But as scripture, practicality, and
the constant 2000 year authoritative teaching of the Church informs us, more is
asked of us than a one time acceptance of Christ. So as Paul tells us in
Philippians 2:12, “Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now,
not only as in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own
salvation with fear and trembling."
