In the previous post, using Solomon’s downfall as our backdrop, we considered how we as Christians a) have wonderful promises of assurance and b) should be fearful and take heed that we could fall. Both these are true and addressed to believers in the New Testament.
In this post, we need to consider how these go together. How can we, on the one hand, take hold of the wonderful promises of God, and, on the other hand, take heed lest we fall?
Applying Both Assurance and Warnings
The answer is quite simple (but as history has shown, harder to do theologically): we embrace and apply both because the Bible teaches both. We don’t let our systematic theology override what the New Testament teaches in our doctrine or application.
This means that while we as Christians daily hold onto the promises of God for assurance, we also are careful to heed God’s warnings about slipping so far that we eventually fall away. We embrace our assured salvation in Christ and we also humbly realize that apart from God’s keeping us we too will fall.
We need both as we live the Christian life—as we think about how we personally will make it unto glory. This is what the apostles clearly taught to the early church. Here’s some biblical examples to show what this looks like:
- As Christians, we rejoice that he who began a good work in us and will bring our salvation completion (Philippians 1:6). But also as Christians, we “fear and tremble” that God must keep working in us if we’re to be finally saved (Philippians 2:12-13).
- As Christians, we embrace that God is for us and that nothing can separate us from the love of God (Romans 8:31, 39). But also as Christians, we recognize that we prove to be on God’s side by continually trusting him—if we don’t and we fall away into unbelief, the Bible promises that we will be cut off (Romans 11:20-22).
- As Christians, we agree with John 10 that no one can snatch us out of Jesus’s hand. But also as Christians, we believe 1 John 2: that if we leave the faith (which has happened for many seemingly godly people like us before), we merely will prove that we were never genuine Christians: “They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us” (1 John 2:19).
What We Can’t Do: Only Take One of the Truths
What we can’t do is embrace, emphasize, or apply only one of the realities listed above.
On one hand, we can’t just believe the warnings and miss the promises of assurance of salvation. And on the other hand, we also can’t just take the promises of assurance and run.
This first option is classic Arminianism, which believes one can fall away from salvation and denies the perseverance of the saints. But it’s the latter option that particularly has plagued evangelicals (and it’s led to many people believing they’re Christians while showing little evidence of it). We love “eternal security”—we love texts like Romans 8:31 about God being for us—but we have little appreciation for the biblical robustness of warnings. But biblically, we need both.
If we take the promise of perseverance and live and worship flippantly—thinking that once we’ve confessed we’re automatically kept in the name of eternal security—we have no categories for texts like 1 Corinthians 10 and Romans 11 (and much of the book of Hebrews). We must rather see that the warnings are needed. And then when we hear them, they’ll drive us humbly to confess our need for Christ’s keeping. If, however, we hear the warnings—such as the need to “continue in the faith” (Colossians 1:23)—and disregard them because we hold onto the fact that in the past we confessed, or respond to an altar call, or prayed a prayer, then we’ll only prove at the end of the day that we were never saved—that Jesus never knew us (Matthew 7:21-23).
In brief, we must believe that we can have assurance: God saves us and keeps Christians unto glory. But we also must believe that one of the ways he keeps us is by showing us our dependence on him day by day and by warning us of what will happen if we start living for the world and fall into unbelief.
“We have come to share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original confidence firm to the end” (Hebrews 3:14). God is for us! (Romans 8:31)—but only if we keep believing (Colossians 1:23). If we don’t hold our faith until the end, we merely show we never came to share in Christ (Hebrews 3:14).
Solomon, Security, and Salvation
And this all brings us back to what we discussed in the previous post: Solomon and his downfall. We should not look at his story as having nothing to do with us because we have promises of assurance. Rather, it should be a biblical warning in story-form to us. We take hold of the promises of assurance of salvation, but we also personally become more thankful that we haven’t strayed like Solomon did.
Reading his story, we appreciate afresh that God has kept us. God only knows the seeds of sin that could blossom in each of our hearts and wreck us. We should feel that. Solomon was enticed by women, power, and money. These led him down paths that no one who witnessed his godly wisdom saw coming—that he probably didn’t see as possible. And a similar wretched, unsearchably wicked heart still resides in each of us (Jeremiah 17:9). Only the Lord knows what we’re capable of apart from his keeping grace. We might see glimpses, but he sees with clarity (Jeremiah 17:10).
The posture we should have, then, is tightly to hold onto promises of security while also heeding warnings and realizing our complete dependence on our gracious God to keep us believing. We realize that apart from his keeping grace we too would fall, but we also take heart: he brings to glory those he justifies (Romans 8:30).
Hope for an Act Three
But I’d be remiss to end these posts without mentioning my personal hope I have for Solomon in his story. In the last post we discussed Solomon’s Act One of godliness and his Act Two of rebellion. The hope is that there was an Act Three of repentance. The same hope exists for anyone we know like Solomon: people who have appeared to fall away from their original profession of Christ.
If Solomon wrote Ecclesiastes later in life, one can hope that it was essentially his confession and repentance of his “chasing after the wind.” One can hope that it was towards the end of his days when he realized his folly and the importance of trusting and obeying the God who will judge (Ecclesiastes 12:13-14). And one can hope that the Chronicler who wrote First and Second Chronicles omitted Solomon’s downfall because he knew that Solomon repented later in life (compare 1 Kings 10-11 with 2 Chronicles 9).
I don’t know. No one knows for certain. But the principle stands: Even after slipping, falling, and rebellion, there is hope. For those we once called brothers and sisters in Christ who now are living for the world, there is hope. For those in our families—especially children—who grew up hearing of Christ but have turned from him, there is hope. Even for those who once seemed to love Jesus but now have turned to atheism, agnosticism, hedonism, nihilism, or another religion, there is hope.
The prodigal can be saved (Luke 15:24). The rebel can find salvation towards the end (Luke 23:42). And those who are blasphemers can discover the beautiful, restoring mercy of Jesus (1 Timothy 1:13-16).
As we, therefore, seek to take hold of the promises of assurance of salvation, let us also take heed lest we fall. And for those we know who have fallen, let us not lose hope. For us and for others, the sovereign grace of God is alive and strong.
