Apostasy

The teach­ing, once saved, always saved, is very com­mon nowa­days although there are many pas­sages in the New Tes­ta­ment which show that it is pos­si­ble for a Chris­t­ian to fall away from God. This ques­tion is close­ly con­nect­ed with how we under­stand God’s love, the free­dom and nature of man, the con­se­quences of sal­va­tion, the impor­tance of fight­ing against sin, and sanc­ti­fi­ca­tion. It is vital for every Chris­t­ian to clear­ly under­stand this matter.

Apos­ta­sy does not only occur when some­one con­scious­ly stops believ­ing in God, but can also be the result of long-term, per­sis­tent sin­ning. Grad­ual back­slid­ing into sin can also lead to apostasy.

Take care, broth­ers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbe­liev­ing heart, lead­ing you to fall away from the liv­ing God. (Hebrews 3:12)

We live in a relationship with God

The liv­ing God has a liv­ing rela­tion­ship with his chil­dren. He cre­at­ed us as free per­sons, and he does not treat us like pup­pets but he respects our deci­sions, even when they have bad or trag­ic con­se­quences. Just as we can freely decide to live with God, we can also decide to turn away from Him. The New Tes­ta­ment clear­ly speaks of the dan­ger of los­ing the grace of sal­va­tion through the deceit of sin and of end­ing up in blind­ness and dark­ness: being lost. We thus under­stand apos­ta­sy as the loss, or rejec­tion, of the rela­tion­ship with God.

“I am the true vine, and my Father is the vine dress­er. Every branch in me that does not bear fruit he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit. Already you are clean because of the word that I have spo­ken to you. Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch can­not bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, nei­ther can you, unless you abide in me. I am the vine; you are the branch­es. Who­ev­er abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do noth­ing. If any­one does not abide in me he is thrown away like a branch and with­ers; and the branch­es are gath­ered, thrown into the fire, and burned. (John 15:1–6)

A branch can bear fruit only if it remains in the vine: the branch has a liv­ing con­nec­tion to the vine. Jesus spoke about peo­ple who have a rela­tion­ship with him. Every branch that bears no fruit will be cut off and burnt in the fire. Who­ev­er does not remain in the rela­tion­ship with him becomes fruit­less and, fig­u­ra­tive­ly speak­ing, will be cut off and burnt. The words of Jesus here make it clear that it is pos­si­ble to lose one’s rela­tion­ship with him.

The letter to the Hebrews

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. For land that has drunk the rain that often falls on it, and pro­duces a crop use­ful to those for whose sake it is cul­ti­vat­ed, receives a bless­ing from God. But if it bears thorns and this­tles, it is worth­less and near to being cursed, and its end is to be burned. (Hebrews 6:4–8)

When peo­ple who once repent­ed had been enlight­ened and shared in the Holy Spir­it fall back into a life of sin, they cru­ci­fy, in fig­u­ra­tive sense, the Son of God again. They deny the pow­er of sal­va­tion because Jesus leads believ­ers to free­dom from sins. Peo­ple like this can­not repent again. Expres­sions like “have shared in the Holy Spir­it” and “to restore them again to repen­tance” can only be writ­ten about some­body who had repent­ed. “Cru­ci­fy­ing once again the Son of God” implies that the per­son in ques­tion already received sal­va­tion. “To taste the heav­en­ly gift” does not mean to only get a taste of it (to get in touch with­out repen­tance), just as in Hebrews 2:9 it does not mean that Jesus did not real­ly die (“he tast­ed death”).

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 judge­ment, and a fury of fire that will con­sume the adver­saries. Any­one who has set aside the law of Moses dies with­out mer­cy on the evi­dence of two or three wit­ness­es. How much worse pun­ish­ment, do you think, will be deserved by the one who has spurned the Son of God, and has pro­faned the blood of the covenant by which he was sanc­ti­fied, and has out­raged the Spir­it of grace? For we know him who said, “Vengeance is mine; I will repay.” And again, “The Lord will judge his peo­ple.” It is a fear­ful thing to fall into the hands of the liv­ing God. (Hebrews 10:26–31)

These vers­es speak again about Chris­tians who “received the knowl­edge of the truth”—the author also con­sid­er­ing him­self to be one of them. An “expec­ta­tion of judg­ment and a fury of fire that will con­sume the adver­saries” can only refer to peo­ple who are eter­nal­ly sep­a­rat­ed from God. The expres­sion ”there no longer remains a sac­ri­fice for sins” shows that they already accept­ed the sac­ri­fice of Jesus, and the same is meant by the blood of the covenant.
Accord­ing to this pas­sage, Chris­tians can lose their sal­va­tion if they con­tin­ue sin­ning deliberately.

Take care, broth­ers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbe­liev­ing heart, lead­ing you to fall away from the liv­ing God. But exhort one anoth­er every day, as long as it is called “today”, that none of you may be hard­ened by the deceit­ful­ness of sin. (Hebrews 3:12–13)

This verse urges the read­ers to be watch­ful over their broth­ers and sis­ters. We can see that there can be a close con­nec­tion between apos­ta­sy and an irre­spon­si­ble atti­tude of believ­ers to each other.
Some­times peo­ple claim that these pas­sages do not refer to Chris­tians but to “lip-wor­shipers” who are stand­ing in front of the deci­sion to become Chris­tians. In fact, the whole let­ter speaks to and about broth­ers in faith.

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 6:11–12)

The addressees of this let­ter are encour­aged to endure till the end, not to become lazy on the good way which they had begun. The writer of the let­ter calls them broth­ers when he is admon­ish­ing them (e.g., Hebrews 3:12). He saw some of them were quite weak in faith, but he still believed they were Chris­tians. They were in dan­ger of neglect­ing fel­low­ship and of being hard­ened by sin. As for­mer Jews (“Hebrews”), they felt strong­ly attract­ed by the tem­ple cult, which they were used to. They had for­got­ten the purifi­ca­tion they expe­ri­enced because of their luke­warm­ness and fear of suf­fer­ing. (Hebrews 10:23–29)

This is why there are many warn­ings in this let­ter in which Chris­tians are addressed that they may lose the grace they had received.

False teachings causing apostasy

You who are try­ing to be jus­ti­fied by the law have been alien­at­ed from Christ; you have fall­en away from grace. (Gala­tians 5:4)

The let­ter to the Gala­tians is a good exam­ple of how a false teach­ing can lead to apos­ta­sy. At the begin­ning of the let­ter Paul express­es that he is alarmed about the Gala­tians because they allowed them­selves to be drawn away to “anoth­er gospel” so eas­i­ly (Gala­tians 1:6–9). The deceivers were Jews who insist­ed that the Gen­tiles who became Chris­tians must keep the law of Moses.
It was obvi­ous for Paul that turn­ing to for­mal­is­tic rit­u­als meant “falling away from grace.” If sal­va­tion is giv­en by God’s grace, falling from grace means the loss of sal­va­tion, i.e., apostasy.
In Gala­tians 4:11 Paul express­es his wor­ries that per­haps he labored on them in vain. If apos­ta­sy were impos­si­ble, his wor­ries would be com­plete­ly out of place.

Now the Spir­it express­ly says that in lat­er times some will depart from the faith by devot­ing them­selves to deceit­ful spir­its and teach­ings of demons, (1 Tim­o­thy 4:1)

Young Chris­tians were con­front­ed with anoth­er dan­ger­ous heresy, an ear­ly form of gno­sis (1 Tim­o­thy 6:20) which led some of them away from their faith and led them to the ship­wreck of their belief. This was the case with Hymenaeus and Phile­tus (1 Tim­o­thy 1:18–20, 2 Tim­o­thy 2:17).
Greed and all sorts of desires led some believ­ers away from the faith too. (1 Tim­o­thy 6:6–10, 1 Tim­o­thy 5:5–14).

The first letter of John

In some cas­es it hap­pened that some who turned away from the faith had not been Chris­tians before.

Chil­dren, it is the last hour, and as you have heard that antichrist is com­ing, so now many antichrists have come. There­fore we know that it is the last hour. They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have con­tin­ued with us. But they went out, that it might become plain that they all are not of us. (1 John 2:18–19)

The expres­sion “antichrist” shows that the per­sons in ques­tion spread here­sies and were not sim­ply unfaith­ful believ­ers. Gnos­tics used expres­sions sim­i­lar to those of Chris­tians, in a mis­lead­ing way, which they filled with a com­plete­ly dif­fer­ent con­tent. It could have been dif­fi­cult for young Chris­tians, who were not yet firm enough in the right teach­ings, to see them through. That is a high­ly prob­a­ble rea­son why John want­ed to empha­size: these peo­ple had nev­er real­ly repented.

If any­one sees his broth­er com­mit­ting a sin not lead­ing to death, he shall ask, and God will give him life — to those who com­mit sins that do not lead to death. There is sin that leads to death; I do not say that one should pray for that. (1 John 5:16)

John assumes that Chris­tians might com­mit a sin that will cause their spir­i­tu­al death. Some con­sis­tent oppo­nents of apos­ta­sy sup­pose that John meant phys­i­cal death in this verse. This expla­na­tion, how­ev­er, does not fit in any way.

Encouragements to endure

Many pas­sages in the New Tes­ta­ment encour­age Chris­tians to endure in obe­di­ence to God.

Broth­er will deliv­er broth­er over to death, and the father his child, and chil­dren will rise against par­ents and have them put to death, and you will be hat­ed by all for my name’s sake. But the one who endures to the end will be saved. (Matthew 10:21–22)

A few oth­ers: 1 Corinthi­ans 15:1–2; Colos­sians 1:21–23; Hebrews 10:35–39.
If apos­ta­sy has no final con­se­quences or is not pos­si­ble, why do so many bib­li­cal texts stress the impor­tance of per­se­ver­ing to the end? God, who always speaks the truth, would not use emp­ty threats in order to lead his chil­dren to obe­di­ence! Even teach­ers would agree that this kind of edu­ca­tion is unacceptable.
The Old Tes­ta­ment also clear­ly shows that it is not enough to be right­eous for some time and then to turn away from the truth.

But when a right­eous per­son turns away from his right­eous­ness and does injus­tice and does the same abom­i­na­tions that the wicked per­son does, shall he live? None of the right­eous deeds that he has done shall be remem­bered; for the treach­ery of which he is guilty and the sin he has com­mit­ted, for them he shall die. (Ezekiel 18:24)

Nothing can separate us from God

What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him gra­cious­ly give us all things? Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who jus­ti­fies. Who is to con­demn? Christ Jesus is the one who died — more than that, who was raised — who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is inter­ced­ing for us. Who shall sep­a­rate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribu­la­tion, or dis­tress, or per­se­cu­tion, or famine, or naked­ness, or dan­ger, or sword? […] For I am sure that nei­ther death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor pow­ers, nor height nor depth, nor any­thing else in all cre­ation, will be able to sep­a­rate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8:31–35,38–39)

This pas­sage is about God’s faith­ful­ness to his chil­dren. If a Chris­t­ian remains faith­ful to God, noth­ing can sep­a­rate him from God. It is God’s plan that each Chris­t­ian remains firm to the end, and he gives each of us the nec­es­sary strength to do this.
This pas­sage does not deal with the ques­tion about what hap­pens if this per­son is no longer ready to fight against sin. We can­not expect that each promise of God is accom­pa­nied by a list of conditions.

And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose noth­ing of all that he has giv­en me, but raise it up on the last day. (John 6:39)

God does not want any Chris­t­ian to be lost but he still does not take away our free will. This pas­sage does not speak about somebody’s sad devel­op­ment and deci­sion against God, but focus­es on Jesus’ faithfulness.
Accord­ing to 1 Tim­o­thy 2:4 it is God’s will that all peo­ple come to rec­og­nize the truth and are saved through it. If this is God’s will, why does it not hap­pen? It is because God respects everybody’s free will. Why should there be a dif­fer­ent stan­dard for Chris­tians? God shows no partiality.

My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they fol­low me. I give them eter­nal life, and they will nev­er per­ish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. (John 10:27–28)

This verse also speaks about God’s faith­ful­ness. The expres­sion “snatch them out of my hand” shows that Jesus speaks about exter­nal influ­ences. He wants to give us eter­nal life but he will not keep us in his hand by force if we do not want to stay there.

In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your sal­va­tion, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spir­it, who is the guar­an­tee of our inher­i­tance until we acquire pos­ses­sion of it, to the praise of his glo­ry. (Eph­esians 1:13–14)

And do not grieve the Holy Spir­it of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemp­tion. (Eph­esians 4:30)

As a strength­en­ing of his read­ers, Paul often empha­sized that God wants to save us. In these pas­sages he also encour­aged those who want to live as Chris­tians, and we can­not expect that in all these pas­sages he explains whether a per­son can fall away from God or not.
Actu­al­ly, a seal can also be bro­ken, but this can­not hap­pen with­out consequences.
Some peo­ple argue that if Chris­tians are God’s chil­dren, they have to remain his chil­dren for­ev­er, just like we always remain chil­dren of our earth­ly fathers. The expres­sion to “be God’s child,” how­ev­er, does not mean that every aspect of it can be referred to the rela­tion­ship with God. For instance, nobody can choose to become the child of a human father, although this is the case with becom­ing a child of God. It is true, though, that even a per­son who falls away from Him will always remain His creation.

Common reasons for rejecting the teaching of apostasy

A lack of interest in others

We can only make oth­ers aware of the things that we our­selves are ready to live out. When new­com­ers join the faith, are they real­ly giv­en sat­is­fac­to­ry and clear exam­ples of what the full extent of dis­ci­ple­ship means and what it looks like in every­day life?
Many neglect fel­low­ship. Pri­vate mat­ters are more impor­tant than spir­i­tu­al ones, and the respon­si­bil­i­ty for oth­ers is shift­ed onto a nar­row cir­cle of lead­ers, if at all. As a result, many show very lit­tle self-assess­ment and recog­ni­tion of sin, oth­ers are not chal­lenged to give up sins, and still oth­ers fall back into past sins.
Under­stand­ably, under such con­di­tions it is dif­fi­cult and some­times also “wrong” to see some­one who lives in sin as hav­ing fall­en away from God. There are also cas­es in which some­one who went away turns back and starts anew. In this case the ques­tion aris­es as to whether such a per­son repent­ed before at all. These and oth­er cas­es often give rise to the wish that it is (should be) impos­si­ble to fall away from God.

It is wrong, though, to assess the sit­u­a­tion in the New Tes­ta­ment through the per­spec­tive of this kind of expe­ri­ence and to arrive at the con­clu­sion that ALL who turned away from faith were nev­er Chris­tians. The fol­low­ing pas­sage is not the only one that clear­ly con­tra­dicts this idea:

For if, after they have escaped the defile­ments of the world through the knowl­edge of our Lord and Sav­iour Jesus Christ, they are again entan­gled in them and over­come, the last state has become worse for them than the first. For it would have been bet­ter for them nev­er to have known the way of right­eous­ness than after know­ing it to turn back from the holy com­mand­ment deliv­ered to them. What the true proverb says has hap­pened to them: “The dog returns to its own vom­it, and the sow, after wash­ing her­self, returns to wal­low in the mire.” (2 Peter 2:20–22)

Giving up the fight against sin

If God does not have the high­est pri­or­i­ty in a person’s life, they will not have enough love to fight against sin with the deter­mi­na­tion Jesus taught either: “And if your eye caus­es you to stum­ble, gouge it out and throw it away” (Matthew 18:9). Because that con­sis­ten­cy in fight is too much for them, the wish for the cer­tain­ty that they can nev­er aban­don God is close to them.

The understanding of grace

God works in us “to will and to act” (Philip­pi­ans 2:13) so no one can boast to him about what they have done. What is there that we could give, that we did not receive? Yet no one can grasp that grace ful­ly unless they endeav­our with all their strength to put their whole life at the dis­pos­al of the Creator.
Who­ev­er thinks that God “with­out our own act­ing” does every­thing at the right time to grant us eter­nal life; who­ev­er, con­se­quent­ly, builds up a com­fort­able life on this idea and con­sid­ers those who strive to live up to the com­mand­ment of Christ as legal­is­tic or self-right­eous, such a per­son has not real­ly under­stood what God’s grace means (see James 2:17, Titus 2:11–14).