Matthew 7 And Eternal Security

During his recent debate with Ryan Hemelaar, Trent Horn commented:

"Jesus even warns people who claim they will be saved because they call on his name or trusted him, but engaged in grave sin. He says in Matthew 7:21, 'Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.'"

And when advocates of eternal security put forward the idea that an alleged believer who commits apostasy may have never been a believer, that view is often dismissed as absurd, desperate, and so forth.

While Trent ended his citation of Matthew 7 at verse 21, we should go on to verses 22-23. As I noted in a post (not about eternal security) several years ago, "People often associate the thinking behind 1 John 2:19 with the fourth gospel, but some of the same concepts are found in Matthew 7:21-23." In addition to the agreement between such diverse sources as the gospel of Matthew and 1 John, there's also the fact that Judas was involved in so much apostolic work while being "a devil" (John 6:70).

I'm not citing such examples to argue that believers never commit sins that some people consider mortal or never go through lengthy periods of unrepentant sin. They do sometimes (e.g., David).

My point is that the first scenario I referred to not only isn't absurd, desperate, and such, but is even explicitly advocated by multiple Biblical authors in multiple contexts. The Judas material is about one individual, but the other two passages I've cited use the plural. Matthew 7:22 even uses the term "many". So, it isn't just some extremely rare scenario. Furthermore, the Matthew 7 passage has a significant number, variety, and quality of nominally Christian works being done, presumably over a long period of time. Yet, Jesus says he never knew the individuals involved. And 1 John 2:19 puts forward "they would have remained with us" as the normal scenario. John is putting forward perseverance as the norm (as he does elsewhere, in 1 John 5:18, etc.).

Trent refers to "people who claim they will be saved because they call on his name or trusted him". Who claims that you can just "call on his name" in the sense of saying "Lord, Lord" to Jesus and be saved by doing so? And where does Matthew 7:21 say that the individuals involved trusted him in a relevant sense? It doesn't. One of the biggest themes of the gospels is Jesus' commenting on the lack of faith of the people around him, even how small the faith of his closest disciples was at times. We shouldn't be starting with a default assumption that people have genuine faith or even faith of any type, and nothing in Matthew 7:21 justifies the conclusion that people who said "Lord, Lord" without doing the will of God had faith.

Catholics Contradicting Each Other About Eternal Security

I recently saw a Catholic claim that no Christian believed in eternal security before the Reformation. Supposedly, only Gnostics believed in it during that timeframe. See the comments section of the thread here. And Trent Horn repeatedly denied that there was any pre-Reformation support for eternal security in his debate with Ryan Hemelaar (of NeedGod.net). Go here to watch Trent say that no "notable" Christian held to eternal security before the Reformation. He goes on to refer to how the concept is "absent" before the Reformation. And here he refers to how "nobody" held the view during that timeframe. Later he asks Ryan to name "any individual" from the second to the fifteenth centuries. Near the end of the debate, Trent comments that even "named heretics" didn't hold to eternal security, and he refers to it as a "radical, novel" concept.

More About Maximus Of Turin And Eternal Security

I've written some posts over the years about belief in eternal security before the Reformation. Contrary to what's often asserted by critics of eternal security, the concept was held in various forms by some extrabiblical sources before the Reformation, as my series linked above argues.

In one of those posts, I cited some comments the Roman Catholic scholar Brian Daley made about Maximus of Turin. Since then, I've read a collection of Maximus' sermons, and I think Daley's comments should be supplemented. While there is some material in Maximus that seems to support eternal security, there's also some that seems to go against it if taken in isolation. I think more should be said than what Daley provides, so you can scroll to the bottom of that post just linked for an update I just added.

Slouching Toward The Minimal

"And I recall times of them wanting to do something I disapproved of. They would ask, 'What's wrong with it?' With this text in my mind, I would say, 'Don't ask about your music, your movies, your parties, your habits, 'What's wrong with it?' Ask instead, 'Does it help me run the race? Does it help me to run with all my focus and energy and love for Jesus? Does it help me to be the best Christ-exalting marathon runner I can be?'' Don't set your sights on the minimal standard of avoiding cheating. Set your sights on the maximal standard: 'How can I be the most devoted, Christ-exalting runner possible?' So, the main point of this text is this: Run! Get rid of all the sins that you can. Get rid of all the weights and hindrances that you can. Take hold of the marathon of your life, and don't just set the pitifully low standard that asks, 'What's against the rules?' But rather: 'How can I train, and eat, and think, and dress to be the best runner possible? How can I live my life and finish my course with maximal, Christ-exalting faith and sacrificial love?'" (John Piper)

The Life Of A Soldier

Scripture likens believers to soldiers (Philippians 2:25, 2 Timothy 2:3-4, Philemon 2). And we're often told that we're pilgrims passing through a foreign land and that our citizenship is in heaven rather than on earth (Philippians 3:20, Hebrews 11:9-10, 11:16, 12:22, 13:14, 1 Peter 1:1, 2:11). Paul wrote, "No soldier in active service entangles himself in the affairs of everyday life, so that he may please the one who enlisted him as a soldier." (2 Timothy 2:4)

Read what Jesus said in the gospels, over and over again, about the sword of division, how he would divide families, how his followers must take up a cross, and so on. Jesus was crucified, and Paul was beheaded after spending a lot of time in prison, for doing highly controversial Christian work.

What if the Christians of past generations had behaved the way you do? Future generations are going to be affected by what you're doing today.

More About Eternal Security In Jerome

In a post several weeks ago discussing some support for eternal security found in Jerome, I mentioned that I was waiting for the publication of an English translation of his Letter 119. That translation was delayed, but recently came out (Thomas Scheck, trans., St. Jerome: Exegetical Epistles, Volume 2 [Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University Of America Press, 2024]). I've now read it.

More Examples Of Extrabiblical, Pre-Reformation Support For Eternal Security

In the ninth century, Rabanus Maurus wrote:

Looking Beyond Initial Reactions

"We are, indeed, desirous, as we ought to be, that our ministry may prove salutary to the world…If, to punish, partly the ingratitude, and partly the stubbornness of those to whom we desire to do good, success must prove desperate, and all things go to worse, I will say what it befits a Christian man to say, and what all who are true to this holy profession will subscribe:—We will die, but in death even be conquerors, not only because through it we shall have a sure passage to a better life, but because we know that our blood will be as seed to propagate the Divine truth which men now despise." (John Calvin)

Extrabiblical, Pre-Reformation Support For Eternal Security

I wrote a post about the subject in 2007. Below are links to my recent series on the topic. I expect to add further links to this page in the future, as I write more material that's relevant.

Part 1: Preliminaries, Some Earlier Sources
Part 2: Augustine And His Opponents
Part 3: The Mercyists
Part 4: Some Other Sources

I later wrote about some medieval sources supporting eternal security.

And here's a post about some relevant comments made by Caesarius of Arles.

Go here for a discussion of support for eternal security in Jerome's Letter 119 and his commentary on Amos.

Another post discussed how pre-Reformation sources interpreted Biblical passages that have been cited in support of eternal security.

Extrabiblical, Pre-Reformation Support For Eternal Security (Part 4)

Jerome wrote, regarding Jovinian, a monk who was a contemporary:

"He endeavours to show that 'they who with full assurance of faith have been born again in baptism, cannot be overthrown by the devil.'…The second proposition of Jovinianus is that the baptized cannot be tempted by the devil. And to escape the imputation of folly in saying this, he adds: 'But if any are tempted, it only shows that they were baptized with water, not with the Spirit, as we read was the case with Simon Magus.'…Does any one think that we are safe, and that it is right to fall asleep when once we have been baptized?…And we flatter ourselves on the ground of our baptism, which though it put away the sins of the past, cannot keep us for the time to come, unless the baptized keep their hearts with all diligence." (Against Jovinianus, 1:3, 2:1, 2:3-4)

Whether Jerome was consistent in his beliefs on these matters and how to reconcile them with the later comments he made about mercyism, discussed in my last post, are distinct issues from what I'm focused on in this post. My focus here is on Jovinian's views, not Jerome's.

The Protestant historian Philip Schaff wrote:

"Jovinian's second point has an apparent affinity with the Augustinian and Calvinistic doctrine of the perseverantia sanctorum. It is not referred by him, however, to the eternal and unchangeable counsel of God, but simply based on 1 Jno. iii. 9, and v. 18, and is connected with his abstract conception of the opposite moral states. He limits the impossibility of relapse to the truly regenerate, who 'plena fide in baptismate renati sunt,' and makes a distinction between the mere baptism of water and the baptism of the Spirit, which involves also a distinction between the actual and the ideal church." (History Of The Christian Church, 3:4:46)

Gregory Lombardo, a Roman Catholic scholar, wrote:

"Jovinian exaggerated the justifying efficacy of baptism, so much so that he asserted that it was impossible for a baptised person to commit sin…What Jovinian was really teaching was salvation by faith alone, without works. All that is necessary is to receive baptism with a full faith. The rest - marriage, virginity, fasting, and any other good work - mattered little, since one was no better than the other in merit, and since it was really not necessary to perform them to be saved. Baptism and a full faith made it impossible for a person to fall away." (St. Augustine: On Faith And Works [New York, New York: The Newman Press, 1988], n. 10 on p. 65; n. 34 on p. 75)

In the eighth century, Bede wrote against "those who understand by this [justification apart from works] that it does not matter whether they live evil lives or do wicked and terrible things, as long as they believe in Christ, because salvation is through faith" (cited in Gerald Bray, ed., Ancient Christian Commentary On Scripture: New Testament XI: James, 1-2 Peter, 1-3 John, Jude [Downers Grove, Illinois: InterVarsity Press, 2000], 31). He made those comments in his commentary on James. I've read that commentary, and the version I've read renders Bede's comments in a way that suggests that Bede is placing the individuals in question in the first century (David Hurst, trans., Bede The Venerable: Commentary On The Seven Catholic Epistles [Kalamazoo, Michigan: Cistercian Publications, 1985], 30). Hurst's translation suggests that Bede was attributing the view in question to some people the apostles were correcting in the first century, whereas the translation used by Bray leaves the timeframe unspecified. Whichever translation is correct, Bede thought that such a view had been held by some people by the time he wrote.

As I have time for it in the future, I may discuss further examples of partial or full support for eternal security among extrabiblical, pre-Reformation sources. But the examples I've provided over these last few posts are enough to demonstrate some significant problems with the documentary I'm responding to.

Extrabiblical, Pre-Reformation Support For Eternal Security (Part 3)

In his translation of Augustine's work cited in my last post, Gregory Lombardo wrote the following about some of the individuals Augustine was responding to:

Extrabiblical, Pre-Reformation Support For Eternal Security (Part 2)

My last post mentioned that Augustine wrote against some advocates of eternal security in his day. See, for example, section 21:17-27 in The City Of God. He describes a few different forms of eternal security that existed in his day, involving anything from no discipline or punishment in the afterlife to a large amount of it, though all of the individuals in question would eventually go to heaven: "he shall either quite escape condemnation, or shall be liberated from his doom after some time shorter or longer" (21:22). It should be noted that Augustine opens his comments about these individuals by saying, "I must now, I see, enter the lists of amicable controversy with those tender-hearted Christians who decline to believe that any, or that all of those whom the infallibly just Judge may pronounce worthy of the punishment of hell, shall suffer eternally, and who suppose that they shall be delivered after a fixed term of punishment, longer or shorter according to the amount of each man's sin." (21:17) He refers to these opponents as Christians. He does the same elsewhere, commenting that "those who believe this, and yet are Catholics, seem to me to be led astray by a kind of benevolent feeling natural to humanity" (The Enchiridion, 67). As he mentions in the passage just cited, he wrote an entire work responding to a particular group who held such views. It's titled On Faith And Works, and you can get a twentieth-century English translation of it by Gregory Lombardo (Mahwah, New Jersey: The Newman Press, 1988). In that translation, Lombardo, a Roman Catholic scholar, tells us:

Extrabiblical, Pre-Reformation Support For Eternal Security (Part 1)

A documentary arguing against eternal security recently came out. It's mainly about the Biblical evidence, but it makes some comments about extrabiblical history along the way. Since it makes some misleading comments about the extrabiblical sources, and advocates of eternal security have handled those sources so poorly, I want to comment on the subject. It's not one of my primary areas of research, but I know enough about the topic to provide some information that significantly undermines the documentary's claims.

The Seed And The Kingdom

"John [the Baptist] was the last of the goodly succession of prophets and righteous men who had faithfully sown the seed of the word of God but had not lived to see the harvest. Then came Jesus, proclaiming the arrival of the divine kingdom which they had foretold. He came as that kingdom in person, the autobasileia, as Origen so finely put it, the very embodiment of the good news which he brought. He is the Sower par excellence; more than that, he is himself the grain of wheat falling into the ground and dying, so as to produce an abundance of fruit (John 12:24). It is the privilege of his disciples in all generations to reap the harvest that continues to spring from this good seed." (F.F. Bruce, The Gospel & Epistles Of John [Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 1983], 115)

"Do you not say, 'There are yet four months, and then comes the harvest'? Behold, I say to you, lift up your eyes and look on the fields, that they are white for harvest. Already he who reaps is receiving wages and is gathering fruit for life eternal; so that he who sows and he who reaps may rejoice together. For in this case the saying is true, 'One sows and another reaps.' I sent you to reap that for which you have not labored; others have labored and you have entered into their labor….The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit." (John 4:34-38, 12:23-24)

Faithful Under Defeat, Waiting For The Reward In The Next Life

"If we derive our motives for Christian labor or stedfastness from the things which we see, our spirit will oscillate from ardor into coldness, it will rise and fall with the circumstances around us. It is comparatively easy for a successful man to go on preaching or otherwise laboring for the Lord, but I admire the perseverance of the man who remains faithful under defeat. To get such a faithfulness we must disentangle ourselves from the idea of being rewarded here; we must be stedfast and unmoveable though nobody praises us, and abound in the work of the Lord though no fruit should come from it, because we have looked beyond this present realm of death, and have gazed into another world where the resurrection shall bring with it our reward." (Charles Spurgeon)

Onward

"What they build with one hand they pull down with the other. Sad that it should be so. I must confess I find it far easier to climb the greatest heights of grace, and especially of communion, than to maintain the elevation. For a flight now and then our wings are sufficient; we mount, we soar, we rise into the spiritual regions, and we exult as we rise; but our pinion droops, we grow weary of the heights, and we descend to earth like stones which have been thrown into the air. Alas! that it should be so. Be ye stedfast. When ye climb ask for grace to keep there; when your wing has borne you up ask that there you may be poised till the Lord shall call you to your nest in heaven. Is your faith strong? Why should it decline again? Is your hope vivid? Why should that bright eye of yours grow dim, and look no more within the golden gates? Is your love fervent? Why should it be chilled? Cannot the breath of the Eternal Spirit keep the fire at full blaze? Wherefore is it that we do run well and then are hindered? We are short-winded, we cannot watch with our Lord one hour, we grow weary and faint in our minds. Alexander could not thus have won a world if after fighting the battle of Issus he had stopped short of the Granicus: if the Macedonian hero had said, 'I have done enough, I will go back to Greece and enjoy my victories,' his empire had never become universal. Nor would Columbus have discovered a new world if he had sailed a little way into the unknown ocean and then had turned his timid prow towards port. 'Onward!' is the motto of the earnest, all the world over, and should it not be the watchword of the Christian? Shall we be content with a wretched poverty of grace? Shall we be satisfied to wear the rags of inconsistency? God forbid." (Charles Spurgeon)

My Labor Is With My God

"I see exceeding small fruit of my ministry, and would be glad to know of one soul to be my crown and rejoicing in the day of Christ. Though I spend my strength in vain, yet my labour is with my God (Isa. xlix.4). I wish and pray that the Lord would harden my face against all, and make me to learn to go with my face against a storm….If God have given you the Earnest of the Spirit, as part of payment of God's principal sum, ye have to rejoice; for our Lord will not lose His earnest, neither will He go back or repent Him of the bargain….Peace of conscience, liberty of prayer, the doors of God's treasure cast up to the soul, and a clear sight of Himself looking out, and saying, with a smiling countenance, 'Welcome to Me, afflicted soul;' this is the earnest that He giveth sometimes, and which maketh glad the heart, and is an evidence that the bargain will hold." (Samuel Rutherford, Letters Of Samuel Rutherford [Carlisle, Pennsylvania: The Banner of Truth Trust, 2012], 43-44, 46)

Greater Suffering Producing Greater Zeal

"Let us then, when we desire to effect any thing great and noble, not regard this, the greatness of the labor which it brings, but let us rather look to the gain. Mark, for instance, Paul, not therefore lingering, not therefore shrinking back, because 'there were many adversaries;' but because 'there was a great door,' [1 Corinthians 16:9] pressing on and persevering. Yea, and as I was saying, this was a sign that the devil was being stripped, for it is not, depend on it, by little and mean achievements that men provoke that evil monster to wrath. And so when thou seest a righteous man performing great and excellent deeds, yet suffering innumerable ills, marvel not; on the contrary, one might well marvel, if the devil receiving so many blows were to keep quiet and bear the wounds meekly….So then, though we be in peril, beloved, though we suffer ever so greatly, let us with the greater zeal apply ourselves to our labors for virtue's sake." (John Chrysostom, Homilies On First Corinthians, 43:6)

Spiritual Fire

"And that thou mayest learn, consider Paul, I pray thee. What is there fearful that he did not suffer, and that he did not submit to? But he bore all nobly. Let us imitate him, for so shall we be able to land in the tranquil havens with much merchandise. Let us then stretch our mind towards Heaven, let us be held fast by that desire, let us clothe ourselves with spiritual fire, let us gird ourselves with its flame. No man who bears flame fears those who meet him; be it wild beast, be it man, be it snares innumerable, so long as he is armed with fire, all things stand out of his way, all things retire. The flame is intolerable, the fire cannot be endured, it consumes all. With this fire let us clothe ourselves, offering up glory to our Lord Jesus Christ, with whom to the Father, together with the Holy Ghost, be glory, might, honor, now and ever and world without end." (John Chrysostom, Homilies On Hebrews, 34:8)

Deeply-Rooted Doctrines

"Beloved, our condition needs much endurance; and endurance is produced when doctrines are deeply rooted. For as no wind is able by its assaults to tear up the oak, which sends down its root into the lower recesses of the earth, and is firmly clenched there; so too the soul which is nailed by the fear of God none will be able to overturn." (John Chrysostom, Homilies On John, 54:1)