Eternal Security And Solomon

The salvation of Solomon is a disputed issue, and scripture doesn't address the subject explicitly. It does provide some implicit evidence, however, more of it than people typically suggest. And that evidence indicates not only that Solomon was saved, but also that he remained saved in contexts in which he was involved in what would commonly be thought of as mortal sin. That's a problem for opponents of eternal security.

We can arrange the evidence in certain categories. Some of the evidence only suggests that Solomon was saved for some portion of his life. Other evidence goes beyond that to suggest his dying in salvation and going to heaven and his having had some form of eternal security. Since there's so much overlap among the issues I just mentioned, I'll address them together.

I'll start with the category of how Solomon was viewed by God. There are unusual references to how God loved Solomon (2 Samuel 7:14-15, 12:24-25). The first passage refers to the constancy of God's love and does so beside a reference to the times of sin in Solomon's life. The latter passage not only refers to how God loved Solomon, as if in an unusual way, but even goes on to refer to how he was given a name to express that love "for the Lord's sake". God can have unusual love for somebody who didn't go to heaven, as far as we know (Mark 10:21), but that sort of expression of love still makes more sense when applied to the elect than when applied to those who aren't. And what's said of Solomon in these passages goes beyond what's said in the Mark 10 passage. Though it's conceivable that God would love Solomon beyond the love God has for all mankind, yet in a way that falls short of God's love for the elect, references to elective love are more common in that sort of context. That seems to be the best way to make sense of these references to God's love for Solomon. And we see something similar in Nehemiah 13:26. We're told about Solomon's sins in his relationships with women, "yet" God loved him. God's love for people in general makes less sense in that context. Elective love makes the most sense of the passage. The remainder of what's said of Solomon after the "yet" is unusual, so the love of God in question probably is as well. God's elective love for Solomon gets us to the conclusion that he was saved and went to heaven, but not to the conclusion of eternal security.

Another category to take into account is the characteristics Solomon had. He had certain qualities we associate with the regenerate more than the unregenerate. People often think of Solomon's wisdom, but don't give enough consideration to the extent of his wisdom and its implications. The wise and discerning heart Solomon is said to have been given in 1 Kings 3:12 makes the most sense if he had faith. Proverbs 22:17-19 connects wisdom and faith (wisdom in verse 17 and faith in verse 19). He calls on others to have faith (Proverbs 3:5). He refers to the fear of God as the beginning of wisdom (Proverbs 9:10). And he had his supernatural wisdom during the times he wrote about when his wisdom was combined with a lot of sin, including much that would commonly be considered mortal. His sins are referred to in some detail in some of his writings and in 1 Kings 11, for example. Ecclesiastes 2:8 refers to his pursuing of pleasure with concubines and refers to his wisdom just after (2:9). Just before the sins of Solomon discussed in 1 Kings 11, we read of his Divine wisdom in chapter 10 (e.g., verses 23-24). The sins described in chapter 11 are of such a nature that they probably took a long time to build up (accumulating so many concubines and wives, for example). That offers corroboration of what Ecclesiastes tells us, that Solomon's time of wisdom overlapped with his times of sin, including what people would usually call mortal sin. In addition to his wisdom and its implications for his having faith and the fear of the Lord, we're told that he loved God (1 Kings 3:3). We normally think of qualities like the fear of God, love of God, faith, and wisdom as qualities of the regenerate, not the unregenerate.

A third category to consider is the activities of Solomon. One of the passages I cited above, 1 Kings 3:3, not only refers to Solomon's love of the Lord, but also how he "walked in the statutes of his father David". That sounds like a regenerate lifestyle. But we're told just afterward that there was an exception in his sinful practice of "sacrificing and burning incense on the high places". Given what's said elsewhere about those practices related to the high places (e.g., 1 Kings 13:2, 2 Kings 21:1-3), the sins involved seem to qualify as what would typically be considered mortal. Yet, his loving God and mostly walking in the manner of David seem to coexist with those sins, which is best explained under some form of eternal security. And his priorities in verse 9 of the same chapter and the reference to how he had pleased God in verse 10 make the most sense if Solomon was regenerate at the time. And if Solomon wasn't a believer when he wrote the portions of scripture he authored, what precedent would there be for that among the other Biblical authors? No other example comes to mind. Maybe Solomon was an exception to the rule, but his being a believer makes more sense than the alternative. Sentiments like the ones expressed at the end of Ecclesiastes (12:13-14) make more sense coming from somebody who was regenerate than coming from somebody who wasn't. Given that Ecclesiastes seems to look back on a long life, it probably reflects Solomon's being in a state of salvation near the end of his life.

The fourth category I want to discuss is descriptions of Solomon. The reference to "the way of David and Solomon" in 2 Chronicles 11:17 makes the most sense if Solomon was considered among the redeemed, like David (though he was to some extent inferior to David, as illustrated in 1 Kings 11:6). Nehemiah 13:26 describes sins of Solomon that would typically be considered mortal and refers to God's love for him (likely elective love, as explained above) and refers to God as "his God" in that context. The reference to God's love for Solomon and to God as "his God" make the most sense if Solomon was viewed by Nehemiah as somebody who was saved. The salvation seems to coexist with the sins mentioned earlier in the verse (sins that, by their nature, probably spanned a long time, likely some double-digit number of years). You could interpret the verse in such a way that different timeframes are being addressed, but that's a less continuous, more complicated, and less likely reading of the passage. The portion of the verse about the positive aspects of Solomon's life refers to how "there was no king like him", which makes the most sense as a comment about the accumulation of his wisdom, wealth, reputation, and such (2 Chronicles 1:12, 9:22), which likely spans a long period of time and overlaps with his sinful relationships with women. The most straightforward reading is that Solomon was saved while in a state of what would usually be considered mortal sin (what Nehemiah goes on to call "great evil" when referring to its presence among his contemporaries in verse 27). That's eternal security.

There's also some evidence for Solomon's salvation that I consider possible, but not probable as of the time I'm writing. Jesus referred to "all the prophets" being in heaven (Luke 13:28). Some of what Solomon wrote seems prophetic (Psalm 72), and the Old Testament authors in general were often associated with prophecy in antiquity (as discussed here). Jesus may have had a different definition of "prophets" in mind in Luke 13, however. In my current understanding of the issues involved, I don't see enough evidence to make it probable that Solomon is among the prophets of Luke 13, but there's a good chance he is.

What about 1 Chronicles 28:9? It ends with David telling Solomon, "if you forsake Him, He will reject you forever." Should that be taken as a warning about the potential for Solomon to lose his salvation? If so, it could still be interpreted as a warning that's a means of bringing about his preservation. The warning is a means by which Solomon is kept from ever forsaking God in the manner David has in mind. But it's more likely that David is addressing the obtaining of salvation, not how to remain saved. The earlier part of the verse reads, "As for you, my son Solomon, know the God of your father, and serve Him with a whole heart and a willing mind...If you seek Him, He will let you find Him". 1 Chronicles, like the other sources cited above, anticipates God's lasting favor toward Solomon (17:13).

Let's consider some potential ways an opponent of eternal security could handle evidence like what I've outlined above. I'll address a few possibilities.

Solomon could be dismissed as an exception to the rule. He had eternal security or something that so closely resembles it, but not all believers do. Since there's evidence similar to what we have with Solomon for other Biblical figures, the others involved would have to be dismissed as exceptions as well. That's a more complicated and less likely interpretation, though. And even if an opponent of eternal security were to adopt that view, it would still be problematic for him to some extent. Even if Solomon is viewed as an exception to the rule, he opens the door wider to the plausibility of eternal security. If you acknowledge that God gave somebody eternal security and did it so prominently, even just with one individual, some of the objections to eternal security lose some of their force. And that's true even more so if you're dismissing more than one individual as exceptions to the rule.

Another approach the opponent of eternal security could take would be to argue that Solomon's sins in the relevant contexts weren't mortal. People who have held some concept of mortal sin have widely disagreed with each other about what qualifies as mortal sin and what doesn't. See here and here for some examples of disagreements over issues pertaining to mortal sin in the patristic and medieval eras. Here's an example of a more recent disagreement. It seems that most advocates of mortal sin take a simple approach toward the topic, often naming particular sins without qualification as not only mortal, but even obviously so. It's popular to cite a passage like Galatians 5:19-21 as proof of mortal sin and leave it at that, as though anybody who commits any of the sins mentioned there by Paul can't be saved. It's popular in debates and other contexts for the person opposing eternal security to ask whether a person would be saved if he committed sin X, Y, or Z. The questioner, who opposes eternal security, acts as if the answer is obviously "no", even if he hasn't offered any qualifications about other factors involved (how aware the sinner is that the activity in question is sinful, how much ability the person has to avoid the sin, etc.). The audience, on YouTube or wherever else, will behave the same way. You often see that sort of thing when Trent Horn questions advocates of eternal security on his YouTube channel, for example. There will be dozens or hundreds of comments below the video commending him, acting as if it's obvious that every sin Trent mentioned should have been acknowledged as mortal without any further qualification, etc. Yet, under other circumstances, Catholics and others who reject eternal security will add more qualifiers, refer to how they consider certain sins to be venial if certain qualifiers are involved (e.g., how Catholics and others handle suicide), and so on. If opponents of eternal security want to add a lot of qualifiers to an evaluation of Solomon, they can do so, but that's inconsistent with the approach opponents of eternal security often take in other circumstances, and it weakens their objections to eternal security in some contexts. One of the things we need to do here is think through Solomon's circumstances. He was a literate man who read a lot (Ecclesiastes 12:9-12), had a lot of access to relevant information, lived a long time, etc. I've argued that polygamy has always been sinful, but even if you don't think it was sinful in general at the time of Solomon, it clearly was sinful to multiply wives in Solomon's context (Deuteronomy 17:17). And it's not as though it would have been significantly difficult for Solomon to have discerned that his involvement in idolatry was wrong. You'd have to adopt some highly unusual interpretations of multiple factors involved in Solomon's life to avoid the conclusion that some of the sins he was involved in were mortal by the standards typically applied.

A third approach the opponent of eternal security could take would be to deny that Solomon is being referred to as saved in all of the places where I've argued that he is referred to that way. Maybe all of the references to God's love for Solomon, Solomon's love for God, Solomon's faith and other characteristics we normally associate with the regenerate, etc. weren't meant to suggest that Solomon was saved. But if you take that approach, you're adopting a view that makes less sense of the language in question. Sometimes that's justified. Tradeoffs, giving up one thing to gain another, sometimes make sense. If every view you could take on a subject involves some difficulties, you have to choose among difficult options. You can't reject a view just because it involves some difficulty. But it needs to be acknowledged that there is some difficulty involved in interpreting the passages about Solomon in the way under consideration in this paragraph, for the reasons explained when I discussed those passages.

An opponent of eternal security could take any of the three approaches above, some combination of them, or whatever other approach. My argument is that any approach they take is going to make less sense of Solomon's situation than a view involving eternal security. Perhaps the larger context justifies taking a view of Solomon that makes less sense when considered apart from that larger framework. I don't think so. I think eternal security makes the most sense of the evidence as a whole. But my point in this post is that it at least makes the most sense of the evidence pertaining to Solomon. That's just one line of evidence related to eternal security among others, but it's a significant one.