Can we "lose" our salvation?

Whenever I go through Hebrews, both the question of eternal security and "second repentance" comes up. Eternal security is the idea that once you are saved, you will always be saved no matter what. "Second repentance" is the question of whether you can come back to salvation once you have lost it.

1. I usually try to find common ground when I am in a group that believes strongly about conflicting positions. So often a group of Wesleyans and Baptists can at least agree on the following ideas:

• If a person becomes a serial killer after "professing faith," he or she probably wasn't really a Christian to begin with. That is to say, some individuals whose lives do not seem to match up with a Spirit-filled life may never have truly been "saved" in the first place.
• God is not looking to kick people out of the kingdom. In the end it probably isn't very common for someone who is truly "saved," who has truly experienced the life changing power of the Holy Spirit, to "fall away," as Hebrews 6:6 mentions. 
• It's not a "one sin you're out" type situation. Our life in Christ is a relationship, and few relationships end with a single wrong act.

2. I want to go to Scripture next. It puts the theological arguments into perspective. The reason why Wesleyans believe it is possible to lose your "salvation" is because that is what many New Testament texts seem to indicate. The other position has some biblical texts on its side as well.

Let me start by saying that some Johannine texts do give off a Calvinist vibe:

• "They went out from us, but they did not belong to us; for if they had belonged to us, they would have remained with us. But by going out they made it plain that none of them belongs to us" (1 John 2:19).
• "My sheep hear my voice. I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish. No one will snatch them out of my hand" (John 27-28).
• "While I was with them, I protected them in your name that you have given me. I guarded them, and not one of them was lost except the one destined to be lost, so that the scripture might be fulfilled" (John 17:12).

The second one is much more about God's protection of those in Christ from those outside than about whether they themselves might walk away. The last one might actually work against eternal security, since one was lost. The first one suggests that those who walked away in one instance were never really "in" to begin with.

However, none of these verses suggest that a person who does not continue to walk with God is guaranteed salvation. They can only be used to argue that a person who does not continue to walk with God was probably never truly "saved" to begin with.

3. I suspect that the question of those who walk away somewhat took the early church by surprise. When God has offered the immense gift of grace, how could anyone experience it and then reject it? When Christ has suffered so much on the cross, how could anyone insult him by receiving the benefit of his sacrifice and then flagrantly continuing to sin?

In the end, it is only cardboard versions of Paul and the rest of the NT that resist its clear sense that God's grace implies a certain response in gratitude. Faith is not mere belief but intrinsically implies faithfulness. There is no contradiction here, not if we understand grace and faith in their appropriate Jewish context.

• "I do not run aimlessly, nor do I box as though beating the air; but I punish my body and enslave it, so that after proclaiming to others I myself should not be disqualified" (1 Cor. 9:26-27).
• "I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the sharing of his sufferings by becoming like him in his death, if somehow I may attain the resurrection from the dead" (Phil. 3:10-11).
• "Was it not all those who left Egypt under the leadership of Moses? But with whom was he angry forty years? Was it not those who sinned, whose bodies fell in the wilderness?" (Heb. 3:16-17)
• "It is impossible to restore again to repentance those who have once been enlightened... and then have fallen away, since on their own they are crucifying again the Son of God and are holding him up to contempt" (Heb. 6:4, 6).
• "If we willfully persist in sin after having received the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a fearful prospect of judgment, and a fury of fire that will consume the adversaries" (10:26-27).
• "See to it that no one comes short of the grace of God... that there be no immoral or godless person like Esau, who sold his own birthright for a single meal. For you know that even afterwards, when he desired to inherit the blessing, he was rejected, for he found no place for repentance, though he sought for it with tears" (Heb. 12:15-17, NASB).

These verses from Hebrews are not saying that it is easy to fall away. The situation pondered there is one of quite significant apostasy after years of following Christ.

4. The reason people find this concept problematic is because they have learned cardboard versions of theology that have much more to do with the excesses of the Reformation than with the New Testament world. For example, grace is unmerited, but that would not have meant in the NT world that it was unsolicited or that gratitude was not expected. Grace simply wouldn't have continued in the patron-client world of the NT if the giver was treated contemptuously.

Similarly, the faith-works contrast has been abstracted far beyond its original contours. It had everything to do originally with Paul's debate on what works of the Jewish Law Gentiles needed to do, not only to be saved, but indeed in order to eat with Jewish believers (Gal. 2:11-14). "Faith" here may not even in the first place have been a reference to human faith but to the faithfulness of Jesus to death (cf. this translation of Romans 3:22 and Galatians 2:16).

In the end, Paul had clear ethical expectations of believers, such that individuals who habitually practiced certain sins simply would not be part of the kingdom of God (e.g., 1 Cor. 6:9-10). True faith involved deeds and action for Paul and not only for James (2:14-26). When we start arguing over whether faith itself can become a work, we have left Paul's categories for some other planet.

Paul's language of election and predestination is always "after the fact" language. It is never used to predict, only to affirm those who are already here. Indeed, 2 Peter 1:10 suggests that one can stumble and that it requires diligence to make your election "sure."

5. The scarier question is not whether a person can leave God but whether such a person can ever come back. Perhaps it is safe to say that those who truly leave God won't want to come back. This person will quite likely have a hardened heart. In the end, since it is the Holy Spirit that leads us to repentance, who draws us and empowers us to repent, anyone who is able to repent is allowed to repent.

Theologically, we believe that we can only repent by the Spirit's power. We therefore should not assume that we will be able to come to Christ at a time of our own choosing. Like Esau in Hebrews 12, there could be a time when our head knows it's time to repent, but our heart lacks the power.

So our walk with God is empowered by the Spirit from first to last. We are empowered to be able to choose a relationship with him. If we neglect that power, that relationship, he will not force it on us. We will inevitably decline to our default state. Eventually, that power will no longer be available and the relationship will be dead.

Saint Peter on John Calvin

One of the themes in 2 Peter is the need for believers to be ready for Christ's return, a day that will come like a thief (3:10). Peter (along with the rest of the New Testament) does not teach that you will be saved for sure just because you followed Christ in the past. Quite the contrary. You who are believers need to "make every effort to confirm your calling and election" (1:10).

And Peter is not addressing nominal believers here. He is addressing believers who have a "secure position" (3:17). He doesn't want them to stumble (1:10) and fall from it (3:17). It is the same prayer for believers that we will see soon in Jude 24, where Jude prays to the God who is able to "keep you from stumbling."

Peter clearly doesn't know anything about the many debates theologians will later have about salvation being by faith and not by works. Peter says it takes effort (1:10). Peter doesn't know anything about eternal security for someone who has been saved--you can fall from a secure position (3:17). He knows nothing about election being unconditional--you have to work to confirm it (1:10).

The way some Christian traditions talk about "election" and "calling" makes me think of a line from a famous movie, "You keep using that word. I don't think it means what you think it means." [1] As I said about grace language in the chapter on 1 Peter, grace came with expectations. True, one could not earn grace. True, the gift was always disproportionate to the response. But God's gift of salvation expects us to follow him to the end. If we are not following him when he returns, then we simply will not be saved... [2]

[1] The Princess Bride (1987).

[2] A Calvinist might say that Peter is speaking informally here when he talks of election, that he is speaking to all those who appear to be elect and chosen. Among those who appear to be Christians, they might say, some are truly elect and others only appear to be elect. In this view, only those who are truly elect will make it to the end. The interesting thing about this approach, though, is that it requires us to say that the way the word "election" is used in 1 Peter is not the true definition of election.

The Bible and Eternal Security

My purpose in this post is to examine the doctrine of eternal security, mostly from a biblical perspective. I'll be nice ;-) Dialog welcome.

Definitions: Eternal security is the idea that once a person has been truly assured of their salvation, they will certainly be saved--in other words, "once saved, always saved." It is related to Calvin's idea of the perseverence of the saints, which presupposed the logic of the so called TULIP (although Calvin himself never called it the TULIP). If humanity is totally depraved, then God chooses whom He chooses unconditionally. His grace is thus irresistible. In consequence, if a person is elect, they will certainly persevere to the end.

I once found John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress puzzling because he was a Puritan. In other words, he was a Calvinist. What puzzled me was the fact that in the story, Christian does not know he will make it to the celestial city until he gets there. Yet he has already received the name Christian! How can this be?

The answer I have (to which I welcome correction if I am wrong) is that Calvinists did not have a sense of assurance of salvation until after Wesley's day. In other words, the Puritans of New England believed that the elect would certainly persevere, but they had no doctrine of knowing you were elect. Some of them lived squeeky clean lives in hopes of a self-fulfilling prophecy. Clearly a murderer demonstrated that he or she was not elect by the very fact that he or she was a murder. Only the godliest of Christian individuals were at all likely to be the elect ones!

Contrast this with the idea of eternal security, which combines the doctrine of perseverence with the idea of assurance. I can know now that I am saved. And if I am saved, then I will be saved. Most Baptists today are what we might call "one point Calvinists"--they believe only in eternal security as a form of the Reformed fifth point.

Strategies: All "interpretive groups"--Wesleyan, Calvinist, etc.--have what we might call "controlling verses" that fit most easily into their interpretive paradigm (these are usually the favorite verses, the ones they have their children memorize in Sunday School). On the other hand, they also always have what I call "naughty verses," verses that at least on the surface seem to conflict with their theology or practice (and these in turn are usually the controlling verses of the interpretive groups with which they disagree). In short, the controlling verses trump and lead to the reinterpretation of the naughty verses.

So you will not be surprised to find that this post, written by a Wesleyan, will focus on verses that are "naughty passages" for interpretive groups that affirm eternal security, while some of these verses are controlling verses on this issue for Arminians. Further, you will not be surprised to find that an educated Calvinist is well aware of these verses and could predict, for example, that I will probably bring up Hebrews 6 and 10. All credible interpretive groups have "interpretive strategies" for explaining difficult verses. Of course we should not assume that all the explanations a group makes for a difficult verse is wrong. Surely some explanations are correct!

A typical Arminian question about eternal security is as follows: "What if a person prays the sinner's prayer, looks to have become a Christian, lives like a Christian for some time, and then becomes a serial killer? Will that person go to heaven?"

You can imagine a variety of answers to this question. Least pleasing is the one that this person will indeed go to heaven. Perhaps God will cause them to die or suffer so that they pay a price with their body, but their spirit might be saved (1 Cor. 5), their work will be burned up but they will be saved as through the fire (1 Cor. 3).

Calvin of course would not have bought such an answer. I feel very confident that Calvin himself would have responded, "That person was never one of the elect." Someone today might modify this language slightly, "That person was never truly saved."

I can respect that position if maintained with a real sense of God's revealed nature as love (in other words, one that offers a real possibility of salvation to all humanity). The Christian life expected ends up looking the same. And I can even see some support for it in 1 John 2:19. Here [John] the elder indicates that a group that left them was never "from them" or they wouldn't have left.

On the other hand, what are we then to do with John's later statement that there is a "sin unto death" for which one shouldn't bother to pray (1 John 5:16-17)? I believe some Calvinists argue that this is a Christian who sins so significantly that God causes them to die in consequence. Their soul is saved but their body destroyed.

But if this is the right interpretation, the context gives us no clues to this end. John has said several things about sin in this short sermon. He has indicated that all have sin and therefore need Christ's blood. But he has also argued strongly that those born of God do not continue sinning (3:9; 5:18). I personally think the group that left is a strong candidate for the kind of sins John has in mind throughout (including their "hatred" for John's own group--3:11-15). Surely this imagery that is so abstract to us was concrete for John and his audience.

When we hear of the sins to death and the sins not to death, the simplest explanation is thus that John continues to have the things in mind he has apparently had throughout. The sins not to death are the sins he mentions in 2:1, and clearly Jesus Christ the righteous stands ready as lawyer for John's group (those who remained). The sin to death surely relates in some way to those to whom he has alluded throughout: "antichrists" who deny Jesus is the Messiah who went out from them (2:18), the spirits (read Gnostics) who deny that Jesus came in the flesh (4:2-3), who deny that the Messiah came by both water and blood (9:6), those who show hatred to their brothers like Cain? Without further details it is difficult to know exactly how, but this seems more than possible given the lay of the text.

This interpretation of 1 John 5:16 is constructed out of the biblical materials of 1 John rather than by treating the verse as a memory verse whose words are defined from my existing theology. In other words, I have tried to construct an interpretation from the "Bible alone," rather than one based on the Bible in dialog with my theology (important footnote: the text alone is actually just squiggles. By 1 John alone I mean the text in its original historical and literary contexts, even here a small fudge on the concept).

But if there is a sin to death you can commit and still be physically alive, then it would appear that a person can be "alive" and later become spiritually dead. Like Hebrews, however, John seems to imply doubt that one can come back to life once one has committed it. This interpretation of course reeks havoc with many different Christian traditions, including the Wesleyan. Tough cookies! We need to let the Bible say what it says and then let Chris Bounds work out the problems in theology class.

My point here was not really to start going through Scriptures, although, fine, I did it anyway. My purpose was to show the dynamics of how interpretive groups cope with problem passages. I believe that the only strategy that really has integrity is to admit that our theology is ultimately a superstructure we all build over or alongside the text. We ideally try to prop up the superstructure with as much of the text as we can.

But the most crucial and definitive parts will usually be extra scripturam, outside Scripture. It seems to me impossible to let all the biblical texts say what they seem to say and not run into theological conflicts that can only be resolved in the court of theological arbitration. Denial of this fact results in shoving one passage down another one's throat. Interpretive groups do this in the name of the Bible. But it is done at the expense of the Bible.

So I would argue that if the Reformed interpretive group is to have integrity, it must adopt a view that the NT authors simply did not have a full understanding of harmartiology (doctrine of sin) and soteriology (doctrine of salvation). Reformed theology could be correct as a development of doctrine beyond the Bible, a product of progressive revelation. This will require significant modification to their usual view of sola scriptura, but this is necessary anyway. This would bring greater coherence to their theology.

Barth's Reformed theology actually approaches this, for he does in his own way what I have called "finding the text in the word of God rather than getting the word of God from the text." I think what he lacks is a transferable model of how to identify this broader word of God. He does interact heavily with tradition, especially Protestant traditions. However, ultimately he is the arbiter of the Word of God, the word event for him is the true word event in many respects, at least in providing its broad outline.

Background
Certainly the meaning of the New Testament is not predestined by either the Old Testament or Jewish intertestamental period, or the Greco-Roman world. However, if the NT operated on a significantly different wavelength than these, we would expect it to make such distinctions clear.

For example, in the Old Testament, a person could be expelled from Israel, from the people of God. Apart from Daniel 12:1-3 and a very short list of contested passages, the OT has no sense of personal, conscious existence after death (e.g., Psalm 6). So expulsion from Israel was tantamount to "losing one's salvation" in the NT. So if the NT operated on significantly different assumptions--that once a person was in the people of God, they could never not be in the people of God--we would expect a pretty clear statement somewhere pointing out this clear difference between the old and new covenants. Certainly if a Calvinist were writing the NT, this would be spelled out loud and clear. Where is this?

Secondly, I pointed out in an earlier post that grace language was language of patronage. In the Greco-Roman world, a patron might be forgiving, might give a second chance to a client that disappointed them. But the idea that Lazarus might moon the servant bringing him his daily dole outside the rich man's gate and still get the dole tomorrow. Well I doubt that would have made any sense to someone in the Mediterrean world. If Paul was saying something that contrasted widely with these assumptions, we would expect to hear him spell that out somewhere clearly. Where is this?

In short, the world in which the NT language operated, the dictionaries of the NT audiences, these things set the default expectation of the NT words not to be eternal security. The NT is not bound to hold the same default, but at some point, whether on site or in these books, the NT authors and apostles would have to make the difference clear. Where is this?

Some Naughty Passages
Certainly there are passages where someone might superficially seem to be "in' and then seem to be "out." So Demas forsook Paul after being a key player (2 Tim. 4:10). But it is easy to say, "He was never a true Christian." Or, "even though he sinned here, he was still saved." Judas is a poor example, for he belongs to the old covenant, the age before the Spirit. We cannot really call him a Christian in the first place because he followed Jesus before Pentecost.

The same applies to Matthew's imagery about weeds and wheat that grow up together (Matt. 13) or the Parable of the Sheep and the Goats (Matt. 25). It is very easy for the Calvinist to say that in these cases, the goats were never sheep and the weeds were never wheat. Of course by now we are arguing over things that were not the point of these parables. We would not be reading any of these parables within their original boundaries and scope to begin talking about them in these ways.

This is a very important point, because some arguments for eternal security are based on metaphors. Once a person is a son, do they ever stop being a son? But where in the Bible do we find this metaphor played out in this way? It is another example of a logic outside the text--it is not biblical logic. We must all alike beware of reading metaphors and figurative language within their intended limits. The point of the Parable of the Unjust Steward is surely not to go and embezzle from your bosses.

On the other hand, if Paul himself could express uncertainty about his ultimate salvation. If he really considered it possible that he could fail to be saved in the end, that would undermine the entire Calvinist system. The book of Acts holds that he did receive the Spirit at one time (Acts 9) and thus that he was truly a believer. He says the same (1 Cor. 7:40). I doubt anyone would doubt his true Christianity.

The reason why this would undermine the entire Calvinist system is because the perseverence of the saints is a direct consequence of TULIP logic. The elect will persevere because grace is irresistance and election is unconditional. If Paul could be truly "in" and then truly "out," then God would have to change His mind with regard to Paul's election for the logic to continue working. But this is surely also anathema. Thus the entire deck of cards comes falling down. 5 point Calvinism would then prove to be very logical, but simply not true.

To be sure, the Calvinist interpretive system immediately suspects at least some, probably all of the naughty verses I have in mind.

1 Corinthians 9:24-27:

"Do you not know that those who run in a stadium all run, but one receives the prize? So run so that you might receive [it]. Everyone who competes exercises control in all things. Those, therefore, [do it] so they might receive a corruptible crown. But we [exercise control so we might receive] an incorruptible one. Therefore, I myself so run, not without a goal. I so box not as striking the air. But I keep my body under control and I make it a slave lest somehow I myself might become disqualified, although I have preached to others."

The debate between Arminians and Calvinists here is on the meaning of "disqualified." Does the crown here merely imply a prize for being an especially worthy Christian? Paul's afraid that he won't get as many awards as some other Christians?

In 1 Corinthians 9, Paul has been talking about the sacrifices he has made while proclaiming the gospel. He has made it clear that he does not have room to boast just because he has sacrificed (9:16). So how could Paul be talking about prizes he might win here for being particularly worthy? He wants to beat all the others so they don't get the prize?

I will not stake the whole cheese on this passage, but it just seems to me that with his talk of preaching to others and the broader context of sharing the good news, surely the most likely meaning is that it is possible that after sharing the good news of salvation to others, it was at least possible that Paul himself might not be saved in the end. I don't think there was ever any doubt, but it is really hard to believe Paul would say something like this if it wasn't at least possible. A Calvinist would not have written it this way.

Philippians 3:12:

"Not that I have already received [x] or have already been perfected. But I pursue if also I might apprehend that for which I was apprehended by Christ Jesus."

What is Paul talking about? It sure is difficult for me to see how Paul is talking about anything but resurrection. In fact, I regularly use this passage to teach how to interpret the words of the text in context. Look at the train of thought:

1. Verse 8: The things I mentioned earlier in the chapter that from a human perspective I might boast about, I count these as dung in comparison to knowing Christ.

2. Verse 9: I want to be found in him with a righteousness from God.

3. Verse 10: in order to know him and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings, being conformed to his death...

4. Verse 11: "if somehow I might attain to the resurrection of the dead."

It is this verse that occurs right before verse 12: "not that I have received [the resurrection of the dead]." With no expressed object of the verb to tell us what Paul has not received, we have to assume that the object comes from the previous verse.

The context that follows confirms this reading.

5. Verse 13: "Not that I reckon myself to have received. But one thing [I do], forgetting the behind [the human badges he has mentioned earlier in the chapter], and reaching out to what is before, I pursue toward the prize of the upward calling of God in Christ Jesus.

In other words, the context that follows confirms that it is the upward calling, the resurrection, that Paul has had in mind.

Again, what is the most natural way of reading these words in context, not one that is driven by preconceived theology? It is that Paul reiterates twice that he is not already guaranteed an upward call. He is not already guaranteed resurrection. To read it any differently, you have to want to. The context screams this interpretation.

Some Naughty Ones for Me
Two verses in 1 Corinthians that I personally find puzzling are 1 Corinthians 3:15 and 5:5. The first says that a minister who builds the church out of inferior materials will be saved through fire, even though the work he might build on it will be consumed. The second speaks of the spirit of the man delivered to Satan being saved on the Day of the Lord, even though his flesh would be destroyed.

These are puzzling passages to me, and I will confess that I'm not quite sure what to do with them. But I'm not sure that they are much more attractive to Reformed or mainstream Baptist interpretation either. If I try to imagine possible literal meanings that are not figurative (my preferred interpretations here), I note that Paul at this point in his ministry likely believed that those to whom he wrote would still be alive on the Day of the Lord. An unwelcome but possible meaning might then be that these individuals would face some of the judgment, but that they would still end up as part of the kingdom, which Paul may have pictured to be on earth, since that's where the judgment apparently would take place (1 Cor. 6:2-3).

That would be a kind of security, but it would hardly fit any mainstream Christian theology. I doubt anyone here wants to opt for purgatory, and does anyone really think Paul is talking about the death of these individuals?

Hebrews
I've saved Hebrews because this is where everyone would expect me to go. You know the drill:

For it is impossible for those once having been enlightened, and who have tasted of the heavenly gift and have become partakers of Holy Spirit and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the coming age and having fallen away... [it is impossible] to renew to repentance, since they crucify to themselves the Son of God again and expose him to disgrace.

The argument that to "taste" here is not truly to become a Christian is a real stretch. For one thing, it just isn't the way the passage reads. The author is chastising the audience for not maturing to the point they should be. He is of course shaming them--he is persuaded of better things with regard to them, of their salvation (6:9).

But they have done the drill. They have repented from dead works, had faith toward God, have been baptized, etc... (6:1-2). The description of them in 6:10-12 gives us no sense that they are not truly "in." The only reason someone would think that is to get out of the clear implication of 6:4-8. And Hebrews makes no distinction between certain unelect individuals to which these would apply and the bulk to which it would not. Again, the text gives no evidence at all of any distinction like this. They have tasted Holy Spirit; they are Christians.

Another suggestion sometimes made is that these are not really possibilities. They are meant to get the audience to where they are supposed to be, but the warnings could never come to pass. Now tell me, does this make any sense at all? Simply put, no Calvinist would write this and mean this--given how important eternal security and perseverence are to their system, there's not a chance they would write something that could be so easily misinterpreted. Or maybe the apparent meaning is the real meaning!

Remember, if they were to fall away, they would not be able to renew to repentance. That implies they have repented before. And what they would have been doing to come back is to crucify Christ again! The clear implication is that they had already appropriated his crucifixion before.

The image of leaving Egypt and entering Canaan implies exactly the same paradigm.

"We have become partakers of the Christ, if indeed we hold fast the beginning of substance firm until the end" (3:14).

"Whose house are we if indeed we hold fast the boldness and boasting of hope" (3:7).

The entire point of this argument is to continue to Canaan. "Who that heard rebelled? But was it not all of those who left Egypt through Moses? And with whom was [God] angry for forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose corpses fell in the desert?" (3:16-17).

The most obvious way to take this passage is as a warning that not all those who leave Egypt make it to Canaan, not all of those who start with the Christ will be saved, particularly those who sin in the manner the author has in mind. A person might bicker with this interpretation if we did not have the other verses. But this interpretation fits hand in glove with the other passages.

So next we look at Hebrews 10:26-27, which picks up this theme of sinning after leaving Egypt: "If we continue to sin willfully after receiving a knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins but a certain fearful expectation of judgment and of a zealous fire that is about to eat the enemies."

Notice the image of knowledge as we saw in 6:4--"it is impossible for those have once been enlightened." The sense of a sacrifice remaining implies that Christ's sacrifice had been in force. We are reminded of the earlier comment that they crucify the Son of God again.

It does not matter for our purposes what specific kind of sin the author has in mind. He is not simply talking about post-baptismal sin. He has a certain kind of apostacy in mind, not a single act of sin. This is a big deal that has been some time coming. And I do not think that he really believes anything like this is really going to happen to the audience. But unless it is a real possibility, this line of argument is not only ineffective, it is deceptive and manipulative.

But perhaps the scariest verses in the NT are Hebrews 12:16-17:

Watching ... "lest someone be sexually immoral or Godless like Esau, who traded his birthright for one bit of food. For know that afterwards, when he wanted to inherit the blessing, he was rejected, for he did not find a place of repentance, although he sought it with tears."

I have been rebuked by a reviewer for thinking that what Esau was seeking with tears here was repentance, and indeed, some Hebrews commentaries by authors I deeply respect believe that the "it" here is the blessing. Although Esau sought the blessing with tears, he did not find a place of repentance.

This is possible, but not at all the most likely interpretation. Why? Because the nearest feminine antecedent is the Greek word for repentance. The word for blessing is feminine, but is further back in the sentence. What is even more compelling is the similarity of this statement to 6:6, which says it is impossible to renew to repentance. Once again, only a desire to opt for one's preconceived theology rather than listen to the text explains this interpretive move.

The most obvious meaning of this text, as the most obvious meaning of all these other texts in Hebrews, is that person can have a Christian "birthright" and be a firstborn Son, yet fall away, sell one's birthright. And what is a naughty theology for both Wesleyan and Calvinist is left. It may not be easy to fall away. In fact, it may be doggone unlikely. But if one falls away in the way that Hebrews discusses, one is gone forever.

I'll let Bounds work out this difficult teaching in theology class. But this is what the text seems to want us to hear, in fact the message comes through with remarkable clarity.

Conclusion
I believe that Paul expresses very clearly in Philippians the fact that he did not consider his resurrection to be yet fully assured. In 1 Corinthians he expresses the importance of himself persevering in order not to be disqualified. And Hebrews is extremely clear, even if difficult for pretty much any tradition. The clear teaching of Scripture, as the background to the NT led us to expect, has no concept of absolute certainty of salvation, even after one has appropriated Christ's death and has the Spirit.

Eternal security can make a few small modifications and survive. Namely, one might suggest that it is very, very unlikely that a true Christian will ever fall away. In fact, I believe that myself! But I believe it is possible.

On the other hand, 5 point Calvinism cannot survive the plain teaching of Scripture on these points. And 7 point Calvinism--that God predestined the Fall of Satan and Adam. The God of that system is an evil God. I'll take Grudem every day over them!