Chapter # 11 Paragraph # 4 Study # 8
March 24, 2019
Humble, Texas
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Thesis: The biblical doctrine of "security" is rooted in the "God side" of "salvation" (foreknowledge, predestination, calling, justification, glorification, and the intercessory ministries of both the Holy Spirit (8:26) and the Son (8:34) and in the "human side" of "salvation" ("faith in grace").
Introduction: We have been considering Paul's rebukes of two "legal" constructs of "the security of the believer". Those two "constructs" consist of both "boastfulness against the unsaved" and "highmindedness toward oneself". Neither of these constructs can stand in the light of "faith in grace" so that if they come to "foundational" status, they replace any/all "faith in grace". We have seen that Paul is not bashful about what happens to people who "settle" into these legal constructs. If they, or an angel from heaven, or an apostle of Jesus Christ, "settle" into a "gospel of performance unto salvation", they will be accursed (Galatians 1:8-9).
In our current studies, Paul's metaphor of "accursedness" is that of a "branch" in the tree of the People of God that is "broken off" and "cast away". We have seen that both the "Arminian" and "Calvinistic" branches of visible Christendom recognize that the Bible teaches the necessity of the "perseverance of faith" [the Arminians say of those who do not persevere, that they have "lost" their salvation; and the Calvinists say of them that "they were never saved in the first place"], but both also stumble over the biblical issue of what the "perseverance of faith" actually means. Both press the issue into the service of trying to get people to pursue godliness in their daily behavior so that they both fail to see that "behavior" is not the issue (actually, they both become "legalists" at this point). At issue is the very narrow concept of "faith in grace" as it applies to the question of the extent of the work of Christ as the Substitute "Adam" Who addressed the "Justice of God" and its impact upon humanity as "condemnation". The question of one's "faith in grace" is a question of whether, in fact, one "believes" in Jesus as the Satisfaction of the Justice of God for him/her. It does not address the question of "how much" that "faith" impacts a person's "behavior". It does, however, address the question of whether, or not, "faith" is rooted in the two attitudes of "repentance out of the goodness of God", and that question is answered by whether, or not, the two attitudes of "boastfulness" and "highmindedness" are being expressed toward those who are being rejected by God for their unbelief.
This evening we are going to look into Paul's stark warning that if one's "belief system" has "settled" in such a way that both "boastfulness" and "highmindedness" are acceptable attitudes, God will break off the branch of the Tree that has "settled" there without regard for earlier attitudes of "faith in grace".
- I. A Most Fundamental Reality.
- A. As "faith" moves deeper and deeper into a person's most fundamental way of thinking, the issues that are "believed" compete with one another for "permanence" with the outcome being the elimination of the "failed competitor".
- B. It is impossible for two, mutually exclusive concepts, to be held simultaneously at the "foundational" level of "things believed" (sooner, or later, the exclusivity of a concept will force the abandonment of any and all competitors).
- C. The Bible presents a person's "history" as being a life-long process of "sifting" the things both "loved" and "believed" until the final establishment of "what is valuable and what is true".
- II. Thus, Paul's "Conditional" Clause.
- A. It is classed by both Dana and Mantey and A.T. Robertson as a "third class" condition.
- 1. The form of this condition is ean plus the subjunctive mood of a verb.
- 2. The significance of the form is (according to Dana and Mantey) "the more probable" development; i.e., "an assumption that the condition will be fulfilled".
- a. It is not "certain", but it anticipates with a degree of hopefulness.
- b. Hebrews 6:9 identifies wherein lies the ambiguity: if "salvation" (i.e., "justification") has actually occurred, then there will be certain accompaniments.
- 1) The author confesses that he has used certain "noises" (laleo) of truth that are extremely threatening, but he actually does not expect the threatening things to come to pass because he does not actually think his readers are in the condition that he has described (though they have proven to be both "childish" and "dull of hearing": Hebrews 5:11-13).
- 2) He then goes on to indicate that one of the "things that accompany salvation" is "inheritance of the promises through faith and patience" (6:12).
- a) The "through" is a "dia plus a genitive" and indicates "agency" (Robertson) so that both "faith" as well as "patience" ("enduring faith") are in the mix.
- b) This is not an unusual idea in Hebrews, as 10:38-39 declares: a "drawing back" that results in "perdition"; but that is not the expectation of the writer regarding his readers, having taken a more "charitable" view of them that is possibly erroneous.
- B. The nature of the "condition".
- 1. The "condition" that must be met is "continuing in the goodness" (this is Paul's version of Hebrews 6:12).
- a. This is the "persevering" aspect of "justifying faith".
- b. The verb indicating "continuance" is epimeno and it is an intensified form of meno which signals "a remaining in".
- 1) The person who "remains in" a house does not come out of it.
- 2) A person who "remains in" an attitude of "fear" does not overcome it.
- c. The context identifies the issue in which a person must "remain": God's "goodness".
- 1) Intense "remaining" is a focused attitude regarding both what the "goodness" of God is and the attitude that brought one into it.
- 1) The "goodness" in the text is God's grafting of a branch into the tree so that it can participate in the fatness of the tree (or allowing a branch to remain in the tree, needing no grafting because it is already there).
- 2) The "attitude", to which the "goodness" brought a person, is identified clearly in Romans 2:4 as "repentance" (as the Bible defines it, not men's typical "snatch and grab" way of simply assigning a meaning by assumption, going on etymology rather than text and context).
- 2. The "nature" of this condition is given as a complete aversion to "boasting" and "highmindedness" (those attitudes eliminate "repentance" as an abiding place).
- a. The need for this "complete aversion" is a part of the reason why God does not underwrite "a life of continuous godly performance".
- 1) That He does not is obvious from every direction of biblical revelation from Paul's "I have not arrived" comment (Philippians 3:12) to his instruction to the Corinthians to deliver the incestuous man over to Satan so that his spirit might be saved in the Day of the Lord Jesus (1 Corinthians 5:5).
- 2) This same Paul clearly wrote of his pronounced tendency to "exalt himself" in 2 Corinthians 12:7 and his need for "troubles" to keep him dependent upon God (2 Corinthians 1:9).
- 3) The point is that there is no guarantee in the New Testament that "believers in grace" will be kept from certain "behaviors". The only guarantee is that the "faith" of believers in grace will not fail because of the intercessions of Jesus for us.
- 4) It is by our relatively consistent "failures" that we are kept in "humility".
- b. The presence of such negative attitudes is indicative of the absence of a serious awareness of "grace".
- 1) As "abiding" takes place, the more fundamental values and beliefs settle into place as the dominant and excluding factors which force all competitors out.
- 2) Most of the factors involved in "abiding" circle around both ignorance (of the mutual exclusivity of some concepts) and thoughtlessness (in which mutual exclusivity is simply not carefully thought through: a lack of "beholding both the goodness and severity of God").
- II. The Consequence For Those Who Do Not "Abide" is Unambiguous.
- A. They will be "cut out" of the Tree.
- B. The danger is real, but it is rooted in "faith in one's faith" rather than "faith in grace".