God. Real. Right.

“Once-saved-always-saved,” the doctrine of eternal security, is a hard pill for some people to swallow. A caller to my radio program is witness to just such. He claimed that since the letters to the churches in the Revelation were written to believers, and that God said to them that if they did not repent He would blot them out of His book, that it is obvious that some believers can lose their salvation. As I struggled to figure out what passage he could have in mind, it became apparent that his well-intentioned argument was based, as is often the case, on something not quite the same as the actual content of the passage of scripture so casually referenced.

To be precise, the caller’s claim was, “If the believers do not repent, God will blot them out of His book.” For perfect clarity, that statement could be symbolized as
~ R –> B
where “~” means “not”, “R” means “that believers repent”, and “B” means “that they will be blotted out.” The arrow, “–>”, represents implication, the “if-then” relationship in this case.

However, as it turns out, the only passage in the chapters he mentioned even vaguely similar to the caller’s reference is Revelation 3:5, which actually says, “He that overcometh, the same shall be clothed in white raiment; and I will not blot out his name out of the book of life, but I will confess his name before my Father, and before his angels.” The pertinent part of the passage, the part corresponding (though obviously with contrast) to the caller’s comment amounts to this proposition: “If believers overcome, God will not blot them out of His book.”

For the moment we will ignore how John defines “overcoming” in 1 John 5:4-5 as “believing in Jesus”; not as “turning away from sin” which is how the caller apparently takes repentance. For the sake of simplicity, let’s just assume that “If the believers overcome, God will not blot them out of His book” means the same thing as “If the believers repent, God will not blot them out of His book.” That acquiescence is as close as I can get to a passage related to the caller’s original claim.

Now here’s the point, and it is an important one for interpreter’s of scripture everywhere. The caller’s suggested proposition is:
~ R –> B (“if they do not repent, God will blot them out”).
But the proposition in the text is:
R –> ~B (“if they repent, God will not blot them out”).
At a glance, those propositions may seem similar in meaning, but they are not. In fact, their meanings match neither logically nor practically.

Logically, by a rule or procedure called contraposition, the first proposition, the one suggested by the caller, can be taken either as
~ R –> B or as ~ B –> R;
that is, it can mean either
“if they do not repent, then I will blot them out”
or
“if I did not blot them out, then they repented.”
Logically, the meanings are identical. Unfortunately for the caller’s point, those are not the phrases in the scripture.

So in contrast, logically, by the same rule of contraposition, the second proposition, the one in the scripture, can be taken either as
R –> ~ B or as B –> ~ R;
that is, it can mean either
“if they repent, I will not blot them out”
or
“if I blot them out, they did not repent.”

Importantly, neither expression representing the proposition in the scripture makes any claim about someone being blotted out. Instead, in the first way of expressing what is in the passage, there is a claim about what would happen if someone did repent. The passage does not say whether anyone repents or not. It only says that if someone does repent, they will not be blotted out. Similarly, in the second way of stating the meaning, it only says what would have happened if someone was blotted out. The passage does not say whether anyone is blotted out or not.

I realize, of course, that this logical distinction will seem unconvincing to those who read the passage for what it does not say. So indulge me one step further, this time in the realm of a practical analogy.

Take the phrase, “If they obey, they will be blessed.” Scripture is rife with such claims. Taking advantage of the contraposition demonstrated above, there are two ways of expressing the same meaning:
Obedience –> Blessing
and
~ Blessing –> ~ Obedience.
The mistake would be thinking that either expression includes the idea that disobedience implies not being blessed. That is, there is no way to derive
~ Obedience –> ~ Blessing
from
Obedience –> Blessing.
I only point this divergence out using the same logical relationships as above because every thinking Christian knows that the idea that disobedience implies non-blessing is simply false. After all, He causes it to rain (which is a blessing in Matthew 5) on the just and on the unjust.

To be perfectly clear, then, no amount of logical, practical, or rhetorical calisthenics can make Revelation 3:5 imply that someone loses his salvation. (It doesn’t prove someone doesn’t lose his salvation, either; but I never said it did. I teach that doctrine from other passages.) This passage only tells me that those who overcome will not not lose their salvation.

Well I’m not uncomfortable with that idea at all!

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Tags: Eternal Security

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 28th, 2009 at 9:51 am and is filed under Exegesis and Interpretation, Isolated Texts, Theology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.