Theology in the Raw - 735: #735 - How Did People in the OC Get Saved? Can You Lose Your Salvation?

Episode Date: April 22, 2019

On episode #735 of Theology in the Raw Preston answers questions submitted by Pateron supporters. Questions covered in this podcast: 1) How did people in the old testament get saved? 2) Can you lose your salvation? 3) What happened to my house church? Support Preston Support Preston by going to patreon.com Connect with Preston Twitter | @PrestonSprinkle Instagram | @preston.sprinkle Check out his website prestonsprinkle.com If you enjoy the podcast, be sure to leave a review.

How did people get saved in the Old Testament? Can you lose your salvation? And what in the world happened to my house church? I'm Preston Sprinkle and you're episode of Theology in the Raw. I am so excited you joined me on today's show. I am going to address several questions sent in from my Patreon supporters. These are Patreon questions that have come in over the last few weeks. And if you want to become a Patreon supporter

and submit questions to the show, you can go to patreon.com forward slash TheAlginRaw. That's patreon.com forward slash TheAlginRaw. You can support the show for as little as $5 a month. There's other tiers, like a $10 tier, $10 a month tier, $25 a month tier, $50 a month, $100 a month.

And it just keeps going up and up and better and better from there. So again, that's patreon.com forward slash TheAlginRaw. If you want to support this show, that'd be awesome. Appreciate your support. So let's dig into these questions sent in from my supporters. The first one says, how did those in the Old Testament get to heaven? In light of that, why did we need the cross? And this questioner wants to make sure that I'm not misunderstanding her question. She says, I'm asking from a purely logical point of view and can imagine that non-believers would be asking the same question. So it's a great question. It's one that many people do wrestle with. And yeah, so I'm going to say that throughout both Testaments, there is, I mean, there's some continuity and some discontinuity

in its understanding of salvation. The one clear element of discontinuity, you know, things that are different, is that, you know, animal sacrifices were pretty essential for salvation in the Old Testament. And in the New Testament, the sacrifice of Christ is the fulfillment of that. Even issues of what obedience looks like in the Old Testament versus the New Testament. There's some continuity, there's some discontinuity. So I just want to come at this question with the understanding that there are really important questions about continuity and discontinuity throughout both testaments. That's just the way it is. Like we can't come in to this question or into the Bible with the assumption that everything must look exactly the same. There's going to be differences. There's going to be similarities between both Testaments. Now, in terms of the similar, I think there's a lot more similarity

when it comes to salvation in the Old Testament and New Testament than some people realize. Some people, you know, would think like, oh, you're saved by works in the Old Testament, but you're saved by faith in the New Testament. I think that is, well, I can see where people would get that given some of the language in both Testaments, but I think that's not accurate. I would say that people in both Testaments are saved by following Yahweh. Now, Yahweh is most perfectly revealed in the New Testament through Jesus Christ. I want to say in the New Testament. It's like the New Testament testifies to God's ongoing redemptive work, climaxing in his full and final revelation of himself through his son, Jesus Christ.

And even now, I'm picking my own language there. Like when I said his son, Jesus Christ, and I referred to him as Yahweh. Well, Yahweh is the triune God. And so God, what I mean to say is God, the father is, you know, or God, the triune God is fully revealed through the second person of that tri, triunity, namely Jesus Christ. Now, when I say saved by following Jesus, that, that, or saved by following Yahweh, namely Jesus Christ. Now, when I say saved by following Jesus, that, that, or saved by following Yahweh, that might, um, that might sound like works righteousness. And, uh, I don't want to get too far down this rabbit hole. Um, but that's not, so when I say following Yahweh, I'm saying

believing in Yahweh, committing yourself to Yahweh, giving your allegiance to Yahweh, which is often described as having faith in Yahweh. Now, when we say faith, we have to separate our modern day understanding of what that word means. When we say faith, the English word faith often connotes mental assent. I believe in God. I have faith in God, meaning my mind agrees that God exists. And we, in our modern Western way of thinking, we often separate faith from behavior. I don't think that the Bible does that. When the Bible talks about faith, in the Hebrew, it's emunah. And there's certain, there's other kind of cognates to that term. And in the New Testament, it's pistis is the noun, pisteos is the verb. And both the Hebrew and Greek concept of faith, how do I say it, is intertwined with obedience.

Like when you have faith in God, that means you are committing your life to him. That means you are going to follow him. That's what faith means. It's not just like, like the Bible doesn't have this distinction between saying, okay, you know, point, you know, stage one, I believe I mentally assent to God. Stage two, okay, now I'm going to try to obey God. Like that harsh distinction between faith and obedience just isn't recognized in the Bible. In the Old Testament in particular, you do have statements like Genesis 15, 6, where it says, you know, Abraham believed in God or believed God, what God said when God made promises to Abraham throughout Genesis 12 through 15, in particular, at the beginning few verses of chapter 15, it says that Abraham believed the promises of God and that was credited to him as righteousness.

That belief issued in, it would be one way that people put it, issued in leaving his country and going to the promised land. And belief is so intertwined with action, with obedience, that it's hard to separate the two. In Luke chapter 8, so that's an Old Testament verse that emphasizes belief, okay, faith. emphasizes belief, okay? Faith. And then in the New Testament, I'm just going to, you know, obviously, I'm going to say, obviously, there's an emphasis on faith in the New Testament, but there's also an emphasis when it comes to salvation, emphasis on obedience or perseverance. So the parable of the sower in Luke 8, look at the language of the parable of the sower in Luke 8. Who is the good ground that the seed falls upon? Remember the seed, the sower went out to sow,

and there's kind of four types of soil that it falls on. It falls on the rocky soil, falls on the road, and it was gobbled up by the birds. Then one of the seeds falls on the soil, and it has shallow roots, and there's no perseverance there. But then the good soil, it says in Luke 8, is the seed that fell upon the good soil is the one where it grows up and the plant grows strong and it's long lasting. And then when Jesus applies that to what he's talking about,

to who is saved in a sense, it's the one who perseveres. We see this, I mean, throughout, especially the gospels, throughout, especially the general epistles, Hebrews through Jude. We see this throughout the book of Revelation. We see it throughout Hebrews. We see it throughout Acts. I mean, this is a huge emphasis in the New Testament, and I'm deliberately leaving aside Paul just for a second, okay? That true believers persevere. So I don't, okay, so I guess I need to say something about Paul. Paul was emphasizing faith against works.

When Paul gives the faith slash works dichotomy or opposition, we're justified by faith, not works. He is emphasizing not Christian, or when he says works, he's not talking about Christian obedience. He's talking about like works of the law, works that, and this is, look, this is, I did my whole, it took me three years during my doctoral studies to unravel the complexity of faith and works in Paul's letter. So I'm being way oversimplified here. But when Paul contrasts faith with the works, he's not contrasting faith with Christian obedience.

faith with the works. He's not contrasting faith with Christian obedience. He's contrasting, it's largely kind of a new covenant, old covenant contrast, faith in the risen Jesus versus an old testament, old covenant law way of following Yahweh. It's kind of a new covenant, old covenant contrast when he contrasts faith and works there. Works are works of the law, allegiance to the old covenant way of following Yahweh. And Paul's main point is that, you know, when Jesus came and resurrected, died and resurrected, he ushered in a new era, a new covenant, a new way of following God. So all that to say, how were people in the Old Testament saved? First of all, the whole, there is no, the idea that one is trying to get to heaven, that didn't exist in the Old Testament.

Salvation in the Old Testament concept was, well, partly salvation from your enemies. I mean, if you just do a word study on the word for save or deliver or salvation, it often is very historical, very raw and earthy, if you will. God saving Israel from their enemies and protecting them from their enemies. But there was a sense in which you were also forgiven by God. You were not cut off from the covenant. You were in the covenant promises. This is kind of the way that the Old Testament would envision salvation. You would inherit the land, that you would stay in the land, that you wouldn't be exiled, that you would be part of this ongoing covenant community that enjoyed the blessings of

the covenant, not the curses of the covenant, according to Deuteronomy 28. So that we have to, when we ask this question in the Old Testament, we have to kind of put ourselves in the sandals of an Old Testament saint and how they envision what it meant to be right with God. The whole idea of kind of like, I need to like do the right thing to get to heaven. Like that, that going to heaven wasn't, wasn't like a, a thing that the Old Testament saint was even conceiving of. Um, okay. So, uh, how did those in the Old Testament, let's just say get saved, uh, well, by following the example of Abraham, by believing in the promises of God and committing to a life of obedience and righteousness and imperfect life of obedience and righteousness. The old

Testament did not demand perfections. Why? I mean, think about it. The whole sacrificial system was built into the very old Testament project of salvation that we know you're going to, you know, God's like, I know you're going to screw up. I know you're going to mess up. That's why we have the sacrificial system so that when you mess up, you offer your sacrifice, you continue to follow God and so on and so forth. There is one, so, so salvation, I would say is very similar in the Old Testament So, salvation, I would say, is very similar in the Old Testament versus the New Testament, namely that it is faith in Yahweh, believing in His promises, which meet issues in obedience. And I only like to say issues in as if believing in and obeying are two completely different things. Faith was committing yourself to this God, and part of that commitment is following him and believing what he says.

There are a couple points of discontinuity within the Old and New Testament understanding of salvation. Number one, obviously, the sacrifice of Christ. Like, you don't need ongoing sacrifices, animal sacrifices in the New Testament, because Jesus is the final definitive sacrifice, and he paid the penalty for sin once and for all. The other, well, let me give you three points of discontinuity. Number one, the sacrificial system versus the sacrifice of Christ. Number two, the law of Moses versus the law of Christ, or there were certain differences in what it meant to follow this God between the Old and New Testaments. Obviously, you have things like circumcision and dietary laws, and even

Sabbath observance seems to be, there seems to be some discontinuity there. And there's several other things, ethical continuities and discontinuities between the Old and New Testaments, so that what obeying God meant looked a little bit different. Not completely, there's a lot of overlap too. The one point I often bring up is sexual ethics is often very similar between Old and New Testaments.

So there's sort of some discontinuity in what obedience looked like between the Testaments. Also, the Spirit. This is a big point of discontinuity. Yes, the Holy Spirit existed in the Old Testament, but the Holy Spirit has a very unique function in the New Testament in that the Holy Spirit opens up our heart and empowers us to obey, enables us to even have faith. And the classic passage on this is Ezekiel 36 verses 26 to 27, where Ezekiel prophesied of a future time, a new covenant age, when he would rip out our heart of

stones and give us a heart of flesh, and he would put his spirit within us and cause us to follow him. I know that sounds, sorry, let me close this door. Sorry, I hear my family getting really loud upstairs and I just want to shut them out from my basement here so you can hear me loud and clear. Okay, so where are they going with this? from my basement here so you can hear me loud and clear. Okay. So, um, where are they going with this? Uh, yeah, I know that sounds very reformed and maybe Calvinistic, but that is just simply what the Hebrew says in Ezekiel 36, uh, 26 and 27. And then also in, uh, Ezekiel chapter 37, verses one through, let's just say 14. And those passages are linked. There's actually a linguistic, a clear linguistic connection between what Ezekiel says in chapter 36, verses 26 to 27. Go read that passage.

It's one of the most foundational passages for understanding what that blossoms into in the New Testament. So Ezekiel 36, 26 to 27 is so jam-packed. It's pregnant with theological meaning that will come to light in the New Testament. But it's also, those two verses are also directly linked to the dry bones vision in Ezekiel 37 verses 1 to 14. Why is this significant? Well, it's because it's all about the spirit. The spirits work in redemption and in fixing what went wrong under the Old Covenant paradigm. Old Testament saints were not empowered by the Holy Spirit for salvation in the same way that New Testament saints are. That is one of these issues of discontinuity. So that in the New Testament, and you see allusions to Ezekiel 36 and 37 throughout

the New Testament. You see it in Paul's letters and in Romans 8. You see it in Romans 2. You see it in John chapter, I'm going to say, I think it's chapter, well, chapter 3, the whole Jesus Nicodemus conversation about the Spirit, about being born again. You see it in John chapter three, the whole Jesus Nicodemus conversation about the spirit, about being born again. You see it in John chapter five, I believe, or maybe it's six. No, I think it's five. You see it, oh, where else? Well, you see it in Galatians. I mean, you see it all throughout the New Testament, really. You see it in the book of Acts, or in Luke Acts, when Jesus, you know, breathed the spirit on the believers, and then they are empowered by the Holy Spirit at Pentecost through the coming of the Holy Spirit

to fulfill the, uh, uh, prophecy of Joel where, um, anyway, I'm getting off track. So, um, yeah, you do see a fresh new work of the Holy Spirit in the, in the New Testament in terms of salvation, uh, to empower people to do what they couldn't do in the Old Testament. The shape of salvation, the expectations of salvation is very similar between the Old and New Testament. But the one big point, well, one of the points of discontinuity is that we now have the Holy Spirit to empower us to actually have faith, to actually obey Yahweh. So, my dear Patreon questioner, and I know who you are. It was so good to see you a few weeks ago in San Francisco.

And this is such a, I'm already taking almost 15 minutes to answer your two-sentence question, but your two-sentence question is a very complex one. And so it deserves a complex, thorough answer. And even my answer, I'm already thinking back on all that I said in the last 15 minutes. And I'm like, you know, each one of those points I made could require a lot more unpacking. So, but we got to move on. The show must go on. So let's move on to the next question. I hope that one, that response is helpful. This question is actually piggybacking on the previous question about Old Testament saints and salvation.

This questioner says, I second the question on heaven and the Old Testament. Did an afterlife even exist for people who lived in the Old Testament era? The Old Testament references I'm familiar with only alludes to an afterlife. Why is this? And did God have expectations for Gentiles and could they be saved in the Old Testament era? My goodness, you guys are asking questions that have required full books to be written to address. So here we go again with a relatively short response. relatively short response. I'm going to say the Old Testament. Well, let me say it like this.

There's a difference between asking a question, did an afterlife exist during the Old Testament period versus did God reveal specifics, thoughts about the afterlife through the Old Testament. You see the difference there? There's a difference between something just simply ontologically existing during that time period versus that thing, in this case, the afterlife, being revealed to people during the Old Testament time period. So did an afterlife exist? I'm going to say yes. Was an afterlife in all the details we now know about it through the New Testament,

which isn't actually a lot, by the way. We don't know a lot about the afterlife, even in the New Testament. But what we do know in the New Testament about the afterlife, much of that was not revealed to the Old Testament saints. You don't see hardly anything about the afterlife revealed through the Old Testament. You have two clear statements about the resurrection, some kind of end time resurrection of the righteous. It comes in Isaiah 26 verse 19 and Daniel chapter 12 verses two to three. These are fairly, I mean, if yeah, chronologically, these are fairly late. Isaiah was written around, um, well, uh, early seventh century, so 600s BC. Make sure I got that right.

Yeah. Because Sennacherib's invasion, which is recorded in Isaiah, yeah, 701 BC. So yeah, it was written shortly after that. So the Isaiah 2619 reference, that's fairly early, but still, yeah, it's later than a lot of other events in the Old Testament. The Daniel reference is even later than that. That comes in at the very earliest during the exilic period in 500 BC. If Daniel is the author of chapter 12, lots of debates about that.

In fact, most biblical scholars would date Daniel to the second century BC. I don't know if you know that. I still hold to an early date, but it doesn't, I don't, to me, it's, I can kind of go back and forth on that. But I would lean towards an early date for Daniel. Anyway, that's relatively insignificant for your question. So, so those two references clearly talk about a resurrection of the righteous who will then have, at least according to Daniel 12, two and three, they'll be resurrected from the dead and they'll receive eternal life. Um, you have, other than that, you have kind of a strange passage about the unrighteous going down into the, how do you translate it, the netherworld. It's kind of like a Hades in between kind of existence. And this passage is filled with metaphor and hyperbole and imagery,

and I'm not sure what's literal, what's not, but it seems to refer to some kind of quasi-shadowy existence, maybe for some unrighteous kings. You know, like, I just don't know. You read the passage and you're just kind of scratching your head, not sure what to make of it. You have several statements throughout the Psalms that could be taken as vague, not so clear references to some kind of existence beyond the grave. You have references to Sheol that often comes up. Now, Sheol can mean several different things. Sometimes Sheol is just a synonym for death. several different things. Sometimes Sheol is just a synonym for death. Sometimes Sheol is, refers to just some kind of shadowy existence for both believers and unbelievers. Like it's a neutral place. Other times Sheol is used more negatively to refer to a place where those who

haven't followed Yahweh go. Super ambiguous, super unclear super shadowy we just don't know a whole lot and that's what we have that's what we have in the Old Testament the Old Testament primarily as well for those um well some of my Patreon supporters I just did a um a two-part series on the Annihilation View of Hell and so you remember when we're talking about the focus of the Old Testament was not on an afterlife existence for non-believers or even believers, really. I mean, again, you do have some statements, you know, talk about resurrection, but for the non-believer, for the unbeliever, for the unrighteous, whatever, the Old Testament talks very frequently, dozens and dozens and dozens of passages about just some sort of final judgment, final destruction, final, you know, crushing or

annihilating of the wicked without reference, but it's more of like a this worldly, like God's going to return. He's going to bring his people back from exile and he's going to invade the world on some level, Habakkuk 3 and he's going in Psalm 18 and other passages, and he's going to punish the wicked and reward the righteous. But it's a very kind of this worldly invasion, if you will. That's the, by far the dominant focus of the Old Testament. So, lots of ambiguity in what's revealed about the so-called afterlife in the Old Testament. We don't have a lot to go on. And what we do have to go on is not super clear. So, the Old Testament saint typically didn't go through life with this kind of, how do I get to heaven? Or what's going to happen when you die. The whole like evangelism explosion from D. James Kennedy, God bless his heart,

would not have worked in the Old Testament. It would have been confusing. It would have been like just, you know, if you were to die today and stand before God, like that just didn't, what do you mean die and go stand before God? Like I'm waiting for God to return and there will be a judgment, but it's very this worldly, you know, and if I die before God returns, I don't really know what's going to happen. I just go to Sheol and who knows how God's going to work that out. It would be the kind of perspective that an Old Testament saint would have.

There just hasn't been a lot revealed to them. However, I would say, yes, the afterlife did exist. And according to passages like Luke 16, the rich man and Lazarus parable. Even passages like, this was a little bit tough, but 2 Peter 2, 4, Jude 6, 7, something like that. Where you do have kind of this sense that even in the Old Testament, that there was, that people did go somewhere. Were they conscious, waiting in some sort of conscious state, waiting for the resurrection when God returned? Maybe. Were they unconscious? Is it just kind of a soul sleep? Yeah, maybe that too. We're just, we just don't know a whole lot. We don't have a lot to go on. What we do know,

even from a couple of verses in the Old Testament and many, many passages in the New Testament, is that there will be a final resurrection of the just and the unjust. It will face judgment and believers will go away into the new creation and receive eternal life. And non-believers will be put to death. I'll just leave it at that and let it sit for a second. So did God have expectations for Gentiles and could they be saved in the Old Testament era? Absolutely. We see several examples of non-Jews getting saved. How do you get saved? You become part of the covenant of the Old

Testament. You can become part of the covenant family. You obey the law. You have faith in Yahweh, which issues, again, going back to my previous question, which issues in obedience. And so you see examples of this with Rahab and, and gosh, what's her name? Ruth. And Ruth is actually a classic text for this. Your God will be my God, where you lodge, I will lodge, your people will be my people. That is kind of an Old Testament. This is Ruth chapter one. This is kind of an Old Testament for spiritual laws conversion experience in Ruth chapter one. Your God will be my God, your people, my people. I'm going to go to your land. I'm going to lodge where you lodge. Like that is basically, you know, the Old Testament version of,

you know, sirs, what must I do to get saved? And, you know, the Acts 16 Philippian jailer thing. You're God, oh my God, I'm going to live in your land and be part of your covenant family. And we do see examples of Gentiles being part of that. You do see other kind of extreme, strange examples of like the whole town of Nineveh getting converted and not, you know, we don't really know what that looks like or means. They just said, we repent from slapping people with fishes, you know, and that's all we know. It's just like, that's just, they stopped hitting people with mackerels.

And for those of you who don't know VeggieTales, then I apologize for that, but I'm going to let it sit because if you explain too much, then it's no longer funny. Yeah, so that's kind of, for a Gentile to get saved in their own Gentile community, Gentile nation outside the land of Israel and not sort of coming to the land of Israel and being part of, you know, worship at the temple and all these things like that. That's just really odd. We don't see that frequently apart from the book of Jonah in the Old Testament. To be a Gentile convert meant you come to the land.

You basically take on the Old Covenant. You become part of the Old Covenant family. You do see prophecies, especially in the book of Isaiah, all throughout the book of Isaiah about God in some future time, you know, he's going to usher in all these Gentiles and the nations are going to come worship Yahweh. And then, of course, you see that happening in the New Testament. The book of Isaiah looks forward to a time of massive ingathering of Gentiles.

But a lot of that is kind of looking forward to the future, not something that happens very frequently in the Old Testament, even though, again, we do see pictures of Gentiles getting saved under the Old Covenant. Okay, next question, Grace and Truth 1.0, chapter 3, where I talk about, well, you'll see what I talk about according to this question. I'm a pastor who officiates weddings and flexed a few times a few years back to do weddings between Christians and non-Christians, or I guess to say a Christian and a non-Christian. He did a few of these weddings. But now I see my refusal to do same-sex weddings might be a double standard or hypocritical. Preston, get me out of this. I love the honest and humble yet desperate plea. Unfortunately, my dear Patreon supporter, can't do it.

Yeah, I can't do it, man. I wish I can get you out of this, but yeah, that feels like a double standard to me. What I tell people is this, when I get the question about officiating a same-sex wedding or even attending a same-sex wedding, what I tell people is, let's just say attending a same-sex wedding. For me, man, that's a gray area. And I do lean towards attending,

but what I tell people, and it depends on many different factors, okay? And I'm just overly simplifying this question. And if you want to go to centerforfaith.com, go to resources, I have a whole very long free paper on can Christians attend a same-sex wedding? You can hear my thoughts on that or read my thoughts on that. And I think there's a lot of several other questions you should ask before you even answer that question. But what I, here's where I'm going with this. The main thing I tell people is whatever your sort of personal policy is, just be consistent. Like if you refuse to attend, you know, weddings that don't, that aren't faithful to what a wedding should be according to scripture, then just make sure you're consistent. Because while the Bible does talk about marriage in terms of, you know, male and female,

I was, my mind was going one direction, my mouth was going to the other. While the Bible does say marriage is between a man and a woman, that same-sex relationships are sin, it also says that Christians shouldn't marry non-Christians. And it also says that there are certain divorces and remarriages that are also unbiblical. So whatever your policy is, if you're like, I only attend weddings that are biblical, that are faithful to a Christian vision for what marriage should be, then just make sure you're consistent. And I say the same thing about officiating a wedding. Now on officiating, I, if you believe in a traditional view of marriage, I don't think that's a great area to me. I don't see any real valid argument that a pastor would officiate a same-sex wedding if he doesn't

believe that that's an actual marriage. Like to me, that does seem like a, uh, just something that's just super inconsistent. But what I tell people, and usually when I say that, most people agree, I don't, I don't get a lot of pushback for that, but then I turned right around and say that, but here's the thing, make sure that you only officiate weddings that you can put your blessing on. I mean, cause that's what you're doing. If you're officiating the wedding, you are standing between heaven and earth and saying, I am mediating God's blessing on this marriage. So I don't think we should do that on any marriage that we're like, yeah, I don't believe in this marriage. Yeah, this isn't a legitimate marriage. Or yeah, I don you have gotten yourself in a bit of a bind. And yeah, I would say if you don't officiate same-sex weddings, then community or people that are, you know, maybe close to you or whatever. So if two non-Christians came, well, whatever, I'm getting lost in the weeds here.

But yeah, two non-Christians, I would say, is fine. And two Christians, you know, if you can put your blessing on that marriage, and that's fine too. Now here's, so let me just speak directly to this questioner, because he's a friend of mine. And again, I saw you in San Francisco too, and really appreciate you coming out to that event and supporting me and the event itself. And it was awesome seeing you. Here's my, while I do think that this is a double standard, uh, take heart. We all have double standards. So, and we're all on a journey.

We're all, we all mess up and we all kind of, you know, look back at something we did or whatever and say, yeah, you know, I think I need to either not do this or start doing this or whatever. So don't beat yourself up, uh, at all. I think that, um, just the fact that you're asking this question publicly on a podcast as a pastor is amazing. So hats off to you. I keep wanting to say your name, but I'm going to withhold your name. We are all, and I mean all, like all humans have inconsistencies in our life.

And I know the church often gets tagged as being hypocritical and inconsistent, and we are, okay? Guess what? So is everybody else. And this is something that, especially in the last few years, it's been horrible. It's horrible. And yet, well, it's been bad to see all the junk come out in Hollywood and in politics and, you know, people saying, believe all women. And then they get accused of some sex scandal. And then they're like, except for that woman, you know, or, you know, it's just almost comical. The moral police at Hollywood, you know, it's like they try to ride this like moral high ground, calling out all the horrible, judgmental, intolerant people. And then all these all be trying to align our lives with what we say. And if anybody thinks they're above that, if anybody thinks that they have the moral high ground to be able to call out everybody else because they're squeaky clean, then that's just, that's a terrible spot to be in. And it exists inside and especially as we've seen the last few years, very much outside the church.

Everybody is living a double standard on some level. And the key is going back to you, dear questioner. Do you recognize it? Are you seeking to live more congruently with how you, with your confession. Next question. I have questions about backsliding. I grew up a very fundamentalist. It was taught very strongly that you can't lose your salvation, but the pastor did talk about backsliding. I could list passages here that would come into the discussion, but I'm sure you know them better than me. This came up most recently into my question when reading Romans 11 about us being grafted in, but if we

stop trusting, we could be cut off. It's a great passage. I'm glad, you know, as you're, as I was first reading this question and I kind of knew where it was going to go about backsliding, I always think Romans 11 is a really, a really big one in this, in this conversation. I'm also thinking about the parable of the sowers of the seeds. And the answer I've gotten mostly is that those people never were Christians to begin with, but that doesn't seem to always fit. To make it personal, I have a 23-year-old niece who at the age of 12 became a believer in her early teen years, was very much in love with Jesus and wanted to be a missionary and witness tons, et cetera. Now she says she's agnostic, doesn't believe in God, vehemently opposes Christianity,

and I have a hard time believing she was never a Christian because I watched her grow for so many years. If she were to die today, where would she go? Well, I can't. Let me just begin there. I don't know. There's no way I could venture to say one way or another, and even if I knew her, I don't, uh, there's no way I could, I could venture to say one way or another. And even if I knew here, I just, I don't, Ooh, I just get really nervous about giving an answer to one's eternal destiny. Um, what I can say is here's what scripture says, um, to the best of my understanding and show you where I think it says it and lets you, you know, work through that and then leave the rest up to God. So I, let me just start with a few personal things here, I guess. I, yeah, I grew up with a really strong can't lose your salvation way of thinking. And I would still embrace that loose, loosely in

the sense of I'm not committed to it at all costs, that you can't lose salvation, I would say that that is, as I read scripture, that seems to be the more dominant thread or emphasis in terms of this question. If you actually are genuinely saved, can you lose that salvation? And some say yes, some say no. And I think the people that say no have more biblical grounds to go on. That's where I'm at. But if I was good to dig into this question more thoroughly, I'm very open to changing my view if I see more biblical evidence on the other side that you can lose your salvation. And there's many really, really good scholars on both sides of this, obviously. And there's passages. So when I read Ephesians 1, obviously. So, um, and, and there's passages. Okay. So you,

when I read Ephesians one, I'm like, oh, it seems like we're sealed with the Holy spirit. And that can't, you know, that's not going to be undone. When I read, um, a lot of passages about the spirit, like, like Romans eight and other passages. Um, I see a lot of eternal security or however you want to frame it there. But then I read, you know, Hebrews six and I'm like, gosh, it seems like that's, that's, you know, chalk went up in the favor of the loss of salvation camp. And I've got, then there are of course, there's responses to all these, well,

no Ephesians six isn't talking about somebody who's genuinely saved and so on and so forth. In my life, I have had several God off the chart, godly mentors. Several God off the chart, godly mentors. Um, in fact,

a lot of my mentors who nurtured my Christian faith aren't even Christians anymore. Like they're gone. Gonzo, not even like not Christians, but like one guy fled the country because he was, the feds were after him for doing a bunch of money laundering, money laundering, but just something with money that was really bad. So he had to leave the country.

Another mentor of mine ended up in prison. He actually came back and just amazing. Like, oh, so beautiful. Like his, he kind of departed for a while and then just hit rock bottom again. I mean, he had to kind of a double. Like he hit rock bottom as a teenager or whatever. He came to Jesus and he sold out for a long time and then just kept drifting away, drifting away and hit rock bottom again. Only this time it was like super like raw and authentic. And then now he's back. I've gone on mission trips. I'm thinking of a mission trip,

several mission trips where the gung-ho, zealous, sold-out believers, I mean, arms raised high in worship, eyes closed, belting out praises to God, when you talk to them, they're just all they can, they just ooze Jesus, right? That sounds kind of creepy, but you get what I'm saying. And they're no longer atheists, agnostics, hate Christianity. And so that's in my own personal life. If I was going to go on experience, I would say, absolutely, you can lose your salvation. These people were as genuine of a Christian as I've ever met. And now they're no longer walking in faith. The classic expression of can't lose your salvation is that, yes, you will have people that confess Christ.

Yes, you will have people that even follow Jesus externally for a little bit, but then at the end of the day, they were never genuinely saved. I mean, this really does go back to the parable that you referenced, the parable of the sower, where you do have some seed that fell upon, oh, what is it? Is it rocky? I sometimes always get these all mixed up. The rocky soil where the roots, where they received the joy, the word with joy, like immediately, you know, the plant sprang up, you know. But then because the roots weren't deep, it kind of withered away and they didn't persevere. And I think Jesus would say, therefore, they weren't genuinely followers. Like genuine followers persevere.

That's what it means to be a genuine follower is you persevere. You follow Jesus to the end. So I'm fine with the sort of way of framing it in terms of if you are genuinely saved, if the Holy Spirit is genuinely resurrected to you, I'm going off of, I never already talked about these passages, but Ezekiel 37 and Romans chapter eight, if the spirit has raised you from the dead, um, that that spirit will not leave you. And if you give external signs of following Jesus, doing whatever, making a confession, maybe even doing Christian things, and then you fall away, then that means that maybe

the spirit didn't actually raise you from the dead. You just embrace this religion for a while, but didn't have the spirit inside of you. That's kind of the way that the, you can't lose your salvation people, um, frame it. And I think that's for the most part, good and helpful. Um, I don't, um, uh, yeah, that to me, that makes the most sense of all the data in the Bible, especially the New Testament. But I still want to hold that with an open hand because you do have certain passages that it just feels like, goodness, if this is all we had to go on, like the Hebrew 6 and other passages, it seems like you can lose your salvation. But maybe they're just losing their confession,

if that means anything. I think 1 John 2, I think it was verse 14 or something, it says, you know, they went out from us because they never really were of us. If they were really of us, they would have remained with us. And he's talking about kind of the apostolic circle there, it seems to be. But I think that applies to this question too. 1 John 2, I think it's a really good analysis if they went out from us because they never really were truly of us. I'm thinking of Judas. I'm thinking of several of Paul's co-workers that left him and are now opposing the gospel. So that's where I'm at.

Again, I always come back to the Genesis 18, will not the judge of all the world do what is right? If she were to die today, where would she go? I don't know, you don't know. She doesn't know, but God knows. And I know it's cliched, but I think it's very helpful that I think that is where our trust needs to be in. Not we shouldn't trust in they made a confession when they were five, or I know this is hard for parents.

Well, no, my son, my daughter, they were sold out for Jesus. And I know they're not, you know, they hate Jesus right now, and they're not a Christian, and they're an atheist and whatever. But I know they made that confession, and they try to put that hope in their sort of confession or put hope in. But you just biblically just can't do that. Like the Bible is clear that people can make a confession and then later deny it. Like that's not, my hope's not in that confession. My hope is in God. My hope is in the judge of all the world who will do what is right. Next question. Let's see,

what happened to your home church? I'm not sure if you feel comfortable talking about it. Uh, but it was so interesting to me having gone through multiple church splits, feeling jaded and a little church homeless. Anyway, uh, love to know more if, if you're willing to talk. Okay. Um, I haven't talked about this. I've talked about this to my Patreon on my Patreon podcast in the past, but I haven't talked about it too much in the public podcast.

But yeah, so a year, let's see, how long ago is it? Was it two years ago? I think it was two years ago. Two years ago? Maybe a year and a half ago? Me and some friends planted a house church in the vein of Francis Chan's model in San Francisco. And let me just give you, I just got to give you a broad brush. Basically, we were having a hard time landing at a church. And as many of you know, I have battled the de-churched kind of tendencies for a while.

And I don't want to get into all that. I mean, I've done, I've talked about this a lot on the podcast, so you can go back and look at previous episodes on why that is and what I feel like church should be. And it's taken me on a long journey. And if you can read about it in my book, Go, Bringing Discipleship to the Front Lines of the Faith, I think it's a title. I don't know. And that book really outlines my sort of vision for what church should be. I think it's kind of mistitled. It sounds like a missionary, you know, small group study or something. But it's, yeah, it's kind of my church manifesto of what I think church can and should be. And so I've battled that constantly. So I was a year and a half ago,

I was in a really kind of de-churched stage, not really resonating with the model of most churches, if you will, and feeling very much like, you know, showing up at a church on Sunday morning and why are we doing this? And is there a better, is this the best use of our time, energy, money, and spiritual gifts, not talents, but spiritual gifts, and is this what we should be doing? A community of called out saints on a mission to turn the world upside down, to embody a better vision for what it means to be human on earth, to be lovers of the poor,

to be a multicultural community? Are we testifying that we are storming the gates of hell and bringing heaven to earth in all these rich biblical themes? Are we embodying heaven on earth? Are we living radically? Do we know each heaven on earth? Are we living radically? Do we know each other authentically? Are we demonstrating community? Are we being the church? If we were to close our doors tomorrow, would anybody around us care? These kind of things.

And I just, yeah, I think through those things and have a hard time sometimes with how some models of church go or kind of the Sunday morning routine. So it was in that context that me and some friends started a house church. And it was, I still, the vision we had for that is still what I would, and I'll say it this way, what I would prefer. I am not a place where I'm like, you know what, I'm tired of critiquing the church. I don't think any one model does it. You can have a house church model that there's a bunch of relationally awkward people that don't ask good authentic questions and they're relationally, it's a train wreck. So just gathering in a home and not paying a pastor doesn't mean guarantee you're going to have authentic community, okay? Or a great mission. Like you can just be,

yeah, it can be a mess, like every church can be a mess. Every church is going to battle being a mess. Every church is going to battle being on mission. Every church is going to battle getting into authentic community with each other. Our church was hyper stripped down. For instance, we didn't even have chairs. I was like, hey, look, if you want to bring a chair, then bring a chair. If not, you can stand, whatever, but we're just going to meet and we're going to have a deep intellectual dialogue about various things in culture and in the Bible and Christianity. We're not going to make no apologies about going deep into conversational, dialogical teaching, or sometimes we might just pray. If somebody comes and says, my husband and wife,

you know, husband and wife, we got in a big fight. I'm going to be like, all right, let's just spend the whole morning praying for you. And let's just lay hands on you. And then maybe we'll go out to lunch or something, or maybe we'll just worship. Maybe we won't worship or sorry. Maybe we will sing worship songs. Maybe we won't sing worship songs. Maybe we'll just hang out and just, I don't know, just trying to cultivate a hyper simple, almost obnoxiously simple gathering that is intellectually honest and stimulating. We welcome anybody can come with our questions. You can believe in God, not believe in God. You can be Trinitarian, not be Trinitarian. You can be, but you can be part of this community of question askers and truth seekers. Anyway, sounds pretty cool, right? Some

of you are like, ew, I, right? Some of you are like, ew, I hate that church. Other people are like, oh my gosh, like that's my church. I think knowing my audience, if I know you guys at all, most of you or a lot of you would probably kind of resonate with the kind of church we started. But we closed the doors about six months later. I had to step down from leadership because I was doing way, way, way too much. I was going gangbusters with the Center for Faith, which is more than full time for me. And then trying to plant a church and lead the church, even though it was hyper simple. Even though it's hyper simple, it still takes mental and spiritual time and energy.

Time and energy that I simply didn't have. And I was on the brink of burning out. And so I stepped down from leadership. And then for various reasons, the church just kind of ended up dissolving. And so that was it. And then we got our butts back into a church. and then we got our butts back into a church. And so what we've concluded, what my wife and I family have concluded is right now is not the season for us to reimagine church. I still have those passions.

I still have an idea of what that can look like. Still have, I mean, I would be shocked if I lived past 50 and wasn't involved in some kind of church plant-ish. I don't even like the phrase church plant. If I wasn't part of some counter-cultural community of believers that gathered for the breaking of bread, for the apostles' teaching, for prayer, and for fellowship. And what we call that today is church. And I would be shocked if I wasn't part, at some point in my life, some part of a reimagined form of church. Right now is not that time. Right now I'm focused on helping Christian leaders think through questions about sexuality and LGBTQ plus related issues, people.

And I also have other passions that I want to do. But yeah, so right now is not the time. So we're out of church here in Boise. We love it. Our kids love it. And it's been going great. So no more home church. All right, that'll do it.

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