One area of disagreement among
Christians concerns falling away from the faith, also known as apostasy. Some
say that God will never allow a genuine, born-again believer to apostatise and
finally end up in hell. Others say that this does sometimes happen.
Personally, I much prefer the view that
genuine Christians do sometimes apostatise. I think this view fits best with
the overall teaching of the Bible.
AN IMPORTANT PASSAGE
An important passage on this topic is
James 5:19-20, where James says the following:
“19 My brothers, if any among you strays from the truth, and someone turns him back, 20 let him know that whoever turns a sinner from the error of his way will save his life from death and cover a multitude of sins.” (Holman Christian Standard Bible)
In what follows, I will argue that this
passage is a very strong piece of biblical evidence that genuine Christians do
sometimes fall away from the faith and lose salvation.
The discussion will proceed in two
stages.
In the first stage, I will argue that
in this passage James almost certainly refers to a class of people who move
from a state of being saved to a state of being unsaved, i.e., they lose
salvation. At this stage I will not yet be asking whether James is teaching that
such people actually exist or if he is just referring to a hypothetical class
of people.
In the second stage, I will argue that the
class of people James refers to in this passage is not just hypothetical but that
such people do actually exist.
DOES JAMES REFER TO A CLASS OF PEOPLE WHO
LOSE SALVATION?
Let’s begin, then, by considering whether
in this passage James refers to a class of people who lose salvation. As I have
just said, at this point we are not asking if he is referring to people who
really exist or to a hypothetical group of people. We are simply asking if the class
of people he has in mind lose salvation.
Actually, in this passage James refers
to an individual person who strays from the truth and is then turned back, so
for the time being we will stick to thinking about a single person.
In this passage, then, James refers to
a person whom he describes as a sinner, and who also strays from the truth, is
turned back by someone, is turned from the error of his way, has his life saved
from death, and has his multitude of sins covered.
A timeline
If we think about a timeline for what happens
to this person, it is clear that there are three significant points on the timeline:
First, there is the state that the
person is in before he strays from the truth. I will call this the person’s initial
state.
Second, there is the state that the
person is in after he strays from the truth but before he is turned back. I
will call this the person’s post-straying state.
And third, there is the state that the person
is in after he has been turned back. I will call this the person’s final state.
We need to ask whether this person is
saved or unsaved in his initial, post-straying and final states.
The person’s final state
Let’s think first about the final state
of this person, his state after he has been turned back. Is he saved or unsaved
at this point on the timeline?
Note how his final state involves him having
his life saved from death and his multitude of sins covered. This must mean
that after he has been turned back, he is in a state of having been saved from
his sins. So there is no doubt whatsoever that the final state of this person
is one of being saved.
The person’s post-straying state
Next, let’s think about the person’s post-straying
state, his state after he has strayed from the truth but before he has been
turned back. Is he saved or unsaved at this point on the timeline?
Note that when this person is turned back
and is turned from the error of his way, James says that his life is saved from
death and his multitude of sins is covered. This clearly implies that one or other
of two things must be true before this person is turned back, i.e., in his post-straying
state:
Either (a) his life is not saved from
death and his multitude of sins is not covered, which would mean that he is
unsaved.
Or (b) he is currently saved but going
down a road that will lead in the future to his life not being saved from death
and his multitude of sins not being covered if he continues down this road. In
other words, he is currently saved but going down a road that will lead to him
being unsaved if nothing changes.
These are the only two possible ways of
understanding the person’s post-straying state. Nothing else would make any sense
at all of what James says.
I will come back to these two
possibilities later.
The person’s initial state
Now let’s think about the person’s initial
state, his state before he strays from the truth. Is he saved or unsaved at
this point on the timeline?
There are some who say that this person
is a nominal Christian, i.e., a Christian in name only, and that he is
therefore unsaved in his initial state.
There are, however, no good reasons for
identifying this person as a nominal Christian, and a number of reasons for
identifying him as a genuine, saved believer:
(1) Note how James starts this passage
by saying, “My brothers,” and then says, “if any among you.” Most naturally, we
would expect someone among the brothers to be a genuine, saved Christian and not
just a nominal Christian, although this point is admittedly far from conclusive.
(2) This person strays from the truth. This
must mean that his starting point involved being at the place of truth. This
sounds much more naturally as if he is saved than just a nominal Christian.
(3) If James is referring to a nominal
Christian in the church, the way he has worded things is very strange. If this
is what he meant, it would have been so much easier for him simply to have said
something like:
“My brothers, if any among you shows signs of not being
genuinely saved and one leads him to the truth, let him know that whoever turns
a sinner from the error of his way will save his life from death and cover a multitude
of sins.”
(4) I noted above that in his post-straying
state the person must be either unsaved or going down a road that will lead to
being unsaved if he continues on this road.
Importantly, the passage gives a strong
impression that the reason why the person is in the mess he is in in his post-straying
state is precisely because he has strayed from the truth. In other
words, the passage seems strongly to imply that before he strayed from the truth,
he was in a saved state. This is a very strong point.
(5) Note how the text says in v. 19 that
the person is “turn[ed] back” when he
moves from his post-straying state to his final state. When someone is turned
back to something, this suggests that he is getting back to the state he was in
to begin with. So it makes sense to think that this person’s final state is the
same as his initial state.
Because, as we have seen, his final
state is one of being saved, we would therefore expect this to be true of his initial
state too.
It is true that the Greek verb here,
epistrepho, literally means “turn” without any specific connotation of “back.”
Nevertheless, it does seem good to understand the meaning in this context to be
“turn back” or “bring back” as nearly all English Bible translations translate.
In view of the combined weight of these
points, we should have no hesitation in saying that the initial state of the
person James is referring to is almost certainly one of being saved. It is almost
certain that before this person strays from the truth he is saved.
More thoughts on the post-straying
state
I have already noted that in the person’s
post-straying state, i.e., after he has strayed from the truth but before he is
turned back, he must either (a) be unsaved or (b) be saved but going down a
road that will lead in the future to being unsaved if he continues on this road.
Although James refers to a single
person in this passage, let’s expand his thought to refer to a group of people who
stray from the truth and reach the post-straying state. I need to do this to
allow for potential differences in the salvation status of people in the post-straying
state.
So, if we think about a group of people
who stray from the truth, there are three possible options for how we
understand their salvation status in their post-straying state:
Either (1) all those in the post-straying
state are unsaved.
Or (2) some of those in the post-straying
state are unsaved, and some are saved but going down a road that will lead to them
being unsaved if nothing changes.
Or (3) all those in the post-straying
state are saved but going down a road that will lead to them being unsaved if
nothing changes.
If (1) or (2) is correct, then there
are people in the post-straying state who are unsaved.
However, importantly, even if option
(3) is the correct one, it is very implausible to imagine that none of those
who reach the post-straying state would continue down the road until they were
unsaved. In other words, the text seems quite strongly to suggest that some who
stray from the truth don’t end up being turned back and don’t have their lives
saved from death and their sins covered. So even if, as in option (3), none of
those in the post-straying state are yet unsaved, it makes sense to think that
some of them will continue down the road they are on and become unsaved.
This means that, regardless of whether
(1) or (2) or (3) is the correct way of understanding the post-straying state, the
text envisages people who are unsaved after straying from the truth.
So, given, as we have seen, that those in
the initial state are almost certainly saved, the text almost certainly
envisages people losing salvation.
Summing up
In conclusion, then, James is almost
certainly referring in this passage to a class of people who move from a saved
to an unsaved state. In other words, it is almost certain that at least some of
those who stray from the truth in the way James describes lose salvation.
DO THESE PEOPLE ACTUALLY EXIST?
Next,
we need to ask if the class of people who lose salvation in this way is just a
hypothetical group of people or whether such people actually exist.
Reasons to think that they exist
There are a number of reasons to think that they do exist.
First, to suppose that James is referring
merely to a hypothetical situation that never actually occurs looks a very
unnatural way of taking his words.
Instead, he seems to imply that what he
refers to in this passage will happen from time to time. He seems to think that
now and again Christians will see those who have lost salvation or are on the
road to losing salvation and that they need to try to do something about it.
Nothing in the passage suggests that it should be taken as something merely
hypothetical.
Second, if James’s concern is about
nominal, non-genuine Christians in the church, then he has chosen a very strange
way of expressing himself. Why would he say that a nominal Christian strays
from the truth? Instead, we would expect him to say what he means and write
something like:
“My brothers, if any among you shows
signs of not being genuinely saved and one leads him to the truth, let him know
that whoever turns a sinner from the error of his way will save his life from
death and cover a multitude of sins.”
Third, if James’s concern is to try to
stop genuine, born-again Christians sinning and he has no real expectation that
any of them could fall away and lose his salvation, again, he has chosen a very
strange way of expressing himself. Why would he say that a Christian who strays
and is then turned back has his life saved from death if he didn’t
believe there was any danger of this person losing salvation?
Fourth, if James is just trying to warn
genuine Christians about what would happen hypothetically if they fell away
from the faith, although he expects his readers to know that God won’t allow
them to fall away, then the warning seems pointless. A warning is a psychological
thing, and it is very difficult to understand how a warning is supposed to psychologically
impact people if they know that God won’t allow the thing that is warned
against to happen.
Summing up
It seems, then, that James did expect
his readers to understand that the class of people he refers to, those who lose
salvation, does actually exist.
CONCLUSION
All things considered, therefore, this
passage is a very strong piece of biblical evidence that it really is possible for
genuine Christians to fall away from the faith and lose salvation, and that
this does sometimes happen.
Importantly too, there is nothing in
the rest of the book of James that looks like it might conflict with this conclusion
at all.
So we can say that the book of James stands
as a very strong piece of evidence that it is possible for genuine Christians to
fall away from the faith and lose salvation, and that this does sometimes
happen.
For a broader discussion of
this topic, see my article:
See also my articles:
