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 and miss out on final salvation. I think this view fits best with the overall
teaching of the Bible.
AN IMPORTANT PASSAGE
An important passage on this topic is Romans 11:16-24,
where the apostle Paul says the following to the Gentile Christians among his
readers:
“16 Now if the firstfruits offered up are holy, so is the whole batch. And if the root is holy, so are the branches.
17 Now if some of the branches were broken off, and you, though a wild olive branch, were grafted in among them and have come to share in the rich root of the cultivated olive tree, 18 do not brag that you are better than those branches. But if you do brag—you do not sustain the root, but the root sustains you.
19 Then you will say, ‘Branches were broken off so that I might be grafted in.’
20 True enough; they were broken off by unbelief, but you stand by faith. Do not be arrogant, but be afraid. 21 For if God did not spare the natural branches, He will not spare you either.
22 Therefore, consider God's kindness and severity: severity toward those who have fallen but God's kindness toward you—if you remain in His kindness. Otherwise you too will be cut off.
23 And even they, if they do not remain in unbelief, will be grafted in, because God has the power to graft them in again. 24 For if you were cut off from your native wild olive and against nature were grafted into a cultivated olive tree, how much more will these—the natural branches—be grafted into their own olive tree?”
(Scripture readings in this article are from the Holman
Christian Standard Bible.)
In what follows, I will argue that this passage is a strong piece of biblical evidence that genuine
Christians sometimes fall away from the faith and miss out on final salvation.
The discussion will proceed in three stages.
First, I will say something about the symbols in
this passage.
Second, I will argue that in this passage Paul is
warning genuine Christians against falling away from the faith and ending up in
hell. At this point I will not yet be
asking whether this actually ever happens to genuine Christians. I will simply be arguing that Paul warns genuine
Christians against it.
Third, I will argue that the
fact that Paul warns genuine Christians against finally missing out on
salvation quite strongly suggests that they do sometimes fall away and end up
in hell.
SYMBOLS IN THIS PASSAGE
Throughout this passage Paul uses the metaphor of a
cultivated olive tree, including references to the branches and root of this
tree. He also mentions a wild olive
branch (v. 17) that is grafted into the cultivated olive tree and that comes
from a wild olive tree (v. 24), and in verses 17-24 he addresses this (formerly)
wild olive branch directly. Before we go
any further, I need to say something about what all these things symbolise, giving
no more detail than will be necessary for the following discussion.
The cultivated olive tree
First, there should be no doubt that the cultivated
olive tree symbolises the saved people of God, both those in pre-Christian
times and those living in the Christian era.
To begin with, this perfectly fits the context of
chapters 9-11, where Paul is discussing how the rejection of Christ by a
majority of ethnic Jews in his day fits with the salvation purposes of God.
Importantly too, the cultivated olive tree can’t be
a symbol of ethnic Israel as a whole. Paul
refers to Jews who rejected Christ as branches that are broken off the tree
(verses 17, 19-20), i.e., that cease to belong to the tree. However, Jews who rejected Him didn’t cease
to be ethnic Jews. So this tree can’t
symbolise ethnic Israel as a whole.
Nor can the tree be a symbol of saved people only in
the Christian era, because the tree is envisaged existing before the Christian
era began. When Paul refers in verses
17, 19-20 to branches that have been broken off, the timing of this breaking
off is understood to have been when Jews, confronted with the gospel, rejected
Christ. This implies that the tree
itself already existed before the coming
of the Christian gospel.
We should have no hesitation, then, in saying that
the cultivated olive tree symbolises the saved people of God in both
pre-Christian and Christian times.
The root of the cultivated olive
tree
Second, there is some debate about what the root (verses
17-18) of the cultivated olive tree symbolises.
The majority scholarly opinion, which I share, is
that it refers to Abraham and the patriarchs of Israel. This would fit well with Paul’s description
of God’s saved people as a spiritual kind of Israel in Rom 2:25-29; 9:6 and in
some of his other letters too.
For our purposes, however, the precise meaning of
the root of this tree is not that important.
The wild olive tree
Third, the wild olive tree (v. 24) surely
symbolises unsaved Gentiles. There is
nothing else that it could reasonably be.
The branches
Fourth, it makes sense to think that each branch
symbolises an individual person. Each natural
branch of the cultivated olive tree that is attached to the trunk of this tree
symbolises a saved Jew. Each natural
branch of the cultivated olive tree that is broken off this tree symbolizes an
unsaved Jew. And each branch of the wild
olive tree that is grafted into the cultivated olive tree symbolises a saved
Gentile.
This means that the formerly
wild olive branch, now grafted into the cultivated olive tree, that Paul
addresses in verses 17-24 symbolises each individual Gentile Christian.
There are some, however, who claim that the ingrafted
branch that Paul addresses in these verses symbolises not each individual
Gentile Christian but Gentile Christians as a whole.
Sometimes those who make this claim use the
following argument to try to support it:
Even in Paul’s day there would have been many more
saved people than the number of branches that would be found on a literal olive
tree. And today there are millions who
are saved. This means that if each
branch symbolises an individual saved person, we would have the absurd picture
of a tree with an impossibly large number of branches. Therefore, we should take the formerly wild
olive branch that is grafted into the cultivated olive tree as a symbol of the
mass of Gentile Christians as a whole.
This argument is very weak. There are a few points to make here:
(1) Biblical metaphors often allow for artistic
licence, and there is no need at all to expect the metaphorical olive tree to
correspond precisely to olive trees as they are found in real life. It is in any case very easy for us to grasp
the concept of a tree that has millions of branches.
(2) If we were to take the single formerly wild
olive branch as a symbol of Gentile Christians as a whole, we have a difficulty.
In verses 17, 19-20 Paul, referring to unsaved
Jews, says that multiple branches were broken off the cultivated olive
tree. Similarly, in verses 23-24, again
referring to these unsaved Jews, he says that multiple branches could potentially
be grafted back into this tree again.
If the single formerly wild olive branch in this
passage symbolised Gentile Christians as a whole, we would expect Paul to have
used a single branch to symbolise unbelieving Jews who were broken off or who
might be grafted in again. We wouldn’t
expect him to have symbolised one group of people as multiple branches and
another group of people as one branch.
The fact that he refers to multiple branches being
broken off or potentially being grafted back in suggests that each of these branches
symbolises an individual Jew. And if
each of these branches symbolises an individual Jew, we would expect the
formerly wild olive branch to symbolise an individual Gentile Christian.
(3) There is another difficulty with taking the
single formerly wild olive branch as a symbol of Gentile Christians as a whole.
In verses 20-21 Paul tells this branch to be afraid
lest it is broken off the cultivated olive tree.
This warning looks natural if it is directed to
each individual Gentile Christian.
However, it looks strange if directed to Gentile
Christians as a whole. Viewed in this
way, Paul would be speaking as if God might decide to suddenly remove salvation
from all Gentile Christians. But Paul
surely didn’t believe that God would actually do this or anything remotely like
it, so it is difficult to understand why he would want to phrase things in this
way.
All things considered, then, we do much better to understand
the formerly wild olive branch that Paul addresses in verses 17-24 as a symbol
of each individual Gentile Christian.
DOES PAUL WARN GENUINE CHRISTIANS
NOT TO LOSE SALVATION?
Now that I have said something about the symbols in
this passage, we are ready to turn to our first question:
In the passage does Paul warn genuine, saved
Christians not to fall away from the faith and finally end up in hell?
At this point we are not asking if this actually
ever happens to genuine believers. For
the time being, we are simply asking if he warns them against this.
Paul surely does give this
warning
Paul surely does warn genuine Christians not to
miss out on final salvation. There are a
few reasons for believing this:
(1) As I have already said, the cultivated olive
tree symbolises the saved people of God.
And as I have said too, the formerly wild olive branch, now grafted into
the cultivated olive tree, that Paul addresses in verses 17-24 surely
symbolises each individual Gentile believer.
So when Paul tells each ingrafted branch to be afraid in case God does
not spare it (verses 20-21), it makes sense to think that he is warning
genuine, saved Christians against losing salvation.
(2) We must take note of the clause “you stand by
faith” in v. 20 that Paul speaks to each ingrafted branch. Paul would hardly say this to people who he
didn’t really believe had saving faith.
(3) We should carefully
note too how in v. 22 Paul says that in
order to experience God’s kindness and to avoid being cut off, his readers must
remain in His kindness. But surely
only genuine, saved Christians would be told that they would have these benefits
by remaining as they already are.
We should have no hesitation, then, in saying that
in this passage Paul warns genuine, saved Gentile Christians against falling
away from the faith and finally ending up in hell.
An attempt to avoid the
conclusion
Although the passage seems so clearly to be warning
Christians against losing the salvation they already have, there are some who try
to avoid this conclusion.
One such attempt is based on the idea that I
mentioned earlier, that the formerly wild olive branch that Paul addresses in
verses 17-24 symbolises not each individual Gentile Christian but Gentile
Christians as a whole.
The argument goes in this way:
If we were to think that the formerly wild olive
branch symbolises each individual Gentile Christian, then it would be fair to
conclude that the passage is a warning to Gentile Christians not to lose
salvation. However, this branch doesn’t
symbolise each individual Gentile Christian.
It actually symbolises Gentile Christians as a whole. And Paul can’t have thought that God would actually
break off this branch, i.e., remove salvation from all Gentile Christians. This shows that Paul is using the metaphor
loosely without trying to make the details of the metaphor match the details of
the reality the metaphor is symbolising.
In fact, the image he has created of this branch potentially being
broken off is not supposed to be taken at face value. Instead, we should interpret this image as a warning to Gentile readers simply to make sure that they
have come to saving faith in the first place.
It is true that Paul uses the metaphor loosely. I have already said something about this when
I noted that Paul’s metaphorical olive tree has many more branches than would
be found on a literal olive tree.
It is true too that Paul can’t have thought that
God would remove salvation from all Gentile Christians.
Nevertheless, this argument fails. There are two points to make here:
(1) As we have seen, there are good reasons why the
branch should be understood to symbolise each individual Gentile Christian
rather than Gentile Christians as a whole.
(2) Even if, for the sake of argument, we were to
assume that the branch symbolises Gentile Christians as a whole, the effect of
the passage would surely be the same as if the branch symbolised each Gentile Christian. From the perspective of a reader of Romans,
any warning given to Gentiles as a group would be the same as a warning given
to each Gentile. So anyone who agrees
that if the branch symbolised each Gentile Christian then the warning is about
losing salvation, should also agree that if the branch symbolises Gentile
Christians as a whole then the warning would also be about losing salvation.
This attempt to claim that the passage is not a
warning against losing salvation therefore fails.
Another attempt to avoid the
conclusion
There is another way in which some try to avoid the
conclusion that the passage warns genuine Christians against losing salvation. The argument goes as follows:
In verses 17, 19-20 Paul refers to branches that
were broken off the cultivated olive tree.
This refers to ethnic Jews who fail to believe in Christ and are
therefore not included in the saved people of God. However, these Jews were never included
in the saved people of God. In terms of
the metaphor, this means that they were never really part of the olive tree. So Paul must be using the metaphor loosely without trying to make the details of the metaphor match
the details of the reality the metaphor is symbolising. Therefore, given that Paul can speak
about branches (i.e., Jews) being broken off the tree (i.e., the saved people
of God) who were never really part of the tree, he could easily be doing the
same in verses 20-21 regarding Gentiles.
This means that the warning Paul seems to give in this passage to
Gentile Christians against losing salvation could really be a warning to his
Gentile readers simply to make sure that they have a genuine faith in Christ in
the first place.
This argument also fails.
Again,
it is true, as I have already noted, that Paul uses the metaphor loosely.
I think it is true too that the metaphor is being
used loosely in the way described in this argument regarding ethnic Jews. I think that at least some of the unsaved
Jews that Paul describes as branches that have been broken off were never
really saved. This means that in terms
of the metaphor at least some of these branches were never really part of the
tree. I do think it is possible that
some Jews really did lose their salvation at the time they rejected Jesus as
Messiah. However, the point does seem to
stand that Paul refers to at least some branches (i.e., Jews) being broken off
the tree who he believes were never really part of the tree (i.e., the saved
people of God) in the first place. I
accept that.
However, the fact that Paul uses the metaphor
loosely in this way doesn’t mean that his warning to Gentile Christians against
being broken off the tree isn’t really a warning against losing salvation. There is a big difference between the Jews
who Paul says were broken off the tree and the Gentiles he warns against being broken
off the tree:
In verses 17, 19-20 Paul just gives a bare mention
of branches (i.e., Jewish unbelievers) being broken off the tree. He doesn’t give any more information about
these people. It is therefore not
difficult to take the image of being broken off imprecisely and think that some
or all of them were never really part of the tree, i.e., saved.
By contrast, when it comes to the Gentiles who
might potentially be broken off the tree, Paul gives much more than a bare
mention. Referring to his readers who
were in this category, he says in v. 20, “You stand by faith.” Surely this has
to be referring to genuinely saved believers.
He also says in v. 22 that in order to
experience God’s kindness and to avoid being cut off, his readers must remain
in His kindness, and surely only genuine, saved Christians would be told that they
would have these benefits by remaining as they already are.
It is therefore not possible to use the looseness
of the metaphor to argue that Paul is not really directing a warning to
genuinely saved Gentile believers against losing salvation.
Summing up
In view of all that we have seen, we can be
confident that the natural sense of this passage is the correct one. In it Paul is warning genuine, saved Gentile
Christians against falling away from the faith and missing out on final
salvation. And we can be sure that in
other contexts he would also have wanted to warn Jewish Christians in the same
way.
DOES THIS PASSAGE SUGGEST THAT
CHRISTIANS DO SOMETIMES FALL AWAY AND END UP IN HELL?
We are now ready to ask our next question:
Does the fact that Paul warns genuine Christians
against falling away and missing out on final salvation suggest that this does
sometimes happen?
Some say that the warning is to
genuine Christians yet God still never allows any of them to finally fall away
There are some Christians who would agree with my
conclusions so far in this article but who would still say that God never
allows a born-again believer to apostatise and end up in hell.
These believers rightly accept that Rom 11:16-24
contains a warning to genuine Christians against losing salvation. However, they say that God uses this warning
(and others in the Bible) as a means of keeping believers in the faith, and
that He always makes sure that this means succeeds.
Thinking through the logic of the
warning
We need to ask if this makes sense. Is it really plausible that Paul would warn
Christians against doing something that God would never allow to happen?
I think this would probably make sense if God never
allowed Christians to fall away but they were unaware that He never allowed
this. In this case, God could use
the fear of what would happen if they fell away to spur believers on to remain
in the faith, even though He would know that He wouldn’t allow them to fall
away.
However, those who say that God never allows
genuine Christians to apostatise are almost always clear that believers should
know that He will not allow them to apostatise. And they also (rightly) say that believers
should have assurance that they are saved at the present time. (Genuine Christians do often struggle with
assurance, but that is another issue.)
But if Christians know that they are currently
saved and that God will not allow them to apostatise, the warning in Rom
11:16-24 (along with other similar biblical warnings) becomes extremely
difficult to understand. If it is not
possible for a Christian to fall away and finally be lost, these texts are
warning us against doing something that we know God will never allow to
happen.
Let me give a comparison. Suppose you went to an airport perimeter
fence and saw the following sign:
WARNING! HUMAN
BEINGS, DO NOT GROW WINGS AND FLY UPWARDS OR
YOU MAY HIT AN AIRCRAFT.
If we saw a sign like this, we would think that
someone was trying to make a joke. We
couldn’t possibly take it seriously as a warning, because we know that the
thing we are warned against cannot possibly happen. 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 that thing cannot possibly happen.
If Christians know that God will never allow any genuine
believer to apostatise, the warning in Rom 11:16-24 against losing salvation is
closely similar to this hypothetical warning at an airport. Both would involve warnings against things
that we know can never happen, but this sort of warning looks bizarre to say
the least.
Summing up
It seems more than a little unlikely, then, that we
are supposed to think that Rom 11:16-24 warns Christians against doing
something that they know God will never allow to happen. Instead, we do much better to think that this
warning exists because God does sometimes allow born-again Christians to
apostatise and miss out on final salvation.
CONCLUSION
As an overall conclusion to our discussion, we can
say that Romans 11:16-24 is a strong piece of biblical evidence that genuine,
born-again Christians do sometimes fall away from the faith and end up in hell.
For a broader discussion of this topic, see my
article:
And see also my articles:
