Falling From Grace

Question: How do you harmonize the Calvinistic view of the perseverance of the saints with the Arminian belief that one may fall from grace?

If I understand the Calvinistic view, it does NOT teach the perseverance of the saints but the perseverance of the Saviour. While it teaches that the saints are utterly unreliable and might fall away any day or any hour, it also teaches that the Saviour is ever watchful and ever faithful. "Therefore He is also able to save to the uttermost those who come to God through Him, since He always lives to make intercession for them" (Hebrews 7:25). The Calvinist view teaches that the Saviour has pledged that those who believe in Him will never perish (John 10:28). He has given His word that He and His Father will keep us to the end and that no man is able to snatch us out of the hand of Himself and the Father (vv. 28-29).

This does not mean that if a man is born again and then returns to live in sin that he will not be lost forever. It means that Jesus Christ will see to it that the one who is born again will not go back and live in sin. He may fall into sin - he may fall into gross sin - but Jesus Christ has undertaken his recovery. He will go after the lost sheep until He find it (Luke 15:4). There is no warrant here for someone to continue in sin, saying, "I am a child of God and therefore cannot be lost". There is not comfort here whatsoever for such a person. If a person returns to living in sin an continues in sin, it is proof that he is not a child of God, is not saved, and never was regenerate. (1 John 2:19; 3:6; 5:18).

What the Arminians object to is not the doctrine of the faithfulness of the Saviour - that He will prove true even though we prove faithless. What they object to is a doctrine such as "once in grace, always in grace" that enables a man to go on sinning and seeking to justify himself by saying, "I have been saved; therefore, I have been in grace and am still in grace."

On the one hand, we need to be on our guard against the doctrine that gives us comfort in continuance in sin. On the other hand, we need to be on our guard against a distrust of Jesus Christ that makes us fear that sometime w will prove unfaithful and Jesus Christ will desert us. The position we ought to hold is the one held by the apostle Paul. He asserted, on the one hand, "I know whom I have believed and am persuaded that He is able to keep what I have committed to Him until that day" (2 Timothy 1:12). On the other hand, he was led to discipline his body (figuratively, to give his body a black eye) lest,  when he had preached to others, he himself should become disqualified (1 Corinthians 9:27).

~R. A. Torrey~