Reading Time: 7 minutesQuestion 7005 Not all belief is saving belief. This is one of the most important distinctions a person can understand, for it has eternal consequences. James warns that even demons believe certain facts about God—and shudder (James 2:19). Yet demons are not saved. Their belief, whatever it is, does not constitute saving faith. What, then,…
Reading Time: 5 minutesQuestion 7010 At first glance, James 2:14-26 seems to contradict Paul’s teaching on justification by faith alone. James writes: “What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him?… So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead… You…
Reading Time: 6 minutesQuestion 7007 Philippians 2:12-13 is one of those passages that has puzzled believers and been misused by those who want to introduce works into salvation. Paul writes: “Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with…
Reading Time: 5 minutesQuestion 7008 Few passages in Scripture have generated more debate than Hebrews 6:4-6. The writer declares: “For it is impossible, in the case of those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, and have shared in the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the…
Reading Time: 3 minutesQuestion 06035 The word “backsliding” has an old-fashioned ring to it in some quarters, but the reality it describes is anything but historical. It names something that believers in every generation have experienced and that the biblical writers addressed with both pastoral honesty and theological seriousness. The Biblical Origins of the Term The word comes…
Reading Time: 3 minutesQuestion 07050 This question touches the foundations of Christian assurance, and it deserves a direct answer: no, a genuinely born-again believer cannot ultimately and finally fall away from salvation. But reaching that conclusion responsibly requires engaging honestly with the passages that have led many sincere people to a different answer. The Foundation of Eternal Security…
Reading Time: 3 minutesQuestion 11087 The phrase “forgive yourself” is frequently offered as pastoral advice to people struggling with guilt, shame, or regret. Its absence from Scripture is not a trivial observation. The framework a question uses determines the answer it receives, and the question of whether you need to forgive yourself places you as both the offended…
Reading Time: 4 minutesQuestion 07082 If legalism is the error of adding to what God requires, antinomianism is the error of subtracting from it. The word comes from the Greek anti (against) and nomos (law): the view that Christians are so thoroughly freed from the law by grace that the moral law has no ongoing relevance or binding…
Reading Time: 4 minutesQuestion 07071 The word legalism gets used in at least two quite different ways in contemporary Christianity. Sometimes it means what it should mean: the error of trying to earn righteousness before God through law-keeping, or of adding human rules to Scripture and binding consciences where God has not. Other times it is used as…
Reading Time: 3 minutesQuestion 07012 Salvation is the word Scripture uses for what God has done about the human predicament. It is not a religious concept invented by the church; it is the great answer to the great problem that runs through every page of the Bible from Genesis 3 onwards. The word itself means rescue, and it…