Reading Time: 4 minutesQuestion 07037 The phrase “eternal covenant” appears at several points in Scripture and raises an important question: what does it mean for a covenant to be described as eternal, and how does this concept relate to the broader storyline of God’s dealings with humanity? The answer reaches into the deepest foundations of biblical theology, touching…
Reading Time: 9 minutesQuestion 7052 Of all the words we use in the Christian life, faith is surely one of the most common and yet one of the most misunderstood. We sing about it, we preach about it, we’re told we need more of it, but what actually is it? Is it a feeling? A leap in the…
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: 4 minutesQuestion 07019 Few theological questions carry more pastoral weight than this one. For many believers, the fear that salvation might somehow be lost produces an exhausting, joyless religious life in which assurance is always conditional on recent performance. Scripture, read carefully, addresses this fear with remarkable directness, and the answer it gives is not a…
Reading Time: 3 minutesQuestion 07015 Sanctification is what God does in the believer after conversion. If justification answers the question of the believer’s standing before God, sanctification answers the question of their state, the actual moral and spiritual condition of their inner life. The two must be carefully distinguished; confusing them is the source of considerable theological muddle…
Reading Time: 3 minutesQuestion 07020 The question of whether a believer can lose their salvation is one of the most personally significant doctrinal questions a Christian can face. It touches the very nerve of assurance, and how it is answered shapes the whole tenor of the Christian life. Is the believer’s relationship with God genuinely permanent, or is…
Reading Time: 4 minutesQuestion Q07090 Every pastor encounters this pastoral challenge eventually: someone who has walked to the front of a church, raised a hand, prayed a sinner’s prayer, or signed a decision card on multiple occasions, yet whose life shows no discernible evidence that anything real happened. The temptation is to call them forward again, to repeat…
Reading Time: 4 minutesQuestion 7041 “The perseverance of the saints” is a technical term from Reformed and Calvinist theology where it forms the fifth point in what has become known as the five points of Calvinism. But the underlying question it addresses, whether genuine believers can lose their salvation and what the relationship is between present faith and…