The following "Question" was asked by a member of the congregation at Grace Community Church in Sun Valley, California, and "Answered" by their pastor, John MacArthur Jr. It was transcribed by Brenda Rivera of Orlando, Florida from the tape, GC 1301-S, titled "Bible Questions and Answers Part 21."  A copy of the tape can be obtained by writing, Word of Grace, P.O. Box 4000, Panorama City, CA 91412 or by dialing toll free 1-800-55-GRACE. ©1982. All Rights Reserved.

Question

You mentioned once that you knew this man who was a real good Christian and he was a leader and he was one of the men that was on the panel that ordained you, do you remember saying that? And you said that he asked you the toughest questions to make sure that you towed the line, and were fundamentalist, and were O.K., and then you said that that man turned from the faith doctrinally and theologically. Did that man loose his salvation?

No, I don’t think he did and it’s hard for me to evaluate that and that ties in with the question that was asked earlier. It’s possible for a Christian to fall into sin and never really deal with that sin until the Lord disciplines. All of us have been disciplined by the Lord, right? And it’s just that if you protract that unrepentant spirit the ultimate discipline could come. 

So it’s possible for a Christian, to say to fall into sin and die before they ever get their act together. And somebody might sit back and say, “Well maybe that person was never saved” and you have every reason to say that…we don’t know. I mean a person who says they’re a Christian, enters into sin, never repents before they’re dead, there is no way to know, right? I mean because they are acting like an unbeliever, so there’s no way to know. 

However, when a person says they’re a Christian and then turns to an utter and absolute denial of the faith, that is evidence that they never were redeemed and they are apostatizing. 1 John 2:19 is a classification of those people, “They went out from us, because they were not of us, if they had been of us, they would have remained with us, but they went out from us that it might be made manifest that they never were of us.” That’s what the Bible says, 1 John 2:19, but the point is this, someone may fall into sin, I mean a moral sin, or whatever, but when someone turns and disavows the faith and ceases to confess Christ and denies God and the Word of God and salvation that is the mark of an apostate, and I see that person as never having been saved, but like so many people wearing the mask hypocritically. I don’t think that man was a Christian and as it turned out, before he became a philosophy professor and denied the faith overtly, they kicked him out of his church for having sex relationships with myriad of women in his office. So wherever there is doctrinal deviation there’s always moral deviation sooner or later it will come to the fore.

Added to Bible Bulletin Board's "MacArthur’s Questions and Answers" by:

Tony Capoccia
Bible Bulletin Board
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