Core Convictions V: Falling From Grace by Maxie Dunnam

This is the fifth installment in Maxie’s series on Core Convictions.  You can find the first four articles here, here, here and here.

In daily conversation of Christians from different denominational expressions, it’s difficult to talk long about salvation before someone raises a question or makes a claim about “falling from grace.” The term is used when discussing eternal security (what some Christians today refer to when they say, “Once saved, always saved”). Let’s consider the issue. 

Peter’s word is good to keep in mind:

Since Christ suffered in his body, arm yourselves also with the same attitude, because whoever suffers in the body is done with sin. As a result, they do not live the rest of their earthly lives for evil human desires, but rather for the will of God. For you have spent enough time in the past doing what pagans choose to do – living in debauchery, lust, drunkenness, orgies, carousing and detestable idolatry. (1 Peter 4:1-3)

John Wesley’s View: Sin and God’s Favor

Though our salvation is certain, sin remains in our life. We practice Christian devotion and discipline to make sure that though sin remains, it no longer reigns. John Wesley was clear about it and spoke succinctly: “A person may be in God’s favour though he feels sin; but not if he yields to it. Having sin does not forfeit the favour of God; giving way to sin does. Though the flesh in you ‘lust against the Spirit’ you may still be a child of God; but if you ‘walk after the flesh,’ you are a child of the devil.”

It is not a question of whether God is able to keep us from falling; of course, he is able! Whether we can or can’t fall is not as important as whether we do or don’t. Following Peter’s advice is essential. We are to arm [ourselves] with the same attitude as Christ. We have spent enough time in the past doing what pagans choose to do (1 Peter 4:1,3). We must be vigilant in responding to God’s grace, allowing the Holy Spirit to sensitize our consciences and make us aware of the new sins that spring up in our lives.

The case is clear. We may “fall from grace” and forfeit our justification, but we don’t have to. We won’t, provided we stay in relationship with Christ. Abiding in Christ, we are kept from allowing temptation to move us into intentional sin.

One preacher argued it this way: “It is our responsibility to be saved, but it is not our responsibility to stay saved.”  Wrong, I say.  The responsible action we take in being saved–repenting and exercising faith–is the same action operative in staying saved.

Relying on God’s Grace and Spiritual Discipline

God is able to keep us from stumbling and to “present you before his glorious presence without fault and with great joy” (Jude 24). We must continually exercise absolute dependency on him, even after we have been converted. We can do no good of ourselves anywhere along the way, so we must rely completely on the Spirit of God, which performs the good in us and through us. We must give ourselves to moral and spiritual discipline.

As Christians, we repent daily, and cast ourselves on God’s grace. We grow in that grace and move from the threshold of faith, our justification by God, toward the fullness of grace-our sanctification. And all along that journey, we can be kept from falling from grace, kept from forfeiting our justification by the glorious assurance of our salvation. Regenerative and sanctifying grace keep us so long as we keep them.