In the chapter of “Spiritual Culture” we have included the subject of Backsliding, not that backsliding is in any sense advantageous to spiritual development, but it is our certain destiny if we do not assiduously employ the means necessary to our growth in grace. By backsliding is meant the gradual turning back or away from God; to apostatize. The Savior gives us warning to “watch and pray,” that we “enter not into temptation.” The tempter will lay in your pathway all things possible to induce you to turn away from God. He will suggest that it is not necessary to pray so much, and we do not have to keep such a strict vigil over our lives and govern and rule the whole by the Word of God. He may tell you that now since you are saved you are safe. God is able to keep you, and you have nothing now to do but to silently fold your arms and sail to heaven on “flowery beds of ease.” There never was a soul created of God or recreated by his Spirit, not excepting the Savior himself, since the day Adam was made of the dust, to this present time, but what Satan has endeavored, by lies and machinations to turn him away from God. Thousands of millions have gone down the rapids of negligence and carelessness, and been lost in the whirlpool of a cold, formal religion.
Some teach that the soul once born of God can [pg 216] never apostatize. “Once in grace always in grace,” is the manner in which they state it. We are fully persuaded that the individual who teaches such a doctrine is wholly ignorant of grace and devoid of God's enlightening Spirit. What would be the need of Christians being warned to “watch and pray, lest they enter into temptation,” if there be no possibility of being overcome by it? If there is never a return to sin after regeneration, why does John say to his little children, “If any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous”? 1 John 2:1.
The reader will not understand us to favor the teaching that Christians must of necessity occasionally commit sin and that none live a sinless life. It is impossible for man to be committing sin and at the same time be a Christian. A sinning Christian is a phenomenon never known in the kingdom of grace. The Scriptures plainly teach that when once we enter a state of grace, we should always, by living a pure, holy life, continue in the same. But the teaching that when we once enter a state of grace we always remain in that state, no matter what we do, is certainly very foreign to the Holy Scriptures and soul deluding. God spoke by the mouth of an Old Testament prophet nearly six hundred years before the coming of “grace and truth” by the Savior, saying, “When a righteous man doth turn from his righteousness, and commit iniquity, and I lay a [pg 217] stumbling-block before him, he shall die: because thou hast not given him warning, he shall die in his sin, and his righteousness which he hath done shall not be remembered.” Ezek. 3:20. What need be, and what can be, plainer than this text? Here iniquity and sin are used interchangeably and are perfectly synonymous. If a righteous man (one in possession of grace) commits sin his righteousness is no longer remembered. This is as much as to say he is no longer in grace, but is fallen. In the next verse this holy seer receives words from the mouth of the Almighty and gives the righteous man warning that he sin not. If he does not sin he shall live. It is sin that brings death to the soul. Ezek. 18:4. It is sin that separates us from God. Isa. 59:2. It is sin that causes our names to be blotted out of the book of life. Ex. 32:33. It is sin that withholds good things from us. Jer. 5:25. It is sin that destroys grace. Rom. 6:1, 2.
What is sin? Sin is the transgression of God's law. 1 John 3:4. Who in all the earth has become so boldly defiant that he can in the face of clear and plain Scriptural statements testify that he is in a state of grace when he is living in known violation of some of God's commandments? His boldness will forsake him and he wither like the frail flower beneath the hoary frost when he comes into the awful majestic presence of a righteous Creator in that great avenging day.
One of the inspired writers of the New Testament exhorts Christians to give all diligence that we add virtue to our faith, and knowledge to our virtue, and temperance to our knowledge, and to temperance patience, and to patience godliness, and to godliness brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness charity. 2 Pet. 1:5-7. In the following verses he tells us if these things abound in us we shall be neither barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord, and if we do these things we shall never fall. Does not this obviously imply that if we do not do them that we shall fall? Dear reader, if you are now a Christian and feel the glowing of God's pure love in your heart, if you neglect to employ the means for growth in grace that the Bible commands, that certainly you will backslide, or fall from grace. You may retain a form of worship, but you will be devoid of spirituality and your worship be unacceptable. We are commanded to “grow in grace.” 2 Pet. 3:18. In the verse above we are warned against being led away by the error of the wicked and falling from our own steadfastness.
Now it is a well established fact in the very nature of things that it would be impossible to grow if there was no possibility of a decline. If there be no retrogression, there can be no progression. The beloved John from the lonely isle writes unto the church of Ephesus and tells them that God had somewhat against them because they had left their first love. [pg 219] He tells them to remember from whence they are fallen and repent. They once enjoyed the love of God—they were spiritual. His redeeming grace had removed the guilt of sin, but now they are fallen. He that hath an ear, let him hear.
How often the apostle Paul warns the Christian against backsliding. His motto was, “I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.” Phil. 3:14. In writing to the Colossians he says, “Luke, the beloved physician, and Demas,” greet you. A greeting was sent from Demas by Paul to the Colossians in the year 64, A.D. In writing his letter to Philemon, A.D. 64, Paul says, “There salute thee Epaphras, my fellow prisoner in Christ Jesus; Marcus, Aristarchus, Demas, Lucas, my fellow laborers.” Ver. 23, 24. Demas was one of Paul's coworkers, and undoubtedly enjoyed the experience of salvation by grace. In writing to Timothy two years later Paul says, “For Demas hath forsaken me, having loved this present world.” 2 Tim. 4:10.
As on the other subjects of this volume many more texts and strong points of reasoning could be given to fixedly establish the New Testament teaching of the possibilities of spiritual degeneration and death, but we conclude that we have made all plain to the understanding of every candid mind. It has not been our purpose to exhaust any subject. It has not been our expectation to convince many gainsayers, but to bring light to the hearts which the Lord has prepared.
One text of Scripture used by propagators of the doctrine, “We can never fall from grace,” is found in 1 John 3:9, and reads thus: “Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin: for his seed remaineth in him: and he can not sin, because he is born of God.” We believe it is safe to always give the Scriptures the plainest, simplest meaning when it does not conflict with the Word of God elsewhere. We should never mystify a text, but accept it as it reads. In 1 John 2:1, the author of this epistle says, “My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not. And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.” Certainly every reader understands John to here teach that it is possible for man to sin, or in other words, no man in this life passes beyond the possibilities of sin. Now to understand him to say in the ninth verse of the third chapter that when we are once born of God we can not possibly sin, makes him to teach contradictory doctrines. Such we know he does not do, and since 1 John 2:1 is too plain to be misunderstood, we must look about to harmonize with it, in the most simple way, 1 John 3:9. We will quote Rotherham on this text: “No one that hath been begotten of God doeth sin, because his seed in him abideth, and he can not be sinning, because of God has he been begotten.” To be begotten of God is to be pardoned or saved from sin.
The seed (the Christ-life) abides in the soul in the regenerated state. The seeds of life are supplanted [pg 221] by the seeds of death when we commit sin. No one is born of God when spiritual life has been destroyed by sin. No man can be “sinning” and be a child of God. One who has been saved may be overcome and commit sin, but when he does so he is not God's child. This text does not teach the impossibility of committing sin after we are born of God, but only the impossibility of committing sin and being a Christian.