A friend and I have recently been reading through Thomas Schreiner, and Ardel Caneday’s book, The Race Set Before Us: A Biblical Theology of Perseverance and Assurance. I have to say that this has been an enriching study that has challenged, deepened and, I pray, helpfully shaped my understanding and application of how the Bible uses warnings to encourage faithfulness to Christ. Over the next few weeks I’ll post some helpful quotes from this book. I highly recommend a carefully reading of it.
Our central concern is to show how the Bible places side-by-side both God’s promises of complete and final salvation for all his people and God’s admonitions or warnings that call on his people to persevere to the end in order to be saved 21.
Four Popular Views on Warnings and Assurance:
1. Loss-of-Salvation View. Though many Christians believe that the Bible addresses warnings and admonitions to believers, some insist that these warnings and admonitions indicate that believers can and sometimes do abandon their faith and consequently lose their salvation. According to the loss-of-salvation view, the Bible’s warnings and admonitions make it clear that heirs of God’s promise can, by forsaking Christ, fail to persevere in faithfulness and long-suffering, and thus lose the inheritance of salvation. I. Howard Marshall and Scot McKnight advocate this view 21-22.
2. Loss-of-Rewards View. This view advocates that the biblical admonitions and warnings threaten believers with a possible loss. However, the loss a Christian may encounter concerns “rewards” only, not salvation or eternal life, which comes to us only by faith in Jesus Christ 24. Zane Hodges and Charles Ryrie advocate this view.
3. Tests-of-Genuineness View. Those who hold this view contend that the Bible poses many warnings and admonitions because of hypocrisy. People may profess faith in Christ but have nothing more than a false salvation. . . . [Those who advocate this view] believe that the biblical warnings are addressed to people who profess faith in Jesus Christ but who prove to be false or disingenuous in their confession. John F. MacArthur advocates this view 29-30.
4. Hypothetical-Loss-of-Salvation View. [This view] contends that the warnings, particularly in Hebrews, focus on correcting “wrong ideas” by making it clear that if a Christian could apostatize, it would be impossible for that person to become a Christian again. The warnings address genuine believers to correct the wrong idea that apostasy is not serious, as though one could continue to oscillate between Christianity and Judaism without eternal loss. The warnings threaten Christians with eternal and irremediable loss lest they flirt with such apostasy from Christ 35-36. B. F. Wescott advocated this view.
The view advocated in this book: Promises and Warnings are God’s Means of Saving His People
Biblical warnings are a crucial means God uses to protect his people for “the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time” (1 Peter 1:5 NIV) 38.
None of the advocates of the four popular views arrive at their interpretations of biblical warnings on the basis of the warning passages themselves. Rather, they read the warning passages in view of their prior assumptions concerning the possibility of falling away and perishing under God’s wrath. Because they all seek to protect their prior conclusions concerning falling away, whether consciously or not, all four views fail to ask the right question concerning biblical warnings 39.
God’s warnings and admonitions have their distinct function. They serve to elicit belief that persevere in faithfulness to God’s heavenly call on us. Thus, God’s promises and God’s warnings do not conflict. Rather, the warnings serve the promises, for the warnings urge belief and confidence in God’s promises. Biblical warnings and admonitions are the means God uses to save and preserve his people to the end 40.
We believe that holding a proper tension between the already and not-yet aspects of God’s gracious gift of salvation leads us to recognize that biblical warning are prospective, designed to elicit faith that persevere to the end in order to lay hold of the eternal prize of life. We believe that not only must we accept the intended functions of both promise (assurance) and warnings (admonition), but we must also accurately represent their functions in our writing, our teaching and our preaching if we want to do justice to the biblical evidence. 45.
These are the positions laid out in the book. I’ll bring additional helpful quotes in further posts. Have you ever thought through the issues of the relationship between the promises of salvation and the warnings about salvation?
