Thoughts on Luke 8

Today’s reading: Psalms 84-86; Luke 8

It has been a number of years since I have become convinced that the “once saved, always saved” view of salvation was not the view of the biblical authors, and the more I read the Scriptures without that presupposition, the more convinced I become that, if you weren’t taught that perspective up front, you wouldn’t come to it on your own, unless you are narrowly focusing on only a small portion of the Scriptural witness. Certainly there are verses that, on their own, seem to imply exactly that, but the broader teaching of the Word really doesn’t seem to fit with that perspective.

What brought this to mind for me this morning were the words of Jesus Himself.

As Jesus is explaining the parable of the soils to His disciples, He tells them of the people who are like the seed sown on the rocks, who hear the word, receive it with joy, believe for a while, but then fall away because they don’t have sufficient root. This means Jesus has a category for people who truly believe, but then fall away. On top of that, right before talking about those who are the rocky soil, while talking about those who are the path, He specifically says that when He talks about believing, He is including being saved (“so that they may not believe and be saved”). It’s also worth noting then the next group, those who fell among thorns, who take root and grow, but then are choked out by the thorns, keeping their fruit from maturing. Of these ones, Jesus never says they fell away, or that the plants withered and died, but that they were unfruitful in their belief.

So Jesus gives us four broad categories of people in this parable:

1. Those who hear the Word and do not believe (are never saved)
2. Those who hear the Word and believe, but then fall away (are saved, but then fall away and are not)
3. Those who hear the Word and believe, but then are unfruitful in their faith (are saved, and continue in the faith, but do nothing with it)
4. Those who hear the Word and believe, and then are fruitful in their faith (are saved, continue in the faith, bearing fruit)

I don’t think we can say that those in group 2 never truly believed with saving faith given that saving faith is how Jesus differentiates group 1 from the others, meaning He seems to think group 2 believed and were saved. I also don’t think we can say that when those in group 2 “fall away” Jesus is communicating that they are saved and just do nothing with their faith given that that is what differentiates groups 2 and 3. That leaves us with Jesus teaching His disciples that it is possible to start from a place to truly saving faith and then later fall away.

I also want to point out in this that those of the rocky soil were not cast out for their lack of root, but fell away from their belief, and that is an important distinction. When I say that it is possible to lose your salvation, it is not, as some teach, that God casts us out because of our sin. Our sin was paid for on the cross and no longer separates us from the Lord when we are united to Him through faith in Jesus. The danger of sin, and the reason the biblical authors warn us so consistently against it, is that indulging in sin has the effect of callousing our hearts to the voice of the Lord, making it more likely that we will ultimately fall away from the faith, no longer holding to the faith we had at first. The teaching of Scripture is that salvation is by faith alone, but in order to continue in salvation, you have to continue in belief. If you believe, you are saved; if you don’t believe, you are not saved.

It does seem pretty reasonable to me though to expect that our theology of salvation should fit with Jesus’ teaching on the topic, which is why I wanted to talk about this today.