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The “Impossibility of Apostasy” and 1 John 2:19
The “Impossibility of Apostasy” and 1 John 2:19 By Derek Long
A popular religious teaching is the impossibility of apostasy, eternal security of the believer, or more commonly spoken of as once-saved-always- saved. The doctrine teaches a person who is saved can never lose his salvation. Various arguments are made in an attempt to prove the validity of this doctrine which contradict the clear teaching of the Scriptures. Let’s examine passages which teach it is possible for a saved person to sin and be lost and then look at a particular passage some appeal to in defense of their erroneous beliefs on this topic.
Here is a small sampling of passages in the Bible which contradict the idea of once-saved-always-saved. We will not make extensive comments about each but attempt to let the word of God speak for itself on the subject. John 15:1-6 - “I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser. Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit He takes away; and every branch that bears fruit He prunes, that it may bear more fruit. You are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you. Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in Me. I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing. If anyone does not abide in Me, he is cast out as a branch and is withered; and they gather them and throw them into the fire, and they are burned.” Romans 11:20-22 - “Well said. Because of unbelief they were broken off, and you stand by faith. Do not be haughty, but fear. For if God did not spare the natural branches, He may not spare you either. Therefore consider the goodness and severity of God: on those who fell, severity; but toward you, goodness, if you continue in His goodness. Otherwise you also will be cut off.” 1 Corinthians 9:23-27 - “Now this I do for the gospel’s sake, that I may be partaker of it with you. Do you not know that those who run in a race all run, but one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may obtain it. And everyone who competes for the prize is temperate in all things. Now they do it to obtain a perishable crown, but we for an imperishable crown. Therefore I run thus: not with uncertainty. Thus I fight: not as one who beats the air. But I discipline my body and bring it into subjection, lest, when I have preached to others, I myself should become disqualified.” 1 Corinthians 10:12 - “Therefore let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall.” Galatians 5:4 - “You have become estranged from Christ, you who attempt to be justified by law; you have fallen from grace.” Philippians 2:12 - “Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.” 2 Timothy 2:11-13 - “This is a faithful saying: For if we died with Him, we shall also live with Him. If we endure, we shall also reign with Him. If we deny Him, He also will deny us. If we are faithless, He remains faithful; He cannot deny Himself.” Hebrews 3:5-15 - “And Moses indeed was faithful in all His house as a servant, for a testimony of those things which would be spoken afterward, but Christ as a Son over His own house, whose house we are if we hold fast the confidence and the rejoicing of the hope firm to the end. Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says: ‘Today, if you will hear His voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion, in the day of trial in the wilderness, where your fathers tested Me, tried Me, and saw My works forty years. Therefore I was angry with that generation, and said, “They always go astray in their heart, and they have not known My ways.” So I swore in My wrath, “They shall not enter My rest.”’ Beware, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God; but exhort one another daily, while it is called ‘Today,’ lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin. For we have become partakers of Christ if we hold the beginning of our confidence steadfast to the end, while it is said: ‘Today, if you will hear His voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion.’” Hebrews 4:1 - “Therefore, since a promise remains of entering His rest, let us fear lest any of you seem to have come short of it.” Hebrews 6:4-8 - “For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted the heavenly gift, and have become partakers of the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come, if they fall away, to renew them again to repentance, since they crucify again for themselves the Son of God, and put Him to an open shame. For the earth which drinks in the rain that often comes upon it, and bears herbs useful for those by whom it is cultivated, receives blessing from God; but if it bears thorns and briers, it is rejected and near to being cursed, whose end is to be burned.” Hebrews 10:26-31 - “For if we sin willfully after we have received the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a certain fearful expectation of judgment, and fiery indignation which will devour the adversaries. Anyone who has rejected Moses’ law dies without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses. Of how much worse punishment, do you suppose, will he be thought worthy who
has trampled the Son of God underfoot, counted the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified a common thing, and insulted the Spirit of grace? For we know Him who said, ‘Vengeance is Mine, I will repay,’ says the Lord. And again, ‘The Lord will judge His people.’ It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.” 2 Peter 1:10-11 - “Therefore, brethren, be even more diligent to make your call and election sure, for if you do these things you will never stumble; for so an entrance will be supplied to you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.” 2 Peter 2:20-22 - “For if, after they have escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them and overcome, the latter end is worse for them than the beginning. For it would have been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than having known it, to turn from the holy commandment delivered to them. But it has happened to them according to the true proverb: ‘A dog returns to his own vomit,’ and, ‘a sow, having washed, to her wallowing in the mire.’” Revelation 3:4-5 - “You have a few names even in Sardis who have not defiled their garments; and they shall walk with Me in white, for they are worthy. He who overcomes shall be clothed in white garments, and I will not blot out his name from the Book of Life; but I will confess his name before My Father and before His angels.”
Many people who espouse the doctrine of once-saved-always- saved have known people who have believed and in their minds appeared to be saved but have gone back to worldliness (1 Corinthians 6:9-10). In order to address this, a common response is to say such individuals were never really saved to begin with. Many of the passages above are clear a person was saved but falls away. However, a passage which is sometimes appealed to is 1 John 2:19. 1 John 2:19 says, “They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us; but they went out that they might be made manifest, that none of them were of us.” 1 John 2:19 does not say these people were never of us but simply they were not of us at the time they went out from us. A person could be a loyal patriot to a country, change, become a traitor, and no longer be among the loyal supporters of a country. In a similar way, a person can be a faithful Christian, change, and go out from among the people of God because he is no longer of the people of God as he was earlier. Jesus speaks of people who would fall into this category in Luke 8:13, “But the ones on the rock are those who, when they hear, receive the word with joy; and these have no root, who believe for a while and in time of temptation fall away.” Let’s be careful not to interpret a passage like 1 John 2:19 in a way which contradicts clear passages of Scripture like we pointed out earlier in this article.
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