The Oberlin Evangelist

LECTURE XXIV.

December 16, 1840

SALVATION ALWAYS CONDITIONAL

by the Rev. Charles G. Finney

Modernized by Cliff Collins

“Therefore let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall.” (1 Cor 10:12)

In commentating on this passage I will show:

I. What does ‘him who thinks he stands’ means?

II. What is this confidence based on?

III. This confidence, whatever it is based on, cannot secure the soul against falling into sin and hell.

IV. That continued watchfulness and wakeful activity of soul are indispensable to continued holiness and final salvation.

I. What does ‘ him who thinks he stands’ means?

According to some distinguished commentators, Paul did not use the original word, translated as ‘thinks’ in today’s passage, to weaken but to strengthen the sense. In Luke 8:18, the same word is rendered ‘seems’. The word ‘thinks’, in today’s passage, means great confidence, a strong assurance; as if Paul said, “Let him who has great confidence, or a strong assurance that he stands, take heed lest he fall.

II. What is this confidence based on?

1. We may be very confident of our own good spiritual state, because of wrong ideas about the natural goodness of our character.

2. We may feel really confident that we will persevere in holiness; that we will perform all our duty and be saved, simply because we know that we are naturally able to obey God.

3. We may base our confidence on our dependence on our discretion, prudence, wisdom, and zeal, in the cause of Christ.

4. We may base our confidence on our experience. People tend to rely on their own experience a lot. Sometimes, they think that they are more than a match, even for the devil himself, in situations where they have the light of their own past experience to guide them.

5. We may base our confidence on the consideration of what God has done for us. Our confidence may be in the fact that He has given us grace to overcome temptation so often; or maybe, God has kept us in a state of perfect peace of mind for weeks, or months, without any feelings of condemnation.

6. We may be very confident that we stand, because we believe God has spiritually cleansed us. We feel certain that God has renewed a clean heart and a right spirit within us; and from this we draw the assured conclusion that we will not fall.

7. We may place great confidence in our planned watchfulness. We feel so strong, and for now, so determined to watch in prayer and to pray in the Holy Ghost, that we feel we will surely persevere in holiness.

8. We may place a lot of confidence in the great strength of our own faith. Indeed, people are likely, when exercising strong faith, to think that is almost impossible that they will ever again be guilty of unbelief. This is especially true, if they are aware that they have exercised strong faith for a long time.

9. We may base our confidence on the fact that we find ourselves dead to the influence of the world and the flesh, and, through grace, more than a match for the devil. When God places us in circumstances where victories come easily, we may experience what feels like some kind of supernatural strength, and we find ourselves so lifted above the influence of temptation, that we are confident that all our lusts and sins are slain forever.

10. We may base our confidence in the promises of God. We feel that we believe in them. We know we believe in His promise at the time, and we believe with as much certainty as we know our own existence, and so we conclude, and feel assured, that God will keep us forever from falling under the power of temptation, and that He will “preserve us blameless until the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ”. (See 1 Thess 5:23)

III. This confidence all by itself, no matter what its foundation is, cannot secure our soul against falling into sin and hell.

1. If we base our confidence on anything naturally good in us, we place our confidence on a bad foundation.

2. If we place our confidence on what grace has already done for us, we place our confidence on a bad foundation; for no matter how much grace has accomplished in our lives, it has not changed our nature. Our natural tendencies remain the same. It has not changed our relations and circumstances so much that we are now free from temptation; and as a result, nothing that grace has done, or ever will do for us, can make our perseverance in holiness unconditionally certain.

3. If this confidence is based on our planned watchfulness, prayerfulness, experience, or faith; none of these, independent of the sovereign grace of God, can provide the kind of foundation for our confidence, that will make it certain, or even probable, that we will not sin again.

4. If we base this confidence on God’s promises, it will not make our perseverance unconditionally certain; because the promises of God are all conditioned on our faith, and the right exercise of our free will. God has revealed this principle of His government in the Bible.

“But if a wicked man turns from all his sins which he has committed, keeps all My statutes, and does what is lawful and right, he shall surely live; he shall not die. None of the transgressions, which he has committed, shall be remembered against him; because of the righteousness that he has done, he shall live. Do I have any pleasure at all that the wicked should die”? Says the Lord God, “and not that he should turn from his ways and live? But when a righteous man turns away from his righteousness and commits iniquity, and does according to all the abominations that the wicked man does, shall he live? All the righteousness that he has done shall not be remembered; because of the unfaithfulness of which he is guilty and the sin which he has committed, because of them he shall die. Yet you say, ‘The way of the Lord is not fair’. Hear now, O house of Israel, is it not My way which is fair, and your ways which are not fair? When a righteous man turns away from his righteousness, commits iniquity, and dies in it, it is because of the iniquity which he has done that he dies. Again, when a wicked man turns away from the wickedness which he committed, and does what is lawful and right, he preserves himself alive. Because he considers and turns away from all the transgressions which he committed, he shall surely live; he shall not die. Yet the house of Israel says, ‘The way of the Lord is not fair.’ O house of Israel, is it not My ways which are fair, and your ways which are not fair?” (Ezek 18:21-29)

“Therefore you, O son of man, say to the children of your people: ‘The righteousness of the righteous man shall not deliver him in the day of his transgression; as for the wickedness of the wicked, he shall not fall because of it in the day that he turns from his wickedness; nor shall the righteous be able to live because of his righteousness in the day that he sins.’ When I say to the righteous that he shall surely live, but he trusts in his own righteousness and commits iniquity, none of his righteous works shall be remembered; but because of the iniquity that he has committed, he shall die. Again, when I say to the wicked, ‘You shall surely die’, if he turns from his sin and does what is lawful and right, if the wicked restores the pledge, gives back what he has stolen, and walks in the statutes of life without committing iniquity, he shall surely live; he shall not die. None of his sins which he has committed shall be remembered against him; he has done what is lawful and right; he shall surely live.” (Ezek 33:12-16)

“The instant I speak concerning a nation and concerning a kingdom, to pluck up, to pull down, and to destroy it, if that nation against whom I have spoken turns from its evil, I will relent of the disaster that I thought to bring upon it. And the instant I speak concerning a nation and concerning a kingdom, to build and to plant it, if it does evil in My sight so that it does not obey My voice, then I will relent concerning the good with which I said I would benefit it.” (Jer 18:7-10)

5. Any confidence in the promises of God, either for sanctification or final salvation, that does not recognize this universal principle of God’s government, is ill-founded and worthless; because God has revealed what I have just read as a universal principle of His government; and whether it is expressed or not, it is always implied in connection with each promise. God’s promises often become a stumbling block to those who overlook this fact.

IV. Continued watchfulness and diligence are indispensable to continued holiness and final salvation.

1. We can see this from the fact that moral government is a government of motives, as opposed to a government of force. God cannot and does not force moral beings to properly exercise their free will.

2. The motives of moral government are suited and addressed to our constitutional tendencies.

3. Because of the way God created us, there are three types of motives that we are conscious of, that are designed to motivate and influence us as moral agents.

(1.) Motives that address our hope, or our desire for happiness.

(2.) Motives that address our fear, or our dread of misery.

(3.) Motives that move us to exercise unselfish love, or benevolence.

It is true, that if we studied this subject in more detail, these three types of motives could be subdivided several times; but doing this would carry me too far from my main purpose. Therefore, I must move on, and say:

4. That it is all right to allow each of these three kinds of motives to influence us.

5. When we understand and receive considerations that address our hopes and fears, it is impossible for us not to be influenced by those hopes and fears to a certain extent.

6. Only hope and fear influences selfish minds. In other words, the motives that influence selfish people to obey God are purely legal; that is, God presents these motives in the sanctions of His law. The selfish mind is sin.

7. The three types of motives that I’ve just mentioned, which are those that address our hopes, those that address our fears, and those that move us to exercise unselfish love, are all needed to fill up the circle of our moral influences.

8. It is certain that the way God created us as moral beings allows these different types of motives to influence us. We know that we possess a nature that allows these three kinds of motives to influence us. Therefore, unless these motives belong to moral government, and are indispensable to its perfection, moral government is not suited to the nature of moral beings.

9. The fact that the conscience is a universal and indispensable attribute of a moral agent, demonstrates the universal and unalterable need for these three kinds of motives.

10. The Bible clearly shows, that neither the present sanctification, nor the justification, nor the final salvation of believers, is so unconditionally decided that they don’t need warnings, threats, reproofs, admonitions, and all those considerations that belong to these three great kinds of motives.

11. God has created us to constantly rely on Him for everything natural and spiritual. We must depend on Him for our daily bread. He does not send an ocean of water on the earth at once, but God has created us to depend on Him for rain in the proper season. He does not give enough food at once to last our whole lifetime. He arranges His providence, so that, ordinarily, just about enough food for man and beast is produced every year. In short, He distributes His material favors in such a way that it makes us see and feel our need to constantly depend on Him.

This is equally true of spiritual blessings. God only gives grace from day to day, from hour to hour, and from moment to moment. He never gives us an extra supply of grace to depend on in the future, so that we don’t have to constantly rely on God, and continually abide in Christ. He never deals with anyone in spiritual things in such a way that He can say to that person’s soul, “Soul, you have enough spiritual goods stored up to last for many years”. But, God has made our constant reliance on Christ indispensable to our perseverance in holiness.

12. God’s providence, concerning both natural and spiritual blessings, is naturally and unalterably necessary for our continued holiness. Suppose God allowed enough food to grow in one year to last all humanity a century, so that everyone could honestly say, “I have enough food stored up to last the rest of my life”. Wouldn’t such a procedure encourage a spirit of infidelity? Wouldn’t such a procedure destroy a sense of dependence on God, and encourage people to generally forget and neglect God. Who can’t see that if God arranged His providence to make us feel that He has already taken care of all our physical and material needs for the rest of our lives, or for centuries to come, that it would ruin the world?

The same is true concerning spiritual things. Suppose, by saving us, God really changed the constitution of our soul. Many people believe this today. Suppose God introduced or implanted within our soul a holy principle that became a part of our constitution. In short, suppose God so remolded our faculties, or made such a constitutional change within us that it gives us the impression that we don’t really need the constant indwelling, abiding influences of the Holy Spirit for continued holiness. That would be the cause of universal backsliding and alienation from God.

13. Therefore, it is indispensable for continued holiness that God should confine us to a state of constant reliance on the grace of God. And nothing can be more absurd, fanatical, or dangerous, than any idea that our perseverance in holiness, or final salvation, can be made unconditionally certain.

14. It is naturally impossible for God to create a being, who can be independent of Him for one moment! In Him all beings must “live, and move, and have their being”. (Acts 17:28)

15. Some object to the fact that neither justification, nor sanctification, nor final salvation, can be unconditionally secured in this life, by any act of ours, or by any grace received; and therefore, constant watchfulness, constant wakeful exertion, and constant fear of falling are indispensable to continued holiness; saying, “perfect love casts out fear”. (1 John 4:18) To this I answer:

(1.) This passage cannot mean, every kind and degree of fear; for God insists on a certain kind and degree of fear, not only as a duty, but also as constituting an essential element of holiness.

“The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom”. (Psalm 111:10)

“Therefore, having these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God.” (2 Cor 7:1)

“Submitting to one another in the fear of God.” (Eph 5:21)

“Serve the Lord with fear, and rejoice with trembling.” (Psalm 2:11)

“So they departed quickly from the tomb with fear and great joy, and ran to bring His disciples word.” (Matt 28:8)

“Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling”. (Phil 2:12)

“Do not lay your hand on the lad, or do anything to him; for now I know that you fear God, seeing you have not withheld your son, your only son, from Me” (Gen 22:12)

“Blessed is the man who fears the Lord, Who delights greatly in His commandments.” (Psalm 112:1)

“Blessed is every one who fears the Lord, Who walks in His ways.” (Psalm 128:1)

“Happy is the man who is always reverent (fears the Lord), but he who hardens his heart will fall into calamity.” (Proverbs 28:14)

“Servants, obey in all things your masters according to the flesh, not with eye service, as men-pleasers, but in sincerity of heart, fearing God.” (Col 3:22)

“And if you call on the Father, who without partiality judges according to each one’s work, conduct yourselves throughout the time of your sojourning here in fear.” (1 Peter 1:17)

“Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom which cannot be shaken, let us have grace, by which we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear.” (Hebrews 12:28)

(2.) One of the characteristics of wicked men, is that they don’t fear God.

(3.) Love casts out our slavish fear, but not that kind of fear that coincides with love. God placed the foundation for the exercise of this fear in the very constitution of our being.

REMARKS.

1. No one act of faith, nor any other exercise, can make salvation from sin or hell unconditionally certain. We can see this from the fact that, throughout the Bible, God addresses warnings and threats to the saints. These passages would be absurd, if their justification or sanctification were already unconditionally certain.

2. It is a serious mistake, and a dangerous error, to maintain that one act of faith brings a person’s soul into a state of unconditional and permanent justification. That this view of justification can’t be true, is seen from the following considerations:

(1.) If God so justifies the believer that he can’t come under condemnation even if he sins, it must be because the law of God has been eliminated. Some believe that the penalty of the law is forever set aside whenever the repenting sinner exercises his first act of faith. Now, in order for this to be true, God might as well eliminate the law, because any law without a penalty is worthless. If, for that person, the penalty is forever set aside in such a sense that he can sin and still not be condemned and subject to the penalty of that sin, to him there is no law. The law becomes only counsel or advice, which is not law. However, if the law is truly set aside he no longer has any rule of action. He has no obligatory standard of duty to compare himself with; and therefore, he can’t be any more sinful or holy than an animal.

(2.) The fact that a believer is not unconditionally and permanently justified by any one act of faith, is clear from the simple fact that every believer feels condemned, in his own conscience, when he sins. And if our own conscience, or heart, condemns us, is not God greater than our heart, and shall not He condemn us? (1 John 3:20) Shall mortal man be more just than God?

(3.) That believers are not unconditionally and permanently justified by one act of faith is clearly stated in Ezekiel 18:21-29, and 33:12-16, (I quoted these passages earlier this lecture). Nothing can be more to the point than these two passages of scripture. In these passages, it clearly says, “When a righteous man turns away from his righteousness, commits iniquity, and dies in it, it is because of the iniquity which he has done that he dies”.

To this, some argue that these and similar passages are hypothetical. They claim that these passages don’t clearly say that any specific righteous man will fall from his righteousness; but only, that if he should, he would be condemned. I answer:

This is the very issue I am defending. I admit that these and other similar passages are hypothetical, but these passages clearly contradict the proposition, that by one act of faith God unalterably and unconditionally justifies believers. In these passages, the condition of continued justification is continued obedience; and the condition of perfect justification is perfect obedience.

(4.) The fact that one act of faith does not permanently and unconditionally justify the believer, is clear from the fact I mentioned earlier, that throughout the Bible you find warnings, reproof, encouragements, and every possible inducement to persevere in holiness to the end. The Bible everywhere makes the condition of final salvation to be continued perseverance in holiness to the end of our life.

Again, these same people may object, saying that these threats, warnings, etc., are the means that God uses to cause the saints to persevere in holiness.

My answer is that yes, these threats and warnings are means that God uses to cause us to persevere. This very fact proves that God has not justified the saints unconditionally or permanently. This fact also proves that the saints are justified no further than they are sanctified. For what could all these warning and threats amount to? Why should the Bible record them? What possible influence could they have, if you believe that God has already perfectly, permanently, and unconditionally justified the saints, and therefore, their final perseverance and final salvation are already unconditionally secure? Indeed, it is absurd to say that by one act of faith, they have become permanently saved, and yet, only by persevering to the end, can God save them.

(5.) The fact that believers are not, by one act of faith, brought into a state of permanent or unconditional justification, is clear from the obvious tendency of such a feeling. This is the same feeling that was so often attributed to the Calvinists by our Methodist brethren: that if a man is once converted he will be saved, no matter how much he may backslide; even if he should he die in a state of the most severe backsliding possible.

3. The certain knowledge and belief of unconditional salvation from sin, or hell, or of unconditional justification and salvation, would break the power of Gods moral government, and guarantee a fall. It would destroy the balance of motives, and completely nullify the power of those two groups of motives that God addresses to the hopes and fears of men. What good, I ask you, would all the warnings of the Bible do to sustain the virtue of a person who already knew that he was in a state of unconditional salvation from sin, condemnation, and hell? Obviously, he does not need them. It would be a waste of time to pay any attention to those passages. Then, I ask you, why does the Bible scatter these warnings, threats, reproofs, and admonitions throughout its pages, and addresses them to the saints?

Now, you may reply that love influences a sanctified soul, and not hope and fear. I answer:

Yes, it is true, that love is the mainspring of our action; but it is also true, that both our hopes and fears sustain such a relationship to moral government, that considerations addressed to our hopes and fears, make up an indispensable part of those influences that keeps us on a course of steady obedience.

Now, another objection goes along with this objection. It goes like this: Those saints who believe they are in a state of unconditional justification, and who feel the assurance that they will finally persevere and be saved, have not found that this felt assurance was a stumbling block to them. Instead, they have felt that this very consideration has sustained their virtue. To this I answer:

That if, the faith of assurance means our assurance of final perseverance in holiness, and our resulting salvation, I can easily see that such an assurance would not be a stumbling block to the soul. However, listen, this is not an assurance of unconditional justification. Saints who have this assurance, have universally believed, that their continued holiness will result in their justification and salvation. They believe that if they fall into sin, they are condemned, and that, if they die in their sins, or in a backslidden state, they will be damned. Their belief and assurance has been that the grace of God will help enable them to exercise the necessary faith and persevere in the use of the powers of their free will, so they will be finally justified and saved. This assurance is primarily designed to encourage them in all ways to do good, and to perfect holiness in the fear of God. But suppose they get the idea that, they have so believed in Christ that their continued holiness, their permanent justification, and their final salvation is unconditionally certain. This is an extremely dangerous and disastrous belief, and nowhere in the Bible is this state of mind encouraged.

4. Moral beings cannot be in a state of unconditional sanctification or justification, in any world. This is clear from the fact that God can’t place them beyond the natural possibility of sinning. If He did, He would also place them beyond the possibility of being holy. Sinning implies moral freedom. So does holiness. Moral freedom implies the power to do right or wrong. Therefore, it is naturally impossible, that God would ever place moral beings under circumstances where their eternal justification, sanctification, and salvation, are unconditionally certain. The continued justification of the inhabitants of heaven must be forever conditioned on their continued holiness. And their continued holiness must forever depend on and consist in the ability to properly exercise their free will. And nothing but that grace, which is perfectly consistent with the exercise of their own free will, can render their final perseverance certain.

5. “Conduct yourselves throughout the time of your sojourning here in fear”, as Peter commands, (1 Peter 1:17) does not imply unbelief, and it is not a sinful state of mind; because the promises of God are all conditional. Since the promises of sanctification are conditioned on our own faith, and the promises of justification are conditioned on our sanctification, and since all of this depends on the right use of our free will, it is necessary for us to “lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us”. (Hebrews 12:1)

6. The assurance that we will never sin again does not secure us against sin, and has, in this world of severe temptation, a strong tendency to bring about our fall.

7. Nor does a fall, in such a situation, prove, in the least degree, that we can’t attain permanent sanctification in this life.

8. Nor does a fall impeach the honesty of Christ. Some people believed that they attained a state of permanent sanctification, and felt assured that they would never sin again. They maintained that the honesty of Christ was pledged in such a sense, that He would be a liar, if He should allow them to fall into sin. They also based their conclusion on some promise that Christ would keep them, which deeply impressed them. Afterwards, however, they fell into sin, and were greatly tempted to entertain evil thoughts of Christ, to impeach His honesty, and deny His truth.

Now, their error was that they overlooked the fact that all the promises of Christ are conditioned on the continued exercise of faith in those promises. Misunderstanding the promise and ignoring the condition became the foundation for assuming that Christ promised that they would persevere in holiness. If they fall into sin, they have only themselves to blame. They expected to receive from Christ what He has never promised, except on a condition that they have never fulfilled.

To this view of the subject, some object that if this is true, the promises of the gospel amount only to this, that Christ will keep us if we will keep ourselves. To this I answer:

That in a very important sense this is true. I used to strongly believe in this objection myself. Can the promise of the gospel mean nothing more than this, “I will keep him who will keep himself”? After a lot of consideration and prayer, and searching the word of God, I have come to the conviction, that this is the exact truth, and this opinion agrees perfectly with the whole providential government of God.

Take all material blessings. Who does not know that all the promises of daily bread, are so conditioned on the use of indispensable means, as that they amount to this: “I will feed him who will feed himself; I will take care of him who will take care of himself”. Take all the promises concerning the things of this life, and the same is true. If God promises health, it is on the condition, that we obey the laws of our physical existence; so that the promise amounts to this: “I will keep him who will keep himself in health”. If He promises to prolong our natural life, it is on condition that we comply with the indispensable laws of life. So that the promise amounts to this: “I will keep him alive who will keep himself alive”.

Now the same is primarily and emphatically true of all spiritual blessings. Who does not know, that in fact, every believer progresses in religion precisely in proportion to his own faithfulness. God keeps him from falling, when he is watchful, and thereby keeps himself from falling. Every believer has the spirit of prayer, in proportion as he watches and prays, and prays in the Holy Ghost. In fact, God keeps the saints, only through their own watchfulness, faithfulness, and efforts. So that it may be truly said, that He keeps those only who will keep themselves; that He saves those only who will save themselves. In no way does this set aside, or depreciate God’s grace, or deny or set aside any correct idea of God’s sovereignty. Who believes, that the farmer who tills his land, or the mechanic who applies his trade, or the student that studies well into the night, either denies or sets aside the sovereignty of God, to accomplish the goal he is aiming for. Indeed, the sovereignty of God consists in bringing about the great ends of His government, through the agency of His creatures; and no correct idea of His sovereignty will ever ignore the use of the natural and indispensable means of obtaining the things that He has promised.

9. Nor does this view of the subject affect the question of the perseverance of the saints, as I understand how the Bible teaches that doctrine. The doctrine that we receive throughout its pages, if I understand it, it is not that by one act of faith, God brings men into a state of unconditional and unalterable justification; but that the saints, through the grace of God, will be kept in the ways of obedience to the end.

10. Although perpetual holiness, justification, or final salvation, cannot be unconditionally certain, in any world, yet we can have such a strong assurance of all these, that it casts out all the slavish fear that torments us. Don’t you think that the angels know, and the saints in heaven know, that if they should sin, God would send them to hell? And, don’t you think that they know they have power to sin, are able to sin, and that without watchfulness, and diligence, and perseverance, they will sin? They must know this; and yet, this knowledge does not bring them into slavish bondage; but provides just enough healthy and holy stimulation to persevere in holiness that their constitution demands.

11. Sanctification, justification, and final salvation, are all placed on the same ground. And it can’t be true, that men are justified, any more than they are sanctified; or that they are, or ever can be saved, any more than they are cleansed from sin. Many people define gospel justification as pardon and acceptance. However, can God pardon a man any more than he is penitent? Can God accept a soul any more than it is obedient? Certainly, He can’t, unless God eliminates His own law. Then the distinction that the Church commonly makes (which I once believed myself, when I followed the current of the Church without sufficient examination) between instantaneous justification and progressive sanctification must be without foundation. Everyone feels condemned, and not justified, when he sins, and that he avoids condemnation only by keeping out of sin. This is the doctrine of the Bible. It is the doctrine of conscience and of common sense. And any view of the doctrine of justification, that maintains that justification is perfected while sanctification is imperfect; that claims that justification is instantaneous while sanctification is progressive, has no regard for God’s law or standard.

Beloved Christian brother, why do you pray for forgiveness when you sin? Isn’t it because you feel condemned? However, if you were already perfectly and permanently justified, you would be wrong to pray for forgiveness; for you are already forgiven, and not condemned. God can’t possibly pardon you unless you are condemned; for what is pardon, but setting aside the execution of law? Therefore, if God permanently justifies you by one act of faith, you not only have no need for pardon from that moment forward, no matter how much you may sin, but to pardon you is impossible, since you are not condemned. And why, let me ask you, should Christ teach you to pray daily for the forgiveness of your past sins, if by one act of faith, you are permanently justified? Let me conclude, then, by saying, “Let him that thinks he stands, take heed lest he fall”.