Bible Beats

God is not a man, that he should lie; neither the son of man, that he should repent: hath he said, and shall he not do it? or hath he spoken, and shall he not make it good? (Num 23:19)

If there were selected only a few books out of the scriptures that Satan despised the most, the top position on the list might be held by the first book in the Bible. The reason for that is a simple one. We hold, by definition, that God is the author and finisher of the drama in which we find ourselves. If there be any mischief found in the account He gives for placing us here on the stage then neither the construction of the theater itself, the creation of life that populates it, or the ensuing drama are attributable to His authorship, nor is it under His control. In essence, if the creation account of man can be undermined then if follows that the rest of the Bible is also false in terms of being the word of God. By that estimation, the Bible is reduced to only one in a large group of biblion comprising a mosaic of allegories, here and there interspersed with embellished historical accounts, with the design to relay some morals or other virtuous conduct as ideals sprung from the imagination of men. No small victory for an antagonist whose main role is that of disputer, and from his first interaction with the human race has disputed God’s claims.

The galaxies are as jewels in the velvet expanse of the universe without end. From nebula to terra firma, wherever we can find it, we are without the ability to describe the wondrous displays, and to explain their existence is beyond our capacity to understand. Create all this in any fashion by any means and the being who does so is indisputably supreme, but pick a fixed place amidst all this splendor that is nevertheless lifeless and create life in it, life that can comprehend, and by the miraculous way described in the Bible; and it is the Lord God, and none other.

Hence, we see the reason of the animus the Devil has for the first book in the Bible. It is based on the fact that the clear interpretation of the creation of man establishes the Lord as nothing less than God, and so Satan has waged war on this scripture from the beginning. As a consequence, there have been many casualties in what has become a war of attrition.

Many in Christendom find themselves in the unenviable position of proclaiming a faith in God, and by extension the reliability of His claims, and at the same time accepting a human explanation for the genesis of man that is contradictory to the account of creation that God has given to us. They express the opinion that they have no problem with the idea of God creating mankind by a means of evolution. This is a process whereby God would have started with a simple and nonhuman life-form that over several million years, and subjected to the laws of chance and the capricious and unintelligent forces of nature, eventually evolved into a full grown man. Aside from the fact that this interpretation violates every other known attribute of the Creator, the scriptures simply do not allow for that option. The Genesis account of creation is completely at odds with the theory of evolution, and any attempt to harmoniously hold the two views not only represents a contradiction, but a compromise of the faith at a foundational level.

The creation account of man is given in overview in the first chapter of The First Book of Moses, called Genesis. Here is contained what is commonly referred to as the six days of creation; days that are disputed as to their actual real time length, and from which dispute some postulate enough time for man to have formed gradually over millions of years. Particularly, it is the sixth day wherein God created both the land animals and man that enough time must be found for the theoretical process of evolution to have occurred, and worked out its transition between the two groups.

Animals: Not in Mankind’s Ancestry

At the outset, the verses in question cannot square with a mutating process used even for the creation of the animals. Notice in this verse that: “And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good.” (Gen 1:25). The phrase “after his kind,” or a derivative of same, occurs not only three times, as it dose here, but in all it is used five times in the verses detailing God’s creation of all the land animals (Gen. 1:24, 25). This does not, however, only back the problem up. The same qualifications are given for the fowl, and the sea animals created only the day before; thus eliminating them from man’s ancestry too (Gen. 1:20-23).

Here we have it expressly stated that no partially developed adaptations or intermediate forms were in the ancestry of the animals, after which they finally appeared as recognizable for Adam to name (Gen. 2:19, 20), or recognizable as Adam himself, but that they appeared in continuum from their genesis after their, fully formed, kind.

Finally, there is the process given in detail by which God created all the animals, and there can be no reasonable alternative to a genesis of final products:

And out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them: and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof (Gen 2:19).

While the fowl were formed out the ground the day before God formed the land animals and man, the immediacy of the acts conforms to a reasonable interpretation of two successive days as we would be familiar with them. This is made clear by the fact that only one day passed between the creative acts, and the rapid succession of events is here further emphasized in the way that the verse containing all three acts is structured (Gen 2:19). This rapid succession in verse construction is typical throughout the creation account. This construction is not implemented so as to brush over infinitesimal, finite complexities which were being left out only for modern man to assembly by his theories.

The verses in the creation account are purposely given in their matter-of-fact, straight forward record, as directed by the God of the universe; benevolently explaining to us how we got here, and revealing who it is we are to seek out for aid in our condition.

Man: Created in the Image of God

In creating man, God provides us with an account of the preliminary conditions upon which he was to be created that deny anything but an immediate man. Additionally, the two subsequent conditions would have made it impossible for nothing less than an intelligent, capable, and resourceful human being to appear at once in order to survive and to carry out the first commandments God gave him. Indeed, it is implied that Adam was created far more intelligent than contemporary man, the naming of the animals probably not the assignment of mere domestic pet names, and his superior state is further attested to by a lifetime, though cut short by the introduction of sin on his genes, that still exceeded nine hundred years (Gen. 5:5).

This sort of this information is not derived by an exhaustive search across ancient manuscripts, the perusal of which is obtained only by appointments granted under strictly supervised use-conditions at prestigious libraries. The portion that is pertinent here is found in one verse in the Bible:

And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth (Gen 1:26).

The conditions upon which the first man was to be created were basically threefold. Man was to be created in the image of God, to have dominion over the whole earth, and to have dominion over all the animals. The last two subsequent conditions entail something he could never have been expected to do competing with the animals as a precursor to a tadpole. For man to meet the subsequent conditions of his creation, which make up, in part, the first commands God issues to him (Gen 1:28), man began life in a preeminent state. Man was not merely made after his own kind, nor was he made after a single-celled organism from primordial soup. He was made in the image of God; about whom, the author must heuristically hope, religious men know enough to know He is not an amoeba.

Evolving Inanimate Objects: A Standard the Theory Cannot Meet

The foregoing verse presenting the creation of man as man is not an anomaly. There are no less than eight verses in the first two chapters of Genesis that demand immediate man in order to be intelligible to the text (i.e. Gen. 1:26, 27; 2:3, 7, 8, 15, 16), and if only one of them should be chosen for memories sake it would have to be this one:

And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul (Gen 2:7).

At one time, and in one instance, man was fully formed up to his nostrils before he had any life in him at all–no living cells struggling for survival, no grotesque mutating and mindless devouring as protoplasm. God completely formed him out to the dust of the ground and then breathed into him the breath of life, and by miraculous means man became a living soul; not an intermediate soul, not half a soul, but a living human soul in its entirety starting life in the image of God. The scriptures give us an unmistakable assurance of a straight forward and literal account of creation for fowl, animals, and man; and they may even provide us with something more.

Anticipating A Lie: A Rare Entrance Given unto Us

There are reasons to suppose that the creation account of mankind contains within it details which elaborate further on the actual time period encompassed, but these are not contrivances resulting from wresting the length of a day. In examining the scriptures, however, these extraordinary details are often overlooked because the subject is different, but it is the treatment of the subject that is what is actually important. God knew what devices and stratagems the enemy would employ to undermine our perception of God’s credibility in order to deceive us and make us weak in the faith. Perhaps for this very reason, God does a very special thing.

Of all the verses demonstrating that man was immediately created by God in a space of time that would easily be accounted for in what we understand to be a day, the last five verses in chapter two that are the most astounding. They comprise the account of the creation of the first woman. Here, we are made privy to God’s expediency. We are given a rare entrance into the theater of operation to look down through the dome of time onto the operating table to witness God creating human beings. In short order, Adam is anesthetized, operated on, and healed back up; and with no time for evolving intermediate forms, or even for convalescence, God brings to a conscious and alert Adam a fully formed Eve (Gen. 2:21-25). Then, Adam immediately applies his intellectual God-given abilities to naming and classifying the new creature: “And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man” (Gen 2:23).

The account of the creation of Eve stands out for us because it is rare. It is rare because no other account of creation, not for the stars or the planets or even Adam, is given to us in such intimate and time sensitive detail in its entirety (the forming of Adam might be argued as to the length of time). Therefore, we may reason that its purpose is, in part, to emphasize immediate man. Another reason may also exist for this account of God creating life: to spell death. At once, we see the theory of evolution demolished thousands or years before it began. The first woman could not have been created for Adam if he was to have evolved, for she would have been required beforehand in incremental states for his development. That is not the way it happened. Adam was created on the sixth day, named all the animals, and after a few hours went home to meet his wife.

The Theory: Of Relativity

Although there is some study involved in correctly positioning oneself on the subject, it should be a reflexive instinct for intelligent, religious man to refer back to the scriptures on any challenge. Nothing should be more invigorating, but other forces are at work. Some are willing to doubt God’s account of creating man so that they may appear more rational in the eyes of other men. They make their escape from the fantastic, and hard to be believed, supernatural version by ascribing to the day of man’s creation an indeterminate amount of time; enough time wherein the proposed workings of an utterly absurd theory could be masked and made palatable.

Such efforts at accommodation are made because religious man desires to be tolerated in the world community of lab coats and textbook publishers. They reason that the creation happened way back in the distant past, and old days in the Bible may not have been typical days as we can know them in more contemporary times.

Yet, in the larger scheme of generally accepted weights and measures, the time when Jesus walked the earth is contemporarily relative to standards that are easily transferable forwards, and backwards. We only need pay attention to more of the implications to be found in Christ’s discourses.

The Sign of Jonah: The Interpretation of Days

To a different doubting crowd of skeptics, Christ offered his works as a credential of proof for the claims that He made about him self: “But I have greater witness than that of John: for the works which the Father hath given me to finish, the same works that I do, bear witness of me, that the Father hath sent me” (Joh 5:36). Then, to the harshest critics, and the most unbelieving, Jesus offered an incontrovertible sign to validate His claim of Messiah:

But he answered and said unto them, An evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign; and there shall no sign be given to it, but the sign of the prophet Jonas: For as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale’s belly; so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth (Mat 12:39-40).

While several arguments have been put forth to explain away the resurrection (the swoon theory where Jesus revived after his crucifixion, the disciples stole the body, etc.), no one has ever seriously disputed whether the three-day period that Jesus was in the tomb should be interpreted as three months, three years, or three decades.

Even after the resurrection, it was not charged that the period of days be reduced to a smaller increment of measure; the record is too extant, the evidence is too complete. By the way, the same is true for the resurrection itself; people don’t reject the record because they have examined it and found it to be wanting in evidence. When tried under the evidentiary rules of law, the corroborating testimony examined, and the character changes in the lives of the disciples considered, there is overwhelming proof of the resurrection. However, the focus of our examination at present is on the three days. The purpose is for establishing the length of time and its relativity.

As there are doubters of the creation account, there are also those who doubt that a man could have survived inside the belly of a whale for the period of time that Jonah did (Jo. 1:17). We now have it on Christ’s authority that Jonah did just that, and from the record we know he went on from there to preach in Nineveh; taking another three days to walk the city’s 60 mile circumference atop its wall. We also have something else on Christ’s authority in the sign of Jonah; that three days given in time’s distant past are in fact days as we know them today, and we are to take them literally despite the fact that seemingly impossible events transpire within them that can only be ascribed to miracles.

The Components of Days: The Interpretation of Ages

Often the bane of truth can be characterized by only the propensity of carelessness to give rise to misinterpretations, and the proclivity of ignorance to recline and entertain them. There is an argument afoot, really a weak assertion, that the six days in the creation week should be interpreted as ages.

While it is true that there are revealed in the Bible ages which are referred to as days, those “days” are specially designated by titles, or names, such as “the day of the salvation,” “the day of Christ,” and “the day of the Lord” (2 Co 6:2, 2 Th 2:2; Phi 1:6, Joe 2:1-11; 2Th 1:4-10), etc. These ages are also made conspicuous by their absence of enumeration, but this is not the case with the six days. Each of these creation days are successively numbered as days one through six, and they are further identified as twenty-four hour days by an emphasis placed on their several components. For every day in question the specification is added they contain both a morning and an evening, as in: “And the evening and the morning were the sixth day” (Gen 1:31 b).

Biblical ages do contain many years, but none so many as could support the theory, and none available for the period in question. The day of salvation is just over two thousand years and is still running. The day of the Lord is future and will last a thousand years, but there is no age in the past, identified as a day or otherwise, that pertains to man which has run even a million years, much less the indeterminate millions necessary, that can be loaned to a theory for mankind’s gradual development.

This evidence is obtained from just slightly more than casual observation, and there is more to be mined by further investigation, such as in the parsing of Hebrew verbs, and the clear implication that the Sabbath day in the Decalogue is at length the same as God’s seventh day wherein he rested from his creative work (Ex 20:9-11, Gen 2:2-3). As can be seen, the reality of the intention to express literal days in the creation account is very straight forward. It requires only a little looking into.

Compromise: The Motives of Disbelief

Ignorance is one of the reasons religious men have retreated on the creation. It is a problem that is relatively easy to remedy. There is another motive that is more difficult to address; the desire of courting world opinion. It stems from our fallen and unregenerate state, and plagues us after we are saved because of our dual natures; the spiritual man and the old man of the flesh warring against each other (Rom. 7:23-25). When our old nature wins out, we naturally seek the good opinion of other natural men, and natural men are unregenerate sinners in rebellion against God and his word. They are the faithless.

The sublime explanation for faithlessness came in a discourse preceded by these words from Jesus: “But I receive not testimony from man: but these things I say, that ye might be saved” (Joh 5:34). He had appealed to John the Baptist’s testimony that he was the Messiah, and that those listening could be saved by receiving Him as such. They were the Jewish religious leaders who actually sought to kill him because he had healed a man on the Sabbath, and thus diminished their ceremonial observances by which they gained esteem in each other’s eyes. Shortly thereafter, Jesus berated them for their unbelief, and identified the reason for it, by asking them:

How can ye believe, which receive honour one of another, and seek not the honour that cometh from God only? (Joh 5:44).

These men sought the acceptance of others of their rank whereby they could also earn accolades from them. The original language of the text is stronger yet, and affirms that, in the natural, men seek glory from men.

Theistic Evolution: The Fruits of Disbelief

While it is true that the lies of evolution are still published in textbooks and used in state schools where students are forced to regurgitate their errors, these facts do not warrant losing faith. Most of the world does not believe in God or His works, nor will they accept the salvation God offers by faith. If religious man thinks that by conceding the creation account he will garner respect amongst naturalists and other assorted atheists, he is sadly mistaken. Although the Bible-believing Christians, who confess the whole word of God, are dismissed as deluded fools clinging to myths; the religious man who concedes to atheists the creation account in the Bible is afterwards ranked even lower. There are two reasons for this.

Firstly, it is obvious that religious man has desperately contrived a third theory of survival of the fittest even more incredulous then theirs: superintended blind chance. The second reason these religious men are to be grievously pitied is for the implications of the resulting compromise arising from their incredible theory of Theistic Evolution.

These are men who at once admit that the genesis of man, as God would tell it, is too incredible to be believed; and still they would trust the same God. They would trust Him to send His son to be born in the flesh so that He could die on a cross for the sins of the whole world to save all those who would simply believe it, repent, and put their faith in His finished work. They trust the same God to forgive them of all their sins, and to resurrect them from the dead to live like the angels in a place called Heaven, for eternity. Ironically, they have faith enough for all of these acts despite the fact that they are instantaneous at the moment of their transaction.

Even at first glance, it must be conceded that all of this appears more difficult to perform then the mere making of a man. After all, what does religious man believe by these things but the virgin birth (Christ born in the flesh), the power of substitutionary atonement (the death of Christ on the cross), the conquering of Death itself (the resurrection of Christ), and by profession of spiritual faith religious man says of eternity, and of his own death and resurrection:

But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you (Rom 8:11).

By this confession, they are not saying that they believe in a God who needs a lot of time to make a man, but one who created time itself and inhabits eternity. While they may not realize it, the naturalists grasp the implications of both their confession of faith in God, and the contradiction in their embrace of the theory of evolution.

To the naturalists, these religious men are even more hopeless than the Bible-believing Christians because they remain deluded with admittedly less myth to go on, and in the face of a discredited source of information that encompasses everything else they profess to believe.

One Bite Takes the Whole Fruit: A God of Grotesque Cruelty, Or the God of the Bible

The atheist’s point must be well taken. After it has been proved to religious man that God’s word at the foundation was scientifically demonstrated to be false, and thus He was not to be believed, compromising religious man still professes belief in other biblical claims requiring at least as much miraculous power in order to be performed. In this, religious man finds himself in similar straits as many a religious man before him:

Nevertheless among the chief rulers also many believed on him; but because of the Pharisees they did not confess him, lest they should be put out of the synagogue: For they loved the praise of men more than the praise of God. Jesus cried and said, He that believeth on me, believeth not on me, but on him that sent me (Joh 12:42-44).

Because those in power had influence over the controlling narrative issued from a seat of authority, and they demanded respect, many would not make full confession of what they believed. They longed for the ruler’s acceptance, a place in their prestigious circle, and they dreaded their rejection. The same is true today. This passage of scripture ends with a critical verse of Christ’s words with at least two applications. The one applicable here is, if you believe in God, you must believe in Jesus, and if you believe in Jesus, you must believe God. It is not an option within theology, and there is only one option without it.

The theory of evolution cannot be taken piecemeal. Anyone embracing that narrative should realize that they must support all its implications. By the terms of the naturalists’ explanation, most of mankind, the vast majority of our lineage, would have no capacity for acknowledging God, or placing saving faith in Him. This ability for abstract thought would only appear late in mankind’s evolutionary development where he could, in turn, invent God and write His narrative for Him. That is the only other option there is to an immediate man in God’s creation account. It is futile to try to ignore the fact that dismissing God is the raison de’tre for the theory of evolution, and any attempt to find a half of it to cling to which would allow for a god does not align with anything we can know about Him.

There is a grotesque cruelty necessary in the theory of evolution. It requires a condition of constantly matriculating through billions of perishing monstrosities that would have persisted over several million years. This would have arbitrarily damned the greater part of God’s creation, selectively discarding by sheer chance of force, mistakes deemed unfit by earth, wind, and fire, the transitional swathe of humanity in the blind. Here is presented the antithesis of God’s narrative, and the exact opposite of God’s character. Starting from the first family on earth we have clear intimation, and then evidence by practice, that God had provided a means by which fallen mankind could approach Him (through shed blood) even before they were cast out of the garden (Gen 3:21), and the infamous first murder takes place when Adam’s first born deviates from the sacrificial communion in his rebellion against God (Gen 4:3-8). This is what we know, and we know that God is not capricious, but merciful; that he takes no pleasure in the death of him that dies (Eze 18:32), or even in the death of the wicked (Eze 33:11), nor is God willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance and place saving faith in Him (2 Pet 3:8).

One may be persuaded by Arminianism, or Calvinism, or some other “ism,” but supreme is theism; and the word of God sets a prerequisite condition of His relationship with mankind, which He declares to exist from his genesis, that he at least possess a will. If it be free, or no, mankind’s will is his capacity to be cognizant, and conscious of the fact of whether he believes in God or not. We know that God is just: He says in another place that He sets before men life and death, blessing and cursing, and he admonishes us to choose that life which comes from believing in Him and walking in His statutes (Deu 30:19). It is true that some of God’s characteristics are mercy, justice, and compassion. Indeed, God so loved the world that he gave His only begotten son so that whosoever would believe in him should not be damned, but have everlasting life (Jh 3:16).

None of these attributes of God, however, would alone sustain His claims, about creation or otherwise, unless He is also truthful and reliable. Fortunately for us He is, for:

God is not a man, that he should lie; neither the son of man, that he should repent: hath he said, and shall he not do it? or hath he spoken, and shall he not make it good? (Num 23:19).

God has spoken. He formed man from the dust of the ground, not the cells of simple life forms, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul. We can believe it because it is the only explanation reasonable to the text; the Bible both proclaims it and supports it. We can believe it because God said so, and God can be relied upon to do what He says He will do, and to tell the truth about it.

The Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptations, and to reserve the unjust unto the day of judgment to be punished: (2Pe 2:9)

The view that a person can lose their salvation is a heresy invented by the Catholic Church, expressed by excommunication; and its design was for the purpose of wielding great power by means of subjugation of the masses. The Reformation addressed and corrected many of the errors taught as dogmas under the Church of Rome, but the heresy of fleeting salvation was not singularly dealt with in detail to the extent that it would be kept from resurfacing in Protestant thought. Granted, there are a few scriptures in the New Testament that, taken by themselves, can be confused with an affirmation of the error once dispensed with. These scriptures suffer from common, and simple, misunderstandings of the text; and can be easily addressed.

The first passage used to support fleeting salvation is from Paul’s epistle to the Hebrews. As the name conspicuously reveals, it was written to Jewish believers about many things pertaining uniquely to them, among other things. One of the topics was Jewish professing Christians who had never been born again, and did not really receive Jesus Christ as Messiah:

For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost, And have tasted the good word of God, and the powers of the world to come, If they shall fall away, to renew them again unto repentance; seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put him to an open shame. (Heb 6:4-6).

The falling away spoken of here is to apostatize, and by so doing they were practically crucifying the Lord anew, and were as bad as their brethren who did. Some may protest, however, that the alliance here spoken of is too strong for any but the formally converted. Nay, but we have for reference one Simon Magus, a devout and religious man who also renounced his former practice and believed and was even baptized in the name of Jesus Christ. He was also a partaker of the Holy Ghost in that he “continued” with Phillip in his ministry wherein he witnessed “the miracles and signs which were done” that included the casting out of unclean spirits and the healing of those who were lame or had the palsy, and he tasted of the heavenly gift as his whole city experienced “great joy” at these things (Acts 8: 5-13).

Certainly Simon could not want for the way of truth to be more brightly illuminated to him, but thus enlightened he still had an unconverted heart. For though he continued for a time, his unregenerate spirit gave him away; he sought to buy the gift of God with money, and then Peter assessed him in no uncertain terms. Peter informed Simon that he was actually still in the bond of iniquity, in gall and bitterness, had no portion of the grace of God, and had better repent and pray for forgiveness or else he was to be damned, having the same chance of entering heaven as his money did (Acts 8: 19-23).

The second scripture that is used to support fleeting salvation is found in the second epistle of Peter: “Ye therefore, beloved, seeing ye know these things before, beware lest ye also, being led away with the error of the wicked, fall from your own stedfastness” (2Pe 3:17). The idea of the passage (the chapter, and the epistle) is steadfastness in the faith and adherence to the word, or sound doctrine, as spoken by the prophets and the apostles; in the face of apostasy (i.e., scoffers, v. 4; and the willingly ignorant, v. 5). The misrepresentation and misapplication of the scriptures was in earnest at the time, as Peter notes in this chapter regarding the abuse Paul’s epistles were undergoing, and he encourages them to endure:

And account that the longsuffering of our Lord is salvation; even as our beloved brother Paul also according to the wisdom given unto him hath written unto you; As also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things; in which are some things hard to be understood, which they that are unlearned and unstable wrest, as they do also the other scriptures, unto their own destruction. (2Pe 3:15-16).

The Gnostics and others were putting the scriptures on the rack and torturing them out of shape, and perverting there meaning. The same easy scholarship and shameless didactical misadventures spawn the same misinterpretations and confusions that abound today. It is demonstrated in Peter’s second epistle that Peter also said some things that are hard to be understood, but not impossible. In this case of incorrectly equating losing steadfastness with the loss of salvation, the proof verse is simply taken out of context; so much so, that the entire chapter of seventeen more verses has been, for the sake of study, redacted.

Are there people who leave the faith? By the droves! Former church members turn up as animal rights activists, environmentalists, and other assorted practicing pagans. The question, however, is not whether they were in a church, or small group, or other religious organization. The question is: where they in the faith? Obviously, the answer is no. How, wonder the simple and offended and doctrinally confused saints, could this be. Fortunately, John had to answer this question many years ago, and his answer still holds today:

Little children, it is the last time: and as ye have heard that antichrist shall come, even now are there many antichrists; whereby we know that it is the last time. They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would no doubt have continued with us: but they went out, that they might be made manifest that they were not all of us. (1Jn 2:18-19).

When John wrote his answer to the saints, they were being reviled and hurt by those who had left their fellowship and started other sects. They were preaching a new holiness supposedly obtained by becoming sinless, and they were expressing open hatred for the saints they had separated from(1Jh 2:9-11). John wrote to them that to reaffirm the right fellowship on which they could depend (1Jn 1:3), and so their joy would be rekindled (1Jh. 1:4). He countered the false brethren’s claim by reminding the saints that: “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us” (1Jo 1:8). We will always be sinners in need of our savior, and our foremost assurance that we are secure in our salvation comes from Him.

We have it on the authority of Christ Jesus that eternal salvation is the only kind of salvation He gives, and it is both non-transferable, and non-forfeitable:

My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me: And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. (Jn 10:27-28).

A saint cannot be unborn. Nicodemus understood as much when he stumbled at the prospect of being born again; he understood it in the natural only, and that such a reversal entailed retrograding to a state before birth, an impossibility (Jn 3:4). It is a natural law that cannot be violated, and the same is true in the spiritual law of the second, or spiritual birth. To ensure it, the new birth is transacted by the impartation of the Holy Spirit as an earnest deposit in the redeemed possession:

That we should be to the praise of his glory, who first trusted in Christ. In whom ye also trusted, after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation: in whom also after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that holy Spirit of promise, Which is the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, unto the praise of his glory. (Eph 1:12-14).

The seal is indelible, permanent. The permanency of God’s seal is also attested to by the irrevocable anti-seal of Antichrist; that he will use to seal the damned unto the day of perdition:

And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads: And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name. (Rev 13:16-17).

Those who receive the anti-seal will be receiving the brand of Hell, and:

The same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of his indignation; and he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb: And the smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever: and they have no rest day nor night, who worship the beast and his image, and whosoever receiveth the mark of his name. (Rev 14:10-11).

The time of Antichrist is fast approaching. The Lord is coming for his saints soon. As far back as the first century church, Paul had to exhort the saints by the coming of our Lord, and our gathering together unto him, that they be not shaken in their understanding, or troubled in their spirit either by public instruction or by any of the forged epistles that were circulating containing errors (2 Th 2:1-2). Today, the field is many times more overgrown with the wild tares of apostasy. Indeed, we are witnessing the apostasy, but they are going out from us to prove they were not all of us. No one is losing their salvation. Always search the scriptures to see whether a thing be so (Acts 17:11); and be not afraid, but do exploits in His name.