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THE KING’S BUSINESS
have believed, and am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I have committed unto Him against that day.” Furthermore, let me say "castaway” does not mean lost, the word means “disapproved.” Many a man is set aside after being greatly used, but he is not thereby lost. Believers may be judged of God because of their mistakes and sins, even unto death, but still they are not condemned with the world (1 Cor. 11:30-32). In regard to 1 Tim. 1:19, those who had made “shipwreck” were not regen erate men, they were not believers in the full sense. The very context tells us they did not hold faith and a good conscience, but thrust these things away from them and thus became “shipwrecked.” You ask if “according to John 8:31 discipleship is not conditioned on ‘continuing’ in the course it began?” It certainly is, but the one who is born again will continue. You ask how Heb. 6:4-6 can be harmonized with above doctrine. Without any difficulty whatever. In the first place, it is very evident from the context that the writer did not state this as a case that would actually occur, but states what would be the result if it did occur in order to keep it from occurring. In other words, he led the readers up to an awful gulf to show them what was there that they might not walk into it. He says distinctly in the ninth verse, “Beloved, we are persuaded better things of you, and things that accompany salvation, though we thus speak.” In other words he tells them that this is not going to occur, and warning them of it is the means that God used to keep if from occurring. And, furthermore, there is such a thing as a work of the Holy Spirit short of regeneration. A man may taste of the heavenly gift and be made a partaker of the Holy Spirit to a certain extent without being born again. In regard to the church in Ephesus, it does not say that they were “in danger of losing spiritual life altogether.” Read the passage care fully. All that is, Said is, that the church, as a church, was in danger of being moved
out o f its place, being set aside as a wit ness for God. There is not a hint that indi viduals in the church who really believed and had been bom again would be lost for ever. As to the parable of the ten virgins I cannot see that it has any bearing on the question at all. The five foolish virgins were those who had their lamps, the out ward profession, but did not have abiding supplies of oil together with their lamps. It does not picture a regenerate person at all. As, to Prof. Drummond, I am not at all concerned about whether he was con sidered orthodox or otherwise. It is the Bible I am studying, not Prof. Drummond’s Natural Law.” I do not think any thor oughly-posted scientist of today would accept some of the things he said, from a scientific standpoint; and I am sure that any thorough student of the Bible today would take exception to some things that Drummond said. Prof. Drummond was not inspired. Neither this book nor any other book he ever wrote was a revelation from God. The Bible is. Let me say in clos ing that I thoroughly disagree with those teachers of the doctrine to which you refer who seem to teach that if a man has once been saved he may lie down in sin, die in sin, and yet be saved eternally. That is a most pernicious belief. Yet I do believe in the security of the believer, because it is plainly taught in the Word of God. I do not so much believe in the perseverance of the saints as in the perseverance of the Saviour, and as He has said He would keep His own sheep to the end, I am sure He will. I do not think my eternal salvation* will be any more secure when I have been in heaven ten million years than it is today, but this does not make me presumptuous; on the contrary, it makes me walk more humbly before Him, and makes me more devoted to Him. I am not serving Him in order to be saved, but in glad gratitude toward Him because He has already saved me for all eternity.
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