I wrote yesterday that today I would answer the question posed by Jeff Goins on his blog:
Well, Jeff posted his own answer to the question today and I am going to pass that along instead. He came very close to saying what I would have said if I were not so tired this evening and had more energy to write something myself!
Jeff writes:
Assuming that by “Christian” the person meant someone who has repented of their sin and trusted in Christ, then here is my answer:
1) Nothing can snatch a believer away from the hope of eternal life that they have in salvation (John 10:28), and I guess that would include denying Christ, although I’d imagine on a temporary basis.
I don’t believe a true believer would go around denying Jesus, but I do believe that people can succumb to weakness of human intellect and falter. And that would not diminish the saving work that God has already done in their lives. Of course, they would have a lot of remorse and guilt to deal with, but I believe that the Lord would be gracious to them.
So, in theory, yes, a Christian can deny Christ and still go to heaven, because the grace of God is more powerful than any person doing all the right things to get into heaven.
Saying that someone could be damned for something they did after genuinely receiving Christ would nullify all the scriptural promises of the efficacy of God’s grace. He would no longer be able to save someone completely. It would require work on our part that would merit our own salvation. When grace involves merit, it ceases to be grace.
2) Most who openly deny Christ probably aren’t really Christians. I think that Matthew 10:33 is, like a lot of passages in the New Testament, a test to discover who is really a Christian and who’s a phony. Most Christians, since Christ is living inside of them, really wouldn’t deny Christ; it would be like denying yourself. The New Testament and history of the Church speaks pretty clearly on this; for millenia, Christians have been tortured and executed for not denying their belief in Jesus.
The Church should seriously question a “Christian” who denies Christ, wondering if the person is really a believer or have merely given a cheap profession of faith without true repentance. There are a lot of people in churches that look like and talk like Christians and don’t know Jesus.
When you strip away all the religious practices, it all comes down to whether or not you know Christ personally; I would have a hard time denying someone I knew personally. That’s like saying my wife didn’t exist; it simply doesn’t make sense to say that someone I spend so much time with doesn’t exist. That is, unless I never really met her and we never really got married.
