Courtesy of my brother-in-law, Tim, who is living in a dorm among many fundamentalists, we have an interesting adventure in apologetics.  Tim was talking to someone about the “once-saved-always-saved” concept.

First, he asked the guy about the parable of the Prodigal Son. If you’ll remember, at the end of the parable, the father says, my son who was dead is alive again.  Now, logically, in order for someone to be alive “again” means that they were at one time alive, then they were dead, and then they came back to life.  You can’t be alive again without having also been alive before and then gone through a period of not being alive.  Now, most people agree that the father in this parable is parallel to God, and that there are two types of Christ-followers, those who are steady and consistent in faith throughout their lives, and those who aren’t but in the end return to God’s good graces.  Wouldn’t this parable then be telling us that it is possible to be in God’s good graces, but then to turn our backs and walk away, and then, most importantly, to come back to him?

Then, Tim went on to ask the person about when Jesus talked about vines and branches, and how Scripture tells us that branches that don’t produce fruit will be cut off and burned in the fire.  Now, most folks agree that Christ is the vine, and Christians are the branches (in fact, I think Jesus actually says “I am the vine, you are the branches.”)  Logically, the branches are joined to the vine in order to survive.  However, it’s our responsibility as Christians to bear fruit (that is to witness to God’s grace) or we will be sheared off and burned up.  Now, if we are branches that are attached to the vine, the Body of Christ, then that means we are in Him and He is in us.  In other words, we’re in good shape.  We’re heaven-bound, we’re living members of his body.  But then, if we don’t bear fruit, we can be sheared off.  Separated from the vine.  If we as branches are separated from the vine, we’re dead.  And then there’s that whole “burned in fire” thing that sounds a little like hell, or at least like purgatory.  That would imply that we can be joined to the vine and then we by virtue of not bearing fruit can be separated from the vine.  Again, if we can be separated, then that would mean we are fallen away from God’s grace.

So there you go – two very cogent arguments against “once-saved-always-saved.”  The fundy that Tim was talking to simply responded that neither of these stories is actually about salvation, because in neither case was the person saved before falling away (even though they were “alive” and attached to the vine.)  So, Tim asked why these two cases are mentioned in the Bible.  The person responded that they tell us how to come to Christ.  Even using a literalistic interpretation that is subscribed to by fundamentalists, these two stories clearly tell us how not to be separated from Christ – not how to come to Him.

Amazing how easy it is to believe once-saved-always-saved when you just ignore what the Bible says.