All
scripture texts are taken from the King James Version unless indicated
otherwise.
IF WE DENY HIM
Therefore the statement “...If we deny Him, He also will deny us,” 2 Tim. 2: 12b was never made about Believers in Christ. As I pointed out in part three, Paul couldn’t
have been referring to Believers in any way, because the Lord doesn’t deny anyone
who already believes in Him, nor is He ever going to do so. The reasons for
this have been clearly stated in part three of this post. Click here to return to Part 3.
By the statement
above, Paul is referring to the unbelieving Jews who are GOD’S covenant people,
His ELECT ones according to the Abrahamic covenant, for whose sake he (Paul) endures
all things also that they might obtain the salvation which is in Christ Jesus
with eternal glory according to 2 Tim. 2: 10 and by extension, this also
points to any other persons who have never received Christ.
In the first part of the statement “...If we deny Him, He also will deny us,” Paul uses the pronoun “WE”
Hebraically, as a reference to the Hebrew people of which he is also one. He
does this as a way of solidarity, to express his love for his fellow countrymen and women in the flesh – the Jews.
The Jews were the most highly regarded religious or “holier-than-thou
people” on Earth. So Paul is just pointing out the fact that the same way the
Gentiles need to receive salvation, is the same way the Jews need it too. No
group is exempted. The apostle is indicating that the Jews are not exempted
even though they’re GOD’S ELECT, His chosen ones according to the Abrahamic
covenant and according to the Law of Moses. They must receive salvation or
perish just like anyone else who continues denying the Lord and rejecting
salvation. Their law-keeping won’t save them.
.
A better way of rendering 2 Tim. 2: 12b in a way
that helps simplify understanding of what the apostle is saying is this; “If we (the Jewish Elect) deny him, he also will deny us (the
Jewish Elect).”
To deny the Lord
here means; to deny the person or deity of Jesus Christ and the salvation He provided
us in His death and resurrection. The truth is that there’s no person who is
actually Born Again, Believer in Christ, that can ever deny in their heart.
They may pretend to do so outwardly, for some false reasons. And even if such a
Believer is outwardly claiming they’ve denied the Lord, the fact (spiritual
fact) remains yet, that deep down in their heart, they’d still in some way acknowledge
that they had from a particular time known the Lord as their savior. Bam!!!
That is it! It’s that heart acknowledgment of theirs that the Lord needs to
continue to claim them as His own. It is that heart believe that is undeniable.
They may deny with their mouth, but they cannot deny with their heart. And this
totally agrees with what Paul says in Romans;
Rom
10:10 For WITH THE HEART MAN BELIEVETH UNTO
RIGHTEOUSNESS; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. (emphasis
added by me)
That’s simply what
the Lord is looking for – our HEART BELIEVE, which became the persuading factor
that made us acknowledge and confess the Lord as our savior right from the
moment when we received Him.
Now what we must realize also is this, something that a lot of religious people find hard to comprehend because of their religiosity which gives them a delusional belief wherein they imagine that they are the ones securing their salvation through their self-righteousness performances and legalism, and as such they fail to come to the realization that; the believe that gets a person Born Again is irreversible and irrevocable.
This is what Paul implies in Romans 8: 38, 39, also see Ecclesiastes 3: 14. Eternal salvation is an inheritance which when once received, fadeth not away, is imperishable, and cannot be lost, reversed, or revoked. This is exactly what Peter is saying in 1 Peter 1: 4. This is in contrast to earthly inheritances that are subject to decay, loss, and are revokable. But in Christ, you can’t reverse your believe in Him, you can’t reverse your salvation. It’s a one-way ticket. There's no return ticket.
WHAT ABOUT PETER’S DENIAL
Some people site
Peter’s example of denying the Lord thrice as an example of the possibility that
a Believer can deny the Lord and lose salvation (cf. Matt. 26: 69 – 75; Mk.
14: 66 – 72; Lk. 22: 54 – 62; Jhn. 18: 15 – 27). Thinking this way
is totally odd. This is because Peter’s spiritual state as at the time he
denied the Lord thrice, can never be equated to the exalted and indestructible spiritual
state of the Believer in Christ.
Notice in Peter’s
case Christ had not yet died, let alone resurrected. He had just been arrested for
crucifixion. No one was or could be Born Again prior to Jesus' death and resurrection,
and the coming of the Holy Spirit. Therefore Peter could not have lost a
salvation he never had in the first place. The reason being that at the time
he denied the Lord, he wasn’t Born Again yet, because Jesus had not yet
provided the salvation or New Birth that people needed. That came after Jesus
had resurrected and glorified at the right hand of the Father, and the Holy
Spirit sent.
So Peter’s denial does
not concern Believers, and should never be used as an example or reference to give
false claim of the possibility of Believers denying Christ and losing salvation.
Observe also that
this same Peter who denied the Lord thrice when he was not yet Born Again, was the
same person who after he got Born Again and became one of the leading voices of
the early Church, began to tell us that our inheritance (which includes but not
limited to salvation) in Christ, as Believers, is imperishable and cannot be
lost or reversed (1 Pet. 1: 4).
ABOUT HYMANAEUS AND PHILETUS
What about Hymenaeus and Alexander (also known as Philetus – 1
Tim. 1: 19, 20; 2 Tim. 2: 16 – 18)? Did they not deny the faith and
lose their salvation? Well contrary to what traditional or religious teachings have
said about these two fellas, what I want to point out here which you should
know for now is that those two fellas were never Born Again. They were never
Believers in Christ. You may be shocked to hear this but it is the truth.
Everything Paul
says or describes about them points to the fact that they were never Believers
in Christ. But this is all you need to know about them for now. Therefore, anyone citing Hymenaeus and Alexander as examples of Believers who denied the Lord and lost their salvation is a
total misnomer. It’s ridiculous.
I will do a separate post about Hymenaeus and Alexander, sometime later, to show that they were never Believers in Christ, but for now. That's for another post.
From all that’s
been said so far, merely saying you deny the Lord in the moment of fear,
weakness, or temporary lapse, does not amount to or equate to loss of
salvation, and neither does it ever relate to what Paul is describing in 2 Tim.
2: 12b. In this verse, as I have already explained, Paul is
referring to those of his kinsmen who continually refuse to receive Christ,
viz-a-viz, the unbelieving people.
In the light of the
Gospel of Grace, It follows that no Believer should ever feel insecure nor in
the least worried about the possibility of denying the Lord. There's nothing like that for the Believer. The question about “what
if I deny the Lord,” should never arise as far as you are concerned as
Believer in Christ. Our eternal security lies with the performance of Jesus Christ, not ours. But legalism is the mother of
all insecurity. This is why legalists usually have this sense of insecurity. And they think that the way to deal with their sense of insecurity is to depend on their performance of dead religious works.
One other thing
that makes it clear that you can’t deny the Lord, pluck yourself out of Him, and
lose your salvation as a Believer, is that Jesus already says you can’t. He
describes how impossible this is in the following verse.
Joh 10:29 My Father, which
gave them me, is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them
out of my Father's hand.
Notice what Jesus says in that verse, “...no man is able to pluck them (Believers) out of my
Father’s hand.”
To begin with, what Jesus is saying is that the security of your
salvation as a Believer, is not in your hands, but in the Father’s hand.
Secondly, no man
can pluck you out of the Father’s hand. That includes you because you are also a man. You can’t pluck yourself out of GOD’S hand. So quit trying to do something
you can’t. Just rest in Him.
Furthermore, Jesus says the Father is the one who drew us to
Himself through the Gospel message preached to us (Jhn. 6: 44). All we
did was to respond, by receiving Christ. In other words, we didn’t draw
ourselves to GOD. He drew us. And having responded, and having been recreated
in spirit, nothing can draw you away from Him (Rom. 8: 38, 39).
No force in the
whole universe is strong enough to counter this. Since you’re not the one who
drew yourself to Him in the first place, then you can’t draw yourself away from
Him, because you cannot generate a force strong enough to counter His pull or
break the force field of His love bond that holds you to Him.
There is no such
thing as sinning yourself away from the Lord. You cannot sin yourself away from
GOD, because Jesus Christ already paid for all sins, past, present, and future,
by putting away sin by the sacrifice of Himself (Heb. 9: 26).
Therefore nothing
can or should hold you down anymore.
One additional truth that makes it impossible for the Lord to deny
the Believer is that Jesus also says He will never cast away (i.e. reject,
deny, or turn away) anyone who comes to Him i.e. anyone who believes in Him (Jhn.
6: 37). Then He says further, that the Father who sent Him has determined
that in the end, He will lose no one that ever believed in Him (Jhn. 6: 39).
I can go on and on, along these lines, just to show us how impossible it is for the Lord to deny any Believer in Him. He will never do such. Our earthly parents may deny us, but GOD will never deny or reject His own.
Can we see now
that Paul’s statement in 2 Tim. 2: 12b which says “...If we deny Him, He also will deny us,” is definitely not referring to Believers in Christ, because the
apodosis (the clause expressing the result or consequence in the conditional
sentence) which says; “...He also will deny us:”, isn’t true of the unbreakable union that we as Believers have with
the Lord, as numerous scriptures have proven.
The verse shows
that Paul by that statement can only be referring to his unbelieving countrymen and women, the Jews, whom he refers to as the ELECT of vs. 10, and
by extension to any other person or group of persons who continually keep
denying or rejecting Christ (as in Matt. 10: 33; Mk. 8: 38), but
definitely not the Believer in Christ.
Now let's head on to
the final section of this post.
IF WE BELIEVE NOT,
YET HE REMAINS FAITHFUL
Paul concludes his FAITHFUL SAYING with the statement;
2 Tim. 2: 13 “If we believe not, yet he
abideth faithful: he cannot deny himself.”
This statement has
a dual application. In other words, it must be viewed from two angles, as it
addresses two different groups. This is so because the Greek word translated as
BELIEVE NOT here is “apistos”, and can be used in two distinct ways to refer
to; anyone who disbelieves by not acknowledging the truth, and also; a
person acting in an unfaithful manner.
Paul’s style in using this statement this way should be seen as
using one stone (i.e. one statement) to hit at two birds (i.e. to address two
different or distinct groups). His choice of words and how he applies them are
very unique indeed! And we must reckon with this, than just going on a one way
street all of the time.
Depending on which
side a person is on, 2 Tim. 2: 13 is applicable. Depending on which side
of the “WE” one is. The believing side, or the unbelieving side.
On the part of the
unbelieving group; This is a statement of hope for
the unbelievers. Paul is saying that their unbelief does not stop the Lord’s
faithfulness towards all men, and cannot make Him deny Himself or change His promise
of salvation to all who would come to him. He won’t stop being who He is just because some have not believed,
see Rom. 3: 3. He will never stop being the loving GOD He’s always been.
He will never withdraw from anybody His love or goodness which is what leads people
to repentance (Rom. 2: 4), despite their unbelieving condition. GOD
draws people to Himself by His goodness to them. This He will never stop doing
towards unbelievers. GOD doesn’t hate people because they don’t love Him.
On the part of the
believing group; Paul uses this same statement to
address Believers. Concerning us, he says that the Lord continues to remain
faithful to us despite our lapses. Always remember that Paul always states
GOD’S faithfulness towards Believers as an encouragement, never as a warning,
nor punishment (c.f.1 Cor. 1: 9; 10: 13; 2 Cor. 1: 18; 1
Thess. 5: 24; 2 Thess. 3: 3).
In relating to
Believers, one translation of 2 Tim. 2: 13 renders the Greek term “apistos”,
which the King James Translation and some other translations have rendered as “BELIEVE
NOT,” to be UNFAITHFUL, NOT FAITHFUL.
For example, the
Contemporary English Version says;
2Ti 2:13 If we are not
faithful, he will still be faithful. Christ cannot deny who he is."
(CEV)
This verse exposes the fraud of legalism which says that if we are
unfaithful to GOD, he will disown us unless we repent. But Grace declares that
GOD will remain faithful to us even in our worst moments. He does not count our
lapses, nor hold them against us.
GOD’S faithfulness towards us is unchangeable and is greater than our lapses, This is why Paul makes the following remarks in our concluding verse below, as part of the FAITHFUL SAYINGS we should continually remind one another.
2Ti 2:14 Of these things
put them in remembrance, charging them before the Lord that they
strive not about words to no profit, but to the subverting of the
hearers.
We can see that the notion that Believers can deny the Lord and
lose their salvation is a damnable fallacy of dead religion.
The Lord, as proven by Scripture, can never disown any Believer. So never allow religionists (scaremongers) to use their misconception of 2 Tim. 2: 12, 13 to attempt to sow fear into you. Your salvation is forever secure!
Case dismissed!!!
Click here to return to Part 3
Click here to return to Part 2
Click here to return to Part 1
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