J.D. Rodgers is the young adult pastor (young adults associate director) at Watermark Community Church in Dallas, Texas. Recently, Rodgers delivered a sermon that categorically stated that once a person is saved (born from above) he can never, never lose his salvation. No matter what a person says, does, or believes, once he is married to Jesus, it’s forever.
If you can revoke your salvation, you are saying that the Holy Spirit can be unsealed, that the Holy Spirit won’t keep His promise to give you your inheritance. What is your inheritance? Glory. Eternal life. John 3:16 says that we will as Christians’ receive eternal life.’ If there’s something that you can do to take back the gift of eternal life, was it ever truly eternal?
He [ Jesus] lived on the earth 33 years. He then died a sinner’s death on a cross. He hung there. And on that cross, He took every sin that you committed against God that deserved death. He took it and He died in your place on the cross. And if you put your faith in that, what happens? You are justified. You are now a Christian because you’ve been justified by faith.
You were once opposed to God. Now, therefore, ‘because we have been justified by faith, we now have peace with God.’ Because of the death, burial and resurrection, Jesus went to the grave [for] three days. Three days later, He rose from the grave, conquering sin, conquering your shame, your guilt. So now, you don’t have to be afraid of death. You don’t have to be afraid of a penalty. You can stand free before God because of Jesus. You are justified.
[Christians who say you] “can lose your salvation” [are saying they can] “change the definition of the gift of eternal life that you receive the moment you were saved. To say you can lose your salvation [is] to say that God is not trustworthy, that God will take back what He’s promised and God will take back the gift that He’s given to you. All three of those things are inconsistent with what the Bible says is the character of God. God is trustworthy. God has given the gift of His Son of eternal life freely. He’s not taking it back. No matter what you’ve done
So there ya have it, once saved, always saved. I was saved at the age of fifteen at Trinity Baptist Church in Findlay, Ohio. Two weeks later, God called me to preach. Four years later I enrolled at Midwestern Baptist College to study for the ministry. I married a pastor’s daughter, and for twenty-five years I pastored Evangelical churches in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. By all accounts, I was a devoted follower of Jesus. I loved the Lord, my God, with all my heart, soul, and might. Colleagues in the ministry and parishioners recognized that I was a man who loved Jesus; a man who devoted his life to preaching the gospel, winning souls, and ministering to the church. That’s the facts. Anyone who suggests otherwise has an agenda or wants to discredit me.
In November 2008, I walked out the doors of the Ney United Methodist Church for the last time. A few months later, I sent out a letter to family, friends, and former church members declaring that I was not a Christian. It was not long before I self-identified as an atheist.
According to Rodgers, I am still a Christian — a Christian atheist. 🙂
Recognizing that he has a theological conundrum on his hands, Rodgers, ends his sermon by completely contradicting what he said earlier. Realizing that there are people like me who “once proclaimed they were ‘in the faith’ left the faith to practice a different lifestyle or became an atheist,” Rodgers states:
“The problem with these two oppositions is they come with the assumption that these people were actually Christians to begin with.”
“1 John also actually says that, ‘if you walked with us, and you looked like us, and then you walked away, you were never one of us.’ 1 John 2:23-24, it says, ‘No one who denies the Son has the Father.’… So if there’s any point in your life where you say, ‘No, I don’t believe Jesus has done this for me,’ you do not have the Father. You never had the Father. That’s what the Bible would teach.”
So which is it? Am I still a Christian or was I never a Christian? Rodgers miserably fails to account for people like me. Either he must claim that I was never a Christian; that I was a false prophet; that I successfully deceived scores of Christians over the years, or I am still a bought-by-the-blood child of God.
Arminians, of course, will argue that I once was saved, and now I am lost; that I was a Christian who fell from grace. The problem with this position is all the Bible verses that suggest that once a person is saved, he can never lose his salvation. Who is right? Both appeal to the Bible to justify their positions. How can I possibly ever know whether I’m going to Heaven or Hell? 🙂 Not that I care. I’m an atheist. I will leave it to God’s chosen ones to debate and settle the eternal destiny of my non-existent soul. In the meantime, I’ll be cheering on the Reds and Bengals and having wild sex with my smoking hot heathen girlfriend. 🙂
Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
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