Part 15

The Holy Spirit Can Be Forsaken

Isaiah 63:8–10 (ESV) —  For [The LORD] said, “Surely they are my people, children who will not deal falsely.” And he became their Savior.  In all their affliction he was afflicted, and the angel of his presence saved them; in his love and in his pity he redeemed them; he lifted them up and carried them all the days of old.  But they rebelled and grieved his Holy Spirit; therefore he turned to be their enemy, and himself fought against them.

This month our newsletter articles on the Holy Spirit have to begin to deal with a potentially disheartening but vitally important truth: A believer can cast off the Holy Spirit (apostatize) and return to his or her former unbelief. There are some important “first words” that need to be said before we begin diving into this though, so this month’s article will barely get started looking at the Scriptural witness on this issue.

A common way we describe this is to say “you can lose the Holy Spirit.”  While this is a fairly accurate way to describe the phenomenon, I’ve purposely chosen not to title this article that way because it doesn’t give entirely the right impression. The Holy Spirit is not a set of car-keys that can be misplaced and “lost”, nor is His presence like a basketball game that you could try really hard to “win” but end up “losing” anyways. His gracious presence can be “lost”, but only in the sense that if someone is “apostate” they did once truly have His presence, but now they don’t (i.e. he/she “lost” it). 

His presence and salvation is not “lost” through simple carelessness nor is He lost through inadequate effort or lacking ability. If someone “loses” the Holy Spirit it’s because they cast Him off through deliberate action and/or disregard. We can forsake Him. We can’t misplace Him, but can intentionally relinquish Him (Hebrews 10:26). He never abandons us (Hebrews 13:5), nor does He slip through our fingers. We can, though, abandon Him (John 6:66, 1 Timothy 4:1). 

Before We Start: A Pastoral Warning

Before we start dealing with the fact that we can forsake the Holy Spirit, I must address a pastoral concern. God has revealed these truths to us in Holy Scripture for our benefit. They are loving warnings. They are not, though, in any way intended to make believers anxious and uncertain of their own salvation. Christ intends the Gospel to create confidence in your heart (Ephesians 3:12, Hebrews 3:14, 4:16, 10:19, 13:6) and to free you from fear (1 John 4:17-18), not add to your fear and anxiety. 

It is not by your own works that you received the Holy Spirit (Galatians 3:2), and similarly it’s not by your works that you “hold onto” Him. It is God’s hold on us that keeps us inside His salvation, not our hold on Him (John 10:28-29). Even the truth that you can forsake His presence is intended to aid and guide your confident walk with Christ, not turn you back to trusting your own works and strength.  

God used the Means of Grace to give you salvation and the Holy Spirit. He used those means so that you can know, with great confidence, that you truly received them. If you begin to worry that you’ve lost the Holy Spirit, flee immediately to the chief Means of Grace, the Word of God. Specifically consider these words- 

John 10:27–28 (ESV) —  My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me.  I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand.

Those hearing Christ’s voice are promised, by Christ, that they will never perish. The key to “not losing” the Holy Spirit is not making sure you live sufficiently scared that you will lose Him. The key is to continue encountering and receiving His grace and presence in the same way you first received Him, through the Means of Grace, as the congregation gathers around them.

Colossians 2:6 (ESV) —  Therefore, as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him.

Cling to Christ’s voice (the Bible) and you cannot be snatched from His salvation. Confess Him as the Lord of the Universe and your savior, and you can know the Spirit remains with you (1 Corinthians 12:3, Romans 10:13). 

As with any spiritual matter, if you find yourself perplexed, uncertain or even scared that you do not have the Spirit, come talk to me. If you are worried about the state of your salvation, come talk to me. Call me and set up a time to talk, or just come in if you see my car at the church. That’s a big part of what I’m here for. The congregation, and the pastor as her representative, are a huge part of Christ’s plan for instilling in us the confidence of salvation that Christ died and rose again to give His people (Matthew 18:18-20, John 20:19-23). 

The Need For Care And Precision

When taught poorly, the truth that “the Holy Spirit can be forsaken” is one that can terrorize Christians. When this is not taught with the care and precision necessary, Christians will be left with the impression that it is only by their own strength that they continue to hold the Holy Spirit. That idea is explicitly contrary to Galatians 3:3. 

Galatians 3:3 (ESV) —  Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh?

Remember, all those who are saved also have the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 12:3 + Romans 10:13) and all those who have the Holy Spirit are saved (Romans 8:10-11). We keep and receive the Holy Spirit the same way we receive and keep our salvation: by faith. So when we talk about the fact that the Holy Spirit can be forsaken, we must take great care that people are told to turn to Christ in faith, not told to return to their “dead works” (Hebrews 6:1). Turning people to their works as the way we “keep” the Spirit is destructive. 

Conversely though, when congregations omit teaching that “the Holy Spirit can be forsaken,” or worse yet, explicitly deny the possibility, then believers and unbelievers alike are denied a vital warning. The potential to scare people with this truth does not mean that it is a loving thing to suppress it. 

As a fitting illustration, consider teaching a child that the stove is hot. If we saw our child near a flaming hot stove we could say to ourselves, “By no means do I wish to startle that kid. That’s overbearing and will hurt her feelings. The loving thing to do is to say nothing but lead her by example.” 

Leading by example works for a great many things, but the Gospel is not always one of them. While it’s true that Scripture exhorts us to be good examples to each other (1 Peter 2:21, 5:3, 1 Timothy 4:12, 1 Thessalonians 4:12), sometimes people get carried away repeating the empty platitude “more is caught than taught,” as if teaching essential truths isn’t necessary. 

If “more is caught than taught” were true, Jesus wouldn’t have had to preach the sermon on the mount. Jesus has called us all to teach (Matthew 28:20), and as we’ve covered in depth in prior articles, the proclaimed Gospel is the power of God unto salvation (Romans 1:16-17, Galatians 3:2). We must teach Christian doctrine, even the tough stuff, for the salvation of the lost and the protection of the saved (1 Timothy 4:16). 

We must teach this truth, clearly and compassionately. It is widely attacked, and many who either didn’t know you can forsake the Holy Spirit or simply didn’t care have lost their salvation because of it. 

“Preach the Gospel, if necessary use words” is a fine saying as long as we realize the great majority of preaching the Gospel actually requires words. Leaving a kid alone by a hot stove, instead of warning them, is not loving. We can tell ourselves we’re teaching by example or experience, but that’s lunacy when we could just open our mouths and instruct them.  How much less loving, then, is it to withhold an eternal warning? How much more grave a transgression is it to hold back from telling folks that you can relinquish the Holy Spirit when the consequence of that is not a momentary burn, but an eternal one?

I’ll tell you brothers and sisters, that was a chilling sentence just to type. It’s my prayer that it was equally burdensome for you to read. While we should not be in despair over these truths, we ought to have a godly grief about our friends and neighbors who have either never known Christ or have walked away from Him. We probably ought to be equally heartbroken for the “Christian” denominations that deny or ignore this truth and send their people astray. To say or do nothing when the opportunity to warn them arises is as cruel as leaving a child to burn themselves on the stove. 

I suspect that most of the time a reluctance to preach or teach this comes from a fear of being “judgy.” Let’s never let our fear of being called judgmental by unbelievers outweigh our love for the lost or our desire to see them saved. When necessary, let’s love people enough to tell them the truth: manifest unbelief will lead to the Holy Spirit turning from you and becoming your enemy (Isaiah 63:10). 

But let’s also take care how we warn them! The Holy Spirit can be forsaken, but we must speak this truth in love (Ephesians 4:15) so that it can be received as the loving message it truly is. We should try to make our methods match our message. Don’t teach the kid to leave the stove alone by putting their hand on the burner. Don’t make them so afraid of the stove that they never again go in the kitchen. Lovingly explain to them the danger. 

The Danger Is Real

The danger, simply stated, is that we can forsake our faith (Hebrews 6:4-8). Forsaking your faith includes also forsaking the gracious presence of the Holy Spirit in your life. 

There are quite a few important questions and discussion points related to this, and I cannot get to them all in this one article. It’s going to take a few months to unpack all this. In fact, this month I won’t even start listing the Scriptures that give us this important warning. Instead, before I lay out the Scriptures proclaiming this truth (next month’s article), we’re going to look at some of the common attacks on it. 

I admit that normally it makes more sense to lay out the truth before the attacks on it, but in examining the attacks you will see how widespread these doctrines that contradict Scripture really are. My hope is that when we see how common it is for people to think, act, and believe these things that are contrary to the Word of God, we’ll be even more desirous to learn the Scriptures that address and remedy these errors. 

Let’s turn our attention now to two common strains of error. 

Not “Once Saved, Always Saved”

One of these strains is “once saved, always saved” theology. John Calvin should probably be credited with laying the theological foundations that began to make this line a popular one. Even so, now-a-days when we hear that phrase used in teaching or preaching, it’s often used without the type of careful deliberation that Calvin was famous for. Ironically, a good chunk of the people slinging this line are actually vehemently opposed to most of Calvin’s theological assumptions. A good majority of them aren’t Calvinist. They reject almost all of his “system,” yet they retain “once saved, always saved” mostly just because they like it. It’s a catch-phrase used without theological underpinning. It’s a hollow and substance-less proclamation. 

I’ve actually heard “once saved, always saved” defended this way- “If you could lose your salvation then you already would have. If you can lose your salvation you’d never be able to have it in the first place. Since the Bible says some people are saved, therefore, everyone who is once saved is always saved.” 

I suppose there is a degree of logic to all that, but it’s very poor logic (the specific error is that they are applying simple/propositional logic to a question requiring modal logic). Nerd speak aside, that logical syllogism doesn’t accord with the testimony of Scripture (Isaiah 63:8-10, Hebrews 10:19-31, 1 Samuel 16:14 and others we’ll explore next month). 

Yet I don’t think it’s the logic of the argument that has led these non-Calvinists to teach Calvinist theology. I think it’s the emotions that this plays on. I don’t want to feel like I can lose my salvation. No one does! So if you give people a moderately convincing logical syllogism that tells them something they already wanted to believe (“once saved, always saved”), they will often believe it mostly just because they want to. 

“Once saved, always saved” sounds logical (though the logic is faulty) and feels gospel-ish (though it tends to lead to anxiety, confusion or nihilism), but it’s simply not true. “Once saved, always saved” is actually an attack on the Biblical truth that salvation comes through faith because “once saved, always saved” replaces faith as the receptor of grace. Instead of “saved by grace through faith” (Ephesians 2:8), “once saved always saved” teaches “saved by grace through status.” 

“Once saved, always saved” reduces faith to an optional part of salvation because it teaches that it is technically possible for someone outside of faith to be saved. “Once saved always saved” teaches that an apostate can renounce their faith but can’t lose their salvation. An apostate might actively yell “Jesus is cursed,” but if they happen to have the “once saved” status, then it doesn’t matter because they are forever in the “always saved” camp. So you see “once saved, always saved” has no need for faith. 

There is a common response to my accusation that “once saved, always saved” removes faith from the salvation equation. They say: “If they aren’t saved now, they were never saved. They never had real faith.” There are two problems with that though.

The first problem is a significant one, but not the strongest possible because it’s based in the lived experience of humans rather than Scripture. The problem is that Scripture says you can know the state of your salvation through your confession and belief (Romans 10:9, 1 Corinthians 12:3). And yet, humans can go from confessing “Jesus is LORD!” to proclaiming “Jesus is accursed!”. 

The argument that “if they aren’t saved now they were never saved” requires that if someone goes from confessing Christ to cursing Christ, then their first confession was not real. But what if they actually are elect? Maybe then it’s the second confession, the one that cursed Jesus that we can’t believe? How do we know which confession is the real one if only one of them can be? 

The end result of this is that no confession is to be believed and no one can ever know the state of their salvation (this is what eventually creates anxiety). “Once saved always saved” ends up making us cynical about everyone’s confession of faith or even their denial of faith. The human experience that some people will live avowedly Christian lives for a while and then fall away means “once saved, always saved” contradicts the promises given us in Romans 10:9 and 1 Corinthians 12:3. 

The second argument against this “if they aren’t saved they never were” line of thought is much more solid because it relies entirely on Scripture. Scripture tells us about people who have cast off the Holy Spirit or forsaken their salvation. Scripture not only acknowledges that this change in status can happen, it gives concrete examples of it happening (which we’ll look at next month). 

So Scripture tells us that something exists which “once saved, always saved” theology explicitly denies. This is heartbreaking, because this thinking is so common, but “once saved always saved” theology is an explicit denial of God’s Word. 

Not “I’m Baptized, I’m Good To Go”

The second strain of error that is quite common is “I’m baptized, I’m good.” Note that this sounds like something we’ve been teaching and defending in these Holy Spirit articles, namely the truth that “Baptism saves” (1 Peter 3:21, Mark 1:4, Acts 2:38-40). The two might sound similar, but they differ.  

I admit that “baptism saves” sounds a lot like “I’m baptized, I’m good”, but there are important differences between these two doctrines. “Baptism saves and gives the Holy Spirit” is the Scriptural truth that we have dealt with extensively in prior articles, but the truth that “baptism saves and gives the Holy Spirit” in no way eliminates the equally important truth that the Holy Spirit can be lost through apostacy. 

Baptism saves (1 Peter 3:21) by positioning you in Christ (Romans 6:4-5, Colossians 2:12-13, Galatians 2:20), but you only remain in that position as long as you remain in faith. Forsaking faith in Christ is pushing the Holy Spirit away. Baptism saves you and imparts the Holy Spirit, but you can renounce that salvation by denying the Word of Christ (1 Timothy 1:19-20, Hebrews 11:6, 1 Samuel 15:26, 16:14). 

The Effects Of These Errors

“I’m baptized, I’m good” is really just “once saved, always saved” with a sacramental wrapper around it. Broadly speaking, some of the same problems arise from both of these false teachings. Both of these errors make people more likely to fall away from faith, since the value of faith is trivialized by them. Similarly, both errors make people more likely to fall into some form of hypocrisy because they lead to faith in Christ being replaced by a false trust in what they think is their unbreakable status. I would also argue that both doctrines make people much less likely to evangelize, though I’d admit that last point is debatable. 

There are also some differences, generally speaking, in how these errors impact the individuals who fall for them. 

“Once saved, always saved” is more common in churches that deny the efficacy of the Means of Grace. Calvin taught that the Holy Spirit’s saving work was always “secret,” so no one could really know if they were saved. This means that folks in “once saved, always saved” churches have no way at all to tell if they are saved. That understandably creates anxiety for anyone who is actually concerned about their salvation (as we all should be). If it doesn’t create anxiety, it’ll create hypocrisy as people start to believe the proof of their salvation (and eventually the merit for their salvation) is found in their works. 

On the contrary, “I’m baptized, I’m good” gives people a singular, tangible evidence of their salvation. That God-given evidence is intended to create and grow faith, not replace it. Baptism and trust in it’s efficacy are integral parts of living faith but they aren’t replacements for living faith in Christ. Consequently “I’m baptized, I’m good” tends to kill the living faith that is necessary for salvation. It’s more of a faith in your baptism alone instead of a faith in Christ or a faith that Christ works through baptism. 

Teaching people that baptism is an irrevocable ticket to heaven tends to make people apathetic about all things spiritual. This is particularly dangerous, because the apathy works through their lives, slowly but powerfully, like a tree root splitting a rock. Eventually the apathy takes firm root and their faith dies. This perhaps explains some of the many apathetic former Christians in our communities, who neither claim Christ nor practice their faith. Since they neither confess “Jesus is Lord” nor say “Jesus is cursed,” we can’t make any definitive state about their salvation. What we can do, though, is warn them that their apathy is pushing away the Holy Spirit, and we can call them to return to the Means of Grace that create and maintain saving faith (Hebrews 10:21-25). 

Both of these false doctrines lead people away from Christ, though they typically take different roads to get there. Both doctrines contradict the Scriptural testimony that you can relinquish your faith and thus lose the Holy Spirit. Next month, our article will consider a number of verses that give us this divine warning: You can forsake the Holy Spirit through your deliberate and continual unbelief. Until then, brothers and sisters, continue to hear Christ’s voice (John 10:27) and rejoice in the fact that those who listen to Him cannot be snatched from His hand.